[2.8] Kusanali & Sumeru Speculations - A Genshin Impact Theory

SPOILER WARNING-
This video assumes you are 100% up to date on all quests in game as of v2.8. If you don't like spoilers, you probably shouldn't watch this until you catch up.

Oddly enough half of this was supposed to be for my Golden Apple Archipelago video, and then the latest teaser dropped so I ended up merging them. Weird how they ended up slotting together so nicely!

Some somewhat disconnected thoughts about Sumeru based on the teasers and other things we know thus far.

**FURTHER READING**

[angelestrella]

“We are missing the moon association”…
Cut to Kusanali literally referring to herself as the moon

[ilya.lilith]

As a persian, I can confirm that Nahida or Nahid (in Persian ناهید) is another version of Anahita’s name! Anahita or Anahit (in Persian آناهیتا) is the goddess of water and natural blessings such as fertility, rain or health. I also have to say that nilou’s design has more similarities to persian goddesses like anahita, her name is also Persian, nilou or niloufar (in Persian نیلو/نیلوفر) means waterlily and the color blue! and her poses and dances are all persian too 🌊✨

[osulli]

It’s also fitting because when you mention sumeru as the ‘landing’ area, or the center point, it ties into sumeru being the midpoint nation we visit, the changing of celestia from 2d to 3d, and the geographic area of sumeru as potentially in the middle of teyvat.

[noahi.]

Hm... so if every region's Archon Quest directly addresses a seemingly opposite yet integral flaw in their values...

Mondstadt has Freedom, but is bound by the DUTY to uphold it...

Liyue has its DUTY of Contracts, but even a divine contract has its END...

Inazuma's ENDS for Eternity can only be met by embracing not euthymia, but in change's everlasting TRANSIENCE...

So would that make Sumeru's TRANSIENT Wisdom a GUILTY IGNORANCE of the truth?

[hallelion]

3:47 * mentions Anahita *
I suddenly remember Vahid and his Shoppe on Ritou, he claims to sell "Anahitian Blessings".

[EmanARetne]

Dottore is turning out to be Genshin's Otto in my opinion. Both of them are doing shady experiments, both have countless clones of themselves, and you can't spell Dottore without Otto. Scaramouche is even like Dottore's K423, K423 is what Otto created as a clone of Kiana. Dottore didn't create Scara but iirc, he experimented on him when Scara joined the Fatui. They are even connnected to giant trees, Dottore with Sumeru's giant tree and Otto with Imaginary tree.

[Sofia-gewm]

*kicks down door* LET'S GO!!! I was so excited for another Sumeru video from you!!! The really big one you made a little while ago WAS SO GOOD😩🙏

[PrincessStabbityPLS]

One other somewhat little detail regarding dreams and Sumeru is that it's implied that only the adults are dreamless. The children presumably still can dream... AND they can see some kind of cute little creatures (mentioned in Sumeru Teaser 2) imperceptible to the adults.

I wonder if the two are somehow connected?

And if that weren't enough, it reminds me a little of those "imaginary friends" who were once a plot point at the beginning of Venti's story quest before getting completely brushed aside as it switched tracks to a different issue. The sheer weirdness of that quest continues to haunt me to this day, and I can't help but... want it to be re-addressed somehow, somewhere, before it drives me mad >.<

[Hidanariev]

The fact you literally predicted everything😂

[rickfernandez]

(4.2) I like watching your old videos and seeing how accurate you were, impressive

[noox]

Only missing the moon connection.
A month later...literally calls herself the moon.

[louloudaki_]

looking back at this now in 3.2 i’m like holy heck cause kusanali straight up said “in the end, i’m just the moon”

[emanatingauras]

Oh my god I really want to write a very lengthy comment on how _right_ in this video is on so many aspects of Sumeru, now that it's been released. It's rare we look back on these pre-X patch speculations after the patch releases but you got so much on point there, even if it came out in slightly different ways! I don't play Honkai Impact, but based on your description of Otto, Kallen, and Theresa, this story essentially plays out on two levels with the Three God-Kings: King Deshret is the Otto ambiguously in love with Goddess of Flowers, the Kallen who doesn't really love him back, and like. I can't believe you essentially predicted Kusanali's birth with the cut-off tree metaphor, with Kusanali as the Theresa in this case. The only question is where Rukkhadevata falls since you predicted her as the Kallen equivalent but Deshret is in love with Flowers, not Rukkha— a slight deviation from the story but I mean it's essentially still correct, with Rukkha cutting off a branch of Irminsul to form Kusanali-Theresa.

I really want to say something about Amun-Ra Osiris Mut and all the Egyptian inspirations being related to Greece (and unified civ!) through a really convoluted chain of things but I don't even know hwo to explain it all myself so I'll just have to satisfy myself by emphatically agreeing with all of it because it matches up so well. And like, I wonder if Kusanali being based on unified-civilisation-Lumine kind of comes from her birth from the Irminsul? We know Rukkhadevata and Kusanali are basically the same iteration of each other because they are "avatars of the world tree" and if the unified civilisation was the first civilisation EVER to cultivate and live on Teyvat, maybe Rukkha and Kusanali are born from those oldest records? It makes even more sense if you imagine the Primordial One or one of his shades created the Irminsul when arriving because then the Avatar of the World Tree is literally a reflection of the civilisation who created those!! but I'm going wayy off topic this is all so fascinating to explore.

It's especially notable with how you talk of a dreamer being the heart and soul of the world because in Sumeru AQ2 the Samsara of the Sabzeruz Festival (and Nahida's Story Quest) is EXACTLY that! It turns out to be Nilou hosting the Sabzeruz Festival and that insane guy who wanted to harvest people's personalities for his girlfriend, but when we meet Nahida she offhandedly mentions that TEYVAT IS PERHAPS ONE BIG SAMSARA and this lines up so well with your "Tubby of Teyvat" and the dreamer who's hosting everything!

Once again I commend you for taking all these scraps given pre-Sumeru and assembling it into a narrative that's just about what we got in Sumeru because that's incredibly impressive.

[jjmitchell]

So I’ve long dismissed the old theory of Teyvat being Project ARK from honkai but when you said “Dreamer” after the whole stint about arks, I literally felt a jolt. If I’m not mistaken, the one who’s in the ship known as Project ARK is none other than Griseo, and her sim’s special area in the Elysian Realm is known as _Dream of the Depicter_ . And Griseo’s MANTIS ability? Anything she paints (so basically anything she dreams up) can turn into a reality.

And I literally just today explained to a friend why I didn’t support the theory that Kusanali is the God of Dreams (tl;dr the theme is as overarching in genshin’s plot as the theme of time) and instead thought that one of the Shades of the Primordial One would be the God of Dreams like how we got Istaroth as the God of Time, but _now_ if I consider the possibility of Teyvat (or that hourglass double pyramid in Sumeru’s desert) being Project ARK, then there’s an absolute possibility of Griseo being *THE* Dreamer (and one of the Thrones, possibly the First).

[AlexT]

Al Haitham from the newest teaser also looks extremely similar to Su from Honkai Impact, who had a divine key called "The Seed of Sumeru" . And Su has also Travelled to multiple universes and met multiple versions of himself, and Al Haitham is most certainly one of them

[zafkielvondegurechaff]

The moment you said "who is the dreamer?" I immediately thought of the Travelers profile text:

"The keeper is fading away; the creator has not yet come.
But the world shall burn no more, for you shall ascend."

[GarStazer]

Please do make a "What I got right and wrong" video for sumeru once its out. I really enjoyed the one from Inazuma. Going back and rectifying mistakes or elaborating on ideas with newfound knowledge and lore is something I love when content creator ( specially those that make content relating to games and their lores) do

[adkan]

I've always felt like Aloy's collaboration and inclusion in the game, though might be meaningless to most, always felt like it meant something more. Knowing Hoyo and how deliberate they are to references and everything, partnering with the Horizon series makes more and more sense since Horizon basically focuses heavily on human knowledge, restarting civilisations and cradles housing both knowledge and future humans and things like that too. To me it doesnt feel like its just a random partnership, feels like something more. And when you think about it, they could have literally collaborated with any other game out there, but why Horizon and Aloy?

[EdGee]

14:30 You forgot another thing: Egypt back then was also ruled by Ptolemaic Dynasty after the death of Alexander the Great.

Ptolemy I Soter was a Macedonian general, which is part of ancient Greece.

[Luxis]

Literally so crazy you made a lot of points here that ended up true. Nahida calling herself the moon, literally screamed when you associated her with it