[4.8] What Simulanka Tells Us About Natlan - A Genshin Impact Theory

Every year the Hexenzirkel puts on a summer event that foreshadows the upcoming region and this year was no exception! Although a little more cryptic than usual, the paperbound world of Simulanka gave us plenty of information to make some educated guesses about what we can expect to see in Natlan.

Get ready to learn about frogs, squirrels, dragons and ball games folks! The Pyro Archon Mavuika has a very interesting story to share with us.

**TIMESTAMPS**
00:00 Introduction
01:50 Names
10:14 Games
19:07 Ignition
29:00 Heroes & Dragons

**SPOILER WARNINGS**
- Venti SQ 1
- Golden Slumber
- Simulanka (all quests)
- Zhongli SQ 2
- Nahida SQ 2
- Inversion of Genesis
- All archon quests through Chapter 4

**RELATED CONTENT**

**CITATIONS & ATTRIBUTIONS**

[Ashikai]

**NOTES & CORRECTIONS**

Any bets on how much of this theory will still be valid after the livestream in a couple of days?

[nickoluspatraszewski]

Arlecchino's a penguin, Desheret is a frog, Wanderer's a cat, everyone is getting fursonas in Ashikai-land!

[SilverStatic]

For those wondering, it takes 15:37 for the Deshret animation to appear in an Ashikai video about paper frogs

[bor]

Its 2 AM. The perfect time for genshin lore.

[MusicLoverInTheSky]

It amazes me how Hoyo was able to keep Natlan in this veil of mystery in every sense, even leaks are scarce compared to the other regions. I'm not sure if they FINALLY learned how to do it or if they've always known but didn't care that much until Natlan for some reason. Honestly, I hope this is not just a Natlan thing, I hope it's a "from now on" thing.

[kerynmacnamara]

On the topic of sports tournaments, I'm from New Zealand. Our country is very deeply (unhealthily) obsessed with rugby. Now back when it was warring Māori tribes, before and after colonisation, Māori warriors would perform a ritualistic dance called the "haka". We don't have wars any more here (touch wood, world is going to shit after all) but now whenever we play sports, our sports teams do the haka, as a show of respect...and intimidation. There's a lot of videos showing it, especially in rugby, some countries have even demanded that we stop doing it because it makes their players intimidated. I don't really blame them 😅 Our rugby teams are known for being the best in the world and we're talking 15 enormous guys performing a war dance, yelling, showing the whites of their eyes. It's pretty full on. Every New Zealand kid learns how to do the haka. You should take a look because I think it adds more weight to the "sports = war" argument, which I absolutely agree with. Plus it's just really cool to watch.

Also Māori have a Māui legend where he tamed the sun with his brothers. The sun would fly too fast across the sky. So they laid a net and basically beat the sun up until it promised to go slower 😅 Battered and bruised, the sun then proceeded to move much slower across the sky. I was reminded of that when you mentioned the Native American myth. I don't know many Native American myths, so I was surprised that the idea that the sun sucked and needed to be hunted down is vaguely similar to the Māui myth. I'm interested in seeing if there's more overlaps with Native American myths and Māori myths. I've heard of the Mahuika myth, of course. It would be interesting if Capitano is the Hand constellation, because of Mahuika's association with fingers and hands. Māui tricks her into giving her fingernails, which was the source of fire. And her children are named after the five fingers of the hand in different regional dialects. If Capitano is the Hand, then there's a possibility that he's deeply connected to Mavuika in some way

[sinclaire]

On the note of the anemo and pyro connection don't forget about the actual properties of fire itself, that without air it snuffs itself out but with enough air it also feeds itself and grows bigger and or hotter so you can also add that into your little eclectic mix there

[animefreak]

Came back from the Natlan trailer, and yep, you have now been elevated to Grand Sage.

[JohnCivor]

I got two goose bumps when ashikai revealed the connection of hunahpu and xbalanque to the ball game and again when she theorized that Capitano is Hunahpu... Man i cant wait for Natlan.. super hype for this update.

[idyotako]

I'm foreshadowing that a lot of what Ashikai says here will actually happen in the game and all of us will be shocked and surprised about it. Hehehe... 😊

[Foxtronaute]

Really good video as always!
Also I would like to point out that Natlanians haven't left their nation in a very long time, and at a certain point in time Polynesians also stopped traveling for an unknown reason (it was the whole plot behind Moana, which comes from a real event).
During Simulanka the protagonists keep trying to find a way to leave this world, and the solution was "you could do it all along, who told you you couldn't ?", there's also a quest about a NPC being afraid of leaving, because traveling will eventually makes you evolve and you will change, and change is always scary.
This concept of growing and learning through traveling always has been a recurrent theme in Genshin, as the MC is literally called "The Traveler", and at the end of the Natlan's chapter Natlanians might start traveling again, which will lead to a big change for its inhabitant somehow.

[RareAngelz]

I 100% agree on the idea of using the ball game or competition to harvest will. I think it's like harvesting emotions to ignite a fire, both physically and metaphorically. This is why Mavuika says that no spark will go unnoticed.

[SomeoneSayOri]

As soon as I saw Al-Ahmal's name, I immediately knew Ashikai would dedicate 50% of the next video to him.

[qocari]

Scaramouche previous "names" been titles instead of names is interesting beacause Ahau K'uhul (the alebrije-like lizard with Kinich) is also not a name but a Maya title, that could be translated to "One who connects humanity with the gods" 🧐

Also, some little corrections. Kinich is not Aztec its Maya. And also, its preferable to use the name Mexica instead of Aztec. There's many reasons to it, but in short, Mexica is how they called themselves, and Aztec refers to a very specific time period of Mexica origin mythos.

[whycchi]

Ashikai you're cooking so hard that it's on point with the livestream

[alexrosette]

being from Yucatán and obviously surrounded by mayan culture, I love hearing Ashikai talking about its mythology and beliefs

[KingErikII]

More foreshadowing, more excitement for Natlan.

[openendings]

29:04 insert incredibly cool grunt here

[s_zilvi_]

Hear me out... I had a thought about the travelers sibling and "names". Since none of the characters know our name in game, our story is not yet defined. Thats how we as the player, have the ability to write our own story. We even have the repetitive pattern with our sibling, them having helped people all around Teyvat before us. The main difference however. Dain knows our sibling's name, and probably many others as well. Their fate it already complete, thats how their story is in the Irminsul tree. Whats also interesting is, we're never truly given names in the story either, but roles as you mentioned. Captian of Swordfish 2, The first Sage of Buer, "Sage" and "Captian". What is also strange is how our character choses to hide their true identity (maybe subconsciously), using the name we input at the start, when picking the character.

[spectral_moss]

This is probably the video I was most looking forward to, it’s always fun to come back months later to see what was right vs what we missed.