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Musings on Divergent Universe lore
Jul. 24th, 2024 01:18 pmThere have always been discussions and arguments surrounding the fact that the gameplay "Classes" (I'll use this term to distinguish it from the lore "Paths") of many characters don't match their philosophical/political backstory. Before, most people reached the conclusion that Hoyo makes an effort to design characters into appropriate classes, but due to gameplay design, that isn't always possible, and so there will be some characters who get placed into inappropriate classes.
I mean, the most obvious support for this is the fact that there are a lot more Paths than there are playable Classes. Our protagonist team all follow the Path of the Trailblaze according to in-game dialogue, but there's no Trailblaze class. The Stellaron Hunters, as we've learned recently, follow the Path of Finality. Argenti is an ardent follower of Beauty. Black Swan is an agent of Remembrance. And so on and so forth... these are all Paths which don't have corresponding Classes, so obviously, the characters need to be sorted elsewhere.
But more recently, with the Divergent Universe: The Human Comedy update, a different consensus has emerged:
If a Path is a concept, a divine portfolio in the Greek Myth kind of way, then only the Aeons can be completely pure of purpose enough to tread solely on a particular Path. They moment they are no longer purely of that Path, they fall from the position of Aeon (which is sorta/partly what happened to Tayzzyronth the Propagation).
All other living beings, however, have varying levels of free will and thus can be a messy conglomeration of multiple Paths. Though most common mortals don't walk any particular Path will enough "force", if you will, to amount to anything. To become a Pathstrider, you need to have some sort of focus on a particular Path above others, but even then, it is very much possible to be a Pathstrider of multiple Paths. Hell, Phantylia even proved that is possible to mainline more than one path as an Emanator.
The Divergent Universe even gives us a bunch of examples in what combinations of Paths could result in! Though, it's still limited by gameplay to combinations of two Paths. But we do see in our player character the possibilities of further combinations, given that our MC is technically powered by the Paths of Trailblaze/Destruction/Preservation/Harmony, with likely a lot more to come in the future.
( Pattern Analysis )
( Hunt, Abundance, Xianzhou )
***
( Playable characters and secondary paths )
I mean, the most obvious support for this is the fact that there are a lot more Paths than there are playable Classes. Our protagonist team all follow the Path of the Trailblaze according to in-game dialogue, but there's no Trailblaze class. The Stellaron Hunters, as we've learned recently, follow the Path of Finality. Argenti is an ardent follower of Beauty. Black Swan is an agent of Remembrance. And so on and so forth... these are all Paths which don't have corresponding Classes, so obviously, the characters need to be sorted elsewhere.
But more recently, with the Divergent Universe: The Human Comedy update, a different consensus has emerged:
If a Path is a concept, a divine portfolio in the Greek Myth kind of way, then only the Aeons can be completely pure of purpose enough to tread solely on a particular Path. They moment they are no longer purely of that Path, they fall from the position of Aeon (which is sorta/partly what happened to Tayzzyronth the Propagation).
All other living beings, however, have varying levels of free will and thus can be a messy conglomeration of multiple Paths. Though most common mortals don't walk any particular Path will enough "force", if you will, to amount to anything. To become a Pathstrider, you need to have some sort of focus on a particular Path above others, but even then, it is very much possible to be a Pathstrider of multiple Paths. Hell, Phantylia even proved that is possible to mainline more than one path as an Emanator.
The Divergent Universe even gives us a bunch of examples in what combinations of Paths could result in! Though, it's still limited by gameplay to combinations of two Paths. But we do see in our player character the possibilities of further combinations, given that our MC is technically powered by the Paths of Trailblaze/Destruction/Preservation/Harmony, with likely a lot more to come in the future.
( Pattern Analysis )
( Hunt, Abundance, Xianzhou )
***
( Playable characters and secondary paths )
