The Bleeding Moon and the Burning Tree
That title is way too serious for what you’re about to read, I apologise in advance. I swear this actually makes sense, but I am high on Christmas cake. Hope you have fun with it, though!
Grab your cat ears, here we go.
I was drawn here by a thread questioning the reason for Arlecchino’s ill-timed glitches (I swear she always starts doing that while I’m trying to take a cute picture and turns the whole thing into Mickey Mouse’s House of Horrors), and I thought, why not share my theory so you guys can tell me I need to lay off Arlecchino’s crimson fumes.
I’ve also just rewatched Anastasia and… yeah. That unlocked a few thoughts about Arlecchino that never quite made sense to me, and before I knew it I was buckled into a window seat on the conspiracy train, CHOO-CHOO!
Before I get derailed any further, let’s start with the conclusion - because I do have one, I swear - which is this:
The Crimson Moon, aka what remains of the Iridescent Moon fused with the Abyss, is the source of Forbidden Knowledge. Forbidden Knowledge is the knowledge the Voyager and the First Angel intended to share with humanity.
As we know (because Columbina told us, thank you Bina), the Iridescent Moon is already a part of who Arlecchino is - by blood. She can wield its power and even host its marrow because she descends directly from it. This sounds great on paper, but of course there's a catch and every time Arlecchino draws too deeply on her power, the Abyss pulls back and starts siphoning her soul in return, blackening her arms.
Yes. Her limbs. We will be coming back to that. Please clap.
{This corruption also spikes under strong emotional stress - specifically grief. In her animated short, the spider’s death triggers the curse; then Clervie’s death does; then simply remembering Clervie’s death does. I’m going out on a limb here (ha) and saying this feels almost exclusively grief-related, but I am not opening the Ronova Box today!}
How Arlecchino ended up with the Fatui remains a mystery and feels like more than coincidence, especially considering what the Great Tsaritsa Masterplan ensues and the fact that Pierro himself “expressed surprise that the Crimson Moon bloodline had not gone extinct, and that, in a strange twist of fate, the House of the Hearth had ended up in the hands of an orphan of that lineage once again.”
Which immediately raises the question: why did the Fatui need an orphanage like that in the first place, and why do they suddenly stop needing it once Arlecchino becomes a Harbinger? Who is lying here, Pierro. WHY.
This seemingly - yep, I don’t trust this man - confirms that Pierro believed the bloodline was extinct. And for good reason: the Vinster King was actively persecuting every last remnant of it. He even had a special squad dedicated to ensuring none survived, with Rerir as one of his hand-picked assassins. During our tour through this one’s deeply unhinged psyche, we meet Orlog, a Crimson Moon child who accuses the Vinster King of being a pathetic loser blinded by “powers from beyond this world". We also learn the King was advised by a so-called mad stranger - whom, for narrative convenience, we will absolutely call Rasputin.
Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with Irminsul, and you’d be right - I did get distracted - but the lore backs me up anyway. The Vinster King is King Irmin, and Rerir outright calls him Irminsul. Orlog calls him unworthy of the throne because he's a hater but also because he might know more than we do about what it takes to be a king down in good old Khaenriah.
From here, I want to draw the conclusion that the throne is the silver tree itself. Every king of Khaenriah is the Irminsul. And the Vinster King usurped a throne that was never meant for him.
“[…] the king of humanity should take upon himself the name of the Crimson Moon, and by the light and flame of two worlds judge fickle fate”
— Crimson Moon’s Semblance, aka Drippy Deathstick’s extremely confusing lore
Once we establish this, the step between the Irminsul and the Crimson Moon becomes so small they start overlapping. {Insert Pam from The Office saying “They’re the same picture.”}
When we retrieve the Iridescent Moon’s marrow with Columbina, the voice within it - Sonnett, the Iridescent Moon goddess - describes her death as being torn apart limb by limb. Horrifying, yes, but stay with me. Think of limbs as branches. Branches that can be planted to grow a new tree that is functionally the same tree it came from.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s literally what Rukkhadevata did with Nahida. And guess who she was? The avatar of the Irminsul.
The Irminsul itself is based on Yggdrasil, which - oversimplifying wildly for my own mental health - is a tree connecting three realms. In Genshin, these appear to be Khaenriah (Hell), Teyvat (Purgatory), and Celestia (Heaven). Each plane has its own “King Irmin.”
In Teyvat, that role now belongs to the Dendro Archon.
In Khaenriah, it was meant for the Crimson Moon King.
And in Celestia, we can assume that the HP usurped that title because that’s their favourite hobby.
However, speaking of usurped titles and properties, we can establish the Irminsul as Nibelung’s original model. In a way, Nibelung himself *was* the World Tree. And when Nibelung left Teyvat, the system didn’t vanish. The role of Irminsul passed to the Three Moon Sisters.
Three planes. Three moons. One tree.
Iridescent Moon below, Frostmoon guarding Teyvat, Eternal Moon above. These planes are kept separated, and so is the knowledge stored in each plane. The goddesses function as a bridge between the spaces (Eternity really is closest to the Heavenly Principles, huh).
When the priest in the Finale of the Deep Galleries tells the “unknown youth” to plead humanity’s case beneath the ashen-silver tree, the boy ventures into the deepest recesses of the earth and meets the first angel beneath the silver tree in the far north - a frozen land. If that sounds odd, remember that Hell is frozen solid at its center in Dante’s Divina Commedia. And yes, the achievement for discovering the door to Khaenriah is a Dante reference. This game is not subtle. Like, at all.
So before Khaenriah there once was a frozen wasteland (like Snezhnaya). The site of rebellion (like Snezhnaya). The place where the first angel and the Voyager met (uh.. Let me know if you’d like my next deranged thread to be about the Tsaritsa being literally Koitar). The place where the Iridescent Moon died. And the star-eyed Voyager shares that particular trait with Khaenriahns, whose royal bloodline also carries the blood of a literal moon.
That's all Very Interesting.
I’m starting to think Miss Iridescent was more involved in this plot than we’re led to believe. I think she sealed the Forbidden Knowledge the Voyager and the First Angel wanted to share with humanity. The plan failed (OR DID IT!?), the Moon shattered - but the knowledge remained sealed within her. And within her bloodline. Tainted with a little Abyss, sure, but it’s still there.
So why didn’t the Crimson King(s) succeed? Because every attempt failed the same way. The priests (RA-RA-RASPUTIN) muddied the King’s mind, pushing him toward seizing Abyssal power instead of channeling the Moon’s will (to use the damn Forbidden Knowledge). Heck, they even built an Orphanage For Descenders Who Could Seize the Power of the Abyss! This led to a coup, the dynasty’s collapse, and another dynasty (the Eclipse dynasty, these guys are so funny) and a pathetic loser of a King who, guess what, was advised by a mad monk (LOVER OF THE RUSSIAN QUEEN) - and once he fell, the Alberichs took over as regents.
And these guys - no offense, Kaeya and Anfortas, the only Valid Alberich Men - ALSO messed with the Abyss. I cannot. Why is everyone obsessed with using Descenders as Abyss sponges when THEY HAVE A LITERAL MOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The reason Khaenriah never had a "true" Irmin king is simple: these guys sucked, proving that royal blood is not enough. Channeling the will of the Crimson Moon is what makes you King. And none of them did that. They were too busy chasing the Purple Shit.
Arlecchino rolls up in her spider-mobile with her Cool Crimson Powers about a thousand years later, at just the right time. No notes, no explanations. And then she goes and does The Thing - she ACTUALLY becomes a king, through the Orphanage Hunger Games, pretty much a blood ritual. And then she burns away her fate by channeling the will of the House’s children (rip Clervie, teach the angels how to train your moon sister) to blow up Mother Dearest who is representing the HP in this one, guys. She even briefly holds the Iridescent Moon’s marrow (she’ll get it back, we’re so jumping Dottore). Like. She's just missing the throne. Maybe someone even usurped it *stares at the list of candidates including Rerir and Ronova both*
But what does the Crimson Moon want? To burn the old world and witness a new dawn. And how might she do that, you ask? By releasing Forbidden Knowledge and burning the Irminsul from the inside out. Hah, take this, Dottore. You’re not that original.
And this is where Arlecchino stops being just a Crimson Aura Farmer and becomes something far more dangerous. Or useful, it really depends on how you’re looking at this. The flames of the Crimson Moon don’t just burn memories (intended as both storing and deleting them) - they connect. Through her blood and power, Arlecchino acts as a bridge between two worlds: Khaenriah and Teyvat. The system really didn’t plan for her, no wonder she’s glitching all over the place.
And that’s when it hit me.
She is the last scion of a frozen kingdom led astray by a mad priest obsessed with the Abyss.
She’s Anastasia, guys. She’s literally Anastasia Romanov traveling through time. TSARITSA YOU ARE SUS AF IS YOUR NAME EVEN ANASTASYA
At this point I’ve completely lost track of what I was trying to say, but that feels on-brand. The actual point is this: Arlecchino glitches because she defies Teyvat’s logic. She carries Forbidden Knowledge sealed within the Iridescent Moon, can burn memories out of existence, and crosses boundaries the system was designed to keep separate.
She isn’t a bug. She’s a bypass.
That’s the theory. Now I’m going to sleep.
Posted Dec 29, 2025, 3:07 AM UTC