Another detail is that the paper map has a starting point but no proper ending, after the Tsaritsa it kind of phases into magic like it’s still being magical constructed.
Too bad I couldn’t get to Snezhnaya as a day 1 player. It’s been too tedious to keep up since Natlan. But it’s good to finally see all the Archons together (except u Furina)
Oh pls why you all are so annoying? The archons are the face and representation of their nations, Nod-Krai is considered a nation too, we had an entire patch of it and archon quests from it, and Columbina is the face and representation of Nod-Krai.
On the other hand, if they count Columbina, why not Neuvillette over Furina? He has a higher claim to the next closest thing to a Hydro Archon than her.
1) is fair enough. I would be pretty upset in that case. Nearly got the quest already spoilered by the first film-event; luckily had a friend telling me not to play it.
2) I disagree though. Otherwise that image would have to be a bit crowded with dead/former Archons if you want to keep it consistent.
I think the real reason (besides marketing) is that neuvilette is a dragon sovereign and doesn't want to be considered an archon. He admires some of them but still wants justice, he's not about to join their council
I'm not arguing colombina should be in here. I actually hate colombina and wish she wasn't in this art (although her pose is cute). Technically speaking though the moon goddesses never had anything against the archons, and nibelung wasn't exactly with them in the end so it's not like colombina is pro dragon and anti archon. It's probably just a matter of personal relationships to her, she'd likely get along with rulers of other nations if she liked them (and she likes furina.)
kit-wise, furina does behave like an archon would (off fielder) while columbina's "archon treatment" meant she breaks the trend of harbingers being exclusively on-fielder
Cause it's not just Archons but the regions/main arcs representatives for the year. In a way it would be weird not to include. But it's also weird to include.
I'd they made one specifically about the 7 as opposed to just the regions as well then that would balance it.
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u/BulldogskyALL HAIL THE REGINA OF ALL WATERS, KINDREDS, PEOPLE AND LAWS !!!3h ago
Why wouldnlt they. She's not an archon but follow all the codes of an archon figure for the devs(central character of the AQ that gets released with the last act and first weekly). Plus she was here last year
It's not just semantics. Archons have an elemental throne granted to them by Celestia. Columbina is an odd addition, that's why we say The Seven + Columbina, which is awkward.
Cool, she is still not the archon. There is not even a hydro archon seat anymore. If you want to be lore accurate you either have no one or Neuv in that picture. Furina is a random girl with hydro vision.
I wouldn't really say she's a random girl, because she's the human half of Focalors so not really "random" lol, but still
They traditionally always released a picture of the archons and Furina was granted by the community her "Archon-at honorem" title due to her relationship with Focalors, role in the region (she was the de-facto the Archon) and all.
Columbina just sticks out because she's none of that, totally different being and totally different role. So people that expect this to be an archon-only picture don't really see a reason for her to be there.
It's reasonable to me that different standards because they are veeery different situations.
Moreover, no one actually said that these pictures are supposed to be Archon-only, it's just a (sensible) expectation the playerbase formed because they 5 years worth of precedents but it could just as easily be argued that these are the characters that Hoyo deems the most representative of each region.
There is no official criteria and so everyone has their own preference: these pictures are primarily thought to appeal to the fanbase, so who cares anyways lol
She's the representative, she's part of the seven in that way even if she's not technically an archon. Columbina isn't part of the seven so she just looks random and out of place here.
From a lore point she represents nothing. Neuv represents the hydro nation far more than her. I know you all love her, but she is just a random girl with a hydro vision. She has no hydro authority. And she doesn't even has any government authority. It's hilarious that you are fixated that she deserves being on the picture while Columbina shouldn't. When in the end they are exactly the same. Major version main releases representing their nation.
Yeah that doesn't really change my mind. I know why she's there, but it doesn't make her look less random.
Nod Krai is part of Snez, it's not a new nation, there's seven nations, seven archons. Columbina has zero connection to the seven, Furina does, her status as an archon aside, she IS connected to the seven in a way Columbina is not. Everyone in this photo is part of that group except Columbina, she's literally just there. Like I look at this photo and I just see this picture.
Are you gonna cry next year when another character will join that artwork? And in 5 years when another 4 have joined? Move on dude. It’s a yearly focus character artwork. Not an archon artwork.
But Neuv isn’t the archon either; he is a sovereign. Ain’t no way he wants to be associated with the archons besides Furina.
“Lore accuracy” by your logic means that you DON’T HAVE ANY Hydro representation, if you really want to go with the archon throne argument.
If you really want to be like that, then this picture can just be showing the characters who best resemble the statues all around Teyvat (note that I said RESEMBLE, not ARE). This means you get to include Furina and Columbina, but not Neuv.
Right, but you also can’t argue that Neuv should be there either, since he is even less of an archon than Bina or Furina are.
Neuv having the authority doesn’t make him “more of an archon” than Furina, because Furina is the mortal shell of an actual archon. Not exactly the same thing, but the closest we have to a representation of Focalors.
“The Seven” are just as solid of a defined group as the “Eleven” Fatui Harbingers. Despite the fact we have NEVER seen all 11 Harbingers (and Pierro) in one place at the same time, not even in artwork.
“The Seven” is just a general term for the leaders of the Seven major nations in Teyvat (Columbina’s nation is technically umbrellad by Snezhnaya); there doesn’t have to be exactly seven of them at any given time.
None of what you said is wrong, but none of it invalidates the desire to see all seven archons together in official art without anyone else butting in.
But that’s just the “nostalgia bias” kicking in. We want our expectations to be fulfilled, when time and time again Hoyo have been kicking that expectation down. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Yeah, but it’s missing the point that the Seven were never meant to be together narratively.
The entire point of Genshin is that the old world is falling apart. Most of the old archons are dead and the new ones don’t have much to do with each other. Why would they only include the archons when they’re not the only representatives of each region’s story arc?
What if Hoyo called Columbina “the secret 8th archon” like other forms of media pull? Would we then accept her into the group just because she’s called an archon? For example, in Pokémon, some regions have their Elite 4 be… more than 4 characters; the champion exists. Zelda has the 4 divine beasts and… the Zero Cycle (which was supposed to be a secret 5th one).
It’s one thing to be disappointed if, say, Zhongli was randomly missing, but this isn’t something worth critiquing. It’s just people getting upset at a title.
then furina shouldn't be here either. these images aren't lore-based, they're grouping up the central characters of each region for marketing purposes.
it really should go without saying but most people intuitively understand that the developers want to push certain characters more than others. this image is just making that clear; there's no lore barrier that won't prevent them from making these sorts of characters, and their metatextual position as "characters you should care about a whole lot more than anyone else" matters far more than their actual lore status or title
i imagine the reason this is contentious at all for some people is because of one of two reasons:
they don't like that nod-krai sort of inserted itself into the 'regional ecosystem' as a major region and don't like that columbina is treated as an equal to the others when she was 'retconned in'
they dislike that neuvillette is not treated as an archon-like figure because of his lore position and isn't prioritized over furina for images like this
and the truth about that is that, one, nod-krai is a major region that followed the exact same formula as every region before it, you spent an entire year there so it's best to just accept it, and furina gets priority over neuvillette because she's the character on the statue, she's the character they built fontaine's early teams around, and she's the character they wanted to push in the promotional material at the time, and whether or not that comes across in the story it was still their intention at the time and it remains their intention now
when you can only have one representative per region, they're gonna pick the character they already designated as its centerpiece
That is Focalors; Furina is the human half of her, not the divinity
She is not a God (this isn't hate, but this is why devs consider her the Archon equivalent compared to Neuvillette; she is closer to Focalors than Neuvillette is, and that is why she gets the Archon treatment)
Oh my god. There is no such thing as "human half" and "divine half"
Furina is the Body and Soul. She is techinically the whole being.
I separated my Divinity from my body and Spirit
Focalors is the Divinity.
The "Me" you see infront of you is the Divinity I left behind
So long as I, Focalors' Divinity.
There isn't a human half and Divine half, just a "Focalors minus Divinity" and "nothing plus Divinity"
While the matter of consciousness is more complicated, the closest explanation would be Old Sandrone and New Sandrone. Furina is the "Logos" while Focalors is the "Pathos". But this is for another time.
"She is technically the whole being." The whole being isn't complete without the divine aspect; without it, she cannot be called a god. Yes, she is her own complete person, but the whole Act 5 was about her having to lie about her God status. Once the quest ended, she got to fully live as a human, which meant she was no longer a god.
That human part was still fashioned after the deity. Furina and Focaors' relationship references the Trinity in Christianity, just without the third person.
Same, she’s the only one that has nothing to do with the title “archon”. The detour to Nod Krai screwed the original plan, which was just the seven archons.
You people? What do you mean by that? Who said that I’m mad, it still leaves something in me that’s unsatisfied with it. I have nothing against Columbina, I’ve witnessed all of the anniversary arts for every anniversary, but for the first 4 sets up an expectation for me that didn’t satisfy me in the end.
Imo Columbina should’ve had her own thing to make a distinction and she deserves her own thing.
Surely it should be obvious that by "you people" i mean 80% of the comments on this thread complaining about the very same thing. Maybe you're not mad, maybe you are, at the end of the day you're complaining about it, and it's incredibly pedantic to be calling out those things in my post when it should be clear what I mean.
Regardless, I can understand the confusion with the inconsistencies, but this is hardly a surprise since she was there last year, not to mention "pattern impact" is a meme for a reason, few years ago people were saying that "no way shenhe could rerun with Ayaka they never do double element banners"
So recognizing a pattern in anniversary art as "archon art" is kind of silly.
It's actually funny seeing people getting legitimately bothered by Columbina being featured in these types of artwork because "shes not an archon" when celebrations like this shown are really just yearly milestones of this game and archons+columbina are the best representation for each year.
Its really autism coded to be gatekeeping archons, these people are wildin.
In NK we learned that the moon marrows are effectively the gnoses for the moon goddesses. So Columbina having the trilunar authority and one of the marrows is basically like a better version of an archon by lore rank. If she still had her full power and utilized it, she would be on shade level.
Yeah I get that but since day one we knew of the 7 archons anemo geo electro dendro hydro pyro cyro
No one had in their minds that a moon goddess would be part of that line up that's why she's out of place not cuz I hate her but because since day one no one expected her to be there
You have to make this about gender huh for no reason and be salty. Imagine if someone cries about fatui being male majority it's that level of ridiculousness here.
Edit:- loser deleted the comment after I question why he is crying about archons gender as if it's not know since beginning of the game. Either deleted me or blocked me.
Also turns one he isn't the only loser. Can't expect much I guess
Okay so the fact that they are literally sitting on maps of their respective nations tells me that these “Archon” artworks are not Archon based… their nation based, and yes these eight are indeed the proper representation of said nations.
Colour wise, Columbina’s pink actually rounds out the archon rainbow in a really satisfying way, but man I don’t love the rest of her colour scheme lmao, the light blues and whites are stealing from Ana 😭
Genshin you could have changed furina's form to her ousia one at least. It looks like you just grabbed her 4.0 art, pasted it and just put her what on her hand xD
I like Furina a lot more in her Pneuma outfit. She looks much more regal to me in that, and that extra royalty vibe suits her. Plus, the colors are much more balanced with light and darkness, which is aesthetically more pleasing to me in this case.
As a day one player, we used to dream of days like these... all archons art that includes Tsaritsa... I hope they release a HD full version of this somewhere because I really want this as a wallpaper.
Careful, agenda pushers can't stand when people who stick to the lore point out that the term Archon has a pretty strict definition, and despite Furina, Columbina, and even Neuvillette being as important as Archons in the story, and the latter two being possibly even more powerful than every Archon, it still doesn't make them Archons.
They think when we say they are not Archons, we mean they're inferior, which is not at all what we mean.
Yeah, they’re really going to keep forcing Columbina into this, which was expected but still disappointing. Like, why can she participate but Neuvillette can’t? Logically, Furina shouldn’t even be there; if non-Archons are allowed to participate, then Neuvillette would make way more sense from an actual lore standpoint.
From actual lore standpoint no, neuvillette makes no sense because he was never introduced as the archon or ruler in fontaine. Fjurina is the human half of Focalors, she is, lore wise, the former hydro archon.
Columbina wasn't introduced as the ruler of Nod Krai either; only Frostmoon sees her as such, but the rest of the people there don't, and Columbina herself doesn't want to rule. She literally IS NOT AN ARCHON.
That's because the writers made an exception for the region that they shoehorned before Snezhnaya. Columbina is included for a different reason, she's the moon goddess, not a former archon, indeed.
That's why some, myself included, don't like to see her in THE 7 ARCHONS anniversary art.
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u/AnAsianDudeInReddit 3h ago
I love the detail that they're behind a map that shows their respective nations