Why Furina is Genshin Impact's best Archon and one of the game's best written characters

For a long while now, most Genshin Impact players have believed Nahida to be the best Archon out of the bunch we've gotten to know so far. After all, who could forget her uncontested love for Sumeru and her people, and the suffering she went through at the hands of the Akademiya scholars? Who didn't cry when she was finally freed from the Sanctuary of Surasthana?

But after playing through the final Act of the Fontaine Archon Quest in Genshin Impact version 4.2, I can confidently and resolutely say that honour now belongs to Furina. Here's why.

Warning! Spoilers ahead. If you are yet to complete Fontaine's Archon Quests, this article will be chock full of spoilers. You have been warned~

Furina's 500-year performance

Who knew that the kooky, pathetic, and haughty celebrity Archon can make thousands of Genshin Impact players cry with her backstory?

I thought that Furina would be like the typical Archon who, similar to the Archons of Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma, would be far removed from her people, and so desensitised to the passing of time that she would exhibit the common nonchalance we could expect from someone with godly attributes.

I admit that I wasn't really impressed by Furina at first, instead she endeared to me with her apparent girl loser aura. Seeing her challenge the Traveler and Childe to duels, only to balk once they accepted, was admittedly cute. But it wasn't exactly behaviour you would expect from one of the Seven Archons.

Even if she was a tad bit too cocky at our first meeting, seeing how the people of Fontaine viewed and revered her (although more as a celebrity than a god) did make me feel some pity for her. After all, how could someone like that ever hope to stand against the prophecy threatening to doom Fontaine?

Oh, if only I knew what was to come.

It was a refreshing breath of fresh air to know how positively involved Furina was in her nation and how in her own way was determined to solve theprophecy. Her attempt to soothe and quell any unrest — even if it comes off as her brushing the prophecy aside — as well as portraying herself as an all-powerful and confident god however, was all just a tragic show.

A grueling and lonely performance that she has done for over 500 years. 500 years.

What makes Furina's 500-year act is the fact that she was not a god at all. While she was once a part of the Hydro Archon Focalors, she was just the human aspect of the God of Justice. She was separated from Focalors' divinity and had no power at all outside of the curse of long life.

Furina, for all intents and purposes, was just a little girl thrust into the herculean role of acting as the god of an entire nation.

So imagine being a normal human, just your average, innocent teenager, unwittingly being given immortality and willingly going along with a plan to deceive an entire nation for a greater good you don't even know can happen.

Putting on airs to make the people of Fontaine believe her to be their true god, all the while waiting for a solution to avoid Fontaine's destruction. Imagine this clueless, terrified, yet resolved girl — stuck in the body of a teenager — never aging, never dying, only watching as her nation is slowly submerged in water, even meeting literal descendants of people she once knew.

For. 500. Years. All for a plan she didn't even know! And she stuck to it to the very end, even after the people she had trusted turned their backs on her.

The most heart-wrenching scene of the entire Fontaine Archon Quest for me was when the Traveler was able to get inside Furina's mind. Seeing how Furina grappled with the thought of finally telling her secret to someone she can confide in, someone to realize the pain she had gone through... only for her to stay resolute and keep up the act.

Man, I admit that the Hydro element overflowed out of my eyes right then and there.

What makes Furina's act all the more tragic was she had no idea the plan was successful. She didn't know Focalors — who she only knew as her "mirror me" — had willingly sacrificed herself to fool the Heavenly Principles and give her divine authority to Neuvillette.

Even after Focalors' sacrifice and the defeat of the All-Devouring Narwhal, Fontaine was still submerged in a cataclysmic flood just like the prophecy said. Furina still ended up sitting alone in her throne weeping.

And yes, no Fontainian was dissolved and the flood eventually subsided, but it didn't feel like a happy ending for Furina at all. After the dust settled, she bid a quick goodbye to Neuvillette and went into hiding.

No one seems to have been informed of what Furina had to go through in order to save Fontaine. The people of the nation don't even seem to be aware of the sacrifice behind Furina's deception.

Instead, Furina is content to find her own peace in a humble home where she eats nothing but macaroni, as shown in her Story Quest. Speaking of Furina's Story Quest, I was honestly infuriated by the Traveler and Paimon's treatment of Furina.

Not only did they disturb her attempts to live out life peacefully in her own terms — no thanks to Katheryne doxxing her, by the way — they even made fun of her situation and forced her to perform in a play.

I mean, come on! Furina doesn't even get a hug, or a 'thank you', or even a few years to rest and relax? After all that she had gone through, she deserves much, much better. I hope HoYoverse gives her a triumphant moment in the future.

And all that makes Furina's self-sacrifice truly the heaviest, most loving thing an Archon has ever done for their nation.

She didn't remove herself from her people like Venti and Zhongli, heck, she didn't even have a cruel bone in her body to enact a selfish form of eternity on Fontaine like Ei did for Inazuma.

Sure, Nahida did her best with what she had while she was exiled in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, but what made Furina truly shine as the best Archon in Teyvat is her humanity — her empathy to Focalors' cause.

I think Ei sums it up best in her "About Furina" voiceline, where she compares Furina's 500-year performance with her own 500-year duel against the Raiden Shogun puppet in the Plane of Euthymia.

Ei had all the powers of an Archon during her duel, but Furina was still just a human all throughout her performance. The Electro Archon herself acknowledged Furina's spirit, even going so far as to say that "her willpower has indeed reached the level of a god". Who can argue against that?

Furina is the featured 5-star character in the first half of Genshin Impact version 4.2 alongside the first rerun for Baizhu. The second half banners for this update will feature reruns for Cyno and Ayato.

After version 4.2 comes version 4.3, which features the debuts of Navia and Chevreuse.

Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.

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