Your Phaistelle fascination gave me so much serotonin 🥹💕 Please continue!! What do about the hero of his heart, I need to hear what does it means 🙏
I'm glad that my rambling makes people happy! In return, I'll ramble even more!
So, the thing about the "hero in my heart" is: when Phainon first used it in that farewell letter, it mostly read as a compliment, a thing of the moment. I had absolutely zero idea of just how central to Phainon's character these words would be.
Because, see. Phainon's character is a exploration of the theme of heroism, down to his very beginnings. And I don't even mean "beginnings" as just his basis on Kevin Kaslana from Honkai Impact 3rd; I'm talking about how the Hoyoverse writers' love for the Fate series—specifically Fate/Stay Night, which they collabed with—just shines through.
Listen, Emiya Shirou's (the protagonist of Fate/Stay Night, for the uninitiated) characters is an exploration of the themes of heroism. Particularly about whether it's really healthy to embark on such an endeavor, whether the man ends up consumed by his insurmountable ideals in the end. The writers of Hoyoverse adore the dude. And Kevin Honkai Impact 3rd reads very much like he's written by someone who adores Emiya Fate/Stay Night.
Let me break it down: Kevin starts as a normal boy, suffers from a devastating tragedy, resolves himself to step up and become the hero he might have needed at the time, passes through countless ordeals and suffers countless losses, becomes jaded over time. He essentially fails the classic Hero's Journey, doubting the path he once believed it was right. His story is a direct subversion of the trope.
Here's the interesting thing, though: Kevin doubts the Hero's Journey, yes. He doesn't believe in it, he has no personal desire to still go through it. But he doesn't stop.
Analyzing Kevin's character with the Hero's Journey trope as lenses is fascinating. You have this man who abandoned every drop of idealism within himself and yet, he refuses to step down from the Journey. If you pay attention to his dialogue every time he mentions a "hero", he talks about it like it's a role someone HAS to step in. And he decided that said someone is either himself or the person who steps over his corpse.
And here you have Hoyoverse's Deliverer Archetype: a formerly idealistic boy who, once through a failed Hero's Journey, acquired a more pessimistic view on heroism, and yet never really abandoned it. A man who, even devoid of all hope, still trudges down the same path unwavering.
All of that is the foundation to Phainon's character. In fact, I'd say the writers wrote Phainon by answering a very specific question about Kevin, but I'll come back to this later down this line.
Phainon follows the same archetype of "Failed Hero" I've been babbling about. In fact, he's a Failed Hero on steroids. I feel like every writing decision that resulted in more tragedy for him has already been made. If Emiya met this dude he'd keel over and die out of sheer relatability-induced cringe.
He starts out as all heroes ought to start: the naive, idealistic boy who has to greet The Call as it comes alongside a life-changing disaster. A boy who vowed to never let what happened to himself befall others, who embarked on a grand journey alongside precious allies in search of a destiny... And then he just keeps losing everything again and loses faith in his beliefs. Ahaha.
Here's the special thing about Phainon, though. This process doesn't happen just once throughout his story. After he gets his big disillusion and still decides to keep moving forward like any good Kaslana does, he sets out on a Hero's Journey again. And after that second Journey ends up just like the first, he sets out again. With Emiya and Kevin, it happened just once (although they were long-ass onces, to be fair). With Phainon, it loops.
It's kinda crazy that you can see it happen no matter which angle you tackle Phainon's story. As the narrative presents? Yeah, you see the Hero's Journey fail once and then you get bombarded with the information that it was NOT the first time it happened. Chronologically? Dear God, someone help Khaslana. Hell, you can go back to the As I've Written logs and you'll see Phainon's—better yet, NeiKos496’s—thematical past lives rebelling against their situation only to end up being fed to Irontomb so that bumass can reach Emanator status.
Again, the interesting thing is: no matter what happens or which way you spin it, the fact is Phainon doesn't stop no matter what.
Why, you might ask. Isn't his character supposed to be a subversion of the classical hero? Why is he still sticking to a path he doesn't believe in? Why doesn't he change?
Glad you asked, because you made me touch the subject I was supposed to be talking about in the first place: Phainon's Inner Hero.
As I said before, Kevin Kaslana's character is rooted in the conviction that heroes must exist. Phainon is very much the same: from his childish daydreams in Aedes Elysiae to his jaded existence as Khaslana, he's never really stopped thinking of that role, and he always assumed he should step up to it. He gets challenged on that view as much as he's encouraged, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a deeply ingrained ideal within him.
And it doesn't change. He throws it away, belittles it, denies it, resolves to walk away from it, you name it, he's probably done it. But every time he sets out on the Hero's Journey, it's there still. A completely absurd, delusional, ridiculous dream of heroism, and yet the single most fundamental pillar of his being. Just like "humanity will surely defeat the Honkai", "Amphoreus will welcome the true dawn".
Now, remember what I said before? That Phainon's character was first conceptualized by answering a question regarding Kevin?
The question is "What if Kevin didn't have to be a hero alone?".
The fundamental piece of Kevin's tragedy is that he's alone in the end. He had friends to walk along with once, but they all eventually left one way or the other. And then, he's ultimately surpassed by the newer generation. Phainon was well on his way to that. The prophecy straight up said only one person was allowed to witness Era Nova. And then, as Khaslana, he ended up turning his blade on his comrades, forever wandering the Eternal Recurrence as some sort of lingering ghost of sheer will.
The difference between Kevin and Phainon shows itself though. Remember when Cyrene said she'd place her hopes on a deity far beyond Amphoreus, the Remembrance? Turns out Phainon did the exact same thing, although unknowingly at the time.
See, Phainon has a voice line expressing his admiration for the Path of Trailblaze, including his wish to walk on it. Let me tell you right now: it's a little deeper than it first seems.
The Nameless are followers of the Trailblaze, and their creed establishes the need to connect the universe through travel. They often visit planets in peril, connect with the people, maintain records, resonate with the will of those in adversity, save the world and leave without demanding a thing from others. In short, they're the superheroes of the cosmos.
Yes, it's just as you read. The Trailblaze is the Path of Heroism. And Phainon, spending ages inside that torturous journey, wishing for a hero from beyond the stars, got precisely what he wished for in the end.
To be honest, I kinda knew this would happen from the moment Phainon said "let's become heroes" in that one promotional trailer for the Amphoreus storyline. The pipeline of "Kevin ended up alone -> Phainon will find companionship in the Trailblazer" isn't a genius assumption to make or anything. But I mostly definitely did NOT know how they'd go about it.
And, sweet dear mother of Jesus, it's done with such love for the character. I know the running joke in the fandom is that Phainon fans can't ever be happy, and Phainon himself doesn't exactly help, but I always thought the writers treated his feelings so tenderly, specially in the 3.4 Trailblaze Mission, and it made me so happy to see.
I'll just describe how it went: you get this absolutely broken character, go on and on about how his childhood dreams got grinded to dust, about how he has this convoluted, messy relationship with the idea of heroism, about how he doesn't think his Inner Hero exists... And then it turns out she does? She quite literally fell from the sky just like he dreamed of?? They lived, fought, struggled, laughed together??? She validates all of his childish ideals of heroism???? Thanks him for what he did regardless of whether he made mistakes or not????? Agrees to share the burden??????
Like, that's wild. I'll say it again. That's w i l d. The writers spent a whole quest detailing just how much this man feels distanced from his concept of heroism. And then they give him His Heroism. It's the kleptomaniac, YOLO-abiding raccoon we have as protagonist. And His Heroism, a.k.a Stelle, absolutely adores this jaded man. She thanks him for what he did like it was his 9-5 job and then goes on to cover for a shift. She keeps him in his memory and goes absolutely ballistic if someone tries to tarnish it. She feels she has a mission to honor his struggle.
TL;DR: it's about a man who struggles to embody an ideal and his love for a person who embodies said ideal. And the person-ideal happens to love him back. Crazy stuff happening in hit game Honkai: Star Rail, guys.