u/valekhtov

Repost because apparently I forgot to acknowledge that I read the rules

There are a lot of parallels between the Fontaine Archon Quest and the Christian Bible—an original sin, an inevitable prophecy, a sort of kenosis (“self-emptying”), a divine self-sacrifice, a healing of the peoples broken natures, a flood—it’s undeniable.

But when it comes to Focalors and Furina, there is something much more interesting going on. I’ve heard plenty of people try to understand their relationship and say that it’s like the Trinity, but I have to disagree.

The doctrine of the Trinity, as defined by the first seven ecumenical councils, the Church Fathers, and as accepted by most Christian denominations, is not like Focalors and Furina, for three reasons:

# 1. INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

I’m gonna be using this post as the model ([https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin\_Lore/comments/1evsy9a/focalors\_and\_her\_separation\_of\_godhood\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/comments/1evsy9a/focalors_and_her_separation_of_godhood_and/))

As the linked post highlights, “In English, she says "human counterpart", however in Chinese she says 人类的我, which is Human Me. It's the same way Furina calls Focalors' Divinity, 镜子里的我 (Mirror Me).”

Compare that to how the Father and the Son interact in the Bible:

1. Jesus’ Baptism: “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’” (Mark 1:11 ESV)
2. The Transfiguration: “…a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’” (Matthew 17:5 ESV)
3. Jesus teaching in the Temple: “‘Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heave: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’” (John 12:28 ESV)
4. Jesus’ Intercessory Prayer: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.’” (John 17:1 ESV)
5. Jesus’ Prayer in Gethsemane: “And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:36 ESV)
6. Jesus on the Cross: “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34 ESV)
7. Jesus’ Death: “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46 ESV)

According to the doctrine of the Trinity, the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, explaining how they can interact like this, but are one being, sharing the same divine essence. The Son can say “I am God,” and the Father can say “I am God,” and together they can say “We are one God,” but the Father cannot say “I am the Son,” neither can the Son say “I am the Father.”

Genshin appears to define “person” and “being” differently as reflected by the way Focalors and Furina interact with and talk about “each other”, arguably as “two mirrors of the same person”.

# 2. CONSCIOUSNESS

Saint Augustine wrote: “And hence these three are one, in that they are one life, one mind, one essence; and whatever else they are severally called in respect to themselves, they are called also together, not plurally, but in the singular number.” (On the Trinity, Book X, Chapter 11)

While the first point establishes that Focalors and Furina are closer as “one” than the Trinity in a sense, this point shows a division between Focalors and Furina that is absent in the Trinity. Because the Triune God is all-knowing, Jesus as God is also all-knowing, so Jesus knows everything God knows, and as Augustine said, Jesus shares one mind with the other persons of the Trinity.

In contrast, in ***The Opera of Noirceur and Blancheur,*** **Scene 1, Before a Mirror, Furina**, the “Person in the Mirror” has to explain the plan to Furina. And yet, as Neuvillette observes, “even Furina doesn't know the truth”. Focalors “never once let her in on the full plan”, but “deceived \[herself\]”.

Furina was left weeping on the throne, believing she failed, only to be surprised when she witnesses Fontaine survive the flood. Focalors and Furina, while being “two mirrors of the same person”, are two individual centers of consciousness, each with her own mind and memories.

# 3. SEPARATION

According to the Chalcedonian Definition, Jesus is “truly God and truly man … recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ.” This is known as the hypostatic union.

If “Focalors” and “Furina” are identified as the divine-self and human-self of “each other”, separated 500 years ago, and if that parallel was translated onto the Trinity, it would be an abomination in the eyes of Christian theologians. If we are to use the same language the ecumenical councils used, Focalors and Furina are better described as two persons with two different natures, despite being sharing the same origin as “two mirrors of the same person”.

I think Focalors is more comparable to the hypostatic union than the Trinity, in that Genshin read the Chalcedonian Definition, and said, “But what if the divinity and the humanity *were* separate?”

In fact, in trinitarianism, it’s Jesus’ humanity that dies whereas his divinity survives, because the Christian God cannot die. In Genshin, it’s the divine-self who dies, and the human-self who is left alive. Genshin did a total inversion.

# NEXT SECTION

Genshin can make parallels, but it doesn’t make much sense for us to expect a Chinese video game company to import trinitarian metaphysics into their lore. This is the same game that uses names from an obscure 17th century demonology text, and borrows concepts from Gnosticism, a heresy condemned so hard that until 1945, most of what we knew about Gnosticism was from Christian texts written against it, and even Genshin’s cosmology doesn’t entirely map cleanly onto Gnosticism.

One could say that Genshin was inspired by trinitarianism, but I’d argue that Genshin took trinitarian concepts and reconstructed them into something completely different, and that is much more interesting than “it’s like the Trinity.”

As the Mormon counterpart to the Nicene/Chalcedonian “fully God, fully human,” since the Church doesn’t seem to like defining those kinds of details.

My dad would tell me Jesus is “half-God, half-human”. He also speculates that no 100% human could survive “bleeding from every pore”.

“God” can mean different things in context, like as a believer I would emphasize that “Jesus is God” in the sense that we are saved through him and that he represents the Father and holds “all power in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). But in a metaphysical or even genetic sense, “half-God, half-human” makes sense to me in a Mormon framework.

Edit: I should’ve clarified that I was referring to Jesus’ “genetic” or “biological” state between his virgin birth and resurrection. Like humans, he suffered hunger, pain, temptation, and eventually death, but unlike humans he was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

I agreed to give it a try and I’ll be meeting with a psychiatrist soon for my depression but I hate the thought of needing medication to fix life. I feel like a failure of a specimen and I’ve already decided that life has no meaning or purpose. I swear the only reason I agreed to therapy and psychiatry is pure curiosity, “let’s see how it goes,” and I hate it.

I used to be very confident in my faith to the point where it meant everything to me. So when I lost faith in God, my entire world collapsed and since then I’ve been the most depressed ever.

What I got from the Book of Mormon was that you can do anything with faith. And then it gives you the most extreme examples of moving mountains or surviving fires or having God descend from heaven to you. So when I was in an emotional breakdown and I asked for God to comfort me, you can imagine my disappointment when supposedly He gave all these undeniable signs to believers, but nothing at all to me.

I almost wish I had went into a simpler faith before getting serious with Mormonism. Instead of going to the temple for making covenants with God and learning keys and tokens to get into the highest level of heaven as revealed to living prophets, it could have just been going to the temple because it’s a nice place where you can meditate and spiritually rejuvenate and get a little break from the world. Instead of reading an old book written in poor English with the faith that it might be true and asking God if it isn’t true, believing that He will give you a “divine witness” from which you can thus conclude that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that this Church is the true Church with prophets like Moses and the same priesthood Jesus used for miracles that we never see today, it could have just been reading proverbs or philosophies to help you find your place in life and praying for the simple things.

But that won’t ever happen because now my perception of God has been ruined. I had too much confidence in Mormonism and now I don’t think I can ever again be confident in anything. If God or divinity is real, then I am convinced it is either indifferent or cruel and sadistic. I’m incapable of ever approaching faith again with a sincere heart. The thought of prayer makes me uncomfortable. And I’m tired of looking for “signs.” I think I’d rather have God appear to me and cause me to wither away in His presence than live in this hopeless world.

Hi, I’m 19. One day I will be 20. Will I be exiled from here?

I was playing Granny on hard and darker mode, and I was in the spider cellar trying to juggle both the padlock key and the winch handle (for the hammer) through the hallway, and I managed to get the padlock key back into the house, but when I went back for the winch handle, I couldn’t see it, and it was too dark and I was too scared of spider mom to look closely. Was there something I could’ve done to find it?