Can you talk about Diluc's often ignored flaws, I feel like they are often never talked about?
I completly agree ! Diluc is a character that is a bit more complex than it appears at first glance and his flaws are often swept under the rug or romanticized.
Over all diluc is one of my favorite characters in the game and one i ve built and regularly uses for the fun of it. But i also have a lot to say about him. Keep in mind its okay to love a character and be critical or them. Diluc has many positive aspects i wont be talking about here because its not the subject but of course this post isnt meant to bash diluc. Him being an imperfect character makes him much more realistic and likeable/relatable in my opinion so this is really just meant to be a character analysis.
With that said, here is my train of thoughts on this matter :)
Duty, Justice, and the Spaces Between : An examination of Diluc Ragnvindr.
I. Where it started - Crepus's parenting
II. The child soldier reality
III. Emotional regulation (or lack thereof)
V. Black-and-white morality in practice
VI. Vigilantism and hypocrisy
I. Let's Talk About Crepus First
The fandom romanticizes Crepus endlessly while demonizing Kaeya's father . But Crepus being a loving father doesn't mean he was a perfect one. I'd say being loving and offering your kid stability is the least you can do.
Crepus never got a Vision, despite his life-long longing for one. Then his ten.year old son gets one effortlessly. Instead of processing his own feelings, Crepus poured all his dreams and expectations onto Diluc. And Diluc, being a child who adored his father, absorbed that completely , making his father's approval the center of his world.
Crepus never taught Diluc emotional regulation, because Crepus himself was insecure and ashamed of his own vulnerability. He hid things from his everyone he loved and who loved him back (the Delusion through his dealings with the Fatui). He modeled a worldview where duty and justice were simple, black and white concepts, never broadening Diluc's perspective to accommodate nuance.
This is the foundation everything else builds on.
II. The Child Soldier Reality
Let's be direct: Diluc was a child soldier.
He got his Vision at ten. By fourteen, he was Mondstadt's youngest Cavalry Captain ; a military leadership position requiring years of intensive combat training. That means from age ten onward, he was being trained to fight, to kill monsters /arrest criminals, to lead soldiers. His childhood was sacrificed to preparing him for this role. The feelings any kids his age harbors - wanting to play, spend time with friends, ect- they probably were fulfilled but second only to his duty. After all, younger diluc is described by the game as a soul that firmly believed in duty and justice. Those kind of things are taught, much like Frederica hammered "Mondstadt first" in Jean's head to the point that she now suffers from it, overworking herself to allign with this idea of duty.
Kaeya was also a child soldier, carrying his own nation's weight though in a much more grim setting.
But when you look at the structure; both boys had their childhoods stolen by their fathers' agendas. And yet the fandom treats the two men differently because Crepus is "kind" and Kaeya's father is an unknown "other."
I feel like the double standard is worth highlighting, not only to partially clear Kaeya and his father's backstories but also because it serves Diluc's character no good to ignore this part of his life.
Diluc was brilliant and being strong/a prodigy was most likely his most praised attribute. It wouldnt be far fetched to assume that Diluc reacts so violently when emotional because of that.
III. Diluc's Central Flaw: No Emotional Regulation
This is the core issue from which everything else flows.
When Crepus died, Diluc's first instinct wasn't processing his grief or even turning to the people that shared it (the winery staff for instance, Varka, or anyone really). It was to go to a foreign country and commit mass murder. He targeted Fatui strongholds in Snezhnaya, likely killing many subordinates who had nothing to do with his father's death.
"There is often a lack of thorough communication between fellow Harbingers, Harbingers and their subordinates, as well as between different divisions of Fatui operatives." - Genshin Wiki
Amongst the Fatui's recruits, some show up out of their own will much like the young men and women of other nation who also chose to serve their country. Others are orphans from the House of the Heart, or were drafted like Tartaglia. (Once again information i got from the genshin Wiki). So they're not all there out of their free wills alone. Some were forced (like the children that arlecchino mercifully releases after wiping their memories), some were groomed. So some are victims of circumstances.
People who likely never left their homeland, likely never played a hand in the international events that harmed people, who had families. Diluc murdered them anyway. It got so bad the Harbingers noticed him, and he would have died if the Curatorium of Secrets hadn't saved him. And however 'evil' we may call the Fatui, there is no defending yourself on someone else's soil.
In my eyes, this isn't justice at all. He targeted anyone with the fatui insigna, not the ones responsible for his pain. By killing them he most likely created countless other '' Dilucs ''. Families that wonder why their loved one returned home in a box and wishing the worst on the one who did this.
Kaeya's confession was terribly timed, yes. But let's look at what actually happened:
Kaeya, a child when he was sent to Mondstadt, confessed he was an "agent" (Chinese text uses "agent," not "spy", the connotation matters). Whether he named Khaenri'ah specifically is unclear.
Diluc, eighteen years old, should have been capable of thinking: Kaeya was a child. Kaeya had no choice. Why is he telling me this now?
Instead, he tried to kill him. Result: Kaeya got his Vision.
Then Diluc banned him from the winery.
Kaeya refers to diluc as his "older sworn brother". Older by how many years is not mentionned, but it means that by the time diluc was 18 and leaving, he had left his minor (ex?) sworn brother alone, wounded, banished from the only home he'd known in mondstadt, with no support system. A decision made in pure emotional volatility I suppose since now years later, kaeya can stroll into the winery despite them not having talked about it.
But thats another problem. Kaeya choses to stroll into Angel's Share instead of going to the Cat's tail. Choses to sit at the bar. Kaeya does the reaching, even if through banter and annoying smirks.
Meanwhile diluc never makes that effort back. We know he still cares about him to some measures especially with the latest patches (Luna V at the moment i am writing this) where kaeya and diluc are seen together at the winery in the windblume event where we photograph anomalies. But this didnt come from them sitting down and having a conversation. Its more like kaeya reaching and diluc passively allowing things because as the years pass he gets less and less angry. But he doesnt drop his walls conpletly either. Call it pride or wariness or anything really. But its a fact. Kaeya carries the entire emotional labor of maintaining even this fragile connection. And i hate how hoyoverse seems to be subtly hinting to kaeya being the one to need to bear the responsibility of making amends when both of them have things to answer to.
V. Black-and-White Thinking in Practice
Diluc sees the world in absolutes. This means:
โ The Knights are corrupt โ the Knights are entirely worthless
โ The system is broken โ the only solution is to work outside it entirely
โ He's right โ anyone who disagrees is wrong
He has no patience for nuance, for people doing their best within broken systems, for slow reform. The Favonius Order was cleansed of Eroch and corruption largely through work Diluc wasn't there for. Work Kaeya and Jean and everyone else stayed to do. But Diluc still sneers at them, calls them inefficient, knowing fully well that 80% of knights are on expedition and the remaining 20% are his peers (his age and sometimes younger) stretched thin as it is.
This leads to the next point :
VI. Vigilantism and Hypocrisy
Diluc decided his way was "the way" and went full vigilante. He doesn't act in self-defense, he seeks out conflict, enforces his personal version of law without legal authority. In any real-world context, this would carry criminal charges. If he truly wanted to arrest criminals, he could rejoin the knights just as Varka keeps pestering him to. Yet, even now that the knights are fully clensed of corruption, filled by friends of his childhood, people he trained with and people he trained under; Diluc still stubornly sticks to his way.
And here's the hypocrisy: He maintains all the benefits of the system he rejects.
He's still "Master Diluc" of the wealthiest estate in Mondstadt. He still has social power as the city's "uncrowned prince", economic influence, the respect of the townspeople. He gets to be above the law while benefiting from every structure the law upholds.
When ordinary people break laws, there are consequences. When Diluc does it, it's romanticized as heroic vigilantism.
Meanwhile when he went to snezhnaya for three years, he left the entire manor and business to his staff, who had to run everything while he was off burning Fatui strongholds. People who didn't sign up for that responsibility but carried it anyway because they consider themselves family. Even if they did it off their own free will, it was incredibly unfair to them and I doubt diluc properly apologized. The fact that he even assumed it would be an okay thing to do, especially when they themselves were grieving the master they'd served for years, is problematic.
Diluc has lived, seen, and done things that should make him think twice. Instead, he marches forward with the same absolutism, the same refusal to examine himself, the same emotional unavailability. His character has shown little evolution because he's frozen: emotionally still that eighteen year old who lost everything, unable to integrate the trauma and grow.
He continues to badmouth the Knights. He hasn't worked on being emotionally available to those who care about him. His relationship with Kaeya remains stagnant because Diluc won't do his share of the reaching.
His chatacter overall shows no sign of holding himself accountable or changing his ways.
Perhaps hoyoverse intends to adress this through the future lore of kaeya; whether he choses mondstadt or not or a third route and how it will impact diluc. But for now, this is what we have:
A man whose righteousness isn't virtue, but interrupted emotional development dressed up as morality.
And erasing his flaws does him and us both a disservice as a character and as a fandom.
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There it is! Thank you so much if you read this to the end. I hope I manage to answer you while remaining as objective as I could, but of course we are talking about emotions so at some point you have to think subjectively. :)))
If any of you are interested in other character and societal analysis that relate to kaeya, diluc and mondstadt in general, @ashesofdawn has a lot of posts that will satisfy that craving! She/they has/have a lot of insights regarding Mondstadt and Hoyoverse's problems that you may have not thought of. Or did think of but not nearly as well written and detailed as they do , lol.
Until next time ๐๐ป๐ซถ๐ป
