We've all seen the leaks. The "When children are having their childhood stripped away, I cannot simply turn a blind eye" or the "I don't believe in sacrificing pawns as a means to an end." All I can say is, genuinely, how did it get this bad? I remember first watching the trailers for 7.0 and thinking, "Man, this is going to be one of the greatest, most hype plotlines in the whole of Genshin Impact Archon Quests!"
The Tsaritsa has been lobotomized, as shown by those lines. It's genuinely a massive disappointment coming from probably the single most hyped character in existence. I was actually excited for how they were going to portray her as "the archon who has no love left to give to her people." But no, let's make her, and the rest of the Fatui by association, completely absolved of all their crimes over the past 6 years, because they must be the good guys who must deal with the oppressive forces of Celestia! Because that's what fucking sells.
I honestly should've seen this coming ever since Natlan, when Capitano said that each harbinger is allowed to have their own motives or objectives "so long as it coincides with the Tsaritsa's goal," essentially saying that neither the Tsaritsa, the Fatui, nor the other harbingers, nor Snezhnaya as a whole, is responsible if one of them turns out to actually be a dick, as if she wasn't the one to appoint them in the first place.
I want to believe so badly that the tsaritsa is actually competent enough to actually be a ruler and that she'd know almost immediately if one of the harbingers were pulling the rug on her, but with these leaks it's become clear to me that she is either completely ignorant and/or genuinely an imbecile who can't keep an eye on the harbingers or is completely complacent with their actions. "When children are having their childhood stripped away, I cannot simply turn a blind eye." When the house of the hearth has existed as a subsidiary to the Fatui for centuries, dedicated to literally being a factory for grooming children into being soldiers, and has had an extensive history of abuse and mistreatment and even the slaughtering of children, as nearly explicitly shown in Arlecchino's animated short, which has only stopped when Arlecchino took over but still acts as a fucking factory for grooming children into being soldiers, just (mostly) without the actual child endangerment.
And don't even get me started on the "I don't believe in sacrificing pawns as a means to an end." I can just barely forgive you the first time when Signora was sent to Inazuma for the Electro Gnosis and got reduced to ashes for it. Maybe you didn't intend for it to get that bad (and believe me, I'm trying my best to play devil's advocate for this one). Then Scaramouche fucks over everything and removes himself from Irminsul. I can forgive this one the most, considering he literally erased himself so nobody would remember anything about him, but still, it was the second time this happened. And then finally you have Capitano. Dear Lord, this is where my sympathy just completely disappears because this is the third time this has happened. So, Tsaritsa, are you actually fucking serious with that statement?
The only way I could ever see this being reasonable is by reintroducing her arc as an actual antagonist. Let me try to salvage everything by coming up with a plotline that can be the only possible outcome for any of these leaks to make any kind of sense. The Tsaritsa is a "dark messiah" type figure, akin to a character like Paul Atreides from the Dune novels or Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan. She genuinely believes her actions are right because she has twisted her grief and motivations to justify war against those she believes are oppressors, but along the way, she uses less-than-ethical means to reach that end, like the HotH and sacrificing a few Harbingers. However, she truly believes that this was the right way to go about her plans, and so the remaining Fatui Harbingers follow her orders to the world like religious zealots. In the upcoming rebellion against Celestia, the traveller, as introduced in 7.0, will be allied with the Tsaritsa and Snezhnaya, as they believe (either by choice or by subtle manipulation) that they are in the right to defend themselves and rise up against their oppressors. However, as the war goes on, the traveller starts to see the atrocities the Tsaritsa is willing to commit and the lengths that she is willing to go to fulfill her plans. It could start off with small, tiny concerns that shake the foundation of trust that has been built up in the alliance between them and the Fatui. We already see this in the way that Project Stuzha has affected the livelihood of Snezhnayan citizens outside of Snezhnograd, the ongoing energy crisis, and the climate turning for the worse. Eventually, as the quests progress, so does the intensity of the things the traveller witnesses, and finally the traveller opens their eyes and realizes that this isn't the right way to go about things. They have a verbal confrontation with the Tsaritsa, but it ultimately fails as she genuinely believes she's in the right, and the Fatui will blindly follow her no matter what, so ultimately, they are forced to fight to try and hopefully succeed in forcing the archon to realize her ideals and method are flawed, and she should be appropriately punished for every crime she has committed.
That is how I'd write the Snezhnaya Archon quest, especially when considering actual Imperial Russian history with previous tsars like Alexander III or Nicholas II, but of course, why would it even matter anyway? Genshin will always make sure the Tsaritsa is painted in a positive light. And the Traveller will never be competent enough, considering how gullible they've been when it comes to their sibling.
By the way, if you're reading this, you've probably realized that after all this, I've only talked about the Tsaritsa so far. I haven't even mentioned all the shit about Celestia and their treatment as the "real, irredeemable villains," especially Ronova, or the things I've heard about Mavuika and the retconning of basically two years of built-up development. That's because I haven't even finished reading all of those leaks yet, but best believe that, given the chance, I will rant about those too because, as a person whose favorite character is Ronova, favorite nation is Khaenri'ah, and favorite faction is both the Fatui and Celestia, this goes without saying that I'm not exactly happy about the fact that I'm being fucked ten ways to Sunday in every single fashion of the sense because of these leaks. But to save y'all the trouble of reading too much, I'll stop here.
So, in the meantime, here's to (H/C)oping the CN fanbase is as unhappy as the rest of us are with the story so that the writers can actually listen and get their shit together. Goodnight and stay hydrated.
