Different anon from before, but piggybacking off the “what’s up with Halfdan and friends and why was Caribert’s situation weird” ask and answer: I thought the whole reason Caribert’s existence was considered a taboo was because he was illegitimate/the product of Clothar (who was specifically stated to be a nobleman) having had an affair with a foreigner who was probably also a commoner. Less to do with his being half-Khaenri’ahn and more just. Being a literal bastard child.
hmm, y'know what? fair point. i was kind of thinking it's equally both. or maybe not 'equally' but you get my drift- mostly bc of these two statements in genshin
"Hleobrant is the descendant of those who forsook their god and came to the Kingdom. This is why the Kingdom's obstinately pure-blooded aristocracy persists. This is the price of betraying your own god." (Perinheri)
Eide: "Because although Khaenri'ah began with a single bloodline, it was a home to others, too... Any who forsook their gods and came to Khaenri'ah were welcomed as our fellow citizens."
so i was going off the assumption here that it was a pretty clean divide between the only pureblood khaenri'ahns being the upper class (maybe descended from the 'first line'?) and then automatically-middle-to-lower class teyvatian immigrants, and then i realized that still makes little sense because like. in the beginning, who did the aristocrats 'rule' over if not other khaenri'ahns? so, there likely was a pureblood khaenri'ahn lower-to-middle class as well. it's honestly the only way direidyth exists unless her grandmother was either a bastard child or descended from one.
personally, if i had to imagine the kh class/ethnicity system, it'd probably be
pureblood khs (royalty and noble classes)
middle and lower classes: mix of immigrant teyvatians and khaenri'ahn-teyvat descendants
but i'm still concerned about the fact pureblood khaenri'ahns began with a "single bloodline", bc if intermarrying w/ teyvatians (although it surely happened, maybe moreso in the beginning) wasn't 'pure', then what was? my current 2 theories:
we don't know what outsiders like perinheri counted as, but maybe they counted as keeping the bloodlines "pure" because they weren't from teyvat? it's at least better than my other theory, which is, unfortunately,
incest.
they did. a lot of that in american/european cultures where they focused on keeping the bloodline "pure". so um.
let's cross our fingers and hope all our khaenri'ahn pureblood characters aren't descended from that ❤️