r/RhinedottirMains

I’ve been studying Icelandic for about three months, and I recently had a realization about Rhinedottir’s name and her role in the lore.

In Iceland, people generally don’t use family surnames in the traditional sense; instead, the country still largely follows a patronymic naming system. Rather than inheriting a family name, a person’s surname is typically formed from their father’s name (or, increasingly, their mother’s) with “-dóttir” added for daughters, literally meaning “daughter of.”

If we apply this linguistic rule to Rhinedottir, her name can literally be interpreted as “Daughter of the Rhine” (“Rhine” being the English exonym for the river).

This might be a direct reference to Germanic mythology and Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), which features the Rhinemaidens (Rheintöchter in German).

In the mythological tradition, the Rhinemaidens are water nymphs tasked with guarding the Rheingold, the gold of the Rhine. And, as we know, Rhinedottir’s alchemical codename in Genshin Impact is literally “Gold.”

In Wagner’s cycle, the gold is stolen from the Rhine and used to forge a ring of immense power, setting in motion a chain of events that ultimately culminates in the Götterdämmerung—the Twilight of the Gods and the downfall of the divine order.

This seems to mirror remarkably well how Gold’s actions and her creation of Abyssal monsters contributed to the fall of Khaenri’ah and the deaths of several gods during the Cataclysm 500 years ago.

If this theory has already been proposed before, I apologize, it must have slipped past me.

Aside from the fact that I’m vampirically fascinated by her, I wonder: did Rhinedottir willingly devour the Heart of Naberius, knowing that Celestia would trap her in such an important role - which would explain why she’s helping the Tsaritsa with her plan - meaning it was driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge and transcendent power? Or did she actually desire to inherit the divine function itself?

I probably misunderstood some of her lore or mistranslated a few passages, but I came across a post on this subreddit discussing Rhinedottir being simultaneously associated with the Hexenzirkel, the Sinners, and the Shades, and I initially assumed these roles weren’t necessarily in conflict with one another.

Thinking about it more, though, I started wondering: could the Heavenly Principles really have accepted Rhinedottir usurping the role of the Shade of Life despite her connection to the Abyss? Did they simply tolerate it in silence, or did the Primordial One somehow “trap” Rhinedottir in that role precisely because of her own insatiable desire?

I’d really appreciate some help and might be able to clear this up for me. Thanks!