All The World's A Stage. (Furina Character Analysis)

Many games came out in 2020 that stood out among the crowd. Because everyone was indoors, it pushed those who typically don’t play video games to pick some up. Take Animal Crossing, for example; people bought switches to play the game with friends and family. Of course, by the end of 2020, the trendy game to play was Among Us. It has the opposite gameplay of Animal Crossing, but it was notable, nonetheless. The game I picked up that year was the newly published Genshin Impact by Hoyoverse.

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It's a single-player, open-world action RPG with multiplayer aspects. Genshin Impact is a game that is still actively played by many people daily and is still praised for its gameplay and storytelling. While I have played this game since its launch. I will admit I am not one of those players who play consistently. It is my opinion that a game like this one is to be played slowly and enjoyed slowly. As I find that when I rush through, I don’t particularly enjoy myself or the quest I’m working on.

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As Chapter 4 came to its close last year, I wanted to write how much I loved it. As I might say, it’s been my favorite one so far.

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This is your spoiler warning for Fontaine's story.

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Fontaine is the fifth region of Teyvat that we must visit, and the country of Hydro. It’s pointed out multiple times that Fontaine holds Justice and its Laws higher than any country. So, we were thoroughly ready for a court case or two when entering for the first time. My focus of this piece is the God of Justice and the Hydro Archon herself, Furina, and Focalors, but mainly Furina. When I first heard of Fontaine, I wasn’t expecting much other than a steampunk world possibly. Not necessarily a grimy city, but not the elegant one we have gotten. When I think of steampunk, I think of the punk part and the fashion trend. I enjoy the Fontaine we got; it fits the French mixed with the Water City we were promised.

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Then, I saw the chapter title and got a bit more curious.

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Masquerade of the Guilty.

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Well, that was a choice for the land of Justice. I don’t believe people who yearn for justice would wear masks. However, I had been wrong before.

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Then, Furina’s character trailer and teaser demo dropped before the final act. This had me step back for a second as I noticed stuff that I didn’t think were throw-away effects anymore. I have a film background. However, I spent most of my college days as a scriptwriter. I still learned film history and had to learn how to make them myself. I even know how to put an old-fashioned film inside a camera. Tricks and all. So, when I initially saw the film elements in Fontaine, I laughed it off. Technically, they also make a lot of opera and magician references. At the same time, it might not seem like opera, magicians, and filmmaking all have common ground with their similarities. It had bothered me then, but now I have finished the story. They took all these ideas and meshed them all so beautifully well.

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Especially for a France-based country. For those who don’t know the origins of film, cameras, and film, in general, have a lot of roots in France. Louis Le Prince is the Father of Film; he is said to have made the first moving picture using a single lens camera on a strip of the film before mysteriously vanishing on a train. That’s a whole other story, but the other person I would then highlight who is a personal favorite is Georges Méliès. He led many technical and narrative developments, and I would dare say he created a lot of early special effects. He was considered a magician in his field.

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Filming is a lot of smoke and mirrors; arguably, the term “movie magic” is accurate. In the old days, especially, the phrase smokes and mirrors are the words I would use to describe all of Fontaine and Furina herself. Our leading lady, Furina, stands center stage as the fog lifts. She was playing a role in an opera all by herself.

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When she was first announced, I anticipated her to be this entitled, judgmental, over-the-top person. That’s what I expected from the God of Justice. A person with a hero complex that knows all and only sees right from wrong. But that’s not Furina. Oh no. Furina is over-the-top, don’t get me wrong. But it is fake over-the-top that got my attention. Furina is an actress and is the walking poster child of a God with adoring subjects. Who is just there to entertain her followers rather than help them.

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Even then, that isn’t entirely the case with her. The web of lies is so deep with her that even when it looks natural, it’s so realistic that it’s unnatural.

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I want to start with Furina’s character teaser and trailer. I had so much excitement when I first watched it. I was squealing over every second with my friend. The name of her trailer is “All the World Is a Stage,” Which already points out Furina’s role in the story for this chapter. She is an actress for our puppeteer in the shadows. When I first saw the title, my first thought was the play it came from, “As You Like It” by Shakespeare, which, from my rusty knowledge and a tiny bit of research, might have been intentional.

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The long story short of Jacques's monologue is about how, throughout life, we play a role as if we are actors on a stage, and as we grow up, our roles change, which is just the inevitability of life.

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For Furina? This is ironic. To have her character trailer be about growing up and moving through life and changing our roles. When she can’t and won’t be able to grow and move on to her next role. With hindsight, it’s heartbreaking because, for her, that is all she wishes for. To be able to move on with her life and stop playing the Hydro Archon role.

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Her teaser demo is called “Furina: Member of the cast.” You can guess our beloved Archon's fate from these two titles alone. She is just a mere puppet to entertain the gods and fate itself. She must play her part with no end, rest, or relaxation as she was fated to never truly move on and play the role of her true self.

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Furina also has many silent and early film motifs in these videos. Silent Film is the main one, but I would be doing myself a disservice, not to mention the Zoetrope reference in the demo. I honestly can’t say precisely what it is at 0:50 seconds in. Zoetrope was my first thought, as it’s an old animation machine. The one that I have been used to seeing being only adjacent to animation history is the machine made by William Ensign Lincoln and Milton Bradley’s version of the machine. The best way I can describe it is that it’s a cylinder with slits cut out and a light source in the middle. So, when you look through, you see the stripes of hand-drawn frames. So, when spinning, you can see the small image come alive. It was so smooth of a transition and on-brand with Furina as it added to the what’s real, what’s not a question in the video.

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It’s these small details that made me smitten with Furina. It made me care for her more before I could see her in action in the game as she tried her hardest to fool fate itself. She poses this question during her demo, and I still think about it as we go along with the main story of Genshin Impact. “Opera walks the line between truth and fiction. For though the story is fictional. As far as the characters are concerned, their fate is real. Therein lies the rub: Are you and I the audience or characters on the stage?” I didn’t know a question could make me question all I know about storytelling than that. While it seems evident that to the characters in your story, they’re in their reality, I feel like many people have forgotten that. This is why, for me personally, I get angry at certain characters for being dumb. That could also be because some characters are just too human. So, with the reader knowing more, it’s easier to be annoyed.

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That quote for Furina means a lot, though, as it opens questions and answers, all while keeping things unsaid. She is a character. This is her reality. She is trapped and self-aware that things will go downhill and is unable to stop it as she is not the hero of this story. That is the traveler. All she can do is watch from her throne as everyone in Fontaine dissolves into the ocean. She was leaving the Furina, who plays the part of the Hydro Archon, weeping on her throne all alone.

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Thus, this leads us to the final part of Chapter 4. The Climax of this small opera we have been watching finally comes to light.

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Well, some of it.

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Furina begs and pleads for her people to believe her lies so she can continue the performance. Judgment of the Hydro Achon is given, and she is finally being convicted of the crime she had to face long ago. The simple crime of making humans from the primordial seas. This makes some people in the audience retract their anger as it’s not every day you hear your god tell you that you’re not fully human. Before they could even process it, the sentence for the God of Justice, Focalors, is… Death.

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This might be my favorite thing about this chapter as this is where the smokes and mirrors visual comes in. Furina is Pepper’s Ghost Illusion, as she is not Focalors. Pepper’s ghost is a simple illusion; you have probably seen it once before in your life. The best example is Disney’s infamous Haunted Mansion Ballroom scene with the dancing ghost. It works by having an image or recording that gets reflected onto a transparent shot at a 45-degree angle. It makes a simple hologram.

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So, while Focalors stayed in the Oratrice Mecanique D'analyse Cardinale. Which was the very machine that carried out all final verdicts. We get a last moment with the true God of Justice and an explanation of who Furina truly is. Focalors is the divinity of the Hydro Archon, while Furina is the physical human part. The perfect image of Focalors, her stunt double. However, that’s just not all. Focalors is the one to die here. This was all a plan to save her people and give back the power over Hydro to the person it was initially for the Ludex of Fontaine Neuvillette—the Hydro dragon sovereign.

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Of course, Focalors isn’t exactly Furina. She still goes out in style with a dance. With a bow, the sword goes down, and the God of Justice dies. It truly marks the end of Furina’s opera for 500 years.

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What does she do now that she is done with her role as Focalors? Furina goes to sleep, as the mask finally can come off, and she can eventually move on to her next position in her life. This time, it won’t be one she has to play for centuries.

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My next goal is to play her character story as there is more to Furina afterward. From what I know from other people, we get to see her heal, get a vision, and get swooped up in a traveling theater company. I hope she gets to be the director of this company, but it looks like she will be an actor, which, while annoying, I feel like she would fit better behind the scenes of a play or opera. I know I am biased with my screenwriting background, and who knows. Acting might be Furina’s thing. I hope we get to see her happy finally being her.

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A character like Furina excites me, and I want to see where Genshin Impact goes with their story and other surfaces. I want to know more about the Archons, Neuvillette and the other dragon sovereigns, and, of course, Furina. There is only so much we can deem from things being hinted at, and I want to be told more about her. The actress behind Focalors. What was an act? What was the truth?? I hope we will know sooner rather than later.

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Life may be like an opera sometimes, but we must remember not all operas end in tragedy. As the characters on the stage, we might have the power to alter our futures. However, I suppose that’s only if we are self-aware of our parts. Who knows. I certainly can’t answer that question, but I hope to keep moving forward to something brighter. Whatever it may be.