The Root of Bennett's bad luck... and what if he might be more important than we realize?
In the Easybreeze event last summer, we found out Benny's parents died in an ambush from abyssal monsters in Mare Jivari and that the reason for Bennett's bad luck is because our boy was disconnected from Natlan's ley lines and thus from the blessings of the Wayob. It seems that disconnection is the general root cause of the bad luck.
Seems quite impersonal, right?
One thing didn't exactly sit right with me. During the event, we get to see a simulation of Mare Jivari; Bennett is transported there and faced with an echoing voice that speaks to him with vitriol, spite and hatred.
It sounds very personal.
It apparently controls the conditions in that simulation and in the real Mare Jivari. Its tone and words also don't seem like mere indifference, but a targeted effort to snuff out Bennett's life after all the time he's spent alive and away from Mare Jivari.
Who is speaking to Bennett, there?
The game does not explain what that voice is, but there is explanation of the cause of Mare Jivari's harsh conditions. Quote from the wiki:
"Five hundred years ago, during The Abyss' invasion of Natlan, the Bakunawa appeared west of Tenochtzitoc, and was said to have "devoured entire villages of tribespeople". The lost settlement of Tenochtzitoc fought the beast to the last, until only Tenoch remained. Observing the destruction of his home, Tenoch decided to rally the bickering tribes to fight the back against the "turbid black tide," and gathered six allies to form Natlan's tribal coalition. (...)
(...) The power possessed by the Bakunawa is capable of corrupting the passage of time. To prevent this corruption from infecting other regions of Teyvat, Barbatos blew the entire Mare off the timeline before he started his hibernation. Because of the temporal disruption, the souls of the people that perished in the Mare Jivari were imprisoned and bound in the land, and foreign souls would be unable to return to their homeland."
The Bakunawa is, in itself, a creation of Rhinedottir formed from immense Abyssal power. It was so powerful even Rhinedottir herself could not control it. Considering the time frame and context for Natlan (that being the constant Abyssal Wars), it is easy to then conclude that the reason for the conditions of the Mare Jivari are because of a concentrated presence of the Abyss.
According to Alice in the Outlander who Caught the Wind event, the essence of the Abyss is the hatred of all the fates that will never come to pass. Its very core is hatred and, one may even interpret as envy (as Paimon says it, "hatred for not being chosen") and as Alice also says, a "victim complex". Bear in mind that, according also to Alice, its wish is not to come to existence, but merely the destruction of the possibility that was chosen.
Consider the following: while it was the joined will of all the Tecpatl's Flintblades that allowed Bennett to exist despite an ambush of Abyssal monsters, isn't it quite the odd outcome that he did survive? It is a lucky draw, even to the voice that speaks to Bennett in the simulation.
With all that taken into consideration, it is easy to assume that the voice speaking to Bennett is the voice of the Abyss. It is some form of manifestation of it in Mare Jivari that reappeared in the simulation when Venti opened the possibility to save the souls in that wasteland and that took the chance to vanquish a fate that did pass: Bennett's survival.
That's only one layer of this theory, though. There's another question to be made.
While disconnection from the ley lines would prevent Bennett from receiving the blessings of the Wayob, would that exactly mean he is "cursed" with bad luck?
A lack of a blessing is not a curse: it just means he's neutral. Think of it in numbers: a blessing is a plus, being without it just means being even. Besides, he was still in Mondstadt, the Land of Freedom blessed by Barbatos, who is able to even save the souls in Mare Jivari; wouldn't that mean Bennett's got a different blessing, in a way?
At any case, Benny not getting a +1 from the Wayob doesn't immediately imply he gets a -1 curse. It would just mean he'd be at 0. Neither blessed nor cursed... unless something was cursing him all this time.
From there, it's an easy assumption: we already have a culprit who's been keeping an eye on Bennett and, at the first opportunity, went out of its way to kill him: the Abyss... or at least, nascent and weak manifestations of the Abyss's power to corrupt fate through Bennett's disconnection from the ley lines.
In the same "Outlander Who Caught the Wind" event, we hear Alice tell that the abyssal manifestation we saw in the bubble and developed into a fate that would not pass (Dvalin's death and Mondstadt's near destruction) was actually a nascent form of the Abyss that if left unchecked, would grow into the full thing. The Abyss saw an opportunity to corrupt a fate and took it; no need for a trail, only that a window is found.
Well, what better window to curse someone than lack of protection from their guardian deity?
Additionally, in the Truth Amongst the Pages of Purana Archon Quest, we discover that one of Irminsul's functions was to anchor the world's fate. Since the ley lines are extensions of Irminsul, to be disconnected from the ley lines means to be disconnected from fate and thus more susceptible to a force that wishes to uproot it.
The exact root cause for bad luck when Natlanese are disconnected from the ley lines could be the coalesced hatred of all the unchosen fates for the existing one and a vulnerability caused from this disconnection out of a lack of a blessing and/or the lack of protection and anchoring the ley lines provide.
The severed link is merely comparable to turning off the immune system, thus allowing the Abyss virus to sneak in.
In other words, Bennett is cursed by the Abyss.
This might not be the end, though. Another fair question to make is...
How is he still alive, then!?
If the Abyss's ultimate goal is to kill Bennett, it is quite the sequence of lucky draws that he keeps getting away with it. All this time, he's had multiple near death experiences and yet, the kid is still alive. Heck, he's still alive and swinging!
There is the very possible explanation that it's because Bennett's been guarding himself from the Abyss, if unconsciously (partly consciously).
The moment Bennett got into the simulation, he was surrounded by the power of the Abyss: nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. There, its presence was at its strongest, thus allowing it to reclaim him for a moment.
Meanwhile, in other locations such as Mondstadt and post-Abyssal War Natlan, the Abyss doesn't have that strong a hold. He's safe there and especially safe in Natlan, since his link to the Ley Lines is reestablished: the window closes and the virus can't get through. There's the additional explanation that in Mondstadt, blessed by the winds of Barbatos, he has a layer of protection to keep him - not enough to nullify the bad luck, but just enough to guard him from getting too injured and outright dying.
There is a fun interpretation I would like to offer, though...
The strange thing about the protection he gets from the Abyss outside of Natlan is that it will allow pretty much everything to happen to him: he can get beat and battered, badly injured, almost drown, get nearly struck by lightning, cause a rainstorm and lose whatever he can get in an expedition...
Everything can happen, everything... except dying.
It also seems like it will spread by consequence to the people around him, but again: none of the people affected by the developments of his curse have died. At least, we don't know a single case of that, not even for someone way less prepared than him.
Also, another thing I wanna point out is: he's been to Dragonspine and LIVED. Dragonspine is also full of abyssal remnants; heck, in the time he went there, it had a dormant evil dragon DURIN under the surface. While the Abyss's power is not as great as in Mare Jivari, it also has (or had) some influence there, if lingering. Plus, the Anemo Archon's gentle protection must not be as potent in the giant mountain with freezing temperatures and harsh conditions.
What would be able to protect him from a deadly fate there?
Well, what if it's not like he's merely being protected from death, but not being allowed death to come to him? What if there is a chance he and the people around him aren't being allowed to be killed by the Abyss because someone upholding the law won't let it come to pass to them, right there and then?
Yeah. I'm suggesting Ronova is protecting him.
I'll admit, from here on, there's much less hard evidence and more speculation through parallels, but the narrative it builds is very interesting.
Bennett's fate seems extremely linked to both Natlan and the Abyss, as well as death. In a moment of deep struggle, Bennett was allowed a second chance at life. Every waking moment, he has the chance for death to knock at his door and yet, his body rises again. It also doesn't affect his spirit: even when faced with the voice of the Abyss, Bennett reiterated that it's fodder for an adventurer to rewrite fate and find new possibilities.
This boy is constantly found in insurmountable odds and keeps on going, every day. He doesn't surrender and doesn't falter, even when it seems his destiny is already written. His spirit is reborn from the ashes of his determination over and over.
With this theory in mind, Bennett's backstory seems to parallel Natlan's story as a nation beat by beat. Even down to the fact that Mondstadt was practically founded by a Natlanese (Vennessa) and he ended up there of all places.
As for his personality, you know, it kind of reminds me of another hero who has a competitive and ecstatic edge, who went against all odds, united the people around him through his determination and support and pushed against a much greater foe. A hero who also happened to have seen the a grim future before him despite his struggles and yet was undeterred.
A hero who also had a dealing with the Ruler of Death. He also happened to be Natlanese.
Xbalanque and Bennett are very similar, character-wise and theme-wise.
Both are heroic figures (one a past hero, another an unlucky side-character hero) who are/were faced with the odds and do/did not let their fire die.
Both have this natural charisma, seen in Xbalanque's ability to unite the six tribes and Bennett's shining, positive and driven personality. Keep in mind how the only thing keeping Bennett from having a TEAM is his bad luck: the moment it left him, Mualani, Chasca, Traveler and Paimon joined in.
They're also similar in how competitive and friendly they are: they pretty much embody a never-dwindling fire, both fierce and warm.
It is also very, VERY curious that Hoyoverse's preferred choice for a design in which we can see Xbalanque act and speak for the 1st time is a young boy who has a LOT of similarities to both Benny's original look and his Natlan skin. (blue pants with orange details over the sides of the belt, boots, top revealing belly button, bandanna, the band with feathers on Mausau's right arm mimicking the tourniquette on Bennett's original design, even the hair looks a bit similar).
You could chalk it down to the same personality, same archetype (fiery boy) or inspiration, but it feels really suspicious: they did not need to establish visual parallels between Bennett and Xbalanque and yet they did so. Deliberately.
Bennett, like Natlan, could have all these parallels in lore because he, too, is a direct product of Xbalanque: a descendant of his, not counted in the records since Natlan's main method of succession is not blood, but title and name. The throne of Pyro was passed down to The Scarlet-Eyed Youth after Och-Kan's kingdom fell, as well as the ancient name "Kiongozi": with a period of war having passed, who's to say that the exact lineage of the original Pyro Archon wasn't lost from records as well?
At any case, with or without the blood relations, we'd have a motive for Ronova to protect this one child and a specially important reason as to why the Abyss yearns to destroy him:
Through lineage or not, Bennett is the son of Xbalanque. Through him might flow his blood, but most importantly, his SOUL.
Bennett is practically built after the character that allowed Xbalanque to claim Natlan's weapon of victory over the Abyss and the same vigor that allowed Natlan to survive and succeed against it through the ages.
Along with the Pyro Vision in his belt, which already screams he has the potential to rise to the level of a god, it's all converging signs of another individual with the capability to not just defeat, but CRUSH the Abyss... And so, the Abyss wants to destroy that chance before it happens.
Much like with Xbalanque before, Ronova could be preventing his death because she might have plans for him. She saw the ultimate result of her deal with Xbalanque and now, with the Abyss Order rising, she sees someone else that has the capability to reach the same highs as Xbalanque. Someone who physically and/or spiritually can succeed him.
A worthy heir to the spirit of the wielder of the Primal Flame was born: a Champion of Flame, blessed by Death.
TL;DR: Benny boy was cursed by and face-to-face with the Abyss and said "aight, bet". Ronova saw that and thought Xbalanque was back and spinning the block again. Also, Benny might be a descendant of Xbalanque.
And if these theories are all ass, leave with this: you can never glaze Bennett enough.
