You Are The Villain In This Story: Enkanomiya's Web of Lies
Think you're the hero saving Watatsumi Island? Think again. Enkanomiya isn't a fantasy quest—it's a masterclass in narrative manipulation, and you're the main character playing the villain.
In this post, I’m going to break down exactly how Enkanomiya pulls this off. We’ll go through the layers of misinformation—from the obvious lies fed to the Traveler to the deeper, hidden truths buried in item descriptions and environmental storytelling. I’ll show how the game makes complicit players into enforcers of a brutal system, all while leaving the real story right in the open for anyone paying attention.
This is why, when it comes to morally complex worldbuilding that actually respects your intelligence, Enkanomiya is still Genshin’s best.
So, one of Kokomi’s priestesses, Tsuyuko, sends us on a quest to unseal Enkanomiya and retrieve Bloodbranch Corals. These things are needed for a ritual called the Watatsumi Goryou Matsuri, which is meant to "counteract Holy Soil phenomena." In plain terms, "Holy Soil phenomena" is just a fancy way of saying the soil on Watatsumi Island sucks ass and can't grow food.
This creates a brutal cycle. They need the Bloodbranch Corals from Enkanomiya to revitalize the soil, but the effect doesn't last. The fertility slowly bleaches out until the land is useless again, forcing them to go back for more Corals. Watatsumi Island is fundamentally unable to sustain itself.
Naturally, this raises some big questions: Why does the soil suck so much? What are these Bloodbranch Corals? And why are they the only thing that can temporarily fix it?
At the start of the quest, Tsuyuko gives us the official legend: The depths of Enkanomiya are trying to absorb the very spirit of Watatsumi Island. This process bleaches and erodes the soil, turning it white and infertile. The ritual uses the corals to force those greedy Enkanomiya spirits back down into the ocean, temporarily halting the erosion.
As for the corals themselves, the story says they were created from Orobashi's own body. His noble sacrifice provided the power needed to suppress the Dragonheirs of the Depths.
For context, Orobashi is the great white serpent god who literally created Watatsumi Island. He led its people up from the sunken civilization of Enkanomiya to live on the surface and later died in a war with the Raiden Shogun. (we will expand on this later, believe me)
Enkanomiya’s entire theme is misdirection and the manipulation of information to shape a narrative, and it starts with this basic premise. The initial story we're fed is very clear: Enkanomiya and its dragons are the aggressors, leeching the life from the land. Orobashi is the heroic protector, who used parts of his own body to nobly suppress the evil and save his people. It's a classic, straightforward myth designed to justify the endless, desperate repetition of the ritual.
This narrative banks on two things: the player's existing trust in Watatsumi (they're our allies, so why would they lie?) and our ingrained familiarity with the "defeat the evil monster dragon to save the kingdom" fantasy trope. It's structured this way to obscure the reality from the player without ever technically lying to them—which is extra ironic, considering the game has already shown us that every time we hear about "evil dragons," like Dvalin and Azhdaha, it turns out they were never truly evil to begin with, just misunderstood, corrupted, or victimized.
This is where Enjou comes in. His entire role is to bring the theme of information manipulation to the forefront. He’s a walking, talking (and burning) illustration of how a clever asshole can frame a narrative to make you see white as black and black as white, all to manipulate you into doing what he wants.
His main rule? He doesn't technically lie. Everything he says is true, even when he's seemingly joking—like when he tells the Traveler, You never know what can happen in magic rituals, I could turn into a flame-throwing monster! Haha! He only lies by omission or by using leading questions. He constantly answers direct questions with his own questions to evade, or he hides the truth behind a joke.
For example, when the Traveler first arrives and asks who he is, he doesn't answer. Instead, he asks a question: Didn't they tell you there'd be a priest here to guide you? The Traveler says, Yeah, they did. Then Enjou says, Great! You can't be expected to learn a new language, haha! I'm here to help translate.
See what he did? He never said, "I am the priest." He asked a leading question that made the Traveler connect him to a trusted figure (the promised priest), then immediately redirected to his function ("I'll help translate"), which was technically true! He let the Traveler's own assumptions do the lying for him.
But here’s the fun part: despite all his screentime and how personally his betrayal stings, Enjou doesn’t actually affect the main quest. He genuinely does help the Traveler do everything the real priest was supposed to do. He guides us, and we successfully finish the mission. Enjou isn’t about the "what"—he’s about the "how." He’s there to teach players to look deeper into the seemingly obvious things we take for granted about the world, because there might be lies woven into the very foundation.
And crucially, he directs us where to look. He attacks us specifically because he guesses we found the book "Before Sun and Moon." That book was his real target all along. His reaction is a giant, flashing arrow for the player, signaling that this book isn't just another lore item, it's the key to everything. It was the biggest lore bomb in Genshin for a reason, and Enjou is the narrative device that makes sure we don't miss it. He’s the guy who points at the curtain and winks, right before he tries to set you on fire.
So, what does "Before Sun and Moon" actually tell us? It completely detonates the foundational myth Teyvat operates under.
The book reveals that Celestia are not the benevolent, original creators of this world. They're invaders. The true original sovereigns of Teyvat were the dragons. Celestia came from beyond, waged a war against the dragons, won, and then established a "Golden Age" for humanity—a civilization built on top of a genocide.
“When the eternal throne of the heavens came, the world was made anew. Then the true lord, the Primordial One, came forth and did battle against the seven terrifying sovereigns, dragon-lords of the old world. The Primordial One created shining shades of itself, and the number of these shades was four.”
“Forty winters entombed the flames, and forty summers churned the seas. The Seven Sovereigns were vanquished, and the seven nations submitted to the heavens. The Primordial One, the great sovereign, began the creation of heaven and earth for "our" sake — that of its creations which it cherished most, who would soon appear upon this earth.”
But then, another Descender (someone else from beyond Teyvat, like the Traveler) arrived and attacked Celestia. Their cataclysmic battle is what destroyed that first human golden age. Enkanomiya is literally what's left of one of those ancient cities that plummeted into the ocean depths during that conflict—it's Genshin's Atlantis, complete with the Greek-inspired aesthetics to drive the "ancient, lost advanced civilization" point home.
“The second throne of the heavens came, and war was rekindled, as it was in the world's creation. That day, the heavens collapsed and the earth was rent asunder. Our ancestors and their ancestral land fell into this place during that conflict. The era of darkness had begun. ”
Up until this moment in the game, Celestia's presentation has been pristine: heavenly, white, and ostensibly benevolent. This revelation shatters that image completely. They're not guardians; they're conquerors who rewrote history to paint themselves as divine saviors. And they don’t want the world to find out, to the point that anyone who reads this book must die.
Note that the description in Before Sun and Moon is very reverent to Celestia, as its written by people who worshipped the Primordial One, but even with that tone, as complimentary to Celestia as possible, Celestia still prohibits reading of that book due to the factual truth about the world initially belonging to dragons hidden in it.
From here, we have another twist in the accepted narrative. We were told Orobashi died in a war with the Raiden Shogun over territory and the conflict between Watatsumi and Narukami. That was a lie, a cover story for everyone's safety.
The truth is, Orobashi read "Before Sun and Moon." He learned the forbidden truth of the world. And because he did, Celestia issued a decree: he had to die. To protect his people in Enkanomiya from being utterly annihilated by Celestia's wrath, Orobashi made a deal. He deliberately provoked a war with the Raiden Shogun—a fight he knew he couldn't win and never intended to—sacrificing himself so that Celestia would be satisfied and leave his people alone.
Now, let's look at Orobashi himself. He wasn't always the god of Watatsumi; he was originally a white snake god from Liyue who fought in the Archon War, got his ass thoroughly kicked by Morax (because Zhongli was not fucking around back then), and fled across the sea to save his life. He ended up falling into the depths of Enkanomiya, where he laid, slowly healing from his wounds.
The people of the sunken city found him and asked him to be their god. He agreed, overthrew the brutal tyranny of the Sunchildren (a whole other fascinating story about propaganda and hidden truth), and became their ruler. Eventually, he led them to the surface and, using his power, created Watatsumi Island for them to live on out of his own coral.
This is the key. Orobashi’s whole thing is corals. His statues in Enkanomiya show him holding coral branches. He literally grew an island out of coral. Now, think about that logically for a second: are corals known for being fertile soil? Can you grow wheat and potatoes on a reef? No.
So let's rewind and look at our initial quest with this new context.
The legend said evil dragons were leeching the life force from Watatsumi, and Orobashi's Bloodbranch Corals were needed to "suppress" them. But what did we actually do in that quest?
We went down to Enkanomiya and unsealed a deep hole at the bottom of which were some trapped dragons.
We killed those dragons.
We took the Bloodbranch Corals from their dead bodies.
We brought those corals back to Watatsumi to "revitalize" the soil.
The logic of the legend immediately falls apart under the slightest scrutiny:
If the corals were suppressing the dragons, why are we killing the dragons and then taking the suppressing agent away? Shouldn't the corals stay down there to keep doing their job?
If the dragons were the problem, why didn't Orobashi just kill them himself centuries ago instead of creating a convoluted seal that requires a dangerous ritual to maintain?
How is the thing that is supposedly suppressing evil dragons “revitilize” the soil?
Where is the proof they were "leeching" anything? We never see it. We're just told they are.
It just doesn’t add up even if we believe the premise that the dragons are evil.
If we do Enka’s side quests and read the hidden research logs, we find the final, damning piece of the puzzle: hidden laboratories, where we find Bathysmal Vishap Experimental Records. And it reveals that the people of Enkanomiya, under Orobashi's orders, were not just researching vishaps—they were conducting straight-up torture and eugenics.
The logs are chillingly clinical:
They subjected vishaps to extreme environmental changes, including starvation, high and low temperatures, etc, noting how it altered their elemental expression and biology across generations.
They conducted intelligence tests and discovered, to their "astonishment," that vishaps are sentient beings capable of complex communication and learning, even capable of learning human language.
The researchers even express ethical concerns, writing, "We believe that these experiments should be stopped," and fear a prophecy that the Dragon Sovereign would be born in human form.
But they didn't stop. Because they had a direct order from Orobashi himself: the "Special Orders" logs detail attempts to graft Orobashi's coral onto the vishaps. The goal was to force a union between a being of the Human Realm (Orobashi and his coral) and a being of the Light Realm (the elemental vishaps). The initial attempts failed catastrophically, causing horrific rejection and adverse effects, until they finally "succeeded."
So, let's re-contextualize the entire cycle with this horrifying new information:
Dragons are original inhabitants of Teyvat, invaded by Celestia. Enkanomiya’s vishaps fled there after being displaced by humans, and then humans invaded their territory AGAIN, and now vishaps had nowhere to flee and so were attacking humans.
Orobashi's coral was surgically and magically implanted onto the vishaps to leech their innate elemental life force. The vishaps are kept trapped at the bottom of that deep hole from childhood so the parasitic corals can slowly drain them dry.
The Ritual is a Harvest. The "hero" who descends doesn't go down to "suppress" an evil. They go down to ** slaughter fattened livestock.** They kill the drained, tortured vishaps, rip the now life-force-saturated coral from their bodies, and bring it back to the surface.
The "Revitalization" is an injection of stolen life, because the barren coral island of Watatsumi cannot sustain itself. The only thing that temporarily fertilizes it is a massive infusion of pure elemental energy—energy stolen from the native vishaps.
Therefore, the initial legend is a complete and utter inversion. The dragons aren't "leeching" the spirit of Watatsumi; Watatsumi is leeching the life of the dragons. The entire myth was crafted to reframe a cycle of horrific, parasitic exploitation into a noble battle against darkness.
This is basically Omelas. The entire paradise of Watatsumi Island and its survival, is built on a foundation of unimaginable suffering. The beauty and peace on the surface are purchased with the perpetual torture of innocent beings in the dark below.Orobashi wasn't just a savior; he was a scientist-god who devised a brutal system to ensure his people's survival, forcing them to become perpetrators to avoid becoming victims themselves. It's propaganda of the highest order, and we, the players, completed the harvest without ever questioning the lie.
This is made brutally clear in the “Three Realms Gateway Offering” event, where we see the other side of the story: the dragons are conducting a rescue operation to save their people from that pit of torture.
The dialogue says it all:
Paimon: "It's Tsumi! Uh, what is she doing in front of the Dainichi Mikoshi?"
Tsumi: "Since you came back, I'm curious to know — did our rescue operation succeed?
"Paimon: "Some baby vishaps were rescued before we got there. But the old and weak vishaps went back in the water to hide after we defeated the elites."
Let's be real. How can you look at that—"Yeah, some BABIES got away while we were killing the people trying to rescue them, but the WEAK AND ELDERLY were too terrified to escape"—and still think you're the good guy here?
So what is Enkanomiya about?
It’s about manipulation. It’s about the hidden truths buried under the lies used to control what people believe. It’s a story about censorship and colonialism, plain and simple.
It’s about two sides of the same coin. To the people of Enkanomiya, Orobashi was a benevolent god—a savior who freed them from tyranny and died for them. To the dragons, he was a monster who authorized their torture and built a paradise on top of their suffering. Both are true. That’s the whole point.
The Celestia parallel is key. The name “Teyvat” translates to “ark,” and it’s pretty clear Celestia is playing the role of a twisted Noah—trying to save a remnant of humanity by giving them a new world. But just like Orobashi isn’t justified in torturing dragons for the sake of Watatsumi Island, Celestia isn’t justified in wiping out Teyvat’s native people just to make room for humans. Both actions ask the same ugly question: does one group’s survival require another’s extinction?
additional notes: it’s interesting that Orobashi is Liyue’s white snake god, bc we know of one white snake adepti from Liyue - Changsheng, Baizhu’s white adepti snake. Orobashi’s vassals are humans with snake vertical pupils - just like Baizhu. And Changsheng’s power is not strictly healing, it’s transfer of lifepower from one creature to another - Baizhu heals by transferring his own lifeforce to his patience, this is why he’s constantly sick. This is rhymes with Orobashi being unable to grant life, but able to steal it from the dragons.
also, I’m not going to go into it there, but the history of Enkanomiya’s Sunchildren is another super fascinating and tragic story about misinformation for political purposes and truth hidden underneath accepted narrative. All Enka side quests are really solid and fun, play around this theme, reference classic greek and roman myths and history, there’s so much cool worldbuilding, like everything in Enka having two name - original greek and then Japanese sounding one, to show the origins of Enka from unified golden age civilization inspired by Atlantis and then them trying to interact with Inazuma culture, its great, I recommend you look into it if you haven’t.
one part i like about isat is how siffrin likes the part of the loops where he has a script and knows exactly what to say to make people happy and like him. which is something that i don't relate to at all because i am normal
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