🪻🌕Starfall Sonata, Blessed Encore🌕🪻

This could very well be out of copium, but is anyone else under the impression that Dainsleif is an intentional red herring in the Traveler stories of Genshin?

Hoyo seems to guide us in the direction of the traveler’s sibling. To make us trust the sibling. They are Traveler’s twin, after all.

They seem to intentionally make Dainsleif mysterious, secretive, and.. suspicious. He comes once a year to drop a lore bomb on us, to remind us of his existence and determination to eradicate the Abyss Order, and to leave as quickly as he appeared.

That aside, in the Interlude Quest Bedtime Story, Dainsleif and the Abyss Twin do have a confrontation with each other in those ruins after Dain sends the traveler out and back to the village.

Although I am an Abyss Princess Lumine truther, I’ll just speak vaguely for whichever interpretation.

Both of them speak accusingly towards the other of a trap.

“Hmph. I knew going along with your trap would be the only way to meet with you face to face.” — From Dainsleif.

“You risked your safety… and that of the eye… That’s quite the gamble, Dainsleif… But I believe that I am the one walking into a trap laid by the Twilight Sword.” —Abyss Twin

Dainsleif had possessed the Eye of the First Field tiller, which was highly important to the plans of the Abyss Order. Caribert notes that due to Dain’s memory alteration that he contributed to, they have obtained the eye, and thus the Loom of Fate has been completed.

Shouldn’t the Abyss Twin know that? They ARE the Prince/Princess of the Abyss after all. They should, and yet in this scene alone, it is not explicitly revealed by the Abyss Twin to Dain. It had been revealed to us, as the traveler, when we met with Caribert, only after that cutscene with Dain and the Abyss Twin.

So, I feel that this was the Twin’s trap, involving the Eye and Loom of Fate, yet Dain seems to have begrudgingly walked into it. Though, Caribert did predict his plan… So he only lost rather than gained here. I mean, he did get his ass handed to him… and we don’t know if he ever got to have his conversation with the Abyss Twin, and in my preferred case, Lumine.

Throughout the story, we keep seeming to gloss over the Traveler’s twin being the Abyss Twin. Dainsleif did ask if we believed our sibling to have betrayed us. One could perceive it as Dain being shady, but there seems to be more to it than that.

It feels like foreshadowing in the face of the intended distraction: Dainsleif, our possible redherring.

There were discussions of betrayal within this scene as well, particularly that of Dainsleif’s brother, Vedrfolnir. That in itself was another huge lore bomb.

Maybe this ramble was a little disorganized, it is 4:33am after all. But well...

All of that to say… I’m currently not as suspicious towards Dainsleif than I am towards the Abyss Twin. He is strange indeed… but the Abyss Twin is even stranger.

There’s still much we don’t know, and we’ll just have to wait til next year for more information…

Currently rambling while listening to…