Dendro Archon

The Dendro Archon is the God of Wisdom among The Seven who presides over Sumeru, the land of Dendro. There have been two holders of this title:

1. Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, the first Dendro Archon, who perished during the cataclysm 500 years ago^[1]
2. Lesser Lord Kusanali, the new incarnation of the previous Dendro Archon^[2] and successor to the Dendro Archon title

Before her passing, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata created her next incarnation, Lesser Lord Kusanali, who then ascended as the current God of Wisdom. However, Rukkhadevata had overexerted herself fighting the Abyss, causing Kusanali to be born in the form of a child with no memories. This ability to trade "growth" for power seems to apply to all Dendro Archons, as Kusanali later states that she is able to unleash power beyond her limits at the cost of de-aging herself, possibly into her original form as "a blade of grass or a twig."^[3]

During Archon Quest Where the Boat of Consciousness Lies in Chapter III: Act V - Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises, Kusanali erases all memories of Rukkhadevata's existence from Irminsul in order to permanently eradicate forbidden knowledge from Teyvat. Following this action, Kusanali is believed by all, including herself, to have always been the original Dendro Archon. The Traveler is the only known person who remembers the true history; although at the end of her first Story Quest, Kusanali seems to have realized that her memories have been altered, but decides to not investigate the matter.

Trivia

• Prior to Version 2.1, no pronouns were ever used for the Dendro Archon in the original Chinese text. As a result, masculine pronouns were used when referring to the "God of Dendro" and the "God of Wisdom" in multiple localizations. The pronouns were updated in these localizations in Version 2.1:
  • In the Chinese version of Wishes, Yae Miko says: "Oh, so it wasn't clear to you guys yet? 'Lesser Lord Kusanali' is precisely the god whom the people of Sumeru place their faith in; it's the Sumeru people's term of endearment for her." (Chinese: 欸，原来你们还不清楚吗，「小吉祥草王」便是须弥所信仰的神明，是须弥人对她的爱称。) In context, Yae Miko's first remark expresses her surprise that Paimon didn't make the connection between the God of Wisdom she mentioned a few lines earlier, and the title "Lesser Lord Kusanali" that she had just mentioned.
  • Shortly after the release of Version 2.1, which revealed Lesser Lord Kusanali uses female pronouns, the game received a patch which included the following in-game update note:
    Fixes textual errors in German, English, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai translations of some quests and dialogues that mention or relate to Lesser Lord Kusanali. Text-related fixes for English are as follows:
    The original reference to the personal pronoun was: "He." It will now be corrected to "She." Original description: "Lesser Lord Kusanali (He/Him)." Revised description: "Lesser Lord Kusanali (She/Her)."
    However, this change only updated the pronouns used for the God of Dendro in the Archon Quest Solitary Fragrance in Chapter I: Act III - A New Star Approaches, implying that they were one and the same.
    • This was the first time a change to a character's pronouns was both publicly announced and changed over a large number of localizations at once. A similar situation had previously occurred in the English localization: Breeze Amidst the Forest originally used male pronouns for the alchemist known as "Gold," which were quietly changed to gender-neutral (they/them) pronouns in Version 1.2 as it was the introduction of Rhinedottir, who was eventually revealed to be the true identity of "Gold."

References

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