(Top) Four reasons why you’re wrong about the Harbinger Rankings
\[FYI: this is a repost of a fun little theory I posted on r/FatuiHQ, since crossposting isn't allowed here I thought I'd just share it with you as well while we wait for 6.3!\]
Forgive the clickbaity title, I couldn’t resist.
Have you ever *actually* wondered what the Tsaritsa’s plan is about? Why she even needs “Harbingers” in the first place? Why they’re named the way they are, why they’re ranked from 1 to 11? Where’s number 10? Why is the Sixth seat still counted even after Scaramouche deleted himself? Can a Harbinger move up or down in rank?
I don’t really have concrete answers. What I *do* have is speculation - and boy, do I love to yap about the Fatui. That's how I started looking at the **top four Harbingers** with… different eyes.
We’re told by Nahida that the top three Harbingers are on par with gods in terms of power. Childe’s voicelines reinforce the idea that Harbingers are ranked by strength. Stronger = higher rank. Simple. Unga Bunga Powerscaling goes *BRRRRRRRR*
Except… I don’t think that’s the whole story.
And here’s why.
# The Great Tsaritsa Masterplan: Ragnarok
The Tsaritsa doesn’t simply want to “overthrow Celestia”, she wants to **sever any ties to it** and make “the gods” completely irrelevant. Her plan isn’t a coup as much as a controlled collapse of the current world-order so something **new** can be born, free from the shackles of the Heavenly Principles.
Instead of weaving destiny, like a Loom of Fate, she’a going to **burn the loom itself**. The world runs on memory. And when you think about it, memory is the system through which Fate itself can operate.
The leylines remember every civilization. Irminsul records every name, every event, every deviation. Even gods who die leave echoes strong enough to shape the future. As long as memory persists, Celestia can always reconstruct the old order.
Thus, the end must be something that makes these memories unrecognizable, unreadable (\*coughs\* *like Forbidden Knowledge* \*coughs\*) - something completely independent from the Irminsul. Can you guess what that might be?
A little hint:
[✍️🔥 \\"Then, burn away the old world for me.\\" ✍️🔥](https://preview.redd.it/piny4ffe9fbg1.png?width=781&format=png&auto=webp&s=ece04f92a19c4b73a332f86bb426ab35f31d70c9)
Yeah that’s right, comrades - the Tsaritsa is about to bring down the freaking Apocalypse.
Now let’s look at that Top 4 again…
# The Top 4 Harbingers = The Four Horsemen (Functional, Not Literal, we all know there are no horses in Teyvat)
Rather than strict 1:1 symbolism and power rankings, think of this as a **"riding order"** \- each of the top four Harbingers fulfills a **necessary role** in ending the world-cycle.
(Pray that I didn't mess up the formatting here)
|**Horseman**|**Harbinger**|**Function**|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Conquest|**Capitano**|Key / Anchor / Access|
|Pestilence|**Dottore**|Stress Test / Simulation|
|Famine|**Columbina**|Energy / Sustenance|
|Death|**Arlecchino**|Purification / Rebirth|
**RANK 1: CONQUEST (Oh Captain, My Captain)**
Capitano is the key. Think of him as the Horseman of **Conquest**, not in the sense of domination, but *claiming* \- he claimed the leylines themselves when he glued his ass to that seat (don't worry guys, he's going to wake up. Maybe).
Bound to the ancient seat of Ochkanatlan, he anchors himself to the roots of the world, acting as a gateway through which the Tsaritsa can force the leylines to yield everything they remember.
**RANK 2: PESTILENCE (Doctor, I don’t feel so well)**
Look, Dottore is evil - but he’s not evil for evil’s sake, which is why most people can appreciate him as a villain. In this framework he is **necessary cruelty, a test for humanity and the world itself**.
The guy is literally ensuring that the system is ready to fail.
His experiments inject contradiction after contradiction into the world: artificial divinity, fractured humanity, literal fake memories etc etc. Each atrocity pushes the Heavenly Principles closer to overload. Pestilence spreads until immunity collapses - Dottore spreads aberration until correction becomes impossible.
Also, the mask is a dead giveaway, come on.
[Doctor, you're looking very young today](https://preview.redd.it/k5gkukvq9fbg1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e60f51da164a33d92c5d0f4fa140b4530e9a60b3)
**RANK 3: FAMINE (Columbina Is The Bread In This One)**
Columbina is the sustenance. She is the one who… feeds the end by replacing the power source of this world.
Her song draws upon kuuvahki, a power older than the elements themselves. Where the world would exhaust itself under such strain, she feeds the process with this pure, pre-elemental energy source, starving the present so the end may last long enough to take hold. Basically, Columbina ensures the world cannot recover, diverting power away from it and weakening its barriers, all while functioning as the battery for the “new” world. \[POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD even though it's just theory\] Yeah. No wonder the Tsaritsa wants her *right where she is*.
**RANK 4: DEATH (Ragnarocchino)**
This is probably the most obvious one, right? And yet, people still undersell it. Arlecchino is not death as an ending - she is death as **rebirth**. She's the flame that burns the world and purifies it by severing its ties to the system. She is basically a portable Ragnarok, if that wasn’t clear enough. This is why she is ranked fourth, not first - Death rides *last*.
Only when the world is fully opened, fully strained, and fully starved can her flames burn it all away. And when the flames die, **the next world will not remember the gods at all.**
[Forbidden cabbage](https://preview.redd.it/mpd8ovy3afbg1.png?width=949&format=png&auto=webp&s=72020b82ed4613ea3504cd4f8a93904daebd9bdc)
**Too Long/I Have The Attention Span Of A Goldfish:** Tsaritsa-chan is riding with her four horseless horsemen towards the end of the world. Top 4 parallels the literal Harbingers of the Apocalypse.
Forgive the clickbaity title, I couldn’t resist.
Have you ever *actually* wondered what the Tsaritsa’s plan is about? Why she even needs “Harbingers” in the first place? Why they’re named the way they are, why they’re ranked from 1 to 11? Where’s number 10? Why is the Sixth seat still counted even after Scaramouche deleted himself? Can a Harbinger move up or down in rank?
I don’t really have concrete answers. What I *do* have is speculation - and boy, do I love to yap about the Fatui. That's how I started looking at the **top four Harbingers** with… different eyes.
We’re told by Nahida that the top three Harbingers are on par with gods in terms of power. Childe’s voicelines reinforce the idea that Harbingers are ranked by strength. Stronger = higher rank. Simple. Unga Bunga Powerscaling goes *BRRRRRRRR*
Except… I don’t think that’s the whole story.
And here’s why.
# The Great Tsaritsa Masterplan: Ragnarok
The Tsaritsa doesn’t simply want to “overthrow Celestia”, she wants to **sever any ties to it** and make “the gods” completely irrelevant. Her plan isn’t a coup as much as a controlled collapse of the current world-order so something **new** can be born, free from the shackles of the Heavenly Principles.
Instead of weaving destiny, like a Loom of Fate, she’a going to **burn the loom itself**. The world runs on memory. And when you think about it, memory is the system through which Fate itself can operate.
The leylines remember every civilization. Irminsul records every name, every event, every deviation. Even gods who die leave echoes strong enough to shape the future. As long as memory persists, Celestia can always reconstruct the old order.
Thus, the end must be something that makes these memories unrecognizable, unreadable (\*coughs\* *like Forbidden Knowledge* \*coughs\*) - something completely independent from the Irminsul. Can you guess what that might be?
A little hint:
[✍️🔥 \\"Then, burn away the old world for me.\\" ✍️🔥](https://preview.redd.it/piny4ffe9fbg1.png?width=781&format=png&auto=webp&s=ece04f92a19c4b73a332f86bb426ab35f31d70c9)
Yeah that’s right, comrades - the Tsaritsa is about to bring down the freaking Apocalypse.
Now let’s look at that Top 4 again…
# The Top 4 Harbingers = The Four Horsemen (Functional, Not Literal, we all know there are no horses in Teyvat)
Rather than strict 1:1 symbolism and power rankings, think of this as a **"riding order"** \- each of the top four Harbingers fulfills a **necessary role** in ending the world-cycle.
(Pray that I didn't mess up the formatting here)
|**Horseman**|**Harbinger**|**Function**|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Conquest|**Capitano**|Key / Anchor / Access|
|Pestilence|**Dottore**|Stress Test / Simulation|
|Famine|**Columbina**|Energy / Sustenance|
|Death|**Arlecchino**|Purification / Rebirth|
**RANK 1: CONQUEST (Oh Captain, My Captain)**
Capitano is the key. Think of him as the Horseman of **Conquest**, not in the sense of domination, but *claiming* \- he claimed the leylines themselves when he glued his ass to that seat (don't worry guys, he's going to wake up. Maybe).
Bound to the ancient seat of Ochkanatlan, he anchors himself to the roots of the world, acting as a gateway through which the Tsaritsa can force the leylines to yield everything they remember.
**RANK 2: PESTILENCE (Doctor, I don’t feel so well)**
Look, Dottore is evil - but he’s not evil for evil’s sake, which is why most people can appreciate him as a villain. In this framework he is **necessary cruelty, a test for humanity and the world itself**.
The guy is literally ensuring that the system is ready to fail.
His experiments inject contradiction after contradiction into the world: artificial divinity, fractured humanity, literal fake memories etc etc. Each atrocity pushes the Heavenly Principles closer to overload. Pestilence spreads until immunity collapses - Dottore spreads aberration until correction becomes impossible.
Also, the mask is a dead giveaway, come on.
[Doctor, you're looking very young today](https://preview.redd.it/k5gkukvq9fbg1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e60f51da164a33d92c5d0f4fa140b4530e9a60b3)
**RANK 3: FAMINE (Columbina Is The Bread In This One)**
Columbina is the sustenance. She is the one who… feeds the end by replacing the power source of this world.
Her song draws upon kuuvahki, a power older than the elements themselves. Where the world would exhaust itself under such strain, she feeds the process with this pure, pre-elemental energy source, starving the present so the end may last long enough to take hold. Basically, Columbina ensures the world cannot recover, diverting power away from it and weakening its barriers, all while functioning as the battery for the “new” world. \[POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD even though it's just theory\] Yeah. No wonder the Tsaritsa wants her *right where she is*.
**RANK 4: DEATH (Ragnarocchino)**
This is probably the most obvious one, right? And yet, people still undersell it. Arlecchino is not death as an ending - she is death as **rebirth**. She's the flame that burns the world and purifies it by severing its ties to the system. She is basically a portable Ragnarok, if that wasn’t clear enough. This is why she is ranked fourth, not first - Death rides *last*.
Only when the world is fully opened, fully strained, and fully starved can her flames burn it all away. And when the flames die, **the next world will not remember the gods at all.**
[Forbidden cabbage](https://preview.redd.it/mpd8ovy3afbg1.png?width=949&format=png&auto=webp&s=72020b82ed4613ea3504cd4f8a93904daebd9bdc)
**Too Long/I Have The Attention Span Of A Goldfish:** Tsaritsa-chan is riding with her four horseless horsemen towards the end of the world. Top 4 parallels the literal Harbingers of the Apocalypse.
Commentaires
"Old news, what of it?"
Not *quite* in the way you've described of course, but it's not like Hoyo isn't telegraphing their spectacles for Snezhnaya.
EDIT: you are also operating under the mistaken assumption that Hoyo only operates under Christian theology for the Dawn.
If Genshin was going to base characters on them it would probably be the biblical versions and the top 4 Harbingers don't fit into those roles as well.
Genshin is liteally known for mixing and matching references from a whole variety of world mythologies, philosophies, religions and cultures.
The four horsemen aren't an established part of different cultures, like the wild hunt is. They are only known from their depiction in the Book of Revelation.
The Wild Hunt is a an idea that appears across many European cultures, and therefore has cultural differences from the different
Nibelung and the 4 moons of natural order
Tsaritsa and the 4 harbingers of the apocalypse
four is the golden number