Gazing at Stars

How they fit into Sumeru’s themes of wisdom

If I had to go into detail about how the two embody wisdom/learning and what it means for the themes of Sumeru alone, I’d have to make an entirely separate post (which I’ll probably end up doing eventually), so I’ll summarize my general thoughts here:

First off, I think Dehya fits into Sumeru’s themes of wisdom and differing types of it incredibly. I’ve always preferred characters showcasing their smarts by applying it to different, seemingly unrelated situations over them being assigned a random STEM field and saying big words, so that’s why I found her appealing from the get-go. In Dehya’s case, she may not fit the sages’ ideals, but she’s good at noticing discrepancies and not writing them off, she has a lot of tactical know-how, and she’s good at navigating relationships even when it involves discomfort for herself and her friends. One of the recurring elements that come up in the discussion of wisdom is the capacity for growth, and not overlooking things even if it would’ve been the easier or more comfortable option, and I think Dehya embodies this part of it really well.

As for Candace, a lot of her wisdom shines through in how she views her role as the Guardian of Aaru Village. It’s a commonly known fact around the village that the Guardians are the chosen/descendants of King Deshret…or at least that’s what they’re made to think. Once someone is appointed Guardian, it’s revealed to them and no one else that this is a lie, there was no blessing to begin with. And apparently, this was the reason the position had such a high turnover rate before Candace stepped up: some people were so disillusioned by the revelation that they left their post completely, while others thought that not being watched by a god was a free pass to be reckless/controlling with such a revered position. Candace, though? She didn’t end up in either of those directions and took up the mantle anyway, because she didn’t need the motivation or pressure from a god to have a reason to protect the village she held so dear to her. Even in the face of a worldview she’s held her entire life being so thoroughly shattered, she’s still able to compose herself quickly, find her own reasons to take up the mantle and be a Guardian her people can truly depend on, not only keeping long-term peace in the Village, but also breaking cycles and avoiding the pitfalls that many of her predecessors had. This was entirely her decision, and she’s so unmoved by it that despite having been offered better job opportunities or an easier life, she still stands firm because she knows why she’s there and accepts it every single day. Even during the Sumeru cast’s plan to overthrow the Akademiya and free Sumeru from the sages, she still chooses to stay behind at Aaru Village because as much as she wants to participate like the others, she knows she’s better off staying where she is as its only protector in a dire time like that. Candace’s moments of wisdom get so overlooked due to not being academic in nature or full of battle strategy, but it’s incredible nonetheless and I hope she gets more appreciation for it.

Other things I love about the two and find interesting about them

Besides her varied smarts, another thing I’ve consistently liked about Dehya is her insistence on her and her boundaries being treated with respect, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it. First of all, it was so refreshing for that to come out of a female character who’s also strongly defined by her kindness, especially after Hoyo’s terrible history of associating nice women with people-pleasing and fear of disappointing others. She extends this to the Traveler and Paimon, and just like with the rest of the Sumeru cast, it not only makes her friendship with them feel genuine and earned but is a sign that she trusts them enough to tell them “no” or “I’m not okay with that”. This extends to her other friends too, such as how in her Story Quest, she’s willing to tell Dunyarzad a suspicion she had about her father at the risk of ruining their friendship simply because she believed that the latter deserved her full transparency. Dehya feels like a genuine and honest person through and through, and I’m glad the writing hit the mark with her in that regard considering how much Hoyo’s missed in the past with these kinds of characters.

I also loved her backstory and complicated thoughts on her father, which we got to see over the course of her Story Quest. I liked the acknowledgement that while Kusayla’s actions are what ultimately led to Dehya becoming the person she is in the present, it wasn’t without massive missteps that Dehya should (and does) resent him for. She’s allowed to voice and process that resentment without being treated as ungrateful or a brat, and ultimately, she comes to terms with the sacrifices he made for her to have a safer life despite his past without anyone having to push her on it. Honestly, that one cutscene where she discovers that he still kept the sword she played pretend with after all these years and gets to grieve what she had with him as a kid still makes me emotional when I re-watch it to this day. It also opened up the question of where Dehya’s ancestry comes from since Kusayla adopted her, which…Hoyoverse. Dehya Second Story Quest or Summer event like Benny got. Please. Thank you.

I do have a minor gripe with Dehya’s writing though, specifically that one part in her Story Quest where she hears about some of her male crew members harassing some of the women, which is treated like a lighthearted funny by both her and the narrative. Which is…a really messed up thing to come out of someone who’s otherwise been consistently shown to be so supportive of other women. It ended up being a one-off thing rather than a repeated pattern with her, but that discrepancy was so jarring and just goes to show that Hoyo really needs to check their shit when it comes to the casual, oblivious misogyny in a lot of their dialogue.

With Candace, despite Hoyo being really stingy with her screentime, she more than makes up for it in her unlockable Character Stories, which delve deeper into her role as Guardian of Aaru Village and how that’s affected her. Aside from her aforementioned moment of wisdom where she took up the role of Guardian after learning the truth and took a more authentic approach to it than her predecessors, the process afterwards wasn’t handed to her on a silver platter either. She wasn’t exempt from backlash or people disagreeing with her decisions and policies, especially former Guardians, and even clashed blades with them over it at times. Even when she wasn’t fighting threats to the Village, she still tried to be there for people and even extended her kindness to people who didn’t have any other connections, like Nefer. Her stories also mention her not being immediately judgmental against people who seemed to be “slackers” or physically struggling in general, instead trying to be kind and understanding in the hopes of uplifting them. And in a game where even the main character constantly judge and condemn laziness in an ableist fashion, it’s really nice to see a character who explicitly doesn’t do that and genuinely looks out for the vulnerable in her community. I also like that despite not caring about the whole King Deshret thing being a lie, she hasn’t told anyone yet just because it makes her job easier when she needs to, say, get the entire village’s attention during an emergency and honestly? I like that motivation for keeping a long-buried secret so much more than “People will find out I’m not that great :(“ that characters like this tend to be saddled with. Candace honestly comes off as one of the better-written leadership characters in the game for me, because even after facing stubborn backlash from the people she’s meant to be protecting and having her worldview challenged, she’s still able to find reasons to keep protecting them and find a more genuine approach to being Guardian. Though it’s not without its problems, which I’ll get into below.

Their treatment by the Traveler, other characters and the Game in general

I’ve actually mentioned this in scattered posts in the past, but there’s one thing I’ve always taken issue with when it comes to Dehya’s treatment by the Traveler and Paimon in-game. It’s how she trusted them enough during the Sumeru Archon Quest to open up about the agony she feels because of the Wall of Samiel and the way desert-dwellers are stereotyped and treated even by other Sumerians…and they still end up judging people based on stereotypes, including desert-dwellers, not helped by how this can be played alongside Jeht’s world quest featuring the duo’s “agree to disagree” attitude towards Liloupar’s racism. One particularly bad example occurs in the Fungus event that canonically takes place after the Fontaine Archon Quest…which means at that point, the Traveler knows how bad the racism towards the Eremites are and how badly a few of their own friends are affected by it. And that still didn’t stop them from saying some weird shit about Haniyyah and go “The Eremites are invading!” when they see Souka. And it’s like…Dehya trusted them with one of her biggest vulnerabilities, and that still wasn’t enough for them to think about how that would affect her and others. It isn’t made better by how nice they are to her when they interact face to face, it’s still racist and disrespectful as fuck and if anything, makes them look two-faced. They can and should do better than that.

Aside from that, sometimes the two can be really weird about Dehya’s autonomy and boundaries despite her being shown countless times to be incredibly capable and an extremely quick thinker. There’s how she was automatically assumed to be acting reckless in that section of the Archon Quest when she’s talking with Rahman, and almost gets her plans busted when the other characters interrupt and go “what are you doing?!” leading to her legendary “Shut it, Paimon” line. At this point, the Traveler and co. had just seen her quick thinking and ability to plan around the way others act, so it was really weird for them to be like “you’re so reckless! How could you?!” And there’s how during the “rescue Nahida” operation, when she uncomfortably declines a massage from Paimon, instead of backing off the latter goes “ooh are you ticklish?”….which takes place after she accidentally triggered Collei by touching her without consent in the same Archon Quest. And thing is, after how regretful they’d been towards Collei for that, that should’ve carried over to Dehya not wanting to be touched but it’s treated like it doesn’t matter. Thankfully, in both cases Dehya stands pretty firm on her boundaries, but with the way they’ve just brushed off other (especially white) characters’ genuine recklessness while still not doubting their capabilities, and made a huge deal about Collei being triggered by touching but then won’t empathize with Dehya being uncomfortable…it felt so wrong when they did this with her.

With Candace, not only does she get the “nice and reliable and ideal personality” bs that a lot of Genshin’s women are subjected to, but what makes it worse is how little concern both the narrative and most of the characters seem to show for her. I’ve also griped about this in other posts, but it’s so weird that her duty of keeping Aaru Village safe and a violence-free zone is glossed over as “yeah, that’s cool I guess” despite being a massive responsibility, requiring her to regularly tough out even monsters several times her size and sandstorms (those are much more dangerous than they look!). And the game never tries going in depth about the toll this would take on her…despite actively showing how she’s constantly on such high alert that she can’t bring herself to leave the village without a lot of convincing, and how it’s driven her to attack without asking questions first at times (like Dehya’s Demo). At least when (white) characters are overworked in Mondstadt, the Traveler or people around them show some kind of concern or praise them as amazing and special (TM) good people. Candace? Aside from the concerning lack of people asking if she’s alright despite being surrounded by an entire village and even having friends beyond Sumeru, her hard work is treated like “oh yeah that’s just what Candace was born to do, that’s just the way it is, it’s whatever.” Like, would it be the end of the world to have someone thank her, asks her if she’s alright or something each time she comes on screen?? Whenever other characters talk about her, it’s about what she does for them and how she puts her feelings aside for their sake (Doesn’t that sound similar to how another kind-hearted brown character is treated in this game?) but rarely any of that in return for her. The character that shows the most consistent concern and care for her is Dehya (the only other darker-skinned woman in the Sumeru cast), who tries to get her into hobbies she can pass the time with even in the desert and tries to prevent conflicts before they happen so Candace would have less to stress over. But the narrative has done very little to remedy this over the years, and it’s not helped by how she doesn’t even get any Hangouts in an era where four-stars were still getting them, or even much time in limited events unless she’s accompanying another character. (Also…did I mention that she was appointed the position at eight years old [I’m completely serious, read her Character Story 1] and had been dealing with adult-level conflicts since then??? I feel like that shouldn’t have been as glossed over as it was)

Even in her lore, her title as Guardian and duty to protect Aaru village isn’t treated with the awe that, say, the big legacy names in Mondstadt’s duties are, cause it’s not nearly as exciting for fandom when she’s not privileged white nobility. Even when her standing up to her elders’ stubborn ways and even got them to shut up and stop doubting her was what earned her a Vision. Even when we get insight on how this affects the way she views herself or her ability to properly rest during peacetime. Even when we see that she had to work for her position even after being sworn in as Guardian, as her lore mentions how much people (especially elders) pushed back against her and some of her decisions, and how she still did her best to help villagers who struggled physically/mentally and did it with tact instead of assuming the worst and jumping to discipline. Even with how her worldview was challenged upon given the title of being Guardian, yet she still picked up her spear and protected the village anyway because in her mind, she wanted to protect what she held dear regardless of motivation from a god. All that is really impressive, and it would be really nice if other characters, even NPCs were more appreciative of it or sang her more genuine compliments instead of “that’s just what we expect out of Candace.”

The way the fandom treats them (and other darker-skinned female characters)

When it comes to fandom treatment, a lot of times it’s a similar issue to how most of the “likeable” women tend to be treated: laser-focus on how “nice and reliable” they are or could be and never think further about it. Dehya and Candace are both shown to be extremely kind, not just in different ways but with their own depth and conflicts to it too. In Dehya’s case especially, her kindness is the very reason why she gets so worked up over the mistreatment of others and will go to bat for them - kindness and assertiveness are not separate entities! But the fandom often treats them like they’re mutually exclusive and over focus on one of those traits, but not the other. I’ve also seen digs at how bad both their kits are (despite being workable with a bit of effort), and about how sexualized/out of focus they are (which are legitimate criticisms) and…that’s pretty much it. It’s like they’re often remembered for negative reasons while their positive and interesting traits get far less spotlighted in fan works compared to the rest of the Sumeru cast, and even when fans critique their treatment, I don’t see a lot of effort into calling out anything other than the sexualization/lack of focus they get by the loudest parts of the fandom even though that stuff is barely scratching the surface. Which made me think about patterns in how darker-skinned women in Genshin tend to be treated in general, and a lot came out of it which I’ve decided to share.

Whenever the fandom talks about the misogyny, the conversation always seems to revolve around the same 3 playable white characters and maybe like one from Liyue or Inazuma they really like, and almost never extends past that even though it goes a lot deeper than that. Like how recently I talked about how despite all the women get the short end of the stick when it comes to Hoyo’s writing, white female characters tend to get uplifted at the expense of racialized characters - which even seems to hold true in fandom discussions of the game’s misogyny. And one way it manifests is in how darker-skinned female characters often get left out of these conversations beyond maybe one surface-level observation (they’re oversexualized/out of focus), and when it comes to noticing subtleties in the messages sent by the game, the way these ladies are treated doesn’t even pop up like it does for, say, Jean or Lisa, who often end up as the poster girls for these discussions.

Aside from what I mentioned above for Dehya and Candace, there’s the way Xinyan gets digs taken at her for her appearance, and it’s hidden behind “oh her hobbies are what’s off putting” when this isn’t done at all for the paler Liyueans who have canonically off-putting hobbies, like Hu Tao.

Then there’s how Xilonen, one of a few Natlanese characters who has tanned or darker skin, often gets jabbed at for being lazy or a slacker despite proving time and time again that she’s just so good at her job that she’s able to carve out a lot of free time at nobody’s expense. Especially after the Traveler and Paimon have had endless sympathy for years towards lighter-skinned women and their capacity for overworking themselves, it’s like…shouldn’t you be happy that a woman is actually setting boundaries with her work for once? I’ve mentioned this before with Kaeya, but stereotyping darker-skinned people as lazy is rooted in colorism even in the context of Chinese cultures, so it should’ve never made it into version 6.1 after fans were so loud about the colorism problems Natlan had even before its release.

It’s in how Iansan, a character who was hyped up for over four years and was even one of the Six Heroes of Natlan, got shafted in focus and screentime when she finally debuts properly compared to the other five. Then when her homeland is finally placed on the map, potentially giving her a chance to shine…Varesa debuts and immediately becomes the face of the Collective of Plenty over her. Not only was this such a disappointment for a character many fans had been looking forward to for years, but she actually does stand out amongst her people with how she had to train for her strength in a world where people were basically born with it, but the game never does anything meaningful with that and continues to shaft her story. And to make things worse, the 5.6 Whirling Waltz event even makes a tasteless joke at her expense for no reason at all. She deserves so much better.

It even extends to the treatment of historical characters, like Vennessa. We first get to see in the manga, which established the hardships she went through to founding the Knights of Favonius and being its first Grand Master. While it’s meant to be a part of Venti’s backstory as a whole, she still manages to stand on her own. Unfortunately, that respect is not extended to her in the present day and in-game content. She’s only mentioned there in an overly-idealized image, and in the context of uplifting a white woman’s story and good image. Worst part is, she doesn’t even get acknowledged in Natlan content - which is so weird because that’s where her people, the Muratans hailed from. It’s all about what she did for Mondstadt and the mainly white cast there, which looks even worse in the context of how they’re basically doing the same thing again with a brown, immigrant character there in the present day.