[1.0] The Mara Struck - Honkai: Star Rail Lore

Our first venture into the Xianzhou Alliance's Luofu ship took the spotlight off of the stellarons for a little while and gave us our first REAL taste of what it really means to live under the influence of an Aeon... or two. We barely touched on Qlipoth in Belobog, and we learned very little of Nanook on the Space station, but Lan and Yaoshi's presence can be felt everywhere aboard the Xianzhou Fleet. So in this video, let's take a look at the history of the Xianzhou Alliance, the birth of the Aeon Lan, the power of Yaoshi and those who believe in them.


**Timestamps**
00:00 Introduction
01:00 History of the Xianzhou (and Lan)
07:10 Dissent
08:00 The Mara Struck
11:30 Yaoshi vs Long
13:00 Dan Shu & Sanctus Medicus
15:00 Loss

**Sources & Further Reading**

[YupJustPassingBy]

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

[QuillStroke]

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.

[gloriousbastard]

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.

[nhaan]

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)

[dickota]

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.

[TheQwertyisdead]

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.

[michaelfaria]

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! 😀

[dustinabigan]

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.

[NagaTales]

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

[kokushiibou]

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.

[nk]

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.

[astro-byun]

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

[awinkingowl]

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?

[feareaper_]

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.

[jackjohnson]

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.

[Syiepherze]

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

[evapunk]

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 🤣

[SteampunkFridgeRider]

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

[TrionSopdet]

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.

[drpaimon]

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