Thread by @synonyms26

On why I don’t think Himeko will die in Penacony.
It has been a speculation the last few days that Himeko will die in Penacony because Li Shaoji (Elysian Realm) is in charge. However, I don’t think she will die in Penacony for many reasons, but DH will have a fake death.

1. Firstly, from the Doylist approach, it’s literally too early for Himeko to die. There is a reason for HI3 Himeko to die in chapter 9 and not chapter 3. Because for a character's death to have an impact, they first need to have a proper bond with MC.

2. A character’s death has 2 purposes, first to gain audience sympathy, and second to further plot. As of right now, Himeko, as part of the AE main cast, has not had any proper bonding with the MC for non-HI3 players, who are the majority of hsr players, to feel attached to her.

3. While Penacony will make the general audience feel more for her, instantly killing her off right after is not only predictable but also too cheap of a death for a character in the main cast. It’s just fundamentally bad writing from an objective PoV.

4. No main cast character actually died in Elysian Realm, just the characters belonging to that specific arc. And their deaths served an actual plot point: To make the audience understand them, and for Mei to grow from her old mindset to something more healthy.

5. Thus, we have arrived at the other problem the plot of Himeko dying in Penacony would bring: Unlike the deaths of Elysian Realm, Himeko dying in Penacony serves no purpose to the game’s plot and reveals nothing new to the audience.

6. In fact, it would have the reverse effect of removing Himeko from the narrative and prevent us from learning more about her. Why does she travel on the AE? What is her motivation? What is her goal? What is her backstory?

7. All of this would be taken away from us if Himeko dies in Penacony. And unlike DH - whose past and motivations we have learnt a good chunk of in Xianzhou (albeit through unreliable narrators), we literally know shit about HSR Himeko right now, as you can see in her story 4.

8. You could argue that we could learn and understand Himeko before she died at the end in Penacony, but again, Himeko is a main cast, unlike the Elysian characters who had been locked to that arc from the start.

9. Introducing and killing off Himeko for real in a single arc would be unjustifiable for a main cast, in both story execution and predictability. While HI3 has always been a bit harsh to its characters, it has never been in any way an angst shop like Mahou Shoujo Site.

10. Secondly, from the Watsonian PoV, her role in Penacony has already been hinted at in the Penacony trailer. In the frame with Himeko, she is reaching out to a bubble/moon with the Penrose staircase broken all around here.

11. As I have explained in this thread, the Penrose staircase in the trailer is actually a ref to the Inception and represents dreams:

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1750898506670493851?t=9lFRKn91vCFmfkT1oVEbXg&s=19

12. The Penrose staircase has been previously referred to as a dream in Kafka’s trailer and also confirmed as their inspo for Penacony in the recent dev interview.

13. Therefore, Himeko reaching out for the memory bubble/moon among the broken staircase heavily suggests that Himeko will be the big damn hero this time, saving the group from the dream world this time. And this means she’s not gonna die (yet) as of Penacony.

14. In all honesty, Himeko being the big damn hero is just continuing the trend from the Topaz event, when she stepped up to help guarantee Belobog in the IPC’s eyes.

15. So in conclusion, from both the Doylist and Watsonian PoV, Himeko is very unlikely to die (permanently) in Penacony. It’s too early for Himeko to die in HSR yet, and she has already been hinted to be the hero this time.

15. More interestingly, if you pay attention to the CN lyrics of the Penacony trailer, the people who have the actual death flags are DH and Misha. I have translated the full CN version here:

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1750942619000316099?t=xOc6WBq5qUgICRok9oiKjw&s=19

16. Or you can check the full song on this guy’s channel:

17. I have previously written about Misha’s many many many death flags here:
With that many death flags, he’s basically guaranteed to be Penacony’s Elysia at this point.

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1751467005230960892?t=uoKbYQnrmMLxQQPkQV8-gg&s=19

18. As for DH, most of his death flags are in the song, where the 最后品味 永恒的滋味 (Finally savouring the taste of Eternity) is repeated not once but twice. Once would be a cameo and might not mean anything, but twice means the song’s POV is not only Misha’s but DH’s as well.

19. It doesn’t help that in the live action MV, the 最后品味 永恒的滋味 (Finally savouring the taste of Eternity) is literally the soda fountain frame, and the soda is literally Tang - people’s dreams. And that’s also DH’s frame in the trailer, the taste of Eternity 永恒.

20. The overall meaning of both the CN version and the EN version are consistent: The POV person is asking for someone to wake them up from the dream, getting them to the other side (cough 黄泉 acheron yomi cough) for them to Finally taste the taste of Eternity aka Death.

21. Mind you, like Himeko and her dangling plot point, and unlike Misha, DH is unlikely to die for real (for now). It’s too early for him to do so. From the Watsonian POV, he still has the red maple dragon flag to trigger before he can die for real:

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1750207758090297745?t=jtZWPhezFebgeyElfbtqFA&s=19

22. Also because his body is kinda made out of water, so it would be pretty hard to actually kill him:

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1710695091554394486?t=OUelHo-vld9k63xGJpsaPQ&s=19

23. However, from a Doylist POV, it’s not only logical but also convenient to temporarily take DH out of the narrative with a fake death.

24. For one, from DHIL trailer, we know that he thinks he can solo an emanator of Destruction on his own. Even though it’s only his own speculations, it’s still undeniable that DH as an IL is OP, too OP for the MC to struggle.

25. Basically, against 90% of the problem that doesn't need brain, DH, with the IL power, can likely one-shot it, or at least, make things too easy for the AE team to struggle. So how could the MC get the power upgrade without any struggle?

26. And this is not good for the narrative. They can only invent so many excuses for DH to sit on the AE in his own room before it gets weird. Hence, it’s only logical for the writers to temporarily remove him from the narrative to make room for the MC’s growth.

27. The second thing that must be noted here is that unlike Himeko (and Welt, and March, and Pompom), we already know a good chunk of his history. At least, we know how he thinks and what his goals are from the Xianzhou arc, essentially: his characterization is already known.

28. So he’s in a situation where he can temporarily disappear from the narrative, and it wouldn’t hurt his own story at all. On the contrary, you can say that his fake death would serve something crucial that HSR journey is lacking right now: a personal motive for the Journey.

29. In direct contrast to Genshin and HI3, HSR journey right now is aimless and goalless. While genshin’s goal is to reunite with abyss sibling and hi3’s is to reunite with Mei and save the world, the journey in HSR is only vaguely connected to Nanook and the Aeons.

30. There hasn’t been a direct impact on the main cast for the audience to actually care about Nanook. HSR is also not an open world game where the audience can just play tourist and travel around aimlessly (and not even genshin does that).

31. So far, Nanook is a distant figure that barely features in the plot, so why should we care beyond the perfunctory “oh it’s the bad guy and we must stop him”? Unlike hi3, the HSR journey is aimless, there is no personal reason for us to care.

32. So what would make us care? What would be the breakpoint of the HSR narrative, something to shift the tone of the story and raise the stake, something to end the long aimless prologue?

33. Someone being removed from the narrative, someone in the main cast. This cannot be Himeko, for the reasons stated above, nor March (dangling plot point and we know shit about her past), nor Welt, nor Pompom.

34. If anyone in the main cast is gonna temporarily disappear, it can only be DH: because we already know him as a character (albeit without a full backstory), because he’s too OP for the MC to struggle and grow, because the CN lyrics heavily suggest so.

35. However, I must reiterate that for both Doylist and Watsonian reasons, it’s likely to be a fake death, not a permanent death. Just a fake death or sth to yeet him away from the main narrative, like how they yeeted Mei for her to go on her own journey before the reunion.

36. In conclusion, Himeko is unlikely to die in Penacony because we literally barely know her as HSR players. On the contrary, she has already been hinted as being the big damn hero of Penacony.

37. DH, however, we already know him, and if Li Shaoji is gonna kill anyone in the main cast to force a tone shift of the story and raise the stakes, it can only be DH.

38. Probably at the very end of Penacony to invent an excuse for us to go back to Xianzhou and look for his real body or sth. At least the travelling back to XZ part is already guaranteed.

39. And heavily heavily hinted.

hsr.yatta.top/en/archive/boo…
honkai-star-rail.fandom.com/wiki/Hongjin

40. Though, DH’s death is still gonna be a fake death anyway. His own plot points and secrets of the Sedition are not finished at all. He must be alive to wake up as the Red Maple Dragon tree and die together with Blade, after all.

https://twitter.com/synonyms26/status/1750207758090297745?t=jtZWPhezFebgeyElfbtqFA&s=19

41. And lastly, I’m like 99% certain that Misha will go the same way as Ely.

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