Penacony and Great Gatsby: Character Connections and Inter-textual Reflections
So Penacony, the new region in HSR, a place based off of America- notably the Roaring 20s- with plenty of callbacks to classic art deco architecture in New York, while also having the “party life” of Las Vegas. With such an image, most people can help but connect it to the Great Gatsby, what is sometimes referred to as “The American Novel”.
Knowing Mihoyo and their love for literary references (ie: Pride and Prejudice for Haitham’s character quest, Franz Kafka’s works and themes for HSR character Kafka), it doesn’t come at a surprise that they would also make references to the Great Gatsby, even if it might come on-the-nose considering the setting.
First, to confirm that mihoyo actively references the Great Gatsby in Penacony, we can look at Dr. Edward, which is. quite a blatant reference to Dr. TJ Eckleburg. Now comparing the two pictures, we see both of them share “Dr” in their names, theyre both floating blue eyeballs, and they’re both omniscient in both of their settings.
Dr. Edward is a device used for people to experience various dreams, he aids people to have a smooth experience, and never interferes with the contents of the dream itself, nor does he offer any particular opinions. He is a neutral body, that also has a responsibility of looking over and adding new “dreams”, seen by how he recommends a dream to the trailblazer in a side quest, showing us that he also a viewer.
Now, the billboard of Dr TJ Eckleburg functions in a similar way as a theme in the Great Gatsby, but on a much grander scale, as the common interpretation of Dr TJ Eckleburg is “it” being the “eyes of God”. Eckleburg is there as a constant figure viewing some of the most key moments in Gatsby’s story, and is also sometimes seen as a “judge”.
Now, the aspect of being a “judge” leads us to the character reflections of both Sunday and Aventurine.
Let’s look at Dr. TJ Eckleburg again, but this time, at a line from the novel.
This line describes Eckleburg’s appearance, two large blue eyeballs with yellow spectacles. Two characters who carry these traits, and the only characters, are Sunday and Aventurine.
Let’s first look at Sunday, he has some noticeable blue-purple gem pendants- pendants that happen to be a similar color to Dr. Edward’s iris, who we have already established to be a direct reference to Eckleburg. (tbh could be a stretch they looked more similar in my head but now putting them side be side its a bit….)
Now, this wouldn’t really stand out as much, if Sunday didn’t also have eyes all over his clothing.
Therefore, we can establish that he plays a similar role to Dr. Edward as an overseer and viewer, which is already apparent at the end of the 2.0 Penacony quest where he talks about the events that have transpired thus far- making the viewer know that Sunday is aware of everything going on.
Moreover, how does he tie into Dr. Eckleburg specifically? Well, in the same scene he talks about exacting “righteous justice” when all is said and done, like a benevolent figure, which is aligns with his outward appearance as an angel, or could even be seen as an act of “God”- who Dr. Eckleburg represents.
As a result, this strengthens Sunday’s whole image as a biblical figure, and also can lead us to see how he views himself- as a viewer, judger, and exacter of justice, just like God. Of course you don’t need a whole Gatsby reference to get this, but it just goes to show the amount of layers mihoyo puts into the story.
(And we know that character clothing can hold spoilers because of. Childe from genshin impact who was described as a “walking spoiler” and “hard to design” because the devs were afraid of giving too much away.)
Now onto Aventurine, he completes the other part of Dr. TJ Eckleburg’s description- yellow spectacles.
This connection is harder to decipher, because rather than Dr. Eckleburg, Aventurine is more like Gatsby, with his rags-to-riches story and past. Moreover, just because he has “yellow” (actually gold) spectacles, doesn’t mean that it’s an intentional choice to show a literary reference, since it could also be a simple design choice.
But then comes the question, why even have him wear glasses to begin with? After all, most of the time he is seen without them, as with his hat. Of course, you could say it’s the dev’s idea as a way to tint his eyes, as to not signal to others of his race, but Aventurine doesn’t seem like the type to be bothered by these kind of happenings. An example of this would be the way he reacts to Sparkle’s very racist remarks, rather aloof and brushes them off quickly.
So, after looking at this, we can conclude that we don’t really know why he has glasses other than to look cool in some scenes- which again, could signify a design choice, but hey! that’s not confirmed! so we’re going with my outlook as a reference to gatsby
Plus, there’s a still a lot of comparisons we can make here about the figure of a “judge” and Aventurine as a “gambler”.
He’s the type to go all in because he has nothing (leaked character stories) and because he wants to win. That is a basic description of him, and that is what also leads to him being a viewer, that also acts like a “God” in his orchestration of events and allies to get the Trailblazer on his side- shown with Black Swan’s “betrayal”.
I’m kind of going on a tangent here and saying things most players probably already know, but what I’m trying to get at is that Sunday and Aventurine represent the two “gods” at play in the story, despite some lines giving the idea that they might lie on the same side with Aventurine having “meetings” with the Family, and also Sunday seeming to have no ill-will by the way he speaks about the guests of the Watchmaker, some of whom are currently Aventurine’s allies.
There’s a lot of unknowns, as well as a lot of red-herrings that make things seem as if we’re all going to team together against Acheon, a figure of doom, or perhaps it’s going to be faction against faction, with numerous groups at play.
But with the assignment of roles, Aventurine and Sunday seem to hold the highest control as Dr Eckleburg- as God- which leads me to believe that that is how the quest will play out in the end.
Additional info, but if we’re looking at other Gatsby characters in Penacony, then Firefly and Robin would represent Myrtle and Gatsby respectively. (coincidence how there’s two deaths so far that align with the great gaysby?) Firefly is Myrtle because of the way she seeks out the Trailblazer for aid went caught by the Bloodhounds, a bit like how Myrtle seeks out Tom to alleviate herself from her unfortunate circumstances and lower-class standing. Robin is Gatsby because it doesn’t really make sense for her to be Myrtle, and also she holds out a glass in the car clip like Gatsby.
Now who would be Daisy? What about Nick? I personally think that the Trailblazer could represent Daisy, the way everyone seems to be chasing after them, though that’s more of a loose assumption. And then, I think Acheon is Nick, the actual witness of the whole tale, because she seems to be the only one to have a sense of what might happen in the story, from her dialogue to the ominous quest prologue. There’s also the idea of her being “traumatized” or longing for the trailblazer in the prologue too, if the time loop theory is right.
There’s also other references for Gatsby in the quest, like how the Great Gatsby starts off in the present with Nick narrating the events of a “horrible” story that left him traumatized, and how the prologue of the quest acts in a similar way of foreboding a tale full of misfortune, but mihoyo traumatizes us instead.
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