Hi! I just stumbled upon your tumblr!
I have this rather unpopular and controversial opinion about Scaramouche. I feel like 3.3 has pictured him way too dramatic and too much of a victim so that people will feel simpathy for him.
The 3.3 events don't make me feel sympathy for him because Scaramouche joined the fatui willingly based on the Husk of Opulent Dreams set.
The set also states that Scaramouche is not affected by rain, nor does he breathe, which made me think that he doesn't....exactly feel pain? Yet there's a ton of audio lines that hint how he went through a lot of torture back when Dottore experimented on him.
When Scaramouche joined the Fatui, he was seated as a Harbinger, aka a high diplomatic position, had his own subordinates, and probably had access to travelling and many other comodities. It's not like he was a simple labrat similar to Collei.
Collei was kept in a dark cell, treated like a dog, forced through injections to go through the human enhancing experiment, and hunted down like a rabid animal throughout the manga.
Scaramouche was being sent into the abyss constantly, from which he would return and then go directly to Dottore to patch him up. If he felt like he was suffering from those experiments, and disliked the fatui, why not escape or ....end himself through the abyss?
A lot of people kept blaming Dottore for his baggage but it seems to me that there were a lot more factors in play here. Scaramouche was damaged by Ei, then Dottore, then by human nature (with the sick kid dying), then ultimately, himself.
What's your take on how Scaramouche was handled in the 3.3 archon quest? Do you think that there was an obvious writing tactic in making Scaramouche symapthetic so as to influence players into pulling for him? Sorry if you have already talked about this and excuse me if I may rustle some feathers from what I have wrote, in case you're a Scaramouche fan.
Hi anon and welcome! And sorry for the belated response, life is. Yeah. Never fear, Genshin's writing is so Like That that I'm absolutely fine tearing even the characters I DO like to shreds, and Scaramouche is definitely not one of those.
One, I like how we all still expect Genshin to have like, an aesop, a theme, a thesis statement to make in regard to its characters and stories. When, realistically, it has never managed to convey such a thing cohesively. Not even once.
Two, “Genshin set out very explicit building blocks for a story that seemed SO obvious even a child could see what was going to happen” ......I’m so sorry, but tbh I never noticed any of this Kazuha-Scaramouche foiling until you brought it up. To be fair, I tried to pay as little attention to Kazuh as possible...
EVERY TIME I think “oh this is the bare minimum of character writing” Genshin doesn’t manage to meet it! It’s astounding! “Themes are for 8th grade book reports!”, the videogame.
Also, I forgive you... you (intelligently) didn't do Kazuha's quest for ages... which, after the headache-inducing Iradori Festival which I kinda figured was just lipservice to justify the two NOT meeting, was kind of the “oh! they’re actually going to do it!” lightbulb moment for me
and then they didn’t do it, so, guess I’M the idiot
Thanks for replying! No worries I understand that eveyone has their own life problems.
I understand why you’d feel annoyed with the way people keep talking about Scara’s writing. I was and to some extent still am.
There’s been some negative takes on reddit back when the patch got released. Though other than that, I haven’t seen critisism much. People probably went “eh, typical mihoyo writing” and moved on?
A friend who likes Scara said that the plot made sense as his whole 3.3 quest was a reference to buddhism, and how, through irminsul, he was reborn. Which I can understand, but still, the entire quest felt very rushed and weirdly...boring? compared to how the archon quests 3.0-3.2 were written. It’s like they regressed back to Inazuma-tier writing.
Why didn’t we speak to Ayato or Kazuha when we explored Inazuma and see the consequences of Scara’s Irminsul erasure? Because they didn’t want to pay their more expensive VA’s? So we’re limited to wall-of-text-tell-not-show npc’s?
Why didn’t we get more flashbacks of his life other than his betrayals and Dottore plotting Niwa’s death? Like, scenes from his time with the Fatui. Or some scenes where Dottore experiments on him, or how he interacts with some of the harbingers.
Anyway, I’ll stop being negative in my post and look on the bright side.
Even though Scaramouche’s writing wasn’t stellar, Mihoyo did evolve when it comes to building up a character and spending time on them. Was there any character in Genshin other than Scaramouche that got 3 patches worth of build-up and character development? Maybe Xiao? But his build-up happened just in 2.7ish, I think. And maybe the Liyue festivals too? Though I didn’t feel as though they were.
Let’s say that the Archons were sort of given some kind of personal quests, but they seem rather filler to me rather than building any relevant character development. Yet Scaramouche wasn’t even archon yet still got a ton of screentime and build-up. He was a harbinger and the first out of known 4 (Childe, Signora, Scara, Dottore) that time on his character was spent on which wasn’t shoehorned into just artifacts.
As for the Kazuha/Scaramouche relationship stuff, when I first played trough the 2.6? event, I felt as though Kazuha should’ve been left with some kind of beef or at least some kind of closure in regards to Scaramouche. But he ends up being so calm and forgiving about it, which is very....*boring*. Scaramouche’s audio about Kazuha feels as though they might meet, as he seems to have a rather good opinion of Kazuha (if laughing uncontrollably can mean a good opinion). But that is definitely going to happen in some Inazuma festival event, and they’ll just exchange a few words after which Scaramouche will snicker silently “Oh so this is the almighty Kazuha, haha”. And that’s that.
Hm...
Why didn’t we speak to Ayato or Kazuha when we explored Inazuma and see the consequences of Scara’s Irminsul erasure?
Because they don’t want to acknowledge that Scaramouche did harm, especially to characters we might care about.
imo, it’s that simple. It’s the same principle why we don’t talk to Ei about the civil war or Kazuha’s dead friend or anything else. She returns the Visions off screen, and after that, let’s talk to some dead NPCs from 500 years ago.
Why didn’t we get more flashbacks of his life other than his betrayals and Dottore plotting Niwa’s death? Like, scenes from his time with the Fatui. Or some scenes where Dottore experiments on him, or how he interacts with some of the harbingers.
We can’t show the harbingers because they haven’t been finalized yet. Genshin isn’t working from some grand master plan, they don’t know what the harbingers they haven’t shown are going to be really like and they certainly don’t have models for them. (Yes, I know the trailer exists, but it’s very basic in regard to them, easy to retcon later.)
Aside from that, because that would be emotionally-focused character writing, and Genshin isn’t particularly interested in that. It’s a single monologue over a 2D animation, or nothing.
Was there any character in Genshin other than Scaramouche that got 3 patches worth of build-up and character development?
This one is easy. First, Kazuha. Prelude, Archon quest, Irodori, GAA 2 + his story quest, there’s at least 4 patches in there.
Second, indeed Xiao. Archon quest, story quest + Lantern Rite ‘21, then Perilous Trail, and now Lantern Rite ‘23 which has him follow up on the idea of needing to interact with more people. That’s 4 patches as well.
Third, Albedo. First Dragonspine event + his story quest, GAA, second Dragonspine event, now also Windblume 2. His “arc” is handled so shoddily you might not even notice it’s there, but he’s supposed to have grown as a character (off screen).
Also, Nahida, Dehya, Cyno, Alhaitham all qualify easily just by virtue of the Sumeru Archon quest needing 3 patches to release in full, but that’s more a technicality.
Let’s say that the Archons were sort of given some kind of personal quests, but they seem rather filler to me rather than building any relevant character development.
Ei chapter 1 I can concede, but Ei chapter 2 is one of the most important quests so far, if only because it introduces Ishtaroth, gives the Sakura tree backstory AND lifts Sakoku. It’s also massive development for Ei’s character.
Yet Scaramouche wasn’t even archon yet still got a ton of screentime and build-up. He was a harbinger and the first out of known 4 (Childe, Signora, Scara, Dottore) that time on his character was spent on which wasn’t shoehorned into just artifacts.
I’m not sure how much this counts for, since Dottore is clearly set up to be dealt with later, so we’ve only really “dealt with” 3 Harbingers total. Scaramouche got more than Signora and Childe, sure. But Childe isn’t even out of the game yet, so...
Scaramouche’s audio about Kazuha feels as though they might meet, as he seems to have a rather good opinion of Kazuha (if laughing uncontrollably can mean a good opinion). But that is definitely going to happen in some Inazuma festival event, and they’ll just exchange a few words after which Scaramouche will snicker silently “Oh so this is the almighty Kazuha, haha”. And that’s that.
tbh I have doubts Scaramouche will ever feature in Inazuma events, given that he’s functionally a Sumeru character now. He’s featuring in the upcoming 3.6 Sumeru event as a Darshan representative, so.... yeah.
For the 1st quote: Hmm yeah I can see that using Ayato or Kazuha might further a negative opinion of Scaramouche compared to an unknowing random npc.
For the 2nd quote: Plausible. The way they keep adding new tidbits of lore yet not enough to be relevant makes sense with the fact that they just...didn't think it through yet, same with the harbinger designs.
For the 3rd quote: Scaramouche was given a focus in an event in 1.1, in AQ 2.1, in an event in 2.6 and then ultimately 3.1-3.3. Kazuha got his own focus in AQ 2.1, his own personal quest, and two events.
But the problem (imo) with Kazuha is that his story was basically repeated 3 separate times aka his story quest, the 2.6 and 2.8 events, that don't make me feel as though he was given any character development.
Kazuha seems like a very complete character to me. As in, he doesn't seem to need any character development. Find out some spooky conspiracy and the culprit behind your family's demise? "It's ok what matters is that we are all safe". Raiden killing off his bestie even though that guy was aware he might be executed by her (even though she didn't kill the guy in her first story quest)? The Inazuma troops went on something like "Raiden is giving you her utmost apology and will help you in case you need to build up your clan again" and he said "I appreciate your efforts". And that's it. He seems to still have a little beef with Raiden since he doesn't want to meet her in the 3.2 ghost event though, but considering his replies and general attitude towards these problems, he seems to be at peace with himself.
For the 4th quote: When I specified Scaramouche out of the 4 harbingers, I was refering up until 3.5. Dottore will definitely get his own share of patches similar to Scara. And probably Childe too. But that's going to happen after 2-3 years probably.
In regards to Raiden, yes, her second quest was way better than the first one. She does seem like she did realise certain things about herself. But this happens very very late story-wise, and it happens in a single quest. Which is not very much.
For the 5th quote: Hmmmm, yeah, I can see why Scaramouche wouldn't want to step in Inazuma from now on since he is now tied to Sumeru. But that didn't stop characters from certain regions to visit other regions. Scaramouche is basically erased from people's minds so he is just like any other wanderer in Inazuma now. If he will visit, people will definitely not be hostile to him. There will be a lot of awkward silence and moments though.
