One of the best parts of Genshin’s writing, in my opinion, is the way it structures and integrates its worldbuilding into the rest of the story. One of the many facets of Genshin’s worldbuilding is its use of stories and books, and the way it uses them is very very special. Our understanding of books in Genshin fundamentally changes with these lines from Nahida (and later Nicole), that I’ve added on slides 2-4. Let me explain it further. Yap time!!!!!!

In Genshin, there is a world tree called Irminsul, which acts as a data repository for the world, and essentially controls all the information in the world. And so when something is erased from Irminsul, like Rukkhadevata was, it vanishes from everything in the world. When she was wiped, Rukkhdadevata’s name not only vanished from the story and the memories of characters (except the Traveller), but also from the Folio of Foilage book series, item descriptions, and character voicelines. Her name remains only in the Eternal Oasis. Currently, the Heavenly Principles is in control of the Irminsul tree, and so technically controls all data. In order to hide information from them that they may not like, Nahida and Nicole state that truths are hidden in stories. 

This one piece of lore recontextualises every single book that has been released by Hoyo, and will be released in the future. They aren’t just mere stories. By analysing them for symbols and myths, we the players are able to extrapolate truths about the world. I’ll go into a few examples here. 

One of the books is called Vera’s Melancholy, the book on the first slide. It’s about a young girl called Vera, and how her melancholy over her boring life in Delphi (yes that Delphi) leads her to a life of adventure. At face value, it’s a simple coming of age story that references a lot of literature (Strugatsky, Shakespeare, Haruhi Suzumiya, Asimov, and Star Wars, to name a few). However the meaning of Vera’s Melancholy goes deeper than that. 

First of all, the characters within it provide archetypes which we are able to partially map onto characters within Genshin. Ofc there are no perfect matches; as Nahida says otherwise it would be too obvious. But we can see broad strokes of Vera’s coming of age, Princess Andro-Basilisks’ haughty facade, or Ike’s knowledge and love. A character being a “Vera” or a “Sachi” or an “Ike” isn’t too dissimilar from them fitting with tropes like the femme fatale or wise old man. This is the myths aspect. 

When we dive further into the story though, we’re also able to spot symbolic resonances. For example the story explains that Sachi, on his journey, loses an eye. The one-eyed motif is something that is MASSIVE in Genshin, encompassing a whole amount of lore, and Sachi only having one eye feed into our understanding of this. Or with Princess Andro Basilisks, Basilisk refers to the mythological serpent, and Genshin closely ties serpents with dragons (“are dragons and snakes not kin”), and so once more Princess Andro Basilisks participates in our understanding of dragon-kind and their interactions with humans (andro in her name relating to the word man).

There’s a ton more examples too, like Princess Mina of the Fallen Nation parallels the Abyss Sibling and Dainsleif’s journey, or Men of Lithin parallels Khaenri’ah. Nearly every book has parallels and symbols like this. 

What I think truly makes Genshin’s usage of books special is the meta-textuality of it. These books simultaneously exist within universe and for us to read out of universe. For example, Surtalogi (Skirk’s master) has canonically read Vera’s Melancholy, and he even quotes Ike, creating a relationship between the two characters. Or Arlecchino is told by Pierro to read Perinheri, a book that indirectly reveals truths about Khaenri’ah. 

Whilst these stories are interacted with by the characters in game, we the real people also interact with them too, and the writers of Genshin know this. Vera’s Melancholy mentions the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the Andromeda Galaxy, and even Delphi, from the Greek myths. These are things that we would understand, not characters in the video game. I’m going to illustrate this further using Flowers for Princess Fischl. 

In Flowers for Princess Fischl, the Immernachtreich (a magical kingdom) is threatened by a Gesamtkunstwerk. Gesamtkunstwerk comes from the philosophy of Richard Wagner, who stated that a Gesamtkunstwerk would be a piece of theatre that would be the truest form of art, stimulating all the senses. It becomes a wholly immersive experience. He released what he believed to be his Gesamtkunstwerk, an interpretation of the Nibelunglied called The Ring of Nibelung. And what do you know, Nibelung is a major character in Genshin. Note also that in other times we have seen the Immernachtreich, it has been threatened by a Tarasque, which are closely linked to dragons. Aka Genshin Nibelung. In the Immernachtreich in 2.8, we also see a play, and in FFPF we also see a playwright mentioned alongside the Gesamtkunstwerk (along with Zarathustra, weirdly enough). Ashikai breaks this down a lot better than I in this video [linked here.](https://youtu.be/vJsNlAMu1Co?is=UnBhKHfHe_vIYsK1)

Not only does this bit of information hold a lot of value to the internal lore of the game, but it also signals something to us. We are playing a video game with Genshin Impact, which is a media format that is incredibly and inherently immersive. Not only are our senses engaged, but our attention and focus too, since we are inside the story. In a way, Hoyo are positing that Genshin Impact is their Gesamtkunstwerk, their magnum opus (another incredibly important concept in Genshin in an alchemical sense), while also espousing the virtue of gaming as a storytelling medium. It’s egotistical and self praising, but also pretty brilliant double meaning, if you interpret it as so. 

If anyone actually wants to delve further into Genshin and its lore, I’d highly recommend looking into the books. They really explain a lot, even with a surface level understanding. There’s also a lot to be said about how these stories are linked to fate in Genshin, as the Irminsul also control fate, but that’s wayyy too long to easily cover. 

Genshin and its Use of Stories