I love the symbolism of Lan, representing death, always chasing Yaoshi, who symbolizes life.

I can't help but imagine how Dainsleif would react if he ever found out about Xianzhou's history. Imagine telling a man cursed with immortality that someone seeked it willingly and saw it as a blessing.

Yoashi is pretty representative of a goddess of life, she's more concerned about one aspect of the cycle and rejects the aspect that is just as important. Hence why I don't see Lan ever succeeding in his quest, for there to be one there must be the other.

I found Dan Shu’s predicament uniquely sad, which made her a compelling antagonist for me. She was blind for almost her whole life, tried to cure it and did see, getting a glimpse into what she’s always missed, only for that damage to regrow and losing sight once again. She realized she could never actually see and go against fate like that.

I love the design of Yaoshi. The color scheme gives them a gentle look and the hands remind me of Guanyin but somehow Yaoshi looks very menacing/dangerous (probably the red eyes)

I mean, we have to consider that Lan is not simply Death as a concept. They are the Hunt. The Path they embody is one that targets specific things, and pursues them at all cost. In the archives, it mentions that anything that comes between Lan and Yaoshi is likely to be considered as acceptable collateral. No negotiation, no second chances. This is not the ideal of an indiscriminate and inevitable death, but rather a single-minded pursuit, an obsession. Not to mention, the other faction of Lan mentioned in the archives has nothing at all to do with death. They were heroes that fought villains and sought justice. It is true that in the current Xianzhou story arc specifically Lan symbolizes Death, but that is only because they, the Hunter, have designated Life as their Prey. Also, from what I read, I never got the impression that Dan Shu turned against Lan because of life-death philosophy. In fact, Dan Shu herself says that both sides of the conflict have their merits, and that we chose Xianzhou just because we met them first. I believe she is acting purely in self-interest, just like us. Since both sides have ups and downs, and the Aeons are mindless chasing their ideals, she chose the one that fit her individually. Hope of healing her eyes, spite for the death of Yufei... just matters of personal circumstance.

Essentially, Lan's Hunt is preventing Yaoshi's Abundance from becoming a second Tayzzyronth-level horror.

I find this whole 'paths' concept very intriguing. Taking The Hunt and Abundance for example, where the hunt is against prolonging life and Abundance about sustaining it, but when we are talking actual game mechanics you usually want to pair a Hunt path character with an Abundance path character in order to make sure that you dish out damage but at the same time remain alive to do said the damage. Very conflicting but necessary for optimal synergy And that's where I agree with what you said that HSR is showing good promise with clashing philosophies and creating stories from these different paths. And merging the all together into the MC. Very exciting! Thank you for another banger of a video! 😀

the reminder about how aeons aren’t good or evil leads me to rethink the way i feel about this backstory. it’s less of a hero’s tale and more of an origin story, explaining how Lan and Yaoshi are intrinsically linked. i don’t think one can exist without the other. Lan as an aeon clearly exists *because* of Yaoshi. meanwhile, without Lan, Yaoshi would’ve continued to grow and multiply until they became this uncontrollable abomination of something else entirely.

At first it came out of nowhere in the Darilo-VI arc when Dan Heng made that reply to March when she asked about how long humans can live. He said it can reach hundreds but by then you can't call them human anymore. With the Xianzhou arc it's now clear where that idea came from. I really like how the Mara Struck were portrayed or shown as being humans that no longer have control over their bodies or minds sometimes because that's technically what would happen even in real life. In a sense it's like immortality can only work for beings that can be immortal. You try forcing immortality on a mortal, it ends up upsetting the being's natural balance (which btw is a real thing called homeostasis for humans at least) and would mean that any characteristics formed as a result of said immortality would already mean they can no longer fit the idea of being human just because they can't die.

I love how the Aeons have disfigured/different designs & not the typical anime characters, honestly they look so cool Lan, Nanook & Yaoshi are my favourite designs.

i love the thought put into the writing for dan shu with her agony at never escaping her blindness and her loss after yufei(and their romance is so painful). It makes me so curious about the circumstances that led to yaoshi themselves becoming an aeon. The data bank mentions that she cant bear to witness death, so i'm sure her ascension arose from grief?

i see Yaoshi as a kind of genie during this part of history. they simply gave the alliance exactly what they wanted. sure, their power is pretty terrifying, but as far as i understand, yaoshi isn't using it maliciously. if the alliance hadn't asked, yaoshi wouldn't have forced the "blessing" upon them

1:05 " *x* years in standard time" might be the way it is because of the IPC (followers of Qlipoth) having their own year system- the Amber Era, which pertains to each time period Qlipoth expands his celestial wall.

Using the word "Mara" to name the phenomenon Mara-Struck is pretty clever honestly, because you see the name "Mara" used universally in various mythologies. You would come across gods and demons alike, with a common theme of doom, death or similar. E.g.: • Mara, the demon king in Buddhism: who is the antithesis of Enlightenment. Mara prevents liberation from samsara; this is probably the likely origin of the term Mara-Struck • Mara, the Latvian mother goddess: who takes the bodies of the dead while her masculine counterpart Dievs (another interesting word with many cognates) takes the souls • Mara/Marena/Marzanna/etc, the Slavic goddess of death and rebirth

I looove how the philosophies in hsr actually feel so three dimensional and well rounded (which makes sense since every character has a defined philosophy). they're really well written so multiple people can read and interpret the texts and come to their own opinions or conclusions about the philosophies. I think genshin suffers a little from clunky writing when it comes to philosophy so not all the players would really engage with them, even if they are really interesting questions in their own right, so im glad that ideas like longevity and immortality are explored in this game as well

Amazing video, however the idea of Lan chasing Yaoshi representing death chasing life is interesting when Nanook is brought into the equation. Both Lan and Nanook represent elements of death. However perhaps is Lan represents natural death/the natural cycle whereas Nanook represents death brought about by war.

one thing with Lan being "Natural Death" is more that Lan is "Natural Death through Predation". A wolf hunting down a deer. Yaoshi seems to have some symbolism with deer (they have antlers, and there is the deer boss), which is interesting because in places that lost wolf populations and other predators, deer populations can become so large that they run out of things to eat and have mass die offs. Thus humans have to cull deer populations in order to keep that from happening. So Lan as a concept of Natural Death inherently represents a painful one. The prey will not die peacefully, they will suffer. But it is a death that is required; for without it, there will only be far more suffering. I.E: the civil wars that affected the Xianzhou.

Thank God you are here to help me understand Honkai because I literally will not read through all the lore books and other stuff these games throw our way. It's literally just so much and I have ADHD and can't handle it 🤣

I like how this also comes back in Baizhu's and Hu Tao's stories.

And it's also important to note that Yaoshi's involvement was because the Xianzhou natives asked for it. Yaoshi doesn't give blessings to people that don't want them. Every blessing gifted was asked for. So rather than Yaoshi's fault, it's the fault of the Xianzhou and by extension the ruler that desired immortality. They never thought about the potential problems that came along with being immortal even if the Mara problem wasn't even thought of.

Yeah, I really like the story, and Dan Shu's motivations: that she can't see, both literally and figuratively, her humanity drives her in a inhuman pursuit. And it is because she called me friend in the story, that we stop her (I think? I guess we wait for 1.1 for that one).

That god you made a video on Dan Shu. I was getting tired of seing people say that Dan Shu story is boring and irrelivent while in fact she is the imbodiment of the comflict and, as you said, will most likely become the boss fight soon enough

"Death gives meaning to Life just as Life gives meaning to Death. They give each other purpose in the endless cycle. That is why we do what we do." not sure where thats from but i remember it and honestly live by it

So i find it so funny how they went on a hunt for immortality, got it for free and did not think about how immortality could come back and bite them. Then when it did decided to blame Yoashi for giving them what they asked for XD Like no one considered that just free immortality might not have some side effects?

I like how we can see two different type of cocerns in the game On one side you see residents of jario-6 who are desperate to survive one more day and at the verge of deadth of their whole species And at the same time you see the lianhou residents or the alliance whose concern is that they want death and to eradicate other abominations by hunting down the worshippers of abundance People of the ice planet are concerned about what happens tommorow And people of alliance are concerned about what would happen in 100 years The way there is difference between the perception of time on each species fascinate me W game

I find that there maybe some mistakes when it comes to the history of Xianzhou. 1. Lan is used to be a Yaoqing native, not Yuanqiao. Yaoqing ship is also where Susang comes from. These two word looks similar, but they are pronounce differently and they are different ships in game. Ashikai keeps pronouncing Yuanqiao in the video. 2. Yaoqing ship's distinct mark: moon, is not given by Yaoshi. Yaoqing grabbed it from Borison. Only Luofu got the blessing from Yaoshi directly. 3. The flint emperor were captured and then used to power the Zhuming ship, not Yuanqiao ship.

Lmao March 7 being your "talking persona" for star rail like how you use Yanfei for Genshin makes so much sense cause she tends to ask the most questions about everything omg I love it

You know the amazing thing here? That baizhu's story quest perfectly compliments the current story of the Luofu. Great video as always. Thank you so much for what you're doing. You're a blessing on this community:)

"The cancer cells revert to a previous state because of the reactivation of the telomerase" bit killed me inside as a biomedics student.

just a small note but i think its also important to mention that mara-struck are also triggered by the accumulation of memories and negativity that may be associated with them so theres an emotional aspect to it as well

Star Rail has a lot of Lore and I really glad someone took the time to organize it, it will probably be updated in later versions as well. But its hard to keep track of everything like this.

That insert of Stephen Colbere to further explain the philosophy of how these two paths clash was perfect. Thanks for such a comprehensive video, you've allowed me to enjoy HSR so much more thanks to your explanations so genuinly, thank you

18:12 That's a correlation fallacy, death being a foundation for empathy, but empathy comes from understanding and death is not needed to gain understanding, it is but one of the many ways that gives the need for understanding, but death is not necessary for it as there are many others. The causation for empathy is of the need to understand more of the world, death simply being one of the many parts of it, but it is not integral for it. This is an issue that humans can only think of with their limited understanding, much like how it's impossible to comprehend what it means for Existence to have a beginning or to have always existed, where Time always was a thing and has no beginning, people can't comprehend something beyond a beginning and an end.

Usually not fond of lore videos (i have a short attention span) but you managed to keep me hooked for the entire duration of the video whoaaa Everything was explained very well and i love the inclusion of outside game content to probe your points

Moon, tree, immortality, and archers blowing up stars. Yeah Lan and Yaoshi is definitely based off Houyi and Chang'e. Regarding how other denizens of abundance are fairing. Travelogue on Xianzhou: Long-life Species I stated that "The life-extension protocols of the Denizens of Abundance are intrinsically connected to their genetic make-up - cannibalism, interspecies blood transfusions, a hive mentality, rejuvenation via hibernation or molting... Despite easy access to longevity, most of the Denizens of Abundance lose their minds as they warp into twisted beasts". So either this blessing is mostly likely not curable or that most of them think going crazy is not a big deal.

Was anyone else reminded of Ho Tao and her dislike of Baizhu trying to become immortal? Like we have a doctor that has some disability Trying to go against the natural order, I have to wonder whether Baizhu getting out of NPC jail So close to starrail’s release was purposeful. The Vidyadhara reminding me of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata saying that Nahida is her in the next samsara. I have to wonder whether were going to learn about this in the small scale, so later on, we’re going to be able to understand the concept without needing any outside knowledge. We know the Stellaron hunters are trying to guide the world to the one path where The world doesn’t end, and that the MC is important to their goal, we need to be here to get allies, but I wonder whether we’re also here to learn about the concept of samsara. We were told that we shouldn’t regret our choices, and even though it’s probably going to be a scripted choice, whether it’s going to still be a difficult one. Maybe it will be a choice between saving the universe and ending the samsara, or the astral express. Thank you for taking the time to read my word vomit :) Edit: The Mara Struck are giving me abyss order vibes and I just connected those dots. They were once human that became immortal by some divine ‘gift’ and slowly lost their mind and then became monsters. I wonder whether star rail is going to start out darker then Genshin and also what that means for the end of the story

Dan Shu lost her kin. Maybe not by blood but essentially the only person who she shared that type of connection with. Worse than dying naturally, Yufei was “ground to dust with not even a single bone left behind”. I gotta imagine when that type of thing happens, all logic and reason go out the window and it’s time for war.

Thx for this video, ashikai! Now I have a better understanding of the story of the last zone. Didn't get what was going on at all. :D

I love these videos! They really shine light on things that the mass majority of players will miss in the story

I also love the whole story/history/lore of Xianzhou! The concept of immortality and their way of life is fascinating. Thank you for such a video, Ashikai!

The ending of the video was really good. I will definitely be looking towards more such discussions in future videos :D

I love how Yaoshi's leaf is based from Autumn Gingko Biloba which signifies longevity and health hence immortality.

Your lore analysis videos have always been my favorite since I started playing Genshin, so happy to see you creating content for Honkai Star Rail too!

Thank you for the HSR vid, going more into the mara struck and the aeons was really intersting!

Thank you for making this ❤️ Looking forward to more videos from you

What you said about the philosophy there might be in this game makes me stoked for stuff about Aha and IX

I love that whole philosophical ending bit. You're so right, grief and loss are the foundation of empathy, a core part of what makes us human

Ohhhh it’s so interesting! I didn’t read her diaries! I guess I should! Thank you so much! I didn’t know lavn was human before. And I love the idea of those paths concepts and death chasing life. So much food for thought

These videos come in clutch. thank you Ashikai

Woo-hoo, so excited to see lore videos for Star Rail from you! This is gonna be a very interesting journey, and I can't wait to take it with you! ❤ You really brought out the big guns with that Colbert clip. Purposely depriving oneself of the experiences needed in order to form healthy relationships and regulate your emotions and all that jazz is so dangerous. I was so surprised Dan Shu as a healer, and as someone watching over a child similar to herself doing that. Its as if she has seemingly forgotten empathy existed.. but at the same time that's the thing about loss. It can build you up, but it can also tear you down in ways you don't see and can't imagine. Overall, super stoked for the livestream tomorrow, and the update next week 🎉

Can't wait for all the other lore videos, hopefully more dichotomies of different paths. P.s. Nice fade away at the end of the video

I came here for star rail lore, and then I finished the video with a genetics degree and knowledge of magical space cancer.

Indeed, an excellent video as always, Ashikai, and a very interesting lore also in this game! Thanks!

I started playing 2 weeks ago to see what the hype was about and now I'm hooked. All caught up with the story and TL 40. I'm glad you're making lore videos on HSR because I feel like I might have missed out on some things because I rushed a bit.

Imagine believing you can correct the blessing given by a god. That’s the height of hubris right there. Only people I could see doing that is members of the genius society, since the first was actually able to create an aeon. And recall how special the members of the genius society are. Out of the entire universe, only 84 people have been members, over a time span long enough for the earlier members to become distant legends…

This video had no business going this hard. 😂 I damn near shed a tear. Bravo, honestly.

I've been looking forward to your Star Rail videos

honestly the whole xianzhou luofu demonising yaoshi seems ridiculous to me, when the fault lies solely in xianzhou luofu's ancestral generation

Yaoshi prolly absorbed The Propagation and The Permanence. They're too similar to "The Abundance."

When has Hoyo games not been about philosophy XD ? People just treat the small talks as filler, but they are the manifestation of the thoughts characters have. Each phrase and in chinese/japanese each word have hidden meaning based in several different philosophical paths.

Wow, your video editing is great, your narration is awesome, full of personality and humorous smirks, which turns what could be a really boring topic into a very captivating one... I loved, and I am not even a native english speaker... great job! Please, keep doing this for HSR, and if you don't mind, HI3rd XD

Thank you so much have been waiting for your video! I got lost with the lore and gave up on reading things 😂

Commenting for the algorithm. Thanks for such a good, concise summary of the lore, it's useful stuff!

WAITING FOR NEXT YOUR NEXT UPDATE AHHH, without you I wouldn't be able to understand the game even more 😭😭

Ashikai using a clip of my favorite interview with one of my favorite celebrities to explain this part of the lore is probably the thing that will convince me to play star rail xd

This lore guides are so insightful and well explained. I started playing HSR a while ago and breezed through the story, just focusing on the gameplay, but then i started to feel i was missing something. Thank you for recapping it so succinctly 🙌 Can you do something with Penacony and Jarilo VI?

A couple of mistakes, There is no logical fallacy at best is an informal fallacy (false cause) yet Lan does wants the Anihilation of all life Second one, death or loss isn't the origin of empathy, is one of its causes yet no the foundations Third, she's mad cause she lost her daughter to death (Lan) therefore she worships Life (Yaoshi) cause she's mad at Lan. A contradiction would be that she kept worshipping what took her daughter from her, so it makes sense she stopped worshipping Lan, and there's no fallacy cause the first cause was a emotional reaction to Lan's ambition to bring death. Even that, it wouldn't be false cause because as u said, Santus Medicus wants to bring a cure to Yaoshi's side effects

Yoooooo love ur story vids

I love your lore videos! Please make more to Honkai Star Rail if you have the time.

A banger video as always

I am straight up giddy that you're going to follow, and cover, Star Rail as well. It's SO good!!!! The folks at Hoyoverse are SUCH good storytellers through gaming, and this is such a different flavor of story than Genshin. On the note of Genshin, how about that Yoimiya chapter? Disney hasn't managed to put out such a grab-you-by-the-heart-in-a-happy-way... maybe ever. This was Pixar levels of magic and I'm still reeling. It even got me to roll for Yoimiya while I'd been building up toward Yae Miko. ... and then got QiQi. My first one. I laughed so hard.😂

bless this channel for reading all those lore books that i'm too lazy to read myself.

cant wait for more star rail lore videos :3

The core theme of Honkai Impact 3rd, one of MiHoyo's first games, is the importance of experiencing tragedy to grow and the fundamental inseparability of joy and sorrow. My favorite video game company, by far.

I haven't finished the Dan Shu quest yet but I keep thinking that she's connected to Dan Heng, you know, because of their names. That may also be one of the reasons her backstory is so elaborate (I'm sorry if it's already confirmed, I'm not caught up yet)

Thanks for your hsr content!

I have to say I enjoy the video is very good. I look forward to seeing more of your work I’m a fan of the Lors

Qlipoth and their lore was interesting but the relationship between Yaoshi and Lan made Aeons extremely interesting. It'll probably be a few months before we get a new planet, assuming they're releasing a new planet the same way a new nation in Genshin releases, but I'm already looking forward to seeing different kinds of philosophies in regards to paths. I feel like that the MC will definitely get the power of the Hunt during their journey through the Xianzhou, but what about when they get the power of Abundance? Will it be a planet that's just like the Alliance or will it be a place that has a counter argument against their ideas? To be fair to Yaoshi I would think anyone would ask, what about land and resources? If everyone is immortal, then doesn't that mean that there will only be more and more mouths to feed as time goes on? Not too mention places for people to live?

At some point I always just skip the dialogue but then something interesting happens and I'm clueless. I'm so glad this channel exists.

Awesome work! May I suggest a Sampo lore video? There’s a lot more to that man than comic relief & an odd dream.

Some interesting parallels between the Mara struck and Genshin's Curse of Immortality / Curse of the Wilderness.

Thank you for consolidating the information. I am, as usual, lost track of the story half ways through.

Yaoshi is like a loving mother who spoil her children to the extreme, Yaoshi's followers are mostly spoiled selfish brats, who will do anything to satisfy their needs.

love that you can expand to other amazing games :D

Ah, this helped me understand some things about that arc that I was confused about.

17:08 "She just sees it" lmao (love the video btw)

great video i understand everything nicely except a few things about lan. but i understand it. nice video

Love your vídeos, tysm

Great video as always, very helpful for sorting all this info out and making sure I understand it before 1.1. (BTW - "Draught" is pronounced "draft", just thought you should know. Blame the British.)

I love the biology session,this is what all multimedia content like movies and videogames should be ,acculturing and entertaining

I was not Ready for this Clip

On the drilling into star part it’s possible and it would definitely make sense why the Xianzhou would’ve needed their engines to do it, red dwarf stars are the smallest and coolest kind of star with the least density compared to other stars. They undergo nuclear fusion which requires massive amount of density and gravity. It would make sense that Xianzhou ship engines would’ve relied on a form of antigravity, thus through engine modification and ship positioning the Xianzhou could essentially make a giant drill through antigravity fields generated by the engines which would’ve stopped the nuclear fusion process. However after the red dwarf is not longer affected by the antigravity fields the red dwarf would rapidly collapse into itself due to the lack of nuclear fusion and would cause a supernova and leave behind a blackhole (they pretty much sped up the stars death).

While I understand over all point, I think Lan way is wrong. Yes Yoshi immortality created a lot of suffering, but even then Lan death still gives them suffering (it is easy to understand if someone ever lost someone they care about). And while mara also create similar loss suffering, they are symptom and not the problem of this situation. Lan is only dealing with symptoms, while Sanctus Medicus want to solve underlaying problem. As we know that people can work perfectly well with blessing of Yaoshi, it shows that xianzhou either betrayed the trust of Yaoshi so his blessing turned into a curse or Mara struck is not the end of transformation and there might be a step after that where they would turn into real new long-lived species and not this half immortal versions. While media, books and people already put into our minds why immortality would be scary and there would be problem with resources, that is shallow thinking. Humanity/and other creatures don't actually have any physical (yes mind is physical too) reasons to have problem with living for eternity (as in if we could we would not be in pain) and while resources would be a problem for our civilization, that is the world where you can create stuff from memories, believes or using magical forces. Like there is literally element of imaginary that could solve such problems and as far as our world knows world is infinite and constantly expanding. So in honkai star rail world resources would not be a problem if they focused on manufacturing using memory, magic and imaginary element. Mara sickness would not be a problem if they either gained Yaoshi forgiveness our, managed to cure(which is also his domain) this illness, just like in our world we can cure cancer. and all that is left is to fix mentality of the people so that they would be able to live normally for eternity (so get therapy) Even now we see them not having a problem with living for long times so they don t have a problem with that aspect, they also become over proud from it, looking down on others as lesser races (it is not shown much but you can feel it from many characters) Tldr: Lon is for loosers that can not deal with actual problems. We don't know whole story why yaoshi made them turn into mara struck. Sanctus Medicus at least try to deal with illness and not a symptom .

This whole stuff with Yaoshi and the meaning of life that you talk about in the end of the video REALLY makes me remember a part of the FFXIV endwalker storyline (spoilers of FFXIV main quest below, please don't read if you want to experience it - and you definetively should) In the expansion we learn that a long time ago humankind lived almost as gods, with an endless lifespam, no diseases, etc etc. But when faced with the complex question of "what is the meaning of life?", they couldn't handle it, and an experiment gone haywire was treating the whole existence (I promise that it makes sense in the story). Hydaelyn / Venat, one of the major npcs of the expansion, shatered the existence in 14 different reflections / alter realities, precisely to fragment humankind power and remove their godlike status, so we could experience suffering and endure it, in order to understand life. Obviously it's way more complex than I'm stating here, but I think its quite poetic this connection, and it all comes back to the lyrics of one of FFXIV main musics, "Answers", which is revisited in the game, being used in the rework in 2013 and in the expansion in 2021: "Tell us why, given Life, we are meant to die" It's great stuff, you guys should play FFXIV, it's worthy!

You should read "The Lord of the Mysteries". Some core concepts become clear. Thanks for the video, didnt knew about Lan's origin

Simulated Universe is the best way for me to immerse myself in Aeon lore while having fun collecting and experimenting blessings and curios to my characters…sometimes i chose the troll answers in the dialogue options just to see what happens lol…

Thanks!

If the body of those from Xianzhou age slowly, I think it would make sense given how some NPCs would tell the Trailblazer that they are actually older than MC due to the Abundance's "blessing". If that's really the case, then it's cute how Jing Yuan, with a body that looks like a young child, is actually older when Jingliu trained him in the trailer.

I understand why Dan Shu hates Lan more than Yaoshi. While Lan's entire existence is a byproduct of Yaoshi's existence, this doesn't make Yaoshi responsible for Lan's actions. And I think there is merit in what Sanctus Medicus is chasing... but that we need to see exactly how things are going among the people of Abundance. I feel like this arc will be really interesting, especially if that means we get to side with them, or help them, knowing full well that the whole point of the Xianzhou's arc was to make an alliance with them... whose entire purpose is to destroy anything accepting Yaoshi's blessing.