Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
Well over a year ago we had our first direct taste of the Hexenzirkel. Before then we'd gotten bits and pieces of information, mostly about Alice. Thanks to last year's Windblume though we learned that these witches could be major players in the story.
I'd say the first major piece of important information came from the cutscene where we heard the voice of Rhinedottir herself. Through her lines and the way she said them, we got a hint at her personality, how she viewed her actions and how the Hexenzirkel viewed her. The same goes for the other witches in that cutscene. Now though thanks to the book series we can collect, there's even more to tell.
Whoa. So in the new Imaginarium Theater (about time miHoYo!) we can find the book series The Little Witch and the Undying Fire. Each volume of these books has a little description about it and Vol.3's has a pretty interesting one. We know from what Dainsleif said in Bedtime Story that Rhinedottir is one of the Sinners of the Vinster King, powerful individuals infused with the Abyss who are directly responsible for the Cataclysm. For a while, people kept arguing against me about that, defending Rhinedottir like some poor unfortunate soul caught in the crossfire of Celestia's holy war. But besides being a direct cause of the chaos five hundred years ago we actually saw the fallout for the Khaenri'ahns. Chlothar for one was out of his mind. Dainsleif has memory lapses. Now it seems that even empowered by the Abyss, Rhinedottir also suffers these effects. (which should mean this extends to Surtalogi and Vedrfolnir as well) This is the first time we're hearing about this though. When Albedo told us about her he made her seem as fit as Alice and when we got the cutscene in Windblume, she sounded very civil in spite of what we already knew about Albedo's "birth." Back then her civility somewhat weakened my claims about her malevolence. Thankfully that's over and done with. Now we know she's not only directly responsible but also unstable and only has brief moments of lucidity.
Now that might tell us a little more about the Abyss Order. Back then I had believed that Rhinedottir would be its leader. She was the highest power we knew of back then and with our sibling being the prince(ss) it only made sense. However now we know Rhinedottir is also a pawn, one of five Power Rangers Sinners of the Vinster King. On top of that if she's lost her mind then I doubt she'd be fit for any leadership role in the Abyss Order. So it may be that the Vinster King Siegfried/Hermann will be the leader of the Abyss Order. He should be an avatar of the Void Realm which makes him the equivalent to the Descenders the avatars of the Light Realm.
As for Rhinedottir's state of mind is it any surprise that when we get to her volume all she can talk about is her precious alchemy and slaying "demon kings." That said, we do see her analytical side and her focus on transmutation which of course is a big part of the Magnum Opus she's still working on.
Another bombshell we got from Imaginarium is an allegory. We know from Inversion of Genesis that allegories have been used in Teyvat to prevent certain important memories from being manipulated. Here Wolfy tells us a very peculiar fairytale that feels blatantly allegorical.
The last line directly points us to Nicole the member of the Hexenzirkel who not only told us about our important role as the Witness, that we can only trust our own experiences as the rest of Teyvat can be changed, but also someone who isn't affected by the changes as well which is a feat so far only shared by the Descenders. I made my theory on who I think she is a long time ago and this only builds upon it. So let's dig in.
Wolfy tells us about a "Boar Tribe" that did bad things. They were then punished by placing parts of themselves onto scales which resulted in their transformation into lesser creatures. The ones that put their heads (as in their minds) onto those scales were reduced to brutes, keeping only their physical strength. Now what does that already remind you of? Brutes that lack any mental capacity. Like the hilichurls? The hilichurls might have been inspired by the Hylic type of people in Gnosticism, a group that knew no higher thought and were entirely material, thus incapable of achieving gnosis. So this "Boar Tribe" so far is Khaenri'ah, punished by being transformed into hilichurls. But that's not all is it? Another group from the Boar Tribe gave up their physical strength and were stuck "instinctively guiding people to treasure." So that's of course the Seelies and according to my theory they relate to the Archons who were of course also involved in Khaenri'ah. Or perhaps this allegory is about something else. After all we know it wasn't just the Khaenri'ahns that were turned into hilichurls. There's nothing to suggest this story couldn't be about a far earlier event, like the war between the Primordial One and the Second Who Came.
The important part then is Nicole. According to this allegory she tried to balance the scales and in the process "lost her voice." Based on my theory about her this is describing her task to retrieve the Genesis Pearl and guide humanity to their ascension which would uplift them beyond the Descenders and give them control over the fate of Teyvat. However she failed and Phanes locked her away inside of herself, forcing her body to sustain its Heavenly Principles. You could see this as her losing her voice. And this has changed only recently. "The keeper is fading away." We now know from Bedtime Story that the Cataclysm caused tremendous damage to Celestia as well, to the point that it's been dormant since that time. The Sustainer also took heavy damage which coupled with Celestia becoming dormant finally allowed Nicole to escape and speak to us in our minds just like Nahida had while she was held captive in the Surasthana.
Now what does the rest of that allegory mean? Well Wolfy wasted no time at all telling us exactly who "Madame Mage" his master is. At first I thought it was Alice because you know, cute woodland creatures as living stuffed animals screamed Klee's mom. But no, the one that created the Imaginarium Theater was Mona's master, Barbeloth. I talked about her too.
In Gnosticism, Barbelo is very high up on the pecking order. She was the first, the being that sprung out of the true God before that was even a thing. As a result, in some interpretations she even commands the Aeons. In others she facilitates in their creation. While I still don't believe that Barbeloth holds such a high position in Genshin, she could still be a being that played some role in carrying out Celestia's punishment of disobedient humans. Perhaps in Genshin's case the original punishment could have been worse and it was Barbeloth's intervention that saved the victims as immortal hilichurls or mentally disturbed immortals like Chlothar and Rhinedottir. It isn't exactly the best fate but it's a fate that can be challenged and perhaps even repealed.
On the other hand, you have to leave it to such an ancient being, her volume reads like a how to guide or textbook about fate. Her description of astrology is exactly what classic astrologists were trying to do in our world, believing the position of planetary bodies to have some kind of effect on us in our daily lives. What's more interesting is that she has provided a more real world explanation for the fake sky in Teyvat and that the Firmament cut off these true fates for humanity, establishing false ones that we saw back in Unreconciled Stars.
Also you have to love the nerdiness of miHoYo's devs. Imagine actually having a way to reconcile the Grand Unified Theory. I think there are actually scientists seeing if it can be done if they base it around the Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces rather than around Gravity or Electromagnetism. Leave it to Alice to say these random things along with casually saying a witch could make the Philosopher's Stone. Was that a jab at Rhinedottir?
We're also getting information on another witch that didn't make the cut back in Windblume. In the v4.3 we got a new Artifact Set Nighttime Whispers in the Echoing Woods. It told the story about a couple of kids that found a witch who was able to write them any fate they wanted. Even back then I think we all knew she'd be part of the Hexenzirkel but Alice didn't introduce her during Windblume. Actually there were theories about that as well.
Alice introduced only six witches but the cutscene showed both seven chairs in the image above and eight witch images in the Hexenzirkel stained glass window. Where are these witches? It could be that while they were all together during the time of Barbeloth's Imaginarium Theater, there was a falling out which resulted in the magical pen and ink bottle witch leaving for the woods. As the coven used to turn her fantasy realities into true realities, could it have been a disagreement over manipulating fate that caused the falling out? In that case could we encounter this renegade witch one day as she continues warping reality with her quill? Or could her ink bottle have been discovered and abused by someone and in the process of stopping them we find more information about the coven? Could this witch have fallen in with the Abyss Order and their Loom of Fate operations?
That leads me to the final part of this topic. I think the bitter and cold "volume" was written by this witch. The volume after that where the writer talks about continuing the series "with the present moment being what it is" is probably another departing witch and these two volumes hint at why there are only six members remaining.
As for the rest well we can see clearly that Alice, being the leader is also the writer of the first volume. This was her idea. Barbeloth then wrote the second volume and that's why there's such a heavy emphasis on both astrology and explaining things in technical details. Volume 3 as noted by Alice is written by Rhinedottir and again she focused on killing demon kings and her alchemy. With the shoutout to the Tsaritsa in the blurb and a focus on diplomacy, Volume 4 is likely written by our only Snezhnayan, I. Ivanova N. or "J" who is now also revealed to be a normal human and not a witch just like Andersdotter. This could explain why she has passed. Finally Volume 7 is noted as having two writers and we just happen to have two writers left, Andersdotter which makes sense because of the professionalism in the text but also Nicole who wrapped up the story with a positive message for the future as a guide would.
It wasn't the best endgame feature miHoYo could have come up with but at least we did learn more about the Hexenzirkel from it than we had previously from Venti's interactions with the coven. Let's recap this new information:
- Rhinedottir is now proven to be directly responsible for the Cataclysm.
- She also suffers the same curse that affects all Khaenri'ahns.
- There's more evidence suggesting Nicole is the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.
- Barbeloth might have played a role in Celestia's curses and the creation of the Sustainer.
- Astrology on Teyvat should also work like in our real world but the Heavenly Principles changed it, hence the fake sky and constellations being far closer than they should be.
- The witch from the Nighttime Whispers in the Echoing Woods seems to be referenced as the one with a pen and ink bottle that can create fates.
- It is likely this and the witch who wrote Volume 6 both left the Hexenzirkel which explains the missing witches from Windblume yet one additional chair still being present at the table. The pen and ink witch was removed from the coven while the Vol.6 witch only misses their gatherings.
- The writers of the volumes should be as follows: Alice Vol.1, Barbeloth Vol.2, Rhinedottir Vol.3, I. Ivanovna N. Vol.4, Nighttime Whispers witch Vol.5, Wandering witch Vol.6 and finally Vol.7 was written by both Andersdotter and Nicole.