Ronova, Mitya and Paimon (Part 2)
Spoiler for 7.0 Archon Quest Act 1 & 2. Do not read if you have not finished the quest.
This is part 2 of my theory regarding Ronova and the curse of Death. Reading part 1 is not necessary for understanding part 2, but feel free to read if you are interested
In Act 1, Ronova answered some questions from the traveller and Mitya. Some of the answers she said really stood out to me. At first, I thought she was being evasive and giving non responses, like Mitya had pointed out. However, once I thought through it more, Ronova’s answers made sense.
For context: she said people die because it was “their time to die” and if she wanted someone gone, she can do it quite easily. “Death abides no reason” after all, “for it cannot be defied even those who see it coming” (God’s Limits)
Genshin fate runs through compatibalism, that certain canonical events itself is fixed (fontaine’s prophecy.etc) but can be changed through deception (focalors sacrificing herself) or/and through travellers intervention (descender). Thus, knowing the future ahead of time does not stop canon events on happening, but it changes the end result to be either bad(fontainians dissolve from the flood) or good(fontaine’s citizens survive). Regardless, the flood had to happen either way.
so, while death itself, Ronova, cannot be defied, it can be fooled. Ronova has to be present for all curses of death and farrying souls to the afterlife. This is supported in the folklore of Snezhnaya that the grim reaper appears when you die in a familiar form, and how Ronova appeared every time while the curse of death is in effect.
Form the cutscene: the traveller was only able to get a scratch on her because she was distracted and nervous that the researchers + mitya may see her. Hence, If Traveller + others fight her to distract her while the weapon is made and speeding up the recovery of the curse, the weapon would finally be completed for the Tsarista to use against Ronova.
Which brings to my next point.
Ronova only kills who she deems it neccessary to kill. She could have killed the traveller, or mitya, or the researchers. But she didn’t. Instead, she targets Paimon out of all people, even if Paimon has no power or authority of Celestia. Why kill Paimon then if she is not a “supposed threat” compared to Mitya developing the weapon?
Therefore, Paimon is a threat to Ronova . Perhaps not now, but maybe sometime in the future. HP does not seem to like when beings like Paimon are free from Celestia’s governance and have their own agency. Paimon, while weak, is assisting the descender and able to dodge all attacks from all bosses traveller had ever faced (rerir, to name an example). Plus, Since Paimon is such an influential figure to the traveller and tied to the catalysm 500 years ago, no wonder Ronova wants to end Paimon. even if Ronova is not in a rush to claim paimon, its better to get rid of competitors ahead of time. (Related to dark forest theory)
Ronova ends Paimon because it’s “her time to die” but cannot kill Mitya, traveller and researchers because it’s not their time to die yet. While a circular argument, it makes sense since lay lines would record and accept the soul’s death. Since the curse of death is temporary, the lay lines do not fully process the death as pernament since “its not their time to die”. That is her limit as a Shade. This is essentially the reason why the curse of immortality works as well; lay lines refuses to accept khanerian’s souls, hence they live on.
Part 3 will explain more on the ties of The Three Body Problem series and how its more relevant than ever on Genshin’s 7.0 :))