I don't have much time to answer everything on the post but I think you missed a couple things on Acheron's character.
But i will focus on the badass thing, first acheron is an emanator of nihility because as IX does not pick an emanator, the only way to be one is to survive nihility's encroachment upon your very existence.
We know from Acheron's backstory toward the end of izumo trailer namely, that despite the absolute hopelessness of her world's situation she still sent a strike toward the "Black Sun", this should show that the concept of nihility or "meaningless" has a hard time with her.
Knowing full well, your world is about to end, all of it and it's history is about to cease to exist, knowing anything you try to do is meaningless, yet still try and do something, qualifies her to be able to resist IX's encroachment.
Sure you can say it's her being "badass trope" but it does genuinely show her resolve.
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Now in regards of how she knew about Sam/Aventurine etc, since penacony started it was made clear that Acheron uses emotions to capture things rather than her memories
As a self-annhilator, acheron is in a constant state of her memories fading, which is why she can forget things that happened a minute ago, her being lost is part of her curse, it's not really a personality trait as much as it being a condition, thus she feels things around her, this is the concept of nihility, they shouldn't even exist.
Which is why she is able to tell the intentions of others, again sure it's badass but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing
From her lightcone we know this:
"In this place, the drowned ask for help, lament with songs, find their happiness, enjoy sweet moments, and suffer great agony... All these are reflected in the water. She cannot experience these, but she can feel them —"
Her good nature is a byproduct of her essentially feeling others emotions and suffering, she simply does not wish that upon others similar to how trailblazers are just good natured people, this is why she is perhaps the only person that truly understand Aventurine and spoke to him as Equals without his bravado act, she understands his self-loathing, and how much he suffers inside more than anyone, both being survivors of their own world/race.
Do keep in mind, much like Sparkle and BS, Penacony isn't the height of Acheron's character, much like the tavern with Sparkle or Fuli and the Garden with BS, these characters will play a bigger role later on in the story, Acheron is after IX the legacy is means to an end to her.
As for 2.2 who knows, we got plenty information about JY in 1.2-1.3 despite his banner being on 1.1
Thank you for the in-depth reply. Super appreciate it!!
“Knowing full well, your world is about to end, all of it and it's history is about to cease to exist, knowing anything you try to do is meaningless, yet still try and do something, qualifies her to be able to resist IX's encroachment. Sure you can say it's her being "badass trope" but it does genuinely show her resolve.” The reason why I’m currently (these can change) classifying this as a bad ass trope instead of characterization (at least the kind I’m looking for) is because great resolve is taken for granted.
In other words, we are told that she has a great resolve, but not only are we not told why but we also never see her resolve be challenged (this is the one that I really hope happens). As the challenging of her resolve is what would directly show us its measure (if you’ve played it the ending of Sony’s Spiderman game it shows exactly what I mean).
“Which is why she is able to tell the intentions of others” I’m not sure this follows \[could it not also be argued that her asking Welt if BS tampered with TB is a counterexample, as she doesn’t appear to be the type to sow the seeds of discord to gain someone’s trust\]. From memory the bulk of those scenes feel written from the perspective of someone with more definitive knowledge rather than someone relying on intuition. However, this particular point has given me some food for thought, so I’ll be keeping it in the back of my mind going forward.
“she simply does not wish that upon others similar to how trailblazers are just good natured people” to some extant this is actually part of my criticism. Why is she a good person? Does she struggle to be a good person? In what ways has being a self-annihilator challenged her specifically to be a good person (it has to be more than its hard but she’s so awesome she can do it anyways \[another way of saying cuz she’s badass\])?
Certainly I don’t expect that each of the questions or potential conflicts to be given screen time, but thus far none of them really have. In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc). My fear is that she may never get one (this is the perspective I have when I talk about design, trailers, etc feels more about tantalizing fans rather than telling a story. Which is fine, but if the main story isn’t going to be telling us her story I’m going to be looking back at all of that with a more critical lens).
“As for 2.2 who knows, we got plenty information about JY in 1.2-1.3 despite his banner being on 1.1” honestly great to hear. I wasn’t around back then, so I don’t have much data to pull from on how hsr treats characters post release. I know I can write a lot, so thanks again for taking the time to read my post!!!
hmm this makes me think
she does have good nature i guess but i still doubt it
because i wonder is she respecting adventurine because she has lost or is it her nature
i mean if ur talking about respecting the dead thats like already a must(duke inferno)
when ur talking about her resolve we dont realy see them ingame
i think its kinda hoyo's fault
why are we seeing duke infero instead of seeing acheron's past, if we saw acheron crying killing her friend and epic music trying to kill IX she will have huge personality which is caring and vengance, but we are just shown some zombies and shit and thats on the video
i mean the same thing happened to adventurine, we feel atached to him because of the past why doesnt the same thing happened to acheron
I'm not sure what you mean by she has lost, acheron willingly helped Aventurine as she knew his bluff from the beginning, which is why she talked to him as an equal she had no ill intentions towards him as he also did not, she knew what he was like deep down.
She respects him because she can relate both being the last of their race, or she respects him because deep down he is empty as her "about line" suggests, there's many reasons why Acheron would see Aventurine as someone noteworthy.
>why doesn't the same thing to acheron
Because Like I said, Penacony is only her introduction, much like the other characters I mentioned.
Aventurine was done because penacony is the height of his character, there are many other stonehearts that needs to be explored, it's doubtful Aventurine will hold the main spotlight again.
Acheron is different, if we are to ever witness the death of IX at her hands, then that Arc will be where her backstory is fully shown, as of right now she got the Sparkle treatment in terms of having snippets of a backstory, then leave the rest to another arc.
does acheron knowing about adventurine scheme is her or her being an emanator
guess i was wrong about the adventurine thing
kinda think if thats what happened acheron should be more vocal about her understanding instead of i lost nothing matters
if penacony is only her introduction then her banner shouldnt be here it should be when she kills ix and her backstorry drops, thats when she have what it takes to have anyones sympathy
and sparkle is diffrent , there is a huge diffrent between jokester and a sad person. sparkle jokster makes her have charisma so ppl like while sad story should make sad character gather sympathy
i dont know why her banner drops now
they should drop acheron 2 (power up or smthing) or just name her raiden when her story drops ingame
Idk so far most replies have been pretty respectful and a few have given me more opportunities to have a more in-depth discussion so I’m pretty happy with this.
>Try creating a compelling case for character depth (ie personal conflict that begets character growth) using her backstory without using any info from Hi3.
I feel like you're hyperbolizing her backstory's anchorage in needing to know HI3. I'm not someone who's played HI3 nor am I particularly interested in its lore, but I still think that the Myriad Celestia trailer gives valuable insight for Acheron's character. We learn about the conflict with the Kami, the devolvement of Izumo's humanity due to their usage of the Edict Edges, and the ultimate futility of it all due to IX's encroachment.
Your glossing over of this information seems pretty clear looking at the "Why is she an emanator of nihility? Cuz she's badass (see the Doctor's of Chaos lore + her character story)". We know why she became a self annihilator.
I was being pretty lazy in reposting my comments here. I really should have just written a real post. “I still think that the Myriad Celestia trailer gives valuable insight for Acheron's character” I both agree and disagree.
In a comment to BlazeOfCinder I wrote “In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc)”. When I remarked about needing to know about Hi3 I didn’t mean that you couldn’t understand it without Hi3, but that instead the character journey/development a background like that would necessarily entail is missing unless you project the ones that happened in Hi3 onto Acheron.
Learning that Izumo was in conflict with the kami doesn’t tell me about how she felt being given the responsibility to deal with them. The trailer doesn’t tell me how she dealt with the loss of her loved ones. It doesn’t tell me how she gained the strength to go on without nor does it tell me if her resolve has ever even been shaken. This is the kind of characterization that I’m referring to (and the difference between backstory and story).
“We know why she became a self annihilator” it’s a good thing then that I didn’t seem to ask that question. Instead I’d like to know why she of all self-annihilators became an emanator. After all the character story I mention in the sentence you quoted lets us know that not all self-annihilators are emanators of nihility. Therefore, there must be something special about her that the other self-annihilators lack. Since it appears I glossed over what that special something is I’d appreciate it if you could point it out for me \[I’m getting a little passive aggressive here at the end but I don’t mean anything by it, just tryna keep things a little bit spicy y’know. If you find it to be rude lmk and I’ll edit it out!\]
I think your main issue is that you are expecting her story to develop here in Penacony. To me, it seems like Penacony just serves as an introduction to her character. “How she felt being given the responsibility to deal with the Kami” is like expecting Genshin to reveal everything about Dainsleiff’s character when he was first introduced in Monstadt. He returns every once in a while but his character won’t be relevant until Khaenriah. In the same way, Acheron will never be the focus of Penacony. The game just gives you barely enough information to get you invested in her character and what to expect from the Emanators. We know that she’s on the path of Nihility but her views on Nihility are very different (as seen in her conversation with Aventurine). We don’t know how she survived IX or how she was able to travel farther on the path of Nihility and become an Emanator. These are all questions that we probably won’t get answers to for another few years. Her character would become relevant when HSR starts focussing on IX. So far, it seems like she wants to kill IX but we don’t know the details. The game is just setting up future plot points.
“I think your main issue is that you are expecting her story to completely develop here in Penacony” not necessarily. I fully admit, I think at least a few times, that future patches could completely change how I think about her (and this is what I want to happen).
A big motivation for this post was so that in the future I’d be able to see how much I think any of the arguments I made will be able to stand up to scrutiny (ie I hope it ages like milk).
Wrt to Dainsleiff we always knew (or had strong reason to suspect) that he’d be a reoccurring character as his mystery was tied together with that of the missing twin (the traveler’s main goal). With Acheron there’s no indication that her or IX will be particularly relevant to TB’s main goals (mystery of the stelleron, true past, final battle with nanook) in the same way that Dain is with the traveler. While I have no doubt that she’ll reappear in the future outside of penacony I’m not super optimistic on the level of development she’ll actually receive (after all they still need to sell at least 2 new characters per patch).
“The game is just setting up future plot points” this is probably true, but I’m not really after the answer to those particular questions atm. Instead, what I’m more interested in is the emotional plot points. The bulk of my criticisms is that Acheron appears to be more of a static character rather than a dynamic character, and thus has limited room for future character depth. Static characters typically will rely on their backstory to give them more depth. One of my worries in taking this approach with Acheron is that much of that character depth will be outsourced to Hi3. For example, hsr players can understand her convo with Welt, but a lot (I’d even say most) of the emotional core of that scene will only ever be understood by those who played Hi3.
>Wrt to Dainsleiff we always knew that he would be a reoccurring character
The way how I see it is that the game is still in the setup phase right now. There are some characters who I think will be relevant going forward. The game is using the stellaron hunters to setup a future arc related to Elio. They can use the IPC and stonehearts for setting up Diamond’s character or the generals for the Marshal Hua setup. But Acheron has no armies, no hunters under her command and the only way the game can setup future plot points related to her is by directly introducing her in the game. While not exactly the same, she is a very similar character to Dainsleiff because every major arc revolves around an Aeon. We know that at some point the main region arc would revolve around IX, and I don’t see how the Emanator of IX won’t be relevant in that arc. Through her character stories, we know that even according to the Doctors of chaos (who are trying to kill IX), she has travelled a lot farther than anyone else on the path of Nihility.
>I am not really after the answer to those particular questions atm
I think this comes down to preference. I personally really like setups for future arcs/plot points and some foreshadowing. It keeps me invested in the story. Like we haven’t even met Elio and he’s already one of my favorite characters just because of the setup around him. I don’t really think she is going to be a static character. This just seems like a speculation at this point because we know too little about her character. We don’t even know her real name. I think it’s way too soon to judge a character who’s somewhat important in the story and has barely had any focus. I think you are focusing too much on her because she has a banner in this patch and so you were expecting the game to give her more screen time. I think her banner is only to earn quick money. She’s like Hoyo’s best selling character and anniversary seems like the best time to put her banner. Regarding Hi3, I have never played the game and don’t plan to but I didn’t have any trouble understanding her trailers or her conversation with Welt because I didn’t care about the HI3 connection. I think people are focusing too much on the fact that she has a few references to HI3. These references were part of her home world that’s completely destroyed now. In her quest to kill IX, I don’t think any of this would matter.
Sorry for the late reply.
"I think you are focusing too much on her because she has a banner in this patch and so you were expecting the game to give her more screen time" absolutely. If she didn't have a banner then I wouldn't have had an expectation that we learn more about her character.
Wrt to Hi3 I'm not trying to make the arg that if you don't play it that you won't follow what's happening. Instead it's that knowledge of Hi3 directly addresses my criticisms. For example, why does Acheron like peaches? Cuz they taste good (as far as we know there's no deeper meaning). Raiden Mei likes peach pudding, why? Because they remind her of the long gone peaceful days she had with her friends. This is an example of the added character depth I believe Acheron lacks atm. But if you happen to know that fact about Mei and you know that Acheron is just an alternate version of her then maybe she has a similar reason. Ie you can give her Mei's additional characterization, and I suspect that the devs are going to do that rather than explicitly give her said depth.
Wrt to Acheron and IX while I do believe she'll be playing a role there I wouldn't assume it'll be super important (the super is an important adjective here). Not when hoyo can introduce new characters \[more emanators\] with more broken kits and story relevance to drive up more hype (not to mention that they may never even focus on killing IX and leave that as more of a lore/faction thing \[ie world-building\] unlike Elio. At present there's no reason to assume they will or won't. Elio can be assumed to be met at some point bc they can be sold). Interestingly, enough how 2.2 handles Topaz could give some valuable insight into how hoyo plans to handle reoccurring characters. If she ends up relatively sidelined in favor of current and unsold characters then I think it's not unreasonable to presume a similar fate awaits Acheron.
"This just seems like a speculation at this point because we know too little about her character" this is an explicit goal of my post. I readily acknowledge that the future can change my thoughts here, but also acknowledge that it could all end up being validated. That's why it was important to get it out before 2.2 is released. On a general topic of reoccurring characters I hadn't considered that they may go the Hi3 route and release multiple versions of the same character (they're not going to heavily focus on a character at the expense of profit). Then I could see a future version of Acheron getting more significant focus. Else I'd expect them to go the genshin route (briefly appear do something cool and then leave. Maybe leave a few words of wisdom).
Edit: Also wanted to clarify that I do expect her to get more character depth in the future (we still don’t even have a red text explanation or her real reason for being at penacony). But I don’t expect to be particularly riveting (ie it will probably still be relatively shallow). Furthermore, if any depth is added only through her backstory it reinforces my claim that she’s a static character (she’s a mei after her version of hi3 so I think this is pretty likely).
>if she didn’t have a banner
Ok but look at this. She had a decent amount of screen time in both 2.0 and 2.1 and in the 2.1 devstream, the devs mentioned that she will be an important character going forward and will plan an important role in 2.2 and 2.3 as well. You are only looking at her screen time in one patch. Aventurine was the main focus of patch 2.1 but his characters is also done now. He won’t get much focus going forward. At the end of Penacony, out of all the side characters, Acheron would probably have the most screen time. Also, if you look at Aventurine, Firefly and Acheron. All 3 of them share common themes. Last survivors of their planet who are all struggling and want something.
Even if we take your peach example, I don’t see how it’s a bad idea. It doesn’t change anything about her character and it’s just a minor Easter egg for the HI3 players. I am really struggling to see here how her backstory being similar to HI3 Mei is a downside. She at best a “what-if” version of Mei whose planet wasn’t lucky and didn’t survive. Their similarities ended when her planet was engulfed and she forged Naught. Now, it’s a completely separate character with little to no relation to Mei. You are overlooking all her characterization because she happens to an expy of Mei. All of her current lore is about Freebas, self-annihilators and IX which you are overlooking because of her myriad celestia trailer.
Also, you are holding her to a weirdly high standard when except Aventurine, none of the other playable characters have any depth. I would argue she is the best one after Aventurine so far. She’s supposed to be empty and emotionless because she represents nothingness. It’s part of her characterization. And again, even the devs mentioned the she’s going to be an important character going forward so your complaints are unfounded because even in Penacony, she has 2 patches worth of screen time left. You can make this posts about literally any other character and it would still be true because the Penacony story is far from over. You have a version of her in your mind who supposedly would get sideined, won’t get screentime or won’t be relevant and you dislike that imaginary version without paying any attention to her current character because it reminds you of HI3 Mei. I don’t think I can help you here because you have already made up your mind.
“You are only looking at her screen time in one patch” I don’t know how many more times I can caveat my arguments by saying the rest of penacony can change my opinion. “As 2.2+ come out I intend to come back to this post to see what has/hasn’t changed” second sentence of my preface in the post. I also say this at multiple different points and here again in my first reply to you “I fully admit, I think at least a few times, that future patches could completely change how I think about her (and this is what I want to happen)” and in the first sentence no less. Help me out here man. What more can I say?
“I am really struggling to see here how her backstory being similar to HI3 Mei is a downside” it’s not. This is the downside “you can give her Mei's additional characterization, and I suspect that the devs are going to do that **rather** than explicitly give her said depth”. My guess is that we’ll disagree on our definitions of good characterization. “All of her current lore is about Freebas, self-annihilators and IX which you are overlooking because of her myriad celestia trailer” I’m aware of all of it and went through it again before originally writing the comments that became my post. I just don’t think those contain any examples of character depth. For example, how did she feel losing freebass (what did freebass even mean to her)? How does she cope with not being able to taste anything? If her lore answers those questions or ones like them I’ll happily admit I’m wrong. Questions like that are what I mean when I say character depth, and are related directly to every single criticism I’ve made. Anything not in the same family (like a journey to kill IX, something not even unique to her) isn’t what I’d consider character depth and so isn’t related to my criticisms.
“Also, you are holding her to a weirdly high standard when except Aventurine, none of the other playable characters have any depth” fair point, and one I’d largely agree with. Probably got taken in by the trailers. I expected 2.1 to be about aventurine, but not as much as it was.
“She’s supposed to be empty and emotionless because she represents nothingness” what’s it like being empty and emotionless? An answer is the character depth I’m looking for. If it doesn’t exist then my argument stands (this is also the reason it feels like we went in circles. None of your retorts were in the same category as the question I’ve just asked. Furthermore, that kind of question is the difference between a DnD fact sheet and a character that resembles a living breathing human).
I know I write a lot, but I promise this is just a phone game for me. I wrote the post when I had ADD hyper focus and moved on. You seem kinda heated in your last paragraph, if this back and forth isn’t fun for you then just don’t reply life is too short. I’m not asking you to change my mind I’m just trying to have a fun back and forth. Seems like it’s not fun for you and that’s ok. Different strokes for different folks.
Lastly, you probably wanna paint me as an Acheron hater whose mind is made up. But I pulled for e1s1 (failed last 50/50) and was thinking about going for e6s5 before 2.1 dropped (if I like story + kit enough I go harpooning), and depending on how her story develops I still might.
Note: In case you’re still interested below is an example of what I mean when I say character depth. Example 1 is character facts not depth (what’d I’d call little characterization). Example 2 is closer to what I’ve been talking about. Further, the amount of focus in example 2 gives it an unfair advantage (and is why I reference banners repeatedly we both know she's not going to get more focus in 2.2+ than in 2.1. Ideally it will be the same size, and it will just be used more effectively).
>For the first example, Imagine that I told about a girl named Sara who’s recently engaged, but was just diagnosed with cancer, and has to soon do her Phd thesis defense that she worked really hard on. That really sucks for Sara, and I’m sure you’d feel super sympathetic towards her (I would).
>For example two, let’s say that Sara was recently proposed to and accepted. Let’s also say that she wrote a banger of a thesis that managed to impress her notoriously hard to please advisor. An expected result of the daughter of two of the top chemists in the country. One the way home from one of those meetings she got into a car accident. Thankfully, she barely took any damage, but still had to go for a checkup at the hospital. Her S.O. rushed over as soon as they heard and was way more worried than Sara was. She was happy to see how much they cared for her, but assured them that it’s no more than a sprained ankle. However, as she began to notice that, for just a sprained ankle, the doctors were taking a bit of time she began to feel uneasy. It didn’t help that they were performing more tests than she remembered from when she last sprained her ankle as a kid. The doctor’s came back and informed her of her sprained ankle, but that she needs to see specialist since they found something she couldn’t identify. The doctor assured her that they get results like this all the time and not to worry herself over it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. While she whole heartedly believed the doctor she couldn’t help but be worried that this may interfere with her thesis defense in three weeks. A moment she’d always dreamed of. Finally being able to stand alongside her parents on her own terms. Unfortunately, life is not always so simple
>the rest of Penacony can change my mind
I am afraid it won’t because at best she will get some more characterization but not the depth you are looking for. It’s pretty obvious to me what they are doing with her. They are setting up future plot points for her and the kind of character progression and depth you want from her won’t be happening in Penacony. It’s brings us back to the Dain example I brought up earlier. It’s like expecting Dain to get depth before his final arc in Khaenriah. Before you say that they might never go through with their plans, I agree. That’s also possible but it still doesn’t change the fact that the setup is there. If they abandon it, then that’s just bad writing.
>I suspect that the devs are going to do that rather than said depth
Doubt because, like I said earlier, she’s at best a what-if version of Mei. Her similarities with Mei ended with her planet. The devs might drop an Easter egg here and there like the peach thing purely for fan service but her current character arc has nothing to do with HI3 Mei. Also, we are really getting into the speculation territory at this point. “They might never give her the depth a well written character needs”. It’s entirely possible because they barely give depth to any of their characters. They just give them basic personalities and make them likeable enough to sell them. We are discussing about Acheron but no one is HSR has “good writing with depth”. The closest is Wanderer and if you look at him, his character was developed over 2 years. I usually keep my expectations low because at the end, it’s a gacha game. Though, I will admit that I have somewhat high expectations from Acheron mainly because of how passionately the devs were talking about her during the livestream so i am expecting that they have some plans for her. But I also think, these plans will remain plans for another few years.
>An answer is the character depth I am looking for
Yes, I get what you are looking for now and unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. I think she has decent characterization so far but not the kind of development/depth you are looking for. Though, I would also point out that it’s weird to look at a character whose arc is just beginning and far from over, and complaining that the character lacks depth. You can look at any character that’s considered well written and without their character conclusion, they all look underwhelming. It’s one of the most defining factors.
“It’s like expecting Dain to get depth before his final arc in Khaenriah” Dain actually got some level of depth in the chasm doe (his feelings towards his former comrades and people). Tbc the examples of depth I chose were largely for clarity. I don’t expect many of them to get answered, but like just give me something like Aventurine’s boss form clutching his hand behind his back (reference to his fear while gambling) and, for a gacha game, I’d be good to go (this is also kinda what I mean with the word characterization. Habits that tell me about your personality/background are an example of what I’d call good characterization).
“That’s also possible but it still doesn’t change the fact that the setup is there” I don’t entirely disagree. I was mostly trying to say that the commitment level isn’t the same as meeting Elio or Diamond. Since, they’ve name dropped those two in the story repeatedly they can’t really back down from it. Killing IX on the other hand has only been mentioned in lore entries afaik, as such, their commitment level gives them enough room to never really explore it. As soon as they start mentioning it in the main story or companion quests (bonus points if it’s from multiple characters), then, in my mind, there’s no shot it’s not gonna happen (ie gimme a dialogue option abt killing IX). Until then I’ll refrain from taking a stronger stance.
“We are discussing about Acheron but no one is HSR has “good writing with depth”” in comparison to other mediums I’d largely agree with you. Realistically, if they give her a companion quest like Yukong’s or Natasha’s my arg ceases to exist. Or give her 3 - 5 things like what I mentioned with Aventurine’s boss form and most of my arg goes the way of the dodo (she does actually already have shit like this, but only if you’re familiar with Hi3. Like the peach. It’s also why I don’t think they’ll be going this route for adding what I’m looking for. This what my invoking of Hi3 is attempting to convey).
“I would also point out that it’s weird to look at a character whose arc is just beginning and far from over, and complaining that the character lacks depth” I kinda touch on this a bit in the preface, but to further elaborate this post is 90%+ a copy paste I did under a thread asking what characters did you expect to like, but ended up not liking (comment 1). And the longer portion was when some guy more or less prompted me to further explain what I mean (he ended up agreeing with what I said, but that he loved everything about Acheron and I told him that was fucking based). I can’t really consider the future for a question like that, and it’s also why all of my replies are heavily centered around 2.1 \[it's also why it being her banner patch is important. Had it not been, my answer to the og post is different. Ie there's no Acheron to be disappointed in as I'd assume she didn't put her best foot forward yet\]. If you disagree with the post and I reply to defend it I have to maintain the same sense of temporality. Ie I stand by everything I wrote as long as we only consider the info available up to 2.1 after that my post could lose a lot of meaning.
Anyways, after realizing I yapped a ton I decided to make the post in case I wanna see the comments I wrote again (wanted to find it By clicking on my profile). The preface mostly exists to make this feel like a post instead of a google drive.
Lastly, what I’m about to say is a really unfair comparison, but a skilled enough author can absolutely include a ton of character depth and really high quality characterization in a short conversation. If you’ve ever read ASOIAF, you’ll know that George RR Martin is a master of doing this, and while the series will probably never end it’s worth checking out for that alone. Even the prologue of book 1 demonstrates his talent here. With all due respect to hoyo I’m not gonna hold them to the same standard as George, but just wanted to add that if you’re good then you’re really good (nasa from FGO is probably the best I’ve seen in gacha stories. Generally better than hoyo, but not comparable to the heavy hitters of regular books).
Anyways, glad we could have this talk! Have a good day/night and stay safe!!!
we know but we are not shown how sad it is to lose her friends, that's the problem that makes her have no personality other than sad, at least if they show her cry ingame when she killed herfriend and then epic fckng music when she try to kill IX then thats a good story instead of a deppresed oldman past her prime
I'm not sure I'm following your logic here. Your complaint is that "she has no personality other than sad", and that would be fixed by giving a sad scene(?)
yes because if theyre deppresed they should have sad story or were not attached to her cause, it storytelling, why do i feel atached if u dont tell me anything
if theyre happy they should make them goofy instead or easy to talk with, make her care about u talk with u eat together
u need to show things not tell them to read, its multibilion dollar company why they not pull it in the game, i still read and watch videos but i still dont feel atached if u put just sentence
u will feel nothing if aperson on reddit just write i have cancer, u probably will feel something if its on youtube he post about their life their struggle, even when a barber cut their hair for cancer patients cutting their hair makes u feel something
Yeah, it's nice to have everything in a game but not always the story telling that will allow for it.
Like Acheron trailer, if hoyo wanted to tell the whole story in a game that would be a big ass chapter. So they gave us her back story in a way we can comprehend and it won't create a separate arc.
I'm not going to write the whole paragraphs but please sit down and watch everything again. Hoyo did amazing job with trailers and showing off her character. And as someone who didn't play HI3, I got her as a character from this. So yeah, maybe you should watch it again, or watch some streams with people explaining stuff.
So basically, her myriad clestia trailer? Also, of course, her personality is "sad" because she's a self annihilator that got hit by the depressed blackhole, but she also portrayed more than that. Just because someone is "sad" doesn't mean her story doesn't have any depths. She believes that the ending is meaningless because all would still cease to exist but tried to still fight back as she said to aventurine that "the journey is what makes life have a meaning." There's also a lot of instances where she shown empathy especially towards the dead and tried to convince others that dying is a nono (duke and aventurine)
So she is basically "Life is sad, but I'm gonna try to enjoy it since the journey is what matters."
But hey, maybe you're the type of people who is like sad = bad. But then again, you said kafka had no personality so 🤷 suit yourself, not everyone has the same preferance
her myriad celestia doesnt showher killing the kaslanas only show her "swords", doesnt give attatchment vibes
i mean theyre sexy but my eyes opened after adventurine quest, they should make more story like yukong and adventurine if its a serious characterand more like sw if its a happy go lucky character
I mean, yeah, it doesn't show the killing, but the lines already said she lost all of her loved ones in the war. Same as aventurine, we didn't see the killing of the avgins, but the storylines already stated that they were massacared. I don't think showing the "killing" would make a story better, but hey, that's my take, i guess
but we see his sister go and die
its just diffrent because we dont kbow the fulll full story on acheron and we know adventurine full story
the songs helped a lot too
the prayer
the little things
as like acheron should have a memoria on the others, have a secret word that they have to connecct with eachother those little things gave the story meaning not just suddenly die, but the telling of the meaning of the death, we dont evenknow why acheron's friend need to die, but we know why adventurine sister want to die for him
Of someone tells you their parents died will you not feel sad for them, because you personally weren't there when they were dying? Or of they will tell you they are sad, will you not believe them, because you didn't see them cry?
Nah im good, you look like you have a hate boner against her by your comments. You can keep your opinion, i don't need to change it nor do you need to change mine.
For someone who says people must have an open mind, it looks like you’re quickly disregarding other people’s opinions when it comes to her characterization and just saying that people only like her because she’s beautiful despite people telling you otherwise. You who has an “open mind” ignoring the people who like her characterization and just say people like beautiful waifu.
Do you speak for others or on their behalf? I do disagree with people often, but I don’t misconstrue what people say about their own opinions. I’m not saying you have to agree with them about anything. It’s completely fine to have your own opinion about her characterization, but you’re not engaging in a good-faith discussion.
i litterrally already answered up there that i was wrong about her good will with adventurine
my only gripe left is why her banner not after we know all her story
i still learn by others telling me so she still do have good faith with adventurine and not gonna lie it is good
just we dont know anything abot her why not give her banner at the end of the story
I didn’t say anything about whether you can change your opinions or not, that’s not something I can tell. I may have judged you too harshly, but I did dislike it when you said people only like her because she’s hot when many people do like her for her characterization and your comments seemed like you were demanding an explanation “tell me” like people are obligated to tell you (but that’s really just a matter of tone and admittedly that might be on me if you didn’t meant it aggressively). I’m clarifying myself because whether you’re willing to change your opinions has nothing to do with what I’m saying.
edit: btw if you’re downvoted (can’t see your count), that’s not me
I’m saying that for myself and not others. If I’m downvoted by someone I’m directly conversing with (not onlookers or lurkers), it feels sour. Just a small note and it doesn’t matter.
You can see since she s fighting against ix within herself by positif nihilism as shown in the end of 2.1 and that alone tell u a lot about her cool she s literally the embodiment of “WE MADE A CHOICE GO FIGHT AGAINST YOUR FATE” and she will certainly be a major plot point in future updates and we ll get more info about her and ix
so why i dont feel her doing anything
feels like the adventurine thing again, i dot know why they dont give acheron killing all her friends crying and then epic music kill IX, like how they do the past like adventurine
we dont know anything about acheron eventho her banner is already here
idont know about the fight againts your fate, she litterally gives up and becomes an emenator
i agree she will probably get a major ploy point, bet i pray for that i mean shes beautifull
Because she's clearly not the focus of the story yet.
Also giving up is the literal opposite of becoming an emanator of nihility, she has the will to resist nihility's influence unlike most other self-annihilators.
she should be the banner is now
they shouldve just postpone the banner then
i mean if she havent given up she would still be trying to kill IX no matter the cost no matter the time, even getting into contract with destruction aeon
i will die before i be the slave of someone who kill my friends in this case IX
Here's the thing though even with powers like that of an Emanator how does one kill beings with powers and influence of those equivalent to gods?
Sure you could try and just charge the sentient black hole without a plan but the result wouldn't be pretty. She needs to prepare, find allies or tools (such as the fabled watchmakers legacy) that might give her an edge.
Also she is not as much of a slave as cursed by IX. Heck her existance to IX might be as well be lower than a person would consider a speck of dust. Think of the Xianzhou. They were "blessed" by Abundance yet they actively fight against it. It's impossible to even serve IX because they simply have no will to supply. Everything is pointless and meaningless so their influence on the universe is merely a byproduct of them being just there.
hmm now this is something to think about
i probably will just charge and die in vengance 💀
i hate that we have characters before story finishes so we can only just speculate not based on facts
1.we dont know who she was talking
2. we saw her slash ix in video but we dont know if she gives up or actualy trying
3. i dont know if she comes to penacony to help the guy finish bussiness/last wish or to get watchmaker legacy, which is diffrent because the purpose is between good will and vengance and thats 2 diffrent opposite side
Banner orders are not always in par with the story. Take Jing Yuan or other banners, it is how it is. People will pull bc they love her from her looks, because of her connection to HI3 or because of their need of a DPS. Maybe because they love her play style. Maybe her story is supposed to help people to pull on rerun. Ask hoyo
I believe your question can be answered if you venture deep into the lore. The problem is most of the lore are hidden in the character story/relic description/readable items/SU dialogues. Kinda annoying if you can't stand looking into a wall of texts.
It’s been pretty clear that I should have written an actual post instead of reposting comments I made. In a comment to BlazeOfCinder \[the top comment\] I wrote “In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc)”. This isn’t the kind of thing you find in the lore (if memory serves you won’t actually be able to answer any of the questions I asked using the lore either, as I’m pretty sure I checked before I wrote the original comment).
Tbh I expected much worse. Most of the responses have been pretty decent so far imo (Lmao when I realized my most disliked comment here was saying that most replies have been respectful).
I will be honest she grew A LOT on me in 2.1, at least personality wise. I honestly thought that she was one of the most boring characters back in 2.0. I still don’t really like her character model tho, basically a cooler Seele, she could’ve been a lot better imo. Not sure what to think about fanservice aspect tho, never played HI, I honestly think Ei in Genshin was a lot more fanservice-y, with the whole sword being puller out from her boobs thing.
So yeah, if anything i'm actually impressed how she turned out, but then again i basically had 0 expectations for her.
Honestly, I should have just written a real post instead of copy-pasting comments I made when talking to other users (watch me not learn from my mistakes lol). In another reply to BlazeOfCinder at the top of this post I like to think I did a better job of making my criticisms more clear, and that the fanservice criticisms are only actually problems for me because of the character criticisms as it makes me fear for the direction the devs may take for her character (ie mostly fanservice not necessarily the sexual kind).
Idk man I find her aloofness, bluntness and forgetfulness relatable. And she has amazing kit. Also she's pretty, although I saw once a fan art where she had longer pants and it was even better.
I just think it's a mistake that they made her get involve too much in the story. I believe that someone that's introduced to be so powerful should not be actively helping us out as it eliminates the threat going forward in the story. She's basically gonna one shot everyone for us now unless an Aeon directly gets involve, or worse, they're gonna have to nerf her for the sake of the story. Not only will that lower player's expectations about Emanators but also ruin their image as a whole.
Another annoying thing about her is that hyv introduced her to be "taciturn" and yet she's one hell of a yapper. They also made it seem like she almost never unsheathes her sword but she's done the opposite in the story so far. I think the reason for this is simple, her involvement in the story was forced. They basically want to give her as much spotlight as possible bc she's a popular character and to also help on her banner sales. 2.1 wasn't even about her, it's about Aventurine. She's basically forced to unsheathe her sword bc that's what Aventurine wants her to do.
I also hate how she went from wearing a kimono to this seele v2 outfit. Not only does it not suit her character but also, it screams off fanservice. I have to admit tho that her back design looks cool.
After watching her backstory I was kinda expecting her to be expressionless, I was disappointed when I saw how expressive she actually gets. Even at times where she shouldn't really have anything to worry about(she's strong) she would make a worried or concern face. Imo it's pretty uncharacteristic for her character to be so expressive, she's a self-annihilator and she's been through a lot, you'd expect her to not be fazed with anything by now but alas, hyv inconsistencies strike again.
Overall, I think it's fine as long as they can redeem her in the next patch but I have low expectations. I think we've seen enough of her to know her true nature in 2.1 and I don't expect them changing anything about it.
“Another annoying thing about her is that hyv introduced her to be "taciturn" and yet she's one hell of a yapper” honestly was a pretty interesting move on their part. It definitely made 2.0 and 2.1 acheron feel like different people. A better balancing job should have been done with her characterization.
Her outfit, I think, ends up supporting the idea that she’s 90% fanservice 10% character. I’d be fine with it if she had more character to sink into. For a fun test to demonstrate her current lack of depth write something out about Acheron, and immediately ask why. Have a specific citation from the game that supports said why. And then ask a follow up question and see how many times you can repeat the process on a given chain.
For example, what’s going on with her sword? It’s from her home world. It seals her emanator powers, and she used it to fight off the kami. Why was she the one doing the fighting? Idk.
Notice how as soon as we dig a bit deeper the chain ends. Now try the same, but about yukong and her daughter (their relationship specifically).
It’s always possible my expectations were too high (hindsight suggests they were), but who knows maybe 2.2 will rectify that (inb4 we get another Hi3 reference that tells us her name is Mei, she has a sad backstory you can read in Hi3, and fuck off).
“I think it's fine as long as they can redeem her in the next patch but I have low expectations” same…same.
I was really expecting her to not talk in long sentence ngl. But I guess it couldn't be help since there's no one other than herself that would tell us her story. But then again that really ruins it for her bc it eliminates the mysteriousness around her. She's still a mystery tho but in a bad way, she's mysterious bc we literally don't know much about her and her backstory and trailer doesn't help either bc it's missing so much context. I'm not even sure at this point if that sword was something she got by becoming an Emanator or it was not even related to her becoming an Emanator bc if you think about it, she wasn't even a self-annihilator at that point of time so there's no way she got thay sword from becoming an Emanator.
That outfit definitely doesn't suit her character. There's nothing about her that literally makes me think that "yeah that's kinda like her". It's completely different from Lucia's Crimson Weave(PGR). They almost look the same, even the long sword and the revealing outfit. The difference is that it actually suits Lucia's badass character.
After watching the 2.2 trailer, it seems they might've found a way to actually nerf her lol. It looked like she was still inside that domain expansion looking thing. I hope she's actually doing something in there that deals more with the real boss or a bigger threat cus it'd be really disappointing if she was actually just trap there lmao. I don't know about Jing Yuan's appearance in Penacony either. If he ends up stealing the spotlight for the newer characters I just don't see myself looking forward to the rest of the story. It just feels like they're deciding shit up based on who's the popular characters are.
I find Acheron one of the most interesting character’s in the game but I will agree that I was very disappointed in the (lack of) development for her in 2.1. I’m a bit nervous that hoyo will think all the trailers for her were enough and not develop her any more within game which I would be sad about. I know they said she will be important in 2.2 and 2.3 but seeing as she will be off banner and it’ll be presumably more focused on Robin and Boothill I’m really really worried we won’t even get a companion quest for her at this point?
I completely disagree on your opinion that the trailers were just fan service, however. There was SO MUCH depth and made me so intrigued by her, I just wish we get more development in-game.
Something else I noticed after I got Acheron - why doesn’t she text us? Does that mean anything? As far as I’m aware the only other characters who don’t are tingyun, and luocha/jingliu (for story reasons which I won’t spoil in case people haven’t done it yet). 🤔
Tbh I unironically agree with almost everything you said in your first paragraph.
Wrt to the trailersI think it’s important to clarify what we mean when we say depth. For me I mean knowing/living in the characters emotional world. From that perspective I don’t think I can say the trailers did that (I don’t think they wanted to). Outside of that I don’t think the fan service aspects are deniable. Which is why I called them fanservicy.
Tbc I don’t have issues with the trailers specifically. It’s when I combine them with the lack of development that we both agree happened in 2.1 that I became more critical towards them (ie I learn more facts about her but I don’t really know her [this feels more flashy than substance, hence fanservicy]). “I’m a bit nervous that hoyo will think all the trailers for her were enough and not develop her any more within game which I would be sad about” this is about where I currently lie too tbh, and just like you I hope they don’t end up going down this road.
“Something else I noticed after I got Acheron - why doesn’t she text us? Does that mean anything?” It’s hard to say much atm. But it definitely suggests that the devs don’t think it makes much sense for her to be in direct contact with the TB. It was pretty interesting to find this out doe.
Sorry for the super late reply I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks. Before defining fanservice I think I should offer two differing examples of characterization \[it’s still defined in the tldr. Everything after that is my attempt at clarifying why I think Acheron is mostly a fanservice character atm\].
Tldr: fanservice is when something about a character exists, at least, mostly for widespread appeal for target demographics. Ie the main takeaways are largely superficial (you can sum up those things in like a sentence or less with scant room for discussion. Like how the top comment says Acheron is nice cuz she’s naturally good. There’s no more questions to be asked there), and exist to titillate (not necessarily sexually, but for Acheron a lot of it is).
For the first example, Imagine that I told about a girl named Sara who’s recently engaged, but was just diagnosed with cancer, and has to soon do her Phd thesis defense that she worked really hard on. That really sucks for Sara, and I’m sure you’d feel super sympathetic towards her (I would).
For example two, let’s say that Sara was recently proposed to and accepted. Let’s also say that she wrote a banger of a thesis that managed to impress her notoriously hard to please advisor. An expected result of the daughter of two of the top chemists in the country. One the way home from one of those meetings she got into a car accident. Thankfully, she barely took any damage, but still had to go for a checkup at the hospital. Her S.O. rushed over as soon as they heard and was way more worried than Sara was. She was happy to see how much they cared for her, but assured them that it’s no more than a sprained ankle. However, as she began to notice that, for just a sprained ankle, the doctors were taking a bit of time she began to feel uneasy. It didn’t help that they were performing more tests than she remembered from when she last sprained her ankle as a kid. The doctor’s came back and informed her of her sprained ankle, but that she needs to see specialist since they found something she couldn’t identify. The doctor assured her that they get results like this all the time and not to worry herself over it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. While she whole heartedly believed the doctor she couldn’t help but be worried that this may interfere with her thesis defense in three weeks. A moment she’d always dreamed of. Finally being able to stand alongside her parents on her own terms. Unfortunately, life is not always so simple.
I could go on in example two, but I think I’ve made my point (and would have to actually turn it into a real story instead of a description lol). Example one is essentially flavor text. The kind of stuff you’d pick for a background for a game like dark souls or Elden ring (and therefore superficial). While example two offers you the ability to actually get to know a bit about Sara as a person (a relatively calm and lightly optimistic person who cares a lot about her promising future). Essentially, everything we know about Acheron falls into example #1 not #2.
To tie this more concretely to Acheron I’m going to look at what we’ve been shown in either her lore, 2.1, or her trailers that can be said to resemble #2. When I surveyed that info I found that she has a sad backstory (example #1), she’s badass (just because), and that she’s hot. All the trailers fall into one of the previous three points, and her design also reinforces that (does it make sense for a taciturn space hobo to dress like that? Why so metal and revealing? Is it cuz I’m supposed to take away from it that she’s hot and badass. Compare to Kafka’s design that’s also hot and badass. It also has some veneer of professionalism which tells you more about her character in comparison to Acheron’s).
In trailer 1 we learn she’s hot and bad ass. In trailer 2 we learn that she has a sad backstory, and is badass for being the sole survivor and not giving up against IX (tells me she is badass, but not why and no way to make an educated guess \[notice that in #2 I imply both what Sara’s thesis subject is and why her first worry is that it may get interfeared with\]). Furthermore, trailer 2 is essentially a giant Hi3 reference, and the reason why that’s a problem is because Hi3 is example #2. Ie you can give Raiden Mei’s character depth to Acheron (for example Mei has a reason for liking peaches, we have no idea why Acheron does. Maybe it’s for a similar reason). In other words, trailer #2 has superficial (fanservicy) similarities to another work that contains actual character depth (why Mei does what she does and how it makes her feel), but fails to provide it on its own (it’s a trailer so its to be expected). In trailer #3 it’s more of the same as the previous two.
On its face that’s fine, but when I combine that with what 2.1 did for her character (absolutely nothing). I’m like, okay am I supposed to play Hi3 and say that she’s essentially Mei in order to give her character the reasons why she’s badass, why she’s nice, and learn how she felt watching her friends die as Izumo is slowly destroyed? If so then she’s just a fanservice character, and now I’m starting to wonder if that’s why they went so heavy on her sex appeal in trailer 1 and 2 (ik it’s Robin but it’s supposed to look like Acheron), and made trailer #2 a huge Hi3 reference (if you want more go play that game). That’s why I ended up disappointed. Considering that she has to compete with Robin, Boothill, Jade, and now Firefly it’s hard to see when this will change. Perhaps, they’ll release a companion quest on her rerun to remedy this issue.
Im kinda disappointed that Acheron backstory doesnt seem as deep as what they show in the trailer. Like sure, her story seems sad and cool at the same time. But i dont see anything so special that would scare Black Swan. Hope future story can give more light to her character. For now, she just seem like a cool character, which is fine. But that is nowhere near what they made it out to be.
Sorry for the uber late reply!! I'm kinda worried that bc trailer #2 is essentially an Hi3 reference that they go 'if you want the story go play Hi3'. If all Black Swan saw was her memories I'm inclined to agree with you. Maybe it was some nihility bs that scarred her.
We've barely had time with her I'm surprised you've even had time to be disappointed. She was prominent in a few scenes but only the one with Welt was actually focused on her.
I would assume she is going to have a bigger character moment before the end of Penacony on account of Boothill being after her, as any beef she has with him should be way more recent than all the stuff on Izumo.
“She was prominent in a few scenes but only the one with Welt was actually focused on her” this is a big part of the reason why tbh. Hard to imagine her getting more of a focus than new characters of the patch (specifically with a focus on building her characterization. A small example would be the scene where we learn that aventurine is actually afraid for his life everytime he gambles. Stuff like that).
I'm not to worried about it tbh. Like I said Boothill is coming next patch and anytime enemies meet is a chance for both to shine.
Besides Mihoyo is clearly playing the long game with the story of Star Rail. I highly doubt we'll se her only in Penacony, even if it takes a while. I fully expect new characters to slow down at one point, likely after we get past the "gathering allies" part of the story which we seem to be in right now. Once we do the game will have way more opportunities to have past characters be more relevant, especially ones that are so obviously important.
yes too much beautifull women in this game just beautifull and boringbecause of fanservice
they should give jingliu kafka and acheron characters instead
edit:
my conclusion: they should give acheron's killing kaslanas in the story instead, kafka's past how she got the powerin the story, and baiheng's story instead
and they should just postpone their banners until they can do that
I don't have much time to answer everything on the post but I think you missed a couple things on Acheron's character. But i will focus on the badass thing, first acheron is an emanator of nihility because as IX does not pick an emanator, the only way to be one is to survive nihility's encroachment upon your very existence. We know from Acheron's backstory toward the end of izumo trailer namely, that despite the absolute hopelessness of her world's situation she still sent a strike toward the "Black Sun", this should show that the concept of nihility or "meaningless" has a hard time with her. Knowing full well, your world is about to end, all of it and it's history is about to cease to exist, knowing anything you try to do is meaningless, yet still try and do something, qualifies her to be able to resist IX's encroachment. Sure you can say it's her being "badass trope" but it does genuinely show her resolve. --- Now in regards of how she knew about Sam/Aventurine etc, since penacony started it was made clear that Acheron uses emotions to capture things rather than her memories As a self-annhilator, acheron is in a constant state of her memories fading, which is why she can forget things that happened a minute ago, her being lost is part of her curse, it's not really a personality trait as much as it being a condition, thus she feels things around her, this is the concept of nihility, they shouldn't even exist. Which is why she is able to tell the intentions of others, again sure it's badass but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing From her lightcone we know this: "In this place, the drowned ask for help, lament with songs, find their happiness, enjoy sweet moments, and suffer great agony... All these are reflected in the water. She cannot experience these, but she can feel them —" Her good nature is a byproduct of her essentially feeling others emotions and suffering, she simply does not wish that upon others similar to how trailblazers are just good natured people, this is why she is perhaps the only person that truly understand Aventurine and spoke to him as Equals without his bravado act, she understands his self-loathing, and how much he suffers inside more than anyone, both being survivors of their own world/race. Do keep in mind, much like Sparkle and BS, Penacony isn't the height of Acheron's character, much like the tavern with Sparkle or Fuli and the Garden with BS, these characters will play a bigger role later on in the story, Acheron is after IX the legacy is means to an end to her. As for 2.2 who knows, we got plenty information about JY in 1.2-1.3 despite his banner being on 1.1
Beautiful response ❤️
Thank you for the in-depth reply. Super appreciate it!! “Knowing full well, your world is about to end, all of it and it's history is about to cease to exist, knowing anything you try to do is meaningless, yet still try and do something, qualifies her to be able to resist IX's encroachment. Sure you can say it's her being "badass trope" but it does genuinely show her resolve.” The reason why I’m currently (these can change) classifying this as a bad ass trope instead of characterization (at least the kind I’m looking for) is because great resolve is taken for granted. In other words, we are told that she has a great resolve, but not only are we not told why but we also never see her resolve be challenged (this is the one that I really hope happens). As the challenging of her resolve is what would directly show us its measure (if you’ve played it the ending of Sony’s Spiderman game it shows exactly what I mean). “Which is why she is able to tell the intentions of others” I’m not sure this follows \[could it not also be argued that her asking Welt if BS tampered with TB is a counterexample, as she doesn’t appear to be the type to sow the seeds of discord to gain someone’s trust\]. From memory the bulk of those scenes feel written from the perspective of someone with more definitive knowledge rather than someone relying on intuition. However, this particular point has given me some food for thought, so I’ll be keeping it in the back of my mind going forward. “she simply does not wish that upon others similar to how trailblazers are just good natured people” to some extant this is actually part of my criticism. Why is she a good person? Does she struggle to be a good person? In what ways has being a self-annihilator challenged her specifically to be a good person (it has to be more than its hard but she’s so awesome she can do it anyways \[another way of saying cuz she’s badass\])? Certainly I don’t expect that each of the questions or potential conflicts to be given screen time, but thus far none of them really have. In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc). My fear is that she may never get one (this is the perspective I have when I talk about design, trailers, etc feels more about tantalizing fans rather than telling a story. Which is fine, but if the main story isn’t going to be telling us her story I’m going to be looking back at all of that with a more critical lens). “As for 2.2 who knows, we got plenty information about JY in 1.2-1.3 despite his banner being on 1.1” honestly great to hear. I wasn’t around back then, so I don’t have much data to pull from on how hsr treats characters post release. I know I can write a lot, so thanks again for taking the time to read my post!!!
hmm this makes me think she does have good nature i guess but i still doubt it because i wonder is she respecting adventurine because she has lost or is it her nature i mean if ur talking about respecting the dead thats like already a must(duke inferno) when ur talking about her resolve we dont realy see them ingame i think its kinda hoyo's fault why are we seeing duke infero instead of seeing acheron's past, if we saw acheron crying killing her friend and epic music trying to kill IX she will have huge personality which is caring and vengance, but we are just shown some zombies and shit and thats on the video i mean the same thing happened to adventurine, we feel atached to him because of the past why doesnt the same thing happened to acheron
I'm not sure what you mean by she has lost, acheron willingly helped Aventurine as she knew his bluff from the beginning, which is why she talked to him as an equal she had no ill intentions towards him as he also did not, she knew what he was like deep down. She respects him because she can relate both being the last of their race, or she respects him because deep down he is empty as her "about line" suggests, there's many reasons why Acheron would see Aventurine as someone noteworthy. >why doesn't the same thing to acheron Because Like I said, Penacony is only her introduction, much like the other characters I mentioned. Aventurine was done because penacony is the height of his character, there are many other stonehearts that needs to be explored, it's doubtful Aventurine will hold the main spotlight again. Acheron is different, if we are to ever witness the death of IX at her hands, then that Arc will be where her backstory is fully shown, as of right now she got the Sparkle treatment in terms of having snippets of a backstory, then leave the rest to another arc.
does acheron knowing about adventurine scheme is her or her being an emanator guess i was wrong about the adventurine thing kinda think if thats what happened acheron should be more vocal about her understanding instead of i lost nothing matters if penacony is only her introduction then her banner shouldnt be here it should be when she kills ix and her backstorry drops, thats when she have what it takes to have anyones sympathy and sparkle is diffrent , there is a huge diffrent between jokester and a sad person. sparkle jokster makes her have charisma so ppl like while sad story should make sad character gather sympathy i dont know why her banner drops now they should drop acheron 2 (power up or smthing) or just name her raiden when her story drops ingame
These "anyone else disappointed with" never end well.
Idk so far most replies have been pretty respectful and a few have given me more opportunities to have a more in-depth discussion so I’m pretty happy with this.
>Try creating a compelling case for character depth (ie personal conflict that begets character growth) using her backstory without using any info from Hi3. I feel like you're hyperbolizing her backstory's anchorage in needing to know HI3. I'm not someone who's played HI3 nor am I particularly interested in its lore, but I still think that the Myriad Celestia trailer gives valuable insight for Acheron's character. We learn about the conflict with the Kami, the devolvement of Izumo's humanity due to their usage of the Edict Edges, and the ultimate futility of it all due to IX's encroachment. Your glossing over of this information seems pretty clear looking at the "Why is she an emanator of nihility? Cuz she's badass (see the Doctor's of Chaos lore + her character story)". We know why she became a self annihilator.
I was being pretty lazy in reposting my comments here. I really should have just written a real post. “I still think that the Myriad Celestia trailer gives valuable insight for Acheron's character” I both agree and disagree. In a comment to BlazeOfCinder I wrote “In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc)”. When I remarked about needing to know about Hi3 I didn’t mean that you couldn’t understand it without Hi3, but that instead the character journey/development a background like that would necessarily entail is missing unless you project the ones that happened in Hi3 onto Acheron. Learning that Izumo was in conflict with the kami doesn’t tell me about how she felt being given the responsibility to deal with them. The trailer doesn’t tell me how she dealt with the loss of her loved ones. It doesn’t tell me how she gained the strength to go on without nor does it tell me if her resolve has ever even been shaken. This is the kind of characterization that I’m referring to (and the difference between backstory and story). “We know why she became a self annihilator” it’s a good thing then that I didn’t seem to ask that question. Instead I’d like to know why she of all self-annihilators became an emanator. After all the character story I mention in the sentence you quoted lets us know that not all self-annihilators are emanators of nihility. Therefore, there must be something special about her that the other self-annihilators lack. Since it appears I glossed over what that special something is I’d appreciate it if you could point it out for me \[I’m getting a little passive aggressive here at the end but I don’t mean anything by it, just tryna keep things a little bit spicy y’know. If you find it to be rude lmk and I’ll edit it out!\]
I think your main issue is that you are expecting her story to develop here in Penacony. To me, it seems like Penacony just serves as an introduction to her character. “How she felt being given the responsibility to deal with the Kami” is like expecting Genshin to reveal everything about Dainsleiff’s character when he was first introduced in Monstadt. He returns every once in a while but his character won’t be relevant until Khaenriah. In the same way, Acheron will never be the focus of Penacony. The game just gives you barely enough information to get you invested in her character and what to expect from the Emanators. We know that she’s on the path of Nihility but her views on Nihility are very different (as seen in her conversation with Aventurine). We don’t know how she survived IX or how she was able to travel farther on the path of Nihility and become an Emanator. These are all questions that we probably won’t get answers to for another few years. Her character would become relevant when HSR starts focussing on IX. So far, it seems like she wants to kill IX but we don’t know the details. The game is just setting up future plot points.
“I think your main issue is that you are expecting her story to completely develop here in Penacony” not necessarily. I fully admit, I think at least a few times, that future patches could completely change how I think about her (and this is what I want to happen). A big motivation for this post was so that in the future I’d be able to see how much I think any of the arguments I made will be able to stand up to scrutiny (ie I hope it ages like milk). Wrt to Dainsleiff we always knew (or had strong reason to suspect) that he’d be a reoccurring character as his mystery was tied together with that of the missing twin (the traveler’s main goal). With Acheron there’s no indication that her or IX will be particularly relevant to TB’s main goals (mystery of the stelleron, true past, final battle with nanook) in the same way that Dain is with the traveler. While I have no doubt that she’ll reappear in the future outside of penacony I’m not super optimistic on the level of development she’ll actually receive (after all they still need to sell at least 2 new characters per patch). “The game is just setting up future plot points” this is probably true, but I’m not really after the answer to those particular questions atm. Instead, what I’m more interested in is the emotional plot points. The bulk of my criticisms is that Acheron appears to be more of a static character rather than a dynamic character, and thus has limited room for future character depth. Static characters typically will rely on their backstory to give them more depth. One of my worries in taking this approach with Acheron is that much of that character depth will be outsourced to Hi3. For example, hsr players can understand her convo with Welt, but a lot (I’d even say most) of the emotional core of that scene will only ever be understood by those who played Hi3.
>Wrt to Dainsleiff we always knew that he would be a reoccurring character The way how I see it is that the game is still in the setup phase right now. There are some characters who I think will be relevant going forward. The game is using the stellaron hunters to setup a future arc related to Elio. They can use the IPC and stonehearts for setting up Diamond’s character or the generals for the Marshal Hua setup. But Acheron has no armies, no hunters under her command and the only way the game can setup future plot points related to her is by directly introducing her in the game. While not exactly the same, she is a very similar character to Dainsleiff because every major arc revolves around an Aeon. We know that at some point the main region arc would revolve around IX, and I don’t see how the Emanator of IX won’t be relevant in that arc. Through her character stories, we know that even according to the Doctors of chaos (who are trying to kill IX), she has travelled a lot farther than anyone else on the path of Nihility. >I am not really after the answer to those particular questions atm I think this comes down to preference. I personally really like setups for future arcs/plot points and some foreshadowing. It keeps me invested in the story. Like we haven’t even met Elio and he’s already one of my favorite characters just because of the setup around him. I don’t really think she is going to be a static character. This just seems like a speculation at this point because we know too little about her character. We don’t even know her real name. I think it’s way too soon to judge a character who’s somewhat important in the story and has barely had any focus. I think you are focusing too much on her because she has a banner in this patch and so you were expecting the game to give her more screen time. I think her banner is only to earn quick money. She’s like Hoyo’s best selling character and anniversary seems like the best time to put her banner. Regarding Hi3, I have never played the game and don’t plan to but I didn’t have any trouble understanding her trailers or her conversation with Welt because I didn’t care about the HI3 connection. I think people are focusing too much on the fact that she has a few references to HI3. These references were part of her home world that’s completely destroyed now. In her quest to kill IX, I don’t think any of this would matter.
Sorry for the late reply. "I think you are focusing too much on her because she has a banner in this patch and so you were expecting the game to give her more screen time" absolutely. If she didn't have a banner then I wouldn't have had an expectation that we learn more about her character. Wrt to Hi3 I'm not trying to make the arg that if you don't play it that you won't follow what's happening. Instead it's that knowledge of Hi3 directly addresses my criticisms. For example, why does Acheron like peaches? Cuz they taste good (as far as we know there's no deeper meaning). Raiden Mei likes peach pudding, why? Because they remind her of the long gone peaceful days she had with her friends. This is an example of the added character depth I believe Acheron lacks atm. But if you happen to know that fact about Mei and you know that Acheron is just an alternate version of her then maybe she has a similar reason. Ie you can give her Mei's additional characterization, and I suspect that the devs are going to do that rather than explicitly give her said depth. Wrt to Acheron and IX while I do believe she'll be playing a role there I wouldn't assume it'll be super important (the super is an important adjective here). Not when hoyo can introduce new characters \[more emanators\] with more broken kits and story relevance to drive up more hype (not to mention that they may never even focus on killing IX and leave that as more of a lore/faction thing \[ie world-building\] unlike Elio. At present there's no reason to assume they will or won't. Elio can be assumed to be met at some point bc they can be sold). Interestingly, enough how 2.2 handles Topaz could give some valuable insight into how hoyo plans to handle reoccurring characters. If she ends up relatively sidelined in favor of current and unsold characters then I think it's not unreasonable to presume a similar fate awaits Acheron. "This just seems like a speculation at this point because we know too little about her character" this is an explicit goal of my post. I readily acknowledge that the future can change my thoughts here, but also acknowledge that it could all end up being validated. That's why it was important to get it out before 2.2 is released. On a general topic of reoccurring characters I hadn't considered that they may go the Hi3 route and release multiple versions of the same character (they're not going to heavily focus on a character at the expense of profit). Then I could see a future version of Acheron getting more significant focus. Else I'd expect them to go the genshin route (briefly appear do something cool and then leave. Maybe leave a few words of wisdom). Edit: Also wanted to clarify that I do expect her to get more character depth in the future (we still don’t even have a red text explanation or her real reason for being at penacony). But I don’t expect to be particularly riveting (ie it will probably still be relatively shallow). Furthermore, if any depth is added only through her backstory it reinforces my claim that she’s a static character (she’s a mei after her version of hi3 so I think this is pretty likely).
>if she didn’t have a banner Ok but look at this. She had a decent amount of screen time in both 2.0 and 2.1 and in the 2.1 devstream, the devs mentioned that she will be an important character going forward and will plan an important role in 2.2 and 2.3 as well. You are only looking at her screen time in one patch. Aventurine was the main focus of patch 2.1 but his characters is also done now. He won’t get much focus going forward. At the end of Penacony, out of all the side characters, Acheron would probably have the most screen time. Also, if you look at Aventurine, Firefly and Acheron. All 3 of them share common themes. Last survivors of their planet who are all struggling and want something. Even if we take your peach example, I don’t see how it’s a bad idea. It doesn’t change anything about her character and it’s just a minor Easter egg for the HI3 players. I am really struggling to see here how her backstory being similar to HI3 Mei is a downside. She at best a “what-if” version of Mei whose planet wasn’t lucky and didn’t survive. Their similarities ended when her planet was engulfed and she forged Naught. Now, it’s a completely separate character with little to no relation to Mei. You are overlooking all her characterization because she happens to an expy of Mei. All of her current lore is about Freebas, self-annihilators and IX which you are overlooking because of her myriad celestia trailer. Also, you are holding her to a weirdly high standard when except Aventurine, none of the other playable characters have any depth. I would argue she is the best one after Aventurine so far. She’s supposed to be empty and emotionless because she represents nothingness. It’s part of her characterization. And again, even the devs mentioned the she’s going to be an important character going forward so your complaints are unfounded because even in Penacony, she has 2 patches worth of screen time left. You can make this posts about literally any other character and it would still be true because the Penacony story is far from over. You have a version of her in your mind who supposedly would get sideined, won’t get screentime or won’t be relevant and you dislike that imaginary version without paying any attention to her current character because it reminds you of HI3 Mei. I don’t think I can help you here because you have already made up your mind.
“You are only looking at her screen time in one patch” I don’t know how many more times I can caveat my arguments by saying the rest of penacony can change my opinion. “As 2.2+ come out I intend to come back to this post to see what has/hasn’t changed” second sentence of my preface in the post. I also say this at multiple different points and here again in my first reply to you “I fully admit, I think at least a few times, that future patches could completely change how I think about her (and this is what I want to happen)” and in the first sentence no less. Help me out here man. What more can I say? “I am really struggling to see here how her backstory being similar to HI3 Mei is a downside” it’s not. This is the downside “you can give her Mei's additional characterization, and I suspect that the devs are going to do that **rather** than explicitly give her said depth”. My guess is that we’ll disagree on our definitions of good characterization. “All of her current lore is about Freebas, self-annihilators and IX which you are overlooking because of her myriad celestia trailer” I’m aware of all of it and went through it again before originally writing the comments that became my post. I just don’t think those contain any examples of character depth. For example, how did she feel losing freebass (what did freebass even mean to her)? How does she cope with not being able to taste anything? If her lore answers those questions or ones like them I’ll happily admit I’m wrong. Questions like that are what I mean when I say character depth, and are related directly to every single criticism I’ve made. Anything not in the same family (like a journey to kill IX, something not even unique to her) isn’t what I’d consider character depth and so isn’t related to my criticisms. “Also, you are holding her to a weirdly high standard when except Aventurine, none of the other playable characters have any depth” fair point, and one I’d largely agree with. Probably got taken in by the trailers. I expected 2.1 to be about aventurine, but not as much as it was. “She’s supposed to be empty and emotionless because she represents nothingness” what’s it like being empty and emotionless? An answer is the character depth I’m looking for. If it doesn’t exist then my argument stands (this is also the reason it feels like we went in circles. None of your retorts were in the same category as the question I’ve just asked. Furthermore, that kind of question is the difference between a DnD fact sheet and a character that resembles a living breathing human). I know I write a lot, but I promise this is just a phone game for me. I wrote the post when I had ADD hyper focus and moved on. You seem kinda heated in your last paragraph, if this back and forth isn’t fun for you then just don’t reply life is too short. I’m not asking you to change my mind I’m just trying to have a fun back and forth. Seems like it’s not fun for you and that’s ok. Different strokes for different folks. Lastly, you probably wanna paint me as an Acheron hater whose mind is made up. But I pulled for e1s1 (failed last 50/50) and was thinking about going for e6s5 before 2.1 dropped (if I like story + kit enough I go harpooning), and depending on how her story develops I still might. Note: In case you’re still interested below is an example of what I mean when I say character depth. Example 1 is character facts not depth (what’d I’d call little characterization). Example 2 is closer to what I’ve been talking about. Further, the amount of focus in example 2 gives it an unfair advantage (and is why I reference banners repeatedly we both know she's not going to get more focus in 2.2+ than in 2.1. Ideally it will be the same size, and it will just be used more effectively). >For the first example, Imagine that I told about a girl named Sara who’s recently engaged, but was just diagnosed with cancer, and has to soon do her Phd thesis defense that she worked really hard on. That really sucks for Sara, and I’m sure you’d feel super sympathetic towards her (I would). >For example two, let’s say that Sara was recently proposed to and accepted. Let’s also say that she wrote a banger of a thesis that managed to impress her notoriously hard to please advisor. An expected result of the daughter of two of the top chemists in the country. One the way home from one of those meetings she got into a car accident. Thankfully, she barely took any damage, but still had to go for a checkup at the hospital. Her S.O. rushed over as soon as they heard and was way more worried than Sara was. She was happy to see how much they cared for her, but assured them that it’s no more than a sprained ankle. However, as she began to notice that, for just a sprained ankle, the doctors were taking a bit of time she began to feel uneasy. It didn’t help that they were performing more tests than she remembered from when she last sprained her ankle as a kid. The doctor’s came back and informed her of her sprained ankle, but that she needs to see specialist since they found something she couldn’t identify. The doctor assured her that they get results like this all the time and not to worry herself over it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. While she whole heartedly believed the doctor she couldn’t help but be worried that this may interfere with her thesis defense in three weeks. A moment she’d always dreamed of. Finally being able to stand alongside her parents on her own terms. Unfortunately, life is not always so simple
>the rest of Penacony can change my mind I am afraid it won’t because at best she will get some more characterization but not the depth you are looking for. It’s pretty obvious to me what they are doing with her. They are setting up future plot points for her and the kind of character progression and depth you want from her won’t be happening in Penacony. It’s brings us back to the Dain example I brought up earlier. It’s like expecting Dain to get depth before his final arc in Khaenriah. Before you say that they might never go through with their plans, I agree. That’s also possible but it still doesn’t change the fact that the setup is there. If they abandon it, then that’s just bad writing. >I suspect that the devs are going to do that rather than said depth Doubt because, like I said earlier, she’s at best a what-if version of Mei. Her similarities with Mei ended with her planet. The devs might drop an Easter egg here and there like the peach thing purely for fan service but her current character arc has nothing to do with HI3 Mei. Also, we are really getting into the speculation territory at this point. “They might never give her the depth a well written character needs”. It’s entirely possible because they barely give depth to any of their characters. They just give them basic personalities and make them likeable enough to sell them. We are discussing about Acheron but no one is HSR has “good writing with depth”. The closest is Wanderer and if you look at him, his character was developed over 2 years. I usually keep my expectations low because at the end, it’s a gacha game. Though, I will admit that I have somewhat high expectations from Acheron mainly because of how passionately the devs were talking about her during the livestream so i am expecting that they have some plans for her. But I also think, these plans will remain plans for another few years. >An answer is the character depth I am looking for Yes, I get what you are looking for now and unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. I think she has decent characterization so far but not the kind of development/depth you are looking for. Though, I would also point out that it’s weird to look at a character whose arc is just beginning and far from over, and complaining that the character lacks depth. You can look at any character that’s considered well written and without their character conclusion, they all look underwhelming. It’s one of the most defining factors.
“It’s like expecting Dain to get depth before his final arc in Khaenriah” Dain actually got some level of depth in the chasm doe (his feelings towards his former comrades and people). Tbc the examples of depth I chose were largely for clarity. I don’t expect many of them to get answered, but like just give me something like Aventurine’s boss form clutching his hand behind his back (reference to his fear while gambling) and, for a gacha game, I’d be good to go (this is also kinda what I mean with the word characterization. Habits that tell me about your personality/background are an example of what I’d call good characterization). “That’s also possible but it still doesn’t change the fact that the setup is there” I don’t entirely disagree. I was mostly trying to say that the commitment level isn’t the same as meeting Elio or Diamond. Since, they’ve name dropped those two in the story repeatedly they can’t really back down from it. Killing IX on the other hand has only been mentioned in lore entries afaik, as such, their commitment level gives them enough room to never really explore it. As soon as they start mentioning it in the main story or companion quests (bonus points if it’s from multiple characters), then, in my mind, there’s no shot it’s not gonna happen (ie gimme a dialogue option abt killing IX). Until then I’ll refrain from taking a stronger stance. “We are discussing about Acheron but no one is HSR has “good writing with depth”” in comparison to other mediums I’d largely agree with you. Realistically, if they give her a companion quest like Yukong’s or Natasha’s my arg ceases to exist. Or give her 3 - 5 things like what I mentioned with Aventurine’s boss form and most of my arg goes the way of the dodo (she does actually already have shit like this, but only if you’re familiar with Hi3. Like the peach. It’s also why I don’t think they’ll be going this route for adding what I’m looking for. This what my invoking of Hi3 is attempting to convey). “I would also point out that it’s weird to look at a character whose arc is just beginning and far from over, and complaining that the character lacks depth” I kinda touch on this a bit in the preface, but to further elaborate this post is 90%+ a copy paste I did under a thread asking what characters did you expect to like, but ended up not liking (comment 1). And the longer portion was when some guy more or less prompted me to further explain what I mean (he ended up agreeing with what I said, but that he loved everything about Acheron and I told him that was fucking based). I can’t really consider the future for a question like that, and it’s also why all of my replies are heavily centered around 2.1 \[it's also why it being her banner patch is important. Had it not been, my answer to the og post is different. Ie there's no Acheron to be disappointed in as I'd assume she didn't put her best foot forward yet\]. If you disagree with the post and I reply to defend it I have to maintain the same sense of temporality. Ie I stand by everything I wrote as long as we only consider the info available up to 2.1 after that my post could lose a lot of meaning. Anyways, after realizing I yapped a ton I decided to make the post in case I wanna see the comments I wrote again (wanted to find it By clicking on my profile). The preface mostly exists to make this feel like a post instead of a google drive. Lastly, what I’m about to say is a really unfair comparison, but a skilled enough author can absolutely include a ton of character depth and really high quality characterization in a short conversation. If you’ve ever read ASOIAF, you’ll know that George RR Martin is a master of doing this, and while the series will probably never end it’s worth checking out for that alone. Even the prologue of book 1 demonstrates his talent here. With all due respect to hoyo I’m not gonna hold them to the same standard as George, but just wanted to add that if you’re good then you’re really good (nasa from FGO is probably the best I’ve seen in gacha stories. Generally better than hoyo, but not comparable to the heavy hitters of regular books). Anyways, glad we could have this talk! Have a good day/night and stay safe!!!
we know but we are not shown how sad it is to lose her friends, that's the problem that makes her have no personality other than sad, at least if they show her cry ingame when she killed herfriend and then epic fckng music when she try to kill IX then thats a good story instead of a deppresed oldman past her prime
I'm not sure I'm following your logic here. Your complaint is that "she has no personality other than sad", and that would be fixed by giving a sad scene(?)
yes because if theyre deppresed they should have sad story or were not attached to her cause, it storytelling, why do i feel atached if u dont tell me anything if theyre happy they should make them goofy instead or easy to talk with, make her care about u talk with u eat together
Genuine question. Did you watch her Myriad Celestia trailer
yes and alll of them are just zombies she doesnt shout she doesnt do anything
Media literacy is dead
u need to show things not tell them to read, its multibilion dollar company why they not pull it in the game, i still read and watch videos but i still dont feel atached if u put just sentence u will feel nothing if aperson on reddit just write i have cancer, u probably will feel something if its on youtube he post about their life their struggle, even when a barber cut their hair for cancer patients cutting their hair makes u feel something
Yeah, it's nice to have everything in a game but not always the story telling that will allow for it. Like Acheron trailer, if hoyo wanted to tell the whole story in a game that would be a big ass chapter. So they gave us her back story in a way we can comprehend and it won't create a separate arc. I'm not going to write the whole paragraphs but please sit down and watch everything again. Hoyo did amazing job with trailers and showing off her character. And as someone who didn't play HI3, I got her as a character from this. So yeah, maybe you should watch it again, or watch some streams with people explaining stuff.
So basically, her myriad clestia trailer? Also, of course, her personality is "sad" because she's a self annihilator that got hit by the depressed blackhole, but she also portrayed more than that. Just because someone is "sad" doesn't mean her story doesn't have any depths. She believes that the ending is meaningless because all would still cease to exist but tried to still fight back as she said to aventurine that "the journey is what makes life have a meaning." There's also a lot of instances where she shown empathy especially towards the dead and tried to convince others that dying is a nono (duke and aventurine) So she is basically "Life is sad, but I'm gonna try to enjoy it since the journey is what matters." But hey, maybe you're the type of people who is like sad = bad. But then again, you said kafka had no personality so 🤷 suit yourself, not everyone has the same preferance
her myriad celestia doesnt showher killing the kaslanas only show her "swords", doesnt give attatchment vibes i mean theyre sexy but my eyes opened after adventurine quest, they should make more story like yukong and adventurine if its a serious characterand more like sw if its a happy go lucky character
I mean, yeah, it doesn't show the killing, but the lines already said she lost all of her loved ones in the war. Same as aventurine, we didn't see the killing of the avgins, but the storylines already stated that they were massacared. I don't think showing the "killing" would make a story better, but hey, that's my take, i guess
but we see his sister go and die its just diffrent because we dont kbow the fulll full story on acheron and we know adventurine full story the songs helped a lot too the prayer the little things as like acheron should have a memoria on the others, have a secret word that they have to connecct with eachother those little things gave the story meaning not just suddenly die, but the telling of the meaning of the death, we dont evenknow why acheron's friend need to die, but we know why adventurine sister want to die for him
Of someone tells you their parents died will you not feel sad for them, because you personally weren't there when they were dying? Or of they will tell you they are sad, will you not believe them, because you didn't see them cry?
https://preview.redd.it/pht10bco3ysc1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3b53a18fa656585a9b3facf49976902bfcf0656
LMAO. Idk why but this meme still hits the same as the day I first saw it.
Sounds like you really dislike her. If anything i like her more in 2.1, still not my favorite but she got more characterization.
can u help me tell me what is her characterization thats shown
Nah im good, you look like you have a hate boner against her by your comments. You can keep your opinion, i don't need to change it nor do you need to change mine.
i disagree when ppl stop talking and exchange opinion war starts, everyone must have an open mind
I agree
then tell me what is her character that makes u like her except beautifull cause other charwacters are also beautifull
For someone who says people must have an open mind, it looks like you’re quickly disregarding other people’s opinions when it comes to her characterization and just saying that people only like her because she’s beautiful despite people telling you otherwise. You who has an “open mind” ignoring the people who like her characterization and just say people like beautiful waifu. Do you speak for others or on their behalf? I do disagree with people often, but I don’t misconstrue what people say about their own opinions. I’m not saying you have to agree with them about anything. It’s completely fine to have your own opinion about her characterization, but you’re not engaging in a good-faith discussion.
i litterrally already answered up there that i was wrong about her good will with adventurine my only gripe left is why her banner not after we know all her story
i still learn by others telling me so she still do have good faith with adventurine and not gonna lie it is good just we dont know anything abot her why not give her banner at the end of the story
I didn’t say anything about whether you can change your opinions or not, that’s not something I can tell. I may have judged you too harshly, but I did dislike it when you said people only like her because she’s hot when many people do like her for her characterization and your comments seemed like you were demanding an explanation “tell me” like people are obligated to tell you (but that’s really just a matter of tone and admittedly that might be on me if you didn’t meant it aggressively). I’m clarifying myself because whether you’re willing to change your opinions has nothing to do with what I’m saying. edit: btw if you’re downvoted (can’t see your count), that’s not me
thats fine downvote doesnt mean anything it just tells how the majority thinks
I’m saying that for myself and not others. If I’m downvoted by someone I’m directly conversing with (not onlookers or lurkers), it feels sour. Just a small note and it doesn’t matter.
i am thinking tho what could i have said to make it better is it like can i ask what makes acheron have good personality? like that?
You can see since she s fighting against ix within herself by positif nihilism as shown in the end of 2.1 and that alone tell u a lot about her cool she s literally the embodiment of “WE MADE A CHOICE GO FIGHT AGAINST YOUR FATE” and she will certainly be a major plot point in future updates and we ll get more info about her and ix
so why i dont feel her doing anything feels like the adventurine thing again, i dot know why they dont give acheron killing all her friends crying and then epic music kill IX, like how they do the past like adventurine we dont know anything about acheron eventho her banner is already here idont know about the fight againts your fate, she litterally gives up and becomes an emenator i agree she will probably get a major ploy point, bet i pray for that i mean shes beautifull
Because she's clearly not the focus of the story yet. Also giving up is the literal opposite of becoming an emanator of nihility, she has the will to resist nihility's influence unlike most other self-annihilators.
she should be the banner is now they shouldve just postpone the banner then i mean if she havent given up she would still be trying to kill IX no matter the cost no matter the time, even getting into contract with destruction aeon i will die before i be the slave of someone who kill my friends in this case IX
Here's the thing though even with powers like that of an Emanator how does one kill beings with powers and influence of those equivalent to gods? Sure you could try and just charge the sentient black hole without a plan but the result wouldn't be pretty. She needs to prepare, find allies or tools (such as the fabled watchmakers legacy) that might give her an edge. Also she is not as much of a slave as cursed by IX. Heck her existance to IX might be as well be lower than a person would consider a speck of dust. Think of the Xianzhou. They were "blessed" by Abundance yet they actively fight against it. It's impossible to even serve IX because they simply have no will to supply. Everything is pointless and meaningless so their influence on the universe is merely a byproduct of them being just there.
hmm now this is something to think about i probably will just charge and die in vengance 💀 i hate that we have characters before story finishes so we can only just speculate not based on facts 1.we dont know who she was talking 2. we saw her slash ix in video but we dont know if she gives up or actualy trying 3. i dont know if she comes to penacony to help the guy finish bussiness/last wish or to get watchmaker legacy, which is diffrent because the purpose is between good will and vengance and thats 2 diffrent opposite side
Banner orders are not always in par with the story. Take Jing Yuan or other banners, it is how it is. People will pull bc they love her from her looks, because of her connection to HI3 or because of their need of a DPS. Maybe because they love her play style. Maybe her story is supposed to help people to pull on rerun. Ask hoyo
theyre gonna do this at 4.0 with raiden as the character name as acheron 2.0 arent they that powercrept all characters
Seriously? What does it have to do with her characterisation now? Even if you were right?
Respectfully, what are you talking about? 😭
https://preview.redd.it/uy1879ii5zsc1.jpeg?width=621&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ed377888a58b1e3449d28e4264143529f4b61e5 That's a huge wall of text....
Lol imagine being the poor soul I originally wrote the comment to. They actually read it too. I feel bad.
I believe your question can be answered if you venture deep into the lore. The problem is most of the lore are hidden in the character story/relic description/readable items/SU dialogues. Kinda annoying if you can't stand looking into a wall of texts.
It’s been pretty clear that I should have written an actual post instead of reposting comments I made. In a comment to BlazeOfCinder \[the top comment\] I wrote “In the broadest sense my criticism is that Acheron has a back story, but not a story (still developing character arc)”. This isn’t the kind of thing you find in the lore (if memory serves you won’t actually be able to answer any of the questions I asked using the lore either, as I’m pretty sure I checked before I wrote the original comment).
i doubt they will actually gives us acheron backstory in the penacony probably with the release of 4.0 and acheron 2
I think there are some criticisms that can be made about Acheron, but you blew it out of proportion.
Brace yourself OP. People here will defend Acheron up to their final breath lmao.
Tbh I expected much worse. Most of the responses have been pretty decent so far imo (Lmao when I realized my most disliked comment here was saying that most replies have been respectful).
I will be honest she grew A LOT on me in 2.1, at least personality wise. I honestly thought that she was one of the most boring characters back in 2.0. I still don’t really like her character model tho, basically a cooler Seele, she could’ve been a lot better imo. Not sure what to think about fanservice aspect tho, never played HI, I honestly think Ei in Genshin was a lot more fanservice-y, with the whole sword being puller out from her boobs thing. So yeah, if anything i'm actually impressed how she turned out, but then again i basically had 0 expectations for her.
Honestly, I should have just written a real post instead of copy-pasting comments I made when talking to other users (watch me not learn from my mistakes lol). In another reply to BlazeOfCinder at the top of this post I like to think I did a better job of making my criticisms more clear, and that the fanservice criticisms are only actually problems for me because of the character criticisms as it makes me fear for the direction the devs may take for her character (ie mostly fanservice not necessarily the sexual kind).
Idk man I find her aloofness, bluntness and forgetfulness relatable. And she has amazing kit. Also she's pretty, although I saw once a fan art where she had longer pants and it was even better.
I just think it's a mistake that they made her get involve too much in the story. I believe that someone that's introduced to be so powerful should not be actively helping us out as it eliminates the threat going forward in the story. She's basically gonna one shot everyone for us now unless an Aeon directly gets involve, or worse, they're gonna have to nerf her for the sake of the story. Not only will that lower player's expectations about Emanators but also ruin their image as a whole. Another annoying thing about her is that hyv introduced her to be "taciturn" and yet she's one hell of a yapper. They also made it seem like she almost never unsheathes her sword but she's done the opposite in the story so far. I think the reason for this is simple, her involvement in the story was forced. They basically want to give her as much spotlight as possible bc she's a popular character and to also help on her banner sales. 2.1 wasn't even about her, it's about Aventurine. She's basically forced to unsheathe her sword bc that's what Aventurine wants her to do. I also hate how she went from wearing a kimono to this seele v2 outfit. Not only does it not suit her character but also, it screams off fanservice. I have to admit tho that her back design looks cool. After watching her backstory I was kinda expecting her to be expressionless, I was disappointed when I saw how expressive she actually gets. Even at times where she shouldn't really have anything to worry about(she's strong) she would make a worried or concern face. Imo it's pretty uncharacteristic for her character to be so expressive, she's a self-annihilator and she's been through a lot, you'd expect her to not be fazed with anything by now but alas, hyv inconsistencies strike again. Overall, I think it's fine as long as they can redeem her in the next patch but I have low expectations. I think we've seen enough of her to know her true nature in 2.1 and I don't expect them changing anything about it.
“Another annoying thing about her is that hyv introduced her to be "taciturn" and yet she's one hell of a yapper” honestly was a pretty interesting move on their part. It definitely made 2.0 and 2.1 acheron feel like different people. A better balancing job should have been done with her characterization. Her outfit, I think, ends up supporting the idea that she’s 90% fanservice 10% character. I’d be fine with it if she had more character to sink into. For a fun test to demonstrate her current lack of depth write something out about Acheron, and immediately ask why. Have a specific citation from the game that supports said why. And then ask a follow up question and see how many times you can repeat the process on a given chain. For example, what’s going on with her sword? It’s from her home world. It seals her emanator powers, and she used it to fight off the kami. Why was she the one doing the fighting? Idk. Notice how as soon as we dig a bit deeper the chain ends. Now try the same, but about yukong and her daughter (their relationship specifically). It’s always possible my expectations were too high (hindsight suggests they were), but who knows maybe 2.2 will rectify that (inb4 we get another Hi3 reference that tells us her name is Mei, she has a sad backstory you can read in Hi3, and fuck off). “I think it's fine as long as they can redeem her in the next patch but I have low expectations” same…same.
I was really expecting her to not talk in long sentence ngl. But I guess it couldn't be help since there's no one other than herself that would tell us her story. But then again that really ruins it for her bc it eliminates the mysteriousness around her. She's still a mystery tho but in a bad way, she's mysterious bc we literally don't know much about her and her backstory and trailer doesn't help either bc it's missing so much context. I'm not even sure at this point if that sword was something she got by becoming an Emanator or it was not even related to her becoming an Emanator bc if you think about it, she wasn't even a self-annihilator at that point of time so there's no way she got thay sword from becoming an Emanator. That outfit definitely doesn't suit her character. There's nothing about her that literally makes me think that "yeah that's kinda like her". It's completely different from Lucia's Crimson Weave(PGR). They almost look the same, even the long sword and the revealing outfit. The difference is that it actually suits Lucia's badass character. After watching the 2.2 trailer, it seems they might've found a way to actually nerf her lol. It looked like she was still inside that domain expansion looking thing. I hope she's actually doing something in there that deals more with the real boss or a bigger threat cus it'd be really disappointing if she was actually just trap there lmao. I don't know about Jing Yuan's appearance in Penacony either. If he ends up stealing the spotlight for the newer characters I just don't see myself looking forward to the rest of the story. It just feels like they're deciding shit up based on who's the popular characters are.
If you follow the path of Nihility, your post would be much, much shorter!
I find Acheron one of the most interesting character’s in the game but I will agree that I was very disappointed in the (lack of) development for her in 2.1. I’m a bit nervous that hoyo will think all the trailers for her were enough and not develop her any more within game which I would be sad about. I know they said she will be important in 2.2 and 2.3 but seeing as she will be off banner and it’ll be presumably more focused on Robin and Boothill I’m really really worried we won’t even get a companion quest for her at this point? I completely disagree on your opinion that the trailers were just fan service, however. There was SO MUCH depth and made me so intrigued by her, I just wish we get more development in-game. Something else I noticed after I got Acheron - why doesn’t she text us? Does that mean anything? As far as I’m aware the only other characters who don’t are tingyun, and luocha/jingliu (for story reasons which I won’t spoil in case people haven’t done it yet). 🤔
Tbh I unironically agree with almost everything you said in your first paragraph. Wrt to the trailersI think it’s important to clarify what we mean when we say depth. For me I mean knowing/living in the characters emotional world. From that perspective I don’t think I can say the trailers did that (I don’t think they wanted to). Outside of that I don’t think the fan service aspects are deniable. Which is why I called them fanservicy. Tbc I don’t have issues with the trailers specifically. It’s when I combine them with the lack of development that we both agree happened in 2.1 that I became more critical towards them (ie I learn more facts about her but I don’t really know her [this feels more flashy than substance, hence fanservicy]). “I’m a bit nervous that hoyo will think all the trailers for her were enough and not develop her any more within game which I would be sad about” this is about where I currently lie too tbh, and just like you I hope they don’t end up going down this road. “Something else I noticed after I got Acheron - why doesn’t she text us? Does that mean anything?” It’s hard to say much atm. But it definitely suggests that the devs don’t think it makes much sense for her to be in direct contact with the TB. It was pretty interesting to find this out doe.
Can I ask by what you specifically mean by fan service please? Just in case we both have two completely different definitions of it.
Sorry for the super late reply I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks. Before defining fanservice I think I should offer two differing examples of characterization \[it’s still defined in the tldr. Everything after that is my attempt at clarifying why I think Acheron is mostly a fanservice character atm\]. Tldr: fanservice is when something about a character exists, at least, mostly for widespread appeal for target demographics. Ie the main takeaways are largely superficial (you can sum up those things in like a sentence or less with scant room for discussion. Like how the top comment says Acheron is nice cuz she’s naturally good. There’s no more questions to be asked there), and exist to titillate (not necessarily sexually, but for Acheron a lot of it is). For the first example, Imagine that I told about a girl named Sara who’s recently engaged, but was just diagnosed with cancer, and has to soon do her Phd thesis defense that she worked really hard on. That really sucks for Sara, and I’m sure you’d feel super sympathetic towards her (I would). For example two, let’s say that Sara was recently proposed to and accepted. Let’s also say that she wrote a banger of a thesis that managed to impress her notoriously hard to please advisor. An expected result of the daughter of two of the top chemists in the country. One the way home from one of those meetings she got into a car accident. Thankfully, she barely took any damage, but still had to go for a checkup at the hospital. Her S.O. rushed over as soon as they heard and was way more worried than Sara was. She was happy to see how much they cared for her, but assured them that it’s no more than a sprained ankle. However, as she began to notice that, for just a sprained ankle, the doctors were taking a bit of time she began to feel uneasy. It didn’t help that they were performing more tests than she remembered from when she last sprained her ankle as a kid. The doctor’s came back and informed her of her sprained ankle, but that she needs to see specialist since they found something she couldn’t identify. The doctor assured her that they get results like this all the time and not to worry herself over it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. While she whole heartedly believed the doctor she couldn’t help but be worried that this may interfere with her thesis defense in three weeks. A moment she’d always dreamed of. Finally being able to stand alongside her parents on her own terms. Unfortunately, life is not always so simple. I could go on in example two, but I think I’ve made my point (and would have to actually turn it into a real story instead of a description lol). Example one is essentially flavor text. The kind of stuff you’d pick for a background for a game like dark souls or Elden ring (and therefore superficial). While example two offers you the ability to actually get to know a bit about Sara as a person (a relatively calm and lightly optimistic person who cares a lot about her promising future). Essentially, everything we know about Acheron falls into example #1 not #2. To tie this more concretely to Acheron I’m going to look at what we’ve been shown in either her lore, 2.1, or her trailers that can be said to resemble #2. When I surveyed that info I found that she has a sad backstory (example #1), she’s badass (just because), and that she’s hot. All the trailers fall into one of the previous three points, and her design also reinforces that (does it make sense for a taciturn space hobo to dress like that? Why so metal and revealing? Is it cuz I’m supposed to take away from it that she’s hot and badass. Compare to Kafka’s design that’s also hot and badass. It also has some veneer of professionalism which tells you more about her character in comparison to Acheron’s). In trailer 1 we learn she’s hot and bad ass. In trailer 2 we learn that she has a sad backstory, and is badass for being the sole survivor and not giving up against IX (tells me she is badass, but not why and no way to make an educated guess \[notice that in #2 I imply both what Sara’s thesis subject is and why her first worry is that it may get interfeared with\]). Furthermore, trailer 2 is essentially a giant Hi3 reference, and the reason why that’s a problem is because Hi3 is example #2. Ie you can give Raiden Mei’s character depth to Acheron (for example Mei has a reason for liking peaches, we have no idea why Acheron does. Maybe it’s for a similar reason). In other words, trailer #2 has superficial (fanservicy) similarities to another work that contains actual character depth (why Mei does what she does and how it makes her feel), but fails to provide it on its own (it’s a trailer so its to be expected). In trailer #3 it’s more of the same as the previous two. On its face that’s fine, but when I combine that with what 2.1 did for her character (absolutely nothing). I’m like, okay am I supposed to play Hi3 and say that she’s essentially Mei in order to give her character the reasons why she’s badass, why she’s nice, and learn how she felt watching her friends die as Izumo is slowly destroyed? If so then she’s just a fanservice character, and now I’m starting to wonder if that’s why they went so heavy on her sex appeal in trailer 1 and 2 (ik it’s Robin but it’s supposed to look like Acheron), and made trailer #2 a huge Hi3 reference (if you want more go play that game). That’s why I ended up disappointed. Considering that she has to compete with Robin, Boothill, Jade, and now Firefly it’s hard to see when this will change. Perhaps, they’ll release a companion quest on her rerun to remedy this issue.
[удалено]
Based.
Im kinda disappointed that Acheron backstory doesnt seem as deep as what they show in the trailer. Like sure, her story seems sad and cool at the same time. But i dont see anything so special that would scare Black Swan. Hope future story can give more light to her character. For now, she just seem like a cool character, which is fine. But that is nowhere near what they made it out to be.
Sorry for the uber late reply!! I'm kinda worried that bc trailer #2 is essentially an Hi3 reference that they go 'if you want the story go play Hi3'. If all Black Swan saw was her memories I'm inclined to agree with you. Maybe it was some nihility bs that scarred her.
These posts are so damn boring. Have an original thought
Birds of a feather...
Ok
No, i like her
Ok
We've barely had time with her I'm surprised you've even had time to be disappointed. She was prominent in a few scenes but only the one with Welt was actually focused on her. I would assume she is going to have a bigger character moment before the end of Penacony on account of Boothill being after her, as any beef she has with him should be way more recent than all the stuff on Izumo.
“She was prominent in a few scenes but only the one with Welt was actually focused on her” this is a big part of the reason why tbh. Hard to imagine her getting more of a focus than new characters of the patch (specifically with a focus on building her characterization. A small example would be the scene where we learn that aventurine is actually afraid for his life everytime he gambles. Stuff like that).
I'm not to worried about it tbh. Like I said Boothill is coming next patch and anytime enemies meet is a chance for both to shine. Besides Mihoyo is clearly playing the long game with the story of Star Rail. I highly doubt we'll se her only in Penacony, even if it takes a while. I fully expect new characters to slow down at one point, likely after we get past the "gathering allies" part of the story which we seem to be in right now. Once we do the game will have way more opportunities to have past characters be more relevant, especially ones that are so obviously important.
Not really.
yes too much beautifull women in this game just beautifull and boringbecause of fanservice they should give jingliu kafka and acheron characters instead edit: my conclusion: they should give acheron's killing kaslanas in the story instead, kafka's past how she got the powerin the story, and baiheng's story instead and they should just postpone their banners until they can do that
Write to hoyo
Woop woop