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genshinnrambles · 8 months

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[4.0] some theories about the primordial sea

Neuvillete: There used to be a special sea on the surface of this planet. The nature of its seawater was rather different from that of the sea we know today...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the primordial sea since finishing the Archon Quest.

SPOILERS: This post presumes you’ve finished the Archon Quest but does not actually talk about the plot points of it. It does spoil a bit of Ancient Colors, the Melusine world quest that takes place in Elynas, as well as a bit of Ann of Narzissenkreuz. It also references some weapon ascension lore.

It didn’t click for me right away, but by now I’m sure a lot of you who have seen End of Evangelion recognized the similarities between the primordial seawater and LCL fluid, and you have also probably noticed the similarities between Rene and Jakob’s Big Plan™ and the Human Instrumentality Project (what is this, the fourth Human Instrumentality parallel so far?). If you haven’t seen End of Evangelion, or aren’t familiar with Eva in general, here’s the gist of what this reference means:

In Evangelion, humans are all descended from Lilith, who is the Second Angel to make contact with Earth. Humanity’s “original sin” is taking Earth from Adam, the First Angel who already existed on Earth before Lilith collided with it in what is known as the First Impact.

Specifically, humans arose from Lilith’s blood, a fluid they know as “LCL.” A shadowy organization named SEELE initiates the Human Instrumentality Project to attempt to “correct” humanity’s sin of existing, and it involves among many other things the union of all souls with both Lilith and Adam. Naturally, in practice this means everyone’s gotta dissolve into LCL and lose the forms that distinguish them as individuals, thereby ascending to a higher plane of existence and in effect “evolving” as a species. Sound a little familiar?

This brings us to theory #1: the primordial sea is…blood. Before dealing with the question of who or what the source of that blood could be, let’s look at some in-game support for this idea:

1. We already know and have seen multiple forms of life born from the wounds of higher beings in the game: the Melusines were born from the wounds on Elynas, and the Jinn were born from Nilotpala Lotuses that bloomed in pools of blood that gushed from the Goddess of Flowers’ body. What’s more, Jakob Ingold’s abyssal form likens the “water” running through Elynas’s body to blood as he attempts to wake up Elynas’s heart. So next time you swim through Elynas, double-check if you’re swimming through an artery!

Veleda: We Melusines were born of Elynas. So i’ve often been wondering – how did the first human in this world come to be?

2. This line from the weapon ascension material Wine Goblet of the Pristine Sea:

“Combining the immortal stone with the Ichor essence extracted from primordial water…”

“Ichor” being the blood-like fluid of a higher being. It’s not quite a smoking gun, the primordial sea could still be a mixture of ichor and something else, but it’s something to chew on for now.

3. This very suspicious panel from the Genshin Impact manga, which is Venti’s answer to Aether’s question of whether or not entering Celestia makes you a god:

While it’s not a perfect example for the point at hand, there is still the analogy of a higher being’s blood becoming the sea.

Now, for the “source” question…upon reflecting on just “who” or “what” this sea of blood could have come from, I’m unfortunately left with no satisfying possible candidates. The only creature I can think of that could be the likely source of the primordial sea, other than the Primordial One, is one of the dragon sovereigns, potentially the Dragon King Nibelung. But we know virtually nothing about Nibelung, and we know very little about Teyvat’s history during the time of the dragons. So it’s not that this theory isn’t possible, but it is very difficult to support it beyond mere conjecture based on what we currently know.

And what about the sea being the Primordial One’s blood? I’m not really convinced that it’s a good candidate for the primordial sea’s source if the sea is indeed blood. Instead, I want to take a slightly different approach by drawing attention to the repeated use of the phrase “amniotic fluid” to refer to the sea. I have counted it at least twice so far in-game, let me know if you’ve seen it elsewhere:

Ann, the little oceanid that seems to have some of Mary-Ann Guillotin’s memories, says she has seen “the primordial waters, the amniotic fluid of the world, and its placenta, devoured to the last.”

In the Nymphs Dream artifact set, the Fell-Dragon’s Monocle, it states: "The star-beasts shall drink the amniotic fluid of the world dry. A hundred years from then, all life on its surface shall be wiped away" (this example doesn’t explicitly say primordial sea, but coupled with the above example I will speculate that they are referring to the same thing).

And while amniotic fluid of some sort is present in many different kinds of animal gestation, including mammals, I did find the use of “amniotic fluid” to refer to the sea very interesting considering that the Primordial One is said to have hatched from an egg:

"On Phanes, or The Primordial One" The Primordial One may have been Phanes. It had wings and a crown, and was birthed from an egg, androgynous in nature. But for the world to be created, the egg's shell had to be broken. However, Phanes, the Primordial One, used the eggshell to separate the "universe" and the "microcosm of the world."

So, with some hesitation, theory #2: the primordial sea is from the amnion in the Primordial One’s egg? Assuming the egg hatched on Teyvat, it’s a possibility for a source at the very least? But there are lots of holes in this theory too. For example, Before Sun and Moon does not go into detail about how exactly humans were created, just that the Primordial One and one of its shades created them, including all the plants and animals (and I assume by this they mean new plants and animals, because we know from Apep that Teyvat already had elemental lifeforms before the Primordial One took the world from the sovereigns).

Personally, I am very skeptical of Before Sun and Moon’s Genesis story and would not regard it as a reliable source as far as the details go. The possibility that the primordial sea predates even the Primordial One is still very likely, especially given this line from the Broken Goblet of the Pristine Sea:

“Legend says that when the first usurper came to the primordial sea, the first sovereign gave him a goblet of water.”

I am assuming from the rest of this material’s context that “the first usurper” here does not refer to the Primordial One, but to Remus, the God King of Remuria, and as for the first sovereign…perhaps the Hydro Dragon, or Nibelung?

In any case, this is as far as I’ve gotten on the question of what the primordial sea is exactly. I’m not more partial to one theory over the other, so whether it’s a sea of blood, it came from the Primordial One’s egg, or it’s something completely different from that, I will only be surprised if the primordial sea was naturally occurring like the theorized primordial ooze that gave rise to life on our planet.

Concluding Thoughts

What do you know, a relatively shorter post from me! I still have a lot to say about the primordial sea, but going into it here would require going over all the extant Remuria lore and the Narzissenkreuz lore, and this is already a longer post than I intended it to be. With the questions of “what” and “from what” more or less handled, in Part 2 I want to talk about the “why.” Specifically, why are Fontainians born with sin? What does the prophecy mean? What the hell were Rene and Jakob doing, and were they onto something? Part 2 will be…much longer than this. But I hope there was something interesting in this, or it led you to better ideas. Thank you for reading, and also any thoughts and suggestions are welcome <3

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