Every time I think the devs have pushed the Phaidei envelop as far as Hoyo is willing to go, they surprise me once again.
Back at the beginning of 3.1, I publicly questioned whether what we were seeing was just Hoyo-typical yaoi bait for that sweet fan money, or whether we might actually be seeing deliberate coding of a pair of major male characters in a significantly more centralized way than previously done.
Despite the fact that Hoyo has been very consistent in their ship tease for Phaidei, the question of whether or not they actually intended Phainon in particular to be read as a gay character was still up in the air. It's one thing to have male characters dropping slightly sus innuendo for laughs and low-hanging fan service, or to make a male character flamboyant without actually committing to showing him in any close same-gender relationships... but it is another thing entirely to imply that a male character wants a committed queer relationship, and even through 3.3, although Hoyo was certainly pushing the boundary hard, I think a case could still have been made that the devs' primary goal with Phainon and Mydei ship tease was little more than wink-wink-nudge-nudge service for the yaoi fans to push the sales of male units in an otherwise waifu-oriented game.
But I think this trailer might finally be the answer to the question I originally asked, and it has laid some of my last doubts to rest: No matter where things go with Phainon in 3.4 and beyond, at this point I am willing to give Hoyo the benefit of the doubt and say, yes, players are supposed to read Phainon as a queer character (whether you interpret him as bisexual, strictly gay, or some other variation of mlm is free game)--and, importantly--to understand that his relationship with Mydei is not just an ancillary bonus for fans but central to Phainon's own sense of self-identity.
The key is in remembering that nothing happens in media by accident. Every single frame of Phainon's trailer was scripted, and therefore every frame shown after the question "What is your dream?" was deliberately chosen to convey a specific message.
In answering the question "What is Phainon of Aedes Elysiae's dream?" the dev team had several clear, obvious, and perfectly understandable options:
We could have seen Phainon mentally rewind the time and return to his idyllic childhood in Aedes Elysiae. We could have seen him reunited with his parents and, more importantly, Cyrene (who was conspicuously absent from the entire trailer). Over and over, the game has told us that Phainon loved his home, loved his people, and loved the peace that he used to have, so absolutely no player would have questioned it if "Phainon's dream" was to return to the paradise of the childhood he used to know.
But the devs didn't do that.
The power of friendship and found family could have been emphasized by showing quick flashes of Phainon with each one of the Chrysos Heirs: We could have seen Aglaea helping him pick clothes, seen Tribbie, Trianne, and Trinnon playing with Phainon and chimeras in the Garden of Life, glimpsed Phainon getting scolded by Anaxa at the Grove with Hyacine and Castorice cheering him up, could have seen Cipher tricking him into buying a worthless relic dressed up as a real antique, and then we could have seen him sparring with Mydei, as just one more example of Phainon envisioning a happy life with all his friends and found family beside him.
But the devs didn't do that.
The devs built a trailer that asked Phainon the question "What is your dream?" and then let their massively hyped male protagonist answer: "Let me experience joy by the side of my equal."
This trailer says, unequivocally, that Phainon doesn't need to return to Aedes Elysiae to be happy. He believes the life he desires can be found in Okhema, and his only requirements for that life, for that joy, are peace (a parade of heroes with Mydei and Aglaea, the guardian mother figure, by his side), domesticity (caring for the children of Okhema's next generation), and a return to normalcy (defined literally by the presence of Mydeimos).
The implication is that Phainon had already found his happy ending, had already achieved his dream--and all he wants now is to get it back.
The dev team had every option to say something different, to imply that Phainon had never been truly happy with his life in Okhema, or that Phainon's happiness revolves around everyone he's ever known and loved because he's the Deliverer of all--but instead they decided to tell us explicitly that Phainon doesn't need every single friend and Chrysos Heir to return to him in the same form as they left him (Castorice and Polyxia return not as adult friends but children to be nurtured, for example).
He doesn't need to go back to Cyrene's side to know joy again for the first time since his youth.
Look at this happy bug-eyed bean. Have you seen my son? Now you have.
When Phainon thinks of his own dream, he envisions himself where fate has already brought him--to Okhema, to Mydei.
This isn't tee-hee fanservice. This isn't a quick innuendo for the yaoi cash grab.
This is the dev team deliberately building Phainon's relationship with another male character into the thematic core of his story, linking the completion of his entire hero's journey with a return to the side of another man.
(Image from here.)
Whatever you might think of Joseph Campbell, in a very meta way, universal awareness of Campbell's monomyth has essentially permeated the writing of every modern hero character. (We can argue that the hero's journey never consciously existed for the original writers of mythology, but we can't argue that it doesn't exist for the writers of hero characters today.)
Phainon's arc clearly, step-for-step, maps to the hero's journey, likely in a very intentional way so that the devs can play with the notion of the thin line between hero and villain, the burden of heroism as the conduit for resentment and violence, etc. etc. In light of the fact that Phainon's case so closely maps to the monomyth, it is near inevitable that we see him experience the call to adventure (Flame Reaver's attack) and leave his "known world" (Aedes Elysiae) to pursue the saving of their planet, a conflict which will inevitably push him beyond the brink of death and into apotheosis as an ascended being, a changed man.
But then the hero is supposed to return. Whether or not Phainon's return to normalcy is possible as a changed man, we're supposed to see him try. His journey is meant to be rewarded, his lessons are meant to be learned, and he should be able to go back to the place he calls home, having achieved all he needed to in life.
Aragorn ascends the throne of Gondor with Arwen. Rose Dawson returns the Heart of the Sea to Jack. Odysseus is reunited with his Penelope.
The return Phainon is supposed to long for, the place he is supposed to envision as his normal world, his home, his reward for a journey finally fulfilled... It should be Aedes Elysiae.
But this trailer tells us it's not.
Okhema is the home Phainon dreams of returning to.
Mydei is the person Phainon dreams of being reunited with.
This wasn't a necessary message to send. The devs did not have to link Phainon's individual heroic character arc, the conclusion of the thematic evolution of his character, to another man.
No matter what happens in 3.4, nothing will erase this moment in which the Star Rail writers consciously implied that being with Mydeimos is the end that Phainon would choose for his own journey, the future he would write for himself.
And all of this is improved by the knowledge that Phainon has faced this question about his dreams before. In 3.3, Anaxa asks him this same thing. But when Phainon answers:
Anaxa scolds him for the paleness of the answer, how generic and passionless it is to wish to protect people without even being able to name who you wish to protect:
Phainon's trailer, then, becomes the wham line to this wind-up, the parallel story structure returning to a focal, character-defining moment: Anaxa isn't asking Phainon to voice a practical answer to his query--he's asking Phainon a core question about Phainon's self-identity.
In the past, Phainon was unable to communicate a specific wish or vision for his future because he had no true attachment to the world. He wants to "protect the people he cares about" but isn't able to articulate who that even is anymore, or why he cares about them, how deeply, or what they mean in his life.
In Phainon's trailer, Castorice wishes for a "normal life," and Phainon says "That's not a wish" because it should be hers by right, it should be a given.
In 3.3, Phainon says "I don't want to lose anyone else," and Anaxa effectively says "That's not a wish" because it should be a given, because caring about everyone and placing the weight of their lives on your own shoulders ("being a hero") is a perpetual losing game--it's the same as not actually being able to freely live at all.
So Phainon's trailer becomes an echo. Phainon gets a second chance to answer Anaxa's question, a second chance to tell the world what truly matters to him.
He gets a second chance to show us players what he really wants to protect, not in a vague and detail-less single sentence but with color, life, and specificity.
He still isn't able to say the words, he still doesn't manage to articulate his answer, but we get to see it, nonetheless--the fact that Phainon does have something he longs to possess just for himself: a personal wish for happiness that requires another man to fulfill.
That's how you queer-code a male character, my friends.
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