#hsr analysis

The thing with the High-Cloud Quintet storyline is that it doesn't feel like it has any moral or message to it, I think, other than 'people are messy'. It does feed in to Star Rail's overall theme of humanity/divinity but it more explores that theme than tries to tell you something definitive about it. However, it is undoubtedly a story about moving on, and about letting go, and Jingliu is very different to the other three in that regard.

They all go about it in flawed ways to begin with, to be fair:

Jing Yuan uses his position as general as an excuse to not deal with his personal feelings

Dan Heng resorts to straight-up denial which ends up hurting him more than anyone else because he taught himself to hate things that he could never change about himself

Blade dehumanises himself such that he can devalue his own feelings and hence ignore them

But Jingliu simply does not move on, even if she thinks she does. She doesn't see it yet, but she too is refusing to let Baiheng die by holding so fast to her revenge. It's less that Jingliu is actually at fault- she's arguably even moreso a slave to circumstance than the others are- but thematically, she contradicts everyone else's arcs.

The most obvious example of this is with Blade, especially so now that we have Mortenax Blade who indirectly opposes her philosophy. I don't think I need to remind anyone how much quintet lore is confined to optional dialogue, but Jingliu's 'teaching' is absolutely the worst example of it. It's the ultimate example of how Jingliu is not only unable to move on, but also unable to accept other people moving on. Blade never tried to deny their past the way Dan Heng did; he was willing to atone, he wanted if nothing else to be able to set things to rest. If Jingliu wanted to kill him as punishment, she could have tossed him in a star somewhere, but that's not what she did.

What she does during the Clouds Leave No Trace quest is similar in principle: she goes out of her way to gather the other members of the Quintet for the sake of dredging up a past simply to remind them of what terrible people they all are. She can't accept the idea of any of them moving on, of healing, because in her eyes the only absolution is in eradication. That's where her parallels with Blade are the most obvious, too: In an artisan's eyes, broken things must be mended, but in a warrior's eyes, broken things must be purged.

And then we come back to that humanity/divinity motif, and weirdly enough, to Amphoreus. "Divinity is flawless humanity, and humanity is flawed divinity." 'Love' is the prime mover of life, something that belongs only to humans, something that lets humanity do what Aeons can't. So when we look back to Jingliu, who's so intent on purging her very self- her Ego- in order to cut down the gods, it becomes clear that her path is a futile one. When we look at Dan Heng who, through moving on, through embracing his present with the Express, was able to look back at Dan Feng and understand him, that also tells us that shunning the past makes it harder to reconcile. When we look at Blade who, like Jingliu, craves revenge against Yaoshi, but chooses to reforge his self into a weapon rather than discard it, and who welcomes change in the way Dan Heng does, that tells us yet again that reconciliation comes from self-acceptance, not rejection. Worldly ties are a strength in and of themselves, not a hurdle to be overcome or a burden to be discarded. What Jingliu is trying to achieve is the 'flawless humanity' that Cyrene describes- cold, emotionless purpose. Like an Aeon. And Aeons are undoubtedly thematic antagonists, representing utter certainty and inability to change- another opposition, this time to the theme of rejection of fate.

The biggest way she stands out from the rest of the Quintet, though, is in presentation. We never see her weak. We never see her doubt. She's mara-struck, yes, but we never see her lose herself the way Blade does. She hasn't appeared to rely on anyone, ever. Jing Yuan's brand of "everything falls within my calculations" doesn't come across as condescending because he has to make hard decisions and we are shown how those decisions affect him, and because he struggles elsewhere, showing genuine regret in his interactions with Blade and Dan Heng and trying to quietly prepare for his own imminent fall to mara. Jingliu speaks of her regret and pain, but it's always undermined in that she makes sure to remind everyone else that they're just as bad as her. It's frustrating because they do show her weakness in flashbacks; struggling with her mara in the animated short, begging the cloud knights to let her see Baiheng's body in one of the mirage echoes. But with present Jingliu, all we get shown is her resolve and tight control and that's very difficult to empathise with.

Hi tumblr, i forgot you exist, but I wanted to share this very normal and not insane observation I got out of my Constance/Acheron hyperfixation. :)

i think amphoreus is a planet i wanted to love more than almost anything else in hsr, which is why i end up being so harsh on it 😭 because on paper it has literally everything i adore: greek myth inspirations, philosophical themes (especially allegory of the cave), etc. but i think its actual execution is the weakest in the game by a pretty significant margin.

my biggest issue is probably that amphoreus constantly tells you relationships are important instead of actually letting you experience them.

like mydei and anaxa are one of the clearest examples to me because the game VERY obviously wants you to understand they mattered immensely to each other.

and yet they literally never interact on-screen! not once!

meanwhile anaxa gets huge amounts of screentime with aglaea despite her not actually being nearly as central to his character like his students are (of whom he only has significant screentime with phainon).

important dynamics are buried in readables, item descriptions, profile stories and lore implications, while screentime itself goes to characters the writers think will create more engaging dialogue scenes or fanservice moments. readables are supposed to contain fun facts about the characters' relationships, not be TRAPPED ONLY within that extra information. it creates this really bizarre disconnect where the emotional core of the story exists in supplementary material instead of the narrative itself.

compare that to belobog, where you VISIBLY experience bronya and seele changing each other. or penacony, where sunday and robin's relationship is emotionally present in almost every scene even before revelations happen. you don't need to dig through codex entries to understand why those bonds matter.

amphoreus is the first hsr arc where i consistently felt the writers' intentions more strongly than the characters themselves. and once you notice that the whole thing starts unraveling a little, because every major aspect of amphoreus feels designed around creating the impression of profundity and tragedy rather than naturally building it.

and i honestly think this comes from amphoreus being overly enamored with its own mythology structure. the writers seem more invested in making characters SYMBOLIC than making them relationally tangible.

which leads into the tragedy issue.

people always say amphoreus is "so tragic," but tragedy isn't just "bad things happening repeatedly." actual tragedy relies on escalation, inevitability, attachment, and contrast.

amphoreus has almost no restraint with suffering. nearly every major character is:

doomed

cursed

burdened by prophecy

destined to sacrifice themselves

traumatized by ancient horrors

carrying civilization-ending responsibility

ALL AT ONCE 😭

eventually it starts flattening itself because your emotional baseline becomes "okay who's suffering horrifically THIS chapter."

good tragedy needs breathing room. you need moments of genuine warmth, hope, or normalcy so loss actually feels disruptive. amphoreus rarely gives itself that space because it's terrified of losing its "epic tragic" atmosphere.

and the recurrence/rebirth reveal completely kneecaps a lot of the emotional payoff because the story keeps framing things with this devastating finality of "see you tomorrow."

except...the narrative later reveals that amphoreus and most of its people can effectively recur/reform/reappear again through remembrance structures and memory restoration. which means most tragedies become temporary states rather than true endings.

and look, stories CAN absolutely work with cyclical rebirth themes. but if you're doing that, then the emotional focus has to shift toward identity continuity, memory fragmentation, or existential instability. amphoreus DOESN'T fully commit to that either!

it still frames scenes as though they're permanent irreversible losses. so emotionally the story wants both:

the devastating weight of permanent death,

AND the comfort of eventual restoration

and those things actively weaken each other.

cyrene ends up standing out because she feels like one of the few losses that actually transcends the cycle. she's the only character who doesn't have a tomorrow.

i think the thing that finally made me realize why amphoreus emotionally failed for me was when i noticed that "see you tomorrow" was VERY clearly trying to recreate the emotional impact of penacony's "to the imperfect tomorrow" and just.-.completely missing why that line worked in the first place.

because "to the imperfect tomorrow" is hopeful specifically BECAUSE penacony's future is uncertain.

gallagher and misha died, and they aren't coming back (gallagher will not return in the way we used to know him as). the planet fought years for its autonomy from the IPC only to be immediately reclaimed by it. the main siblings are separated with little hopes of seeing each other again. the system itself remains deeply flawed because the family is a cult and it continues to run the operations.

and gallagher saying "to the imperfect tomorrow" matters because HE HIMSELF is part of that imperfection, and he won't see that tomorrow either, just as cyrene won't.

another reason it its double meaning of "monday." sunday's ideal paradise was a seven-day rest system, essentially "eternal sundays." that "imperfect tomorrow" is the monday where people will continue to suffer and toil. monday is the right of humanity to exist with their freedom intact. it's why the seventh day is "human dignity," overthrowing ena.

that is genuine bittersweetness in the ending, and the world keeps moving forward imperfectly.

amphoreus tries to evoke that same bittersweet tragic hope with "see you tomorrow" except the problem is...we literally know tomorrow is coming.

and the worst part is that greek tragedy fundamentally DEPENDS on irreversibility. orpheus cannot get eurydice back, achilles cannot undo patroclus' death, and oedipus cannot unknow the truth. tragedy derives power from inevitability colliding with permanence.

another part of why amphoreus frustrates me so much is because i ADORE ancient greece and mythology so deeply! i've been obsessed with greek mythology/classics/history for like seven years at this point. i've read tragedies, hymns, fragments, analyses of mystery cults and hellenic syncretism and philosophical schools and all that and so much more, so when amphoreus was announced i was genuinely SO excited because i thought hsr was finally going to do a full tragic-epic civilization.

and then i played it and realized they mostly wanted the vibes of antiquity without understanding the underlying structures that made those myths and tragedies emotionally powerful.

because the issue is not "they mixed inspirations." ancient cultures mixed inspirations CONSTANTLY. greek religion itself absorbed from mesopotamian, anatolian, egyptian influences etc. roman religion absorbed from the greeks. syncretism is normal. the problem is that amphoreus mixes references without thematic coherence.

like okay. zagreus. why is the titan of trickery named zagreus.

zagreus is a chthonic deity associated with the underworld, a proto-dionysus tied to death/rebirth/dismemberment.

and THAT LAST PART is especially important because if amphoreus actually understood what made zagreus compelling, he'd fit PERFECTLY into their themes of recurrence, fragmentation, cyclical identity, rebirth, etc.

phainon is where it fully collapses for me because he feels less like a coherent character-symbol and more like a pile of references stacked on top of each other.

he has:

solar/light imagery

heroic greek tragedy imagery

promethean elements

apollonian elements

philosophical allusions

martyr motifs

references to greek linguistic roots

demiurgic themes

recurring flame symbolism

etc etc etc.

and eventually i stop understanding what he actually IS thematically. apollo? helios? prometheus? alcibiades? phaenon? phanes?

good mythological inspiration is not about piling references together until the audience recognizes enough of them to clap. good mythological writing uses myth to reinforce the character's central narrative purpose.

like hades (the game) is SO good at this despite the shit everyone gives it. every adaptation they make serves a very specific emotional/theme-driven purpose. they understand what makes these archetypes function emotionally instead of going "LOOK!! THIS NAME IS FROM GREEK THING YOU KNOW!!!"

greek tragedy also fundamentally relies on relationships being intensely developed and emotionally concrete, which we've already discussed amphoreus inherently lacks.

and the thing is!!! i don't even HATE amphoreus!!! there are INDIVIDUAL scenes, concepts and character ideas i adore.

aglaea especially is probably one of the most interesting female characters hsr has written conceptually. a HUGE part of why i latched onto her relationships so hard is because so many of them are centered around women in ways that feel refreshingly detached from patriarchal framing. even her entire visual/thematic identity is tied to weaving, adornment, beauty, goldwork and textile imagery, things historically associated with femininity/artistry/domestic ritual in ancient societies, but reframed with enormous cosmic importance instead of being diminished.

and importantly, amphoreus isn't written like a traditionally patriarchal greek society anyway 😭 so these women get to exist emotionally and politically in ways that aren't constantly mediated through men. which is why her relationships with characters like tribbie, cipher, hysilens, cerydra, her handmaidens and cyrene, affected me so much more than a lot of the supposedly "main" emotional beats.

phainon only partially breaks this because he's positioned as THE tragic hero figure and the story's symbolic center. same with trailblazer depending on whether you're playing caelus. but outside of those structural protagonist exceptions, aglaea's emotional universe feels overwhelmingly woman-centered in a way i found genuinely beautiful.

and then anaxa is basically the complete opposite kind of appeal for me because his relationships fascinated me less because of what the writing intentionally did and more because of the cultural/mythological associations my brain immediately started making.

the fact that his most emotionally significant relationships are with his students is SO interesting to me through the lens of ancient greek intellectual traditions. because in actual ancient greece, especially within philosophical schools, the line between mentorship, emotional devotion and romantic attachment, was oftentimes extremely blurred.

teacher/student relationships in classical greek contexts could be intensely emotionally intimate. not always sexual (though that too), but very often deeply personal in ways modern audiences don't immediately contextualize. knowledge itself was treated as something profoundly relational and almost sacred.

so when i look at anaxa, this philosopher-scholar figure whose emotional core revolves around his beloved students carrying on ideas, understanding him, and inheriting his worldview, my brain immediately starts connecting him to those traditions.

and honestly i do NOT think hoyo intended even half the associations i ended up reading into him. i genuinely think i accidentally did more thematic synthesis in my own head than the actual writers did.

cerydra is one of the clearest examples of what i mean when i say amphoreus has incredible concepts that it just refuses to fully use. like on paper she is EXACTLY the kind of character i love. a figure inspired by julius caesar, wrapped in that whole "benevolent tyrant / necessary conqueror / civilizational builder" archetype, someone who is simultaneously a political genius, a ruthless ruler, morally compromised beyond redemption in any modern ethical sense (yes, including slavery, imperial violence, and the whole structure of domination), and yet still written as someone capable of genuine attachment to the world she is shaping.

and that tension is SO interesting. because the best versions of this archetype are never about whether the character is "good" or "evil." they're about what kind of world is produced when someone like that loves something. cerydra loving amphoreus is honestly the most compelling part of her concept because it reframes domination as order, which was like...sunday's whole shtick backwards! law = order, and sunday almost became an aeon of domination/conquest through order. cerydra herself isn't just conquering for conquest's sake, she is structurally building and maintaining something she believes is worth saving at any cost.

and then the IRONTOMB angle??? hello??? the idea that she is so fundamentally committed to control and preemption that she would rather initiate total galactic annihilation herself than risk betrayal or collapse is actually INSANE in the best way. that is political theology-level extremity. that is the kind of decision that should define an entire arc. like that is not a side detail, that is a CENTRAL philosophical statement about her worldview! that's the kind of character whose ideology should be actively structuring the story around her presence!

and instead...she shows up for like 10 minutes in the endgame.

and it's not even like she's absent in a "mysterious background force" way where her influence is felt constantly through systems and consequences. she's just...not there in the narrative space where she should be actively colliding with other ideologies and characters, she gets treated like a late-stage lore reveal.

and i genuinely think that's the core issue with amphoreus writing in miniature. it keeps introducing ideas that should reshape the entire narrative architecture and then not giving them enough space to actually DO that reshaping. cerydra is probably one of the most blatant examples of exactly that.

another thing that genuinely drives me a little insane about amphoreus is what they did with phainon / flame reaver / khaslana and the whole "multiple selves" structure. because hsr actually has a really consistent pattern where "other selves" are not just lore gimmicks, they are SYMBOLIC arguments.

like:

dan heng / dan feng is about identity continuity vs inherited sin and whether you can escape the shape of your past life.

blade / yingxing is about memory as curse, immortality as degradation, and the loss of autonomy and selfhood.

sunday / wonweek is about fractured idealism and the collapse between belief and embodiment.

sparkle / sparxie is about performance, constructed identity, and the emptiness of persona as both weapon and mask.

even when it's poorly written (cough, dan heng and dan feng), there's usually a clear conceptual axis being explored.

and then you get phainon / flame reaver / khaslana and. well, structurally it works, sure. narratively it functions. you can follow what is happening in the plot.

but symbolically? what are they actually saying with it?

phainon as "himself," flame reaver as "his destructive function," khaslana as "the inherited vessel / identity overwritten by recurrence," okay, you can map that out mechanically. but there is no emotional or philosophical spine holding those identities in tension with each other in a way that produces meaning beyond the plot explanation.

sparkle/sparxie being introduced immediately after amphoreus just kind of highlights what amphoreus didn't do with its own version of that concept. phainon's split doesn't really land on a question that sharp, it feels more like "this is his combat state / narrative state / past state." which is functional, but not at all interrogative.

"could have" is doing a LOT of work in amphoreus' writing. because none of these elements are actually given enough structural cohesion or narrative priority to fully realize what they are capable of being. they end up feeling like separate essays written on the same topic instead of chapters of a single unified argument.

similarly...

lygus's main philosophy is rejecting the self. he simplifies each chrysos heir to simple urges- desire, hatred, compassion, concord, etc. and he insists that every one of those urges, and every primum mobile of life, will eventually lead to Destruction.

cyrene's main philosophy is that of love. life moves no matter what, every motivation is valid, "a person's personality is their destiny", etc.

so mr self-rejection enters the story by rejecting some part of his identity. and miss self-acceptance enters the story by accepting some part of her identity

In another way, the younger Silver Wolf also reminds me of Aventurine when he joined IPC. Both experienced abuse at a very young age and had to fight to survive. Silver Wolf’s leveling and Aventurine’s promotion have exactly the same goal - to survive. To win the next fight, live through another day. When she meets Aha, Silver Wolf clearly states that she isn’t ready to die yet, but I have no doubt that living on Punklorde, she would face the same choice as Aventurine did on Penacony. Because if you have to cling to life and every day is a struggle, how long will you be hanging before your hands finally get tired and letting go seems easier? On Penacony, Aventurine met the Emanator of Nihility, and interestingly, Nihility is the starting path that Silver Wolf is given in the game. Playing with Aha was maybe the same as the "Go on living" note for Aventurine, with Silver Wolf shackled by Punklorde, despite the cartridge that Aha had given her. Thinking about her life in the way Punklorde taught her was like going through a series of levels, and the moment when you finish the game called life, there’s nothing left for you. There's only so much you can do. But Aha tells Silver Wolf that 99 is only the limit for Punklorde, not for the cartridge. Life isn't just a series of events you have to go through, levels you need to collect. There are so many things you can experience, see, live through, touch. Life offers an infinite number of possibilities, “next levels,” that Punklorde don't understand. Here, Silver Wolf ceases to be Nihility and becomes the embodiment of Elation, laughing because she is having fun. And if she’s having fun now, how much more joy does the universe still hides?

the chinese version of nameless faces is the phainon version, and the other languages are the cyrene versions. i believe this with my entire heart

"cyrene version"

using the english version since i don't speak JP or KR

Moonlight, a barren void to horizon Days blur into nights of dreadful silence oh

cyrene is associated with the moon (just as phainon is associated with the sun). i interpret the "nights of dreadful silence" as cyrene alone in the demiurge's tomb, reading stories

You let me see thy heart, Lost beacon in the dark, Our lonely souls that spark, we break apart

that "heart" is the seed of memory, the emotional 'heart' of the scepter. it was once destroyed by lygus detonating a stellaron, but enough remained that there was a baby lil consciousness for lament-cyrene to read to. cyrene was allowed to find that seed of memory, once lost, and read to it. two lonely souls...

i've talked about it while analyzing golden scapegoat, but sparks/fire are associated with that 'prime movers'. a sparking soul is one that lives, one that keeps moving

We find, we strive, our journey of eternity Desire, in mind, to set our spirits free Echoes fade to oblivion Freedom to make our own We trod our destinies on A path unknown With you, rejoice?

the flame-chase journey. cyrene longs to be part of the story, and copes by considering herself one of those flame-chasing chrysos heirs. she takes some comfort in being a "we". she also romanticizes the journey of eternal recurrences. it's an eternal cycle which will one day free amphoreus. they will follow their destinies in this eternal loop again and again...

Then we escape afar, To wounded souls that scar Prisoners of the dark, til we break apart!

prisoners of the dark = the chrysos heirs, originally unaware of their role in irontomb's creation. lygus likes to claim that they remain ignorant, but in their own ways, every single chrysos heir eventually becomes aware of their role in a wider cosmos... they are no longer prisoners of th dark

We pry, in line, through darkness where the shadows sleep Our fire, resigned, they let our souls to keep Gazing for flickers of light Yearning for fate's design Searching for destiny of time They've left behind? In hope, in vain, To whom, who waits?

this is the part which really sold it for me. yearning for a beautiful destiny, searching for hope within Time- within that god that Cyrene glimpsed in a dream once, that she might bring that god to tears. waiting for trailblazer in hope, and maybe in vain, that this planet may one day be freed from this eternal recurrence. cyrene is the kind of person who searches desperately for hope, for joy, for things she Loves.

"phainon version"

pulling from the translation here

轮回 Lúnhuí Cycle of rebirth 希望绝望更迭吟唱 Xīwàng juéwàng gēngdié yínchàng Hope and despair sing in turns. 兴亡 Xīngwáng Rise and fall 记忆徒留末日回响 Jìyì tú liú mòrì huíxiǎng Memories leave only echoes of the end, 遗忘 Yíwàng forgotten. 未来过去成灰 Wèilái guòqù chéng huī The past and future turn to ashes, 都为新生陪葬 Dōu wèi xīnshēng péizàng all to bury new life 命运将我流放 Mìngyùn jiāng wǒ liúfàng Destiny will have me exiled, 那又 怎样？ Nà yòu zěnyàng? So what of it?

the first part of this describes the suffering phainon went through in those 33550336 recurrences. being reborn repeatedly, forgetting most of himself, becoming hated by the people he once called comrades as he gave up on collaboration and accepted his fate as the Flame Reaver...

and he tosses aside all that pain with "so what?"

无愧 无悔 Wúkuì wú huǐ No shame, no regrets 为何不配？为何要跪？ Wèihé bùpèi? Wèihé yào guì? Why am I unworthy? Why must I kneel? 是非 真伪 Shìfēi zhēn wěi Right or wrong, truth or lie 选择无关错对 Xuǎnzé wúguān cuò duì The choice has nothing to do with being correct or not.

i interpret this as, "why is my existence any lesser? why must the things i be mere firewood for that lord ravager? and why is my hatred for the thing that took those away from me a 'lesser' form of existence?"

"the choice to keep going has nothing to do with whether it's the right thing to do." as cyrene once put it, the prime mover is a static value. "If this is not the end, then I will keep walking until I witness the end of this journey."

谁给我种下因果 Shéi gěi wǒ zhǒng xià yīnguǒ Who gave and sprouted my karma, 结局却不说破 Jiéjú què bù shuōpò yet left its ending untold?

hatred for his creator, lygus (parallel to irontomb/nous ? "anti-creator, hatred inundate") 诞生已铐上枷锁 Dànshēng yǐ kào shàng jiāsuǒ Born and bound in these shackles, 无法挣脱 Wúfǎ zhēngtuō unable to break free. 一场 惨败 Yīchǎng cǎnbài A single, utter defeat

like i mentioned, the "prisoners in the dark", or in the cave, are the chrysos heirs. but phainon most of all is given that imagery

英雄 Yīngxióng Heroes 身后不过碑文几行 Shēnhòu bùguò bēiwén jǐ háng Leaving behind mere lines on stone tablets/tombstones. 传说 Chuánshuō Legends 起承转合虚构太多 Qǐchéngzhuǎnhé xūgòu tài duō Too many fabrications in their narratives/story, 你想 Nǐ xiǎng don't you think?

the exact opposite of cyrene's romanticizing attitude. in fact, it's a criticism of it. heroes leave behind nothing but epitaphs, and those romantic legends have too much fabrication. they even go so far as to imitate cyrene's most famous line- "this will be a romantic story like none that has come before. you think so too, right?" --> "too many fabrications in these romantic stories. you think so too, right?" LOLLL

phainon is not the type to romanticize. the role of "hero", of deliverer, was always a duty and even a burden for him. it wasn't something he romanticized like cyrene, but an ideal he was terrified he wouldn't live up to.

囚徒笑问傀儡 Qiútú xiào wèn kuǐlěi The prisoner laughs and asks the puppet, 谁比谁更荒唐 Shéi bǐ shéi gèng huāngtáng Which one of us is more absurd/the greater fool? 我虽一身泥浆 那又怎样？ Wǒ suī yīshēn níjiāng nà yòu zěnyàng? Though I'm drenched in filth, so what of it?

phainon = prisoner, irontomb= puppet. and, phainon as a vessel of sin (via the Murders)

咬断了命运枷锁 Yǎo duàn le mìngyùn jiāsuǒ Bite off the shackles of destiny

"I will never submit to this idea of fate. Never!"

不疯狂不成活 Bù fēngkuáng bù chéng huó Unable to survive without madness

flame reaver letting every part of him other than that hatred burn away, just so he could keep going with that mission

埋葬于无人角落 Máizàng yú wúrén jiǎoluò Buried in some empty corner 自有评说 Zì yǒu píngshuō with only ourselves to judge. 故事 之外 Gùshì zhī wài Beyond this story, 有谁 还在？ Yǒu shéi hái zài? is there anyone left?

cyrene spent millions of recurrences looking forward to the arrival of help from beyond the sky, thanks to that glimpse of "fuli" (who was actually demiurge-cyrene). but phainon wasn't as hopeful. he didn't keep going because of hope/love, he kept going because he refused to submit/hate. his hate is one that fights unjust fate.

there's a lot to unpack with this one, i'm so excited!

here's just the audio:

after a quiet piano beginning to ease us in, at 0:10 the rudimentary solo piano quicky builds into something with energy, life, and movement- like someone who's excited. we get an instrument other than piano as the "seed of memory" gains the first traces of her own personality.

then at 0:21, it launches into the first instance of the main melody- ti do re so do ti.... the first phrase of the melody doesn't resolve, leaving us on ti, which adds to the way the whole thing keeps pushing us forward, keeps moving. the energy, the excitement!

this first instance of the melody is played on some kind of electronic instrument. this digital feel is like cyrene's origin as the "seed of memory", a computer doing its best to simulate consciousness.

as "seed of memory", cyrene was a new soul eager to learn about the world. even when she was that young, she was quick to learn love. we can hear all that electronic joy, love, and eagerness in these moments

then, a brief break to contemplate cyrene's learnings. the music is still moving with that same eagerness, it hasn't yet slowed down, the drums are still going but it tones down the exuberant melody for a moment. the seed of memory slowly learns to be a bud of memory, a little fairy. it's becoming less electronic, but still hasn't learned to be human.

finally at 0:55, the bud is faced with its first brief sorrow- cyrene has to leave again and again. it's not enough to truly rob the bud of its unending eagerness and love, the tempo doesn't change, but it's enough to dim that joy for a moment.

but not for long! the "bud of memory" finds a solution. the bud resolves to learn how to become like cyrene, a happy, gentle human that this bud loves so much.

and at 1:00, the melody returns- but this time on the violin. this instrument is physical, expressive, organic, born of wood like a tree. it flows elegantly. this is how the bud grows into that "flower of memory", a newly created "human". the flower is once again filled with eagerness and life, excited to tell cyrene about all the things she's learned

this entire narrative can also be connected to mem --> memrene. for the first few amphoreus patches, she's mem with us, a little fairy who hasn't even figured out human speech. then she takes the form of cyrene, learning how to be a human, getting to be by our side- finally getting to be part of the story, an author and a character, instead of a mere onlooker. cyrene goes through this process multiple times, it's a recurring thing in her story

at 1:16, that newborn "cyrene", the one that traveled by our side, finally faces a sobering reality which she can't avoid. this world that she saw in the trailblazer's memories is not for her to be part of, not yet. because how could she ever let there be a chance that irontomb would return and destroy the universe? she choses to remain in the loop, to give up the chance to be in the story and close amphoreus's causality.

that excitement, that movement from the first half is now gone, but hope is not lost. it gradually builds up again. this time, it's not something that races ahead, but quiet and steady. this hope is not powerful all-consuming joy, but a quiet yearning- a lament fighting against the pain of separation.

earlier, the music was rushing, running to the world with unabashed excitement. now it takes measured steps. this steady beat shows that this hope may be smaller and tinged with tragedy, but it won't die easily. it will keep quietly moving forward through the sorrow. one day, cyrene will see the trailblazer again and get to relive those moments where she was part of the story. one day, amphoreus will be made real, and maybe, just maybe, cyrene will get to be real along with it- and maybe then, after 33 million more cycles spent waiting, she will get to be part of the story.

at 2:08, we get the iconic morse code vocal chop. the morse code here means "SEE YOU TOMORROW"- it directly tells us what it is that cyrene looks forward to. she loses more and more memory as she closes causality, but she still tries to hold on to humanity well enough to give us a warm "see you tomorrow!" and yet, as her memories are leaving, it comes out chopped- digitized. the only words that she can really get out in her own voice are "see you..." so she finds another way to communicate her message, morse code- a system made to be interpretable by humans while machines can still transmit it.

and for a few moments, we are left with that bittersweet mixture of hope and sorrow...

and then, 2:36, the violin returns; cyrene's humanity returns. it's joyous again, undercut with that steadiness that ensures this is a joy that will endure through sorrow, not the fleeting excitement of a new soul. i feel this is that future (nov 11 2026 iirc) when amphoreus will return, when all of her waiting will finally have paid off.

(alternatively, this exuberant violin is the time when memrene actually gets to be part of the story for a moment, journeying by our side (so 3.0-3.7))

the ending "see you..." doesn't resolve. it goes ti-do-re, but never returns to do. it's left unfinished. this story is not over; there is a future to look forward to

that's all of the analysis for now. with you once more is one of my favorite trailer tracks hoyo has ever released. it was quite upsetting to me how many people fixated on caelus's presence in the trailer as a sign that the whole thing was bait for self-shipping.

and, let me vent for a moment- when, oh, when will people learn that there isn't a correlation between content containing fanservice, and content being bad? why is it that i saw tons of people utterly drooling over that shirtless phainon moment in nameless faces without calling it out for "ugh shameless fanservice"? not to mention mydei's general shirtless existence, hoyo going well out of their way to give anaxa's model a smaller waist and having him chained up in massive parts of his trailer (yk, bondage fanservice in ADDITION to compelling symbolism???) but when cyrene happens to have caelus just exist in her trailer and play an important role in her arc, suddenly that means her entire character is fanservice and should be written off?

it might be controversial of me to go so far as to call it misogyny, but i really think there's a double standard here. i know that historically, female characters which have fanservice are also written for the male gaze/don't have good development underneath the pretty looks. that doesn't mean it's always the case. if you can't handle the idea female character being attractive to the fans AND complex/well-written, i feel that's a problem with your mindset, not with the media the character comes from.

(and no, there is nothing wrong with finding any form of fanservice personally off-putting, or with preferring female characters with conservative designs. i myself get uncomfortable with overly sexual fanservice, think hoyoverse's exposed skin is getting really old, and i get irritated when fanservice interrupts a compelling story.)

ANYWAY....