It is 2026, and the Genshin Impact community has long since moved past the great Dendro drought of the 1.x era. Players now frolic through the lush rainforests of Sumeru with no shortage of plant-wielding characters. Yet, veteran Travelers still chuckle about the dark ages when the seventh element remained an inside joke — a mythical concept only glimpsed in Dendro Slimes and a pharmacist’s dreams. At the center of that collective head-scratching lurked a question: did HoYoverse once dangle a perfect lore explanation right under our noses, only to ignore it? The answer lies in Inazuma, with a certain puppet-shogun and an ideal of eternity.
Back in version 2.0, the Electro Archon storyline seemed airtight. Raiden Ei pursued a stasis so profound she locked her nation in a time capsule, enacted the Vision Hunt Decree, and delegated her rule to a perfect mechanical puppet. On the surface, electricity roared in theme with Inazuma's thunderstorms. But let’s be honest: lightning is the most transient, flash-in-the-pan element imaginable. It surges and vanishes, the absolute opposite of eternity. Meanwhile, Dendro, the element of plants, growth cycles, and nature’s endless loop, screams permanence like a giant talking mushroom. The circle of life — dead flora becoming compost, nourishing new sprouts — is literally eternal. Ei’s obsession with an unchanging world would have made a thousand times more sense if she reigned over dendrology instead of voltage.
Picture this alternate timeline: Raiden Ei is the Dendro Archon. Her luscious garden-realm stands petrified in permanent bloom, never wilting, never evolving. The Vision Hunt Decree suddenly becomes a campaign against elemental chaos that threatens the delicate balance of nature. Fire-wielding Pyro maniacs? Arsonists against her sacred groves. Hydro tricksters? Floods ruining her bonsai collection. Electro… well, still annoying but perhaps tolerable in small bolts. The Fatui’s manipulation of the puppet-shogun would mesh perfectly: convincing a ruler obsessed with natural order that random Vision-bearers were uprooting her eternal garden.
Now, why on Teyvat were there no Dendro playable characters until Sumeru arrived? Under the Electro-Archon reality, lore stayed silent. But swap Ei to Dendro, and suddenly everything clicks together like a well-tuned mechanism. The Sakoku Decree sealed Inazuma; no one enters or leaves. Combined with the Vision Hunt Decree, any Dendro Vision-wielder trapped inside saw their magical acorns confiscated. And since no new Dendro Visions were being handed out for about a year — a fact HoYoverse explicitly delivered through NPC dialogue — the outside world simply forgot the element existed. The Dendro characters became refugees, escaping to the nearest open nation. That nation, of course, was Liyue.
Is it a coincidence that the only two early Dendro-vision characters, Baizhu and the then-speculated Yaoyao, both called Liyue home? Hardly. In this glorious fanon, they were Dendro refugees who slipped past the Inazuman blockade with help from Captain Beidou, whose Crux fleet already smuggled Travelers. Liyue becomes a safe haven for displaced nature-wielders, a living metaphor for South Korea absorbing escapees from a locked-down northern neighbor. The timeline matches, the geography aligns, and the emotional weight of carrying a forbidden Vision adds instant depth to their backstories.
Then comes the resistance led by Sangonomiya Kokomi. In the official script, she is a Hydro catalyst user opposing the Raiden Shogun. Hydro versus Electro is already thematically rich, but swap Ei to Dendro and you unlock a symbolic treasure chest. Kokomi’s water signifies fluidity, change, the crashing of waves against stone cliffs. Against Dendro’s eternal stasis, she becomes the nourishing rain that forces sterile roots to crack and grow. The rebellion isn’t just a political struggle — it’s a clash of natural philosophies. Kokomi’s Hydro literally erodes Ei’s petrified garden, and that erosion is what Inazuma needs to bloom anew. Plus, Hydro sustaining plant life creates an inherent irony: the very element Ei fears is the one that feeds her domain, if only she’d let it.
Even environmental details giggle at this missed chance. The Thunder Sakura, a massive sacred tree, stands as a prominent Electro Archon symbol. Why is a tree the herald of electricity? Perhaps because the original draft had Ei entangled with Dendro, and the Sakura remained as a leftover artifact. Furthermore, the original Electro Archon perished during the Cataclysm — exactly when the previous Dendro Archon also died. What if they were the same being? The lore practically begs for a twist where Makoto wielded both Electro and Dendro, splintering the domains at her death, leaving poor Ei to pick up only the sparky half.
Of course, this remains top-tier fanfiction. Sumeru eventually dropped with Kusanali, the wise Dendro Archon, and the world learned that wisdom is the true ideal of plants. But even in 2026, when theories have mostly settled, a piece of the community still sighs at the alternate path not taken. The Electro Archon’s association with eternity through lightning remains the game’s greatest logic pretzel.
Let’s break down the elemental-ideal alignment we actually got versus the reimagined version:
| Archon | Our Timeline Ideal | Element | Makes Sense? | Dendro-Ei Timeline Ideal | Element | Makes Sense? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barbatos | Freedom | Anemo | ✅ Yes, wind is free | Freedom | Anemo | ✅ Yes |
| Rex Lapis | Contracts | Geo | ✅ Unmoving rock | Contracts | Geo | ✅ Yes |
| Beelzebul (Ei) | Eternity | Electro | ❌ Lightning is fleeting | Eternity | Dendro | ✅ Endless cycle of life |
| Kusanali | Wisdom | Dendro | 🤔 Plants are… wise? | Wisdom | Electro? | 🤔 Brain electricity is wisdom? |
See that perfectly symmetrical swap? In the Dendro-Ei universe, Sumeru’s Archon could have ruled Electro with “wisdom” as neural impulses — a stretch, yes, but no wackier than eternity via lightning bolts.
Even the raw gameplay would have benefited. Dendro’s sole reaction during those early patches was Burning with Pyro. A Dendro Archon blocking the spread of pyromaniacs to preserve her forest would have been hilariously meta. The lack of playable Dendro wouldn’t be a missing feature; it’d be intentional worldbuilding. Players would nod knowingly, “Ah, the Vision Hunt Decree was why my team had zero dendro.” Instead, HoYoverse gave us an element that simply didn’t react to anything except fire until Sumeru’s overhaul, leaving a gaping hole for years.
Even now, conversations about “what could have been” resurface when new players ask why Inazuma’s statue of the seven looks so miserable compared to the vibrant Dendro statues in Sumeru. The answer might just be that the original painting had more green in it before the narrative brush decided otherwise.
So, dear Traveler, next time you parade your Nahida-led bloom team through the Abyss, spare a thought for the timeline where the Raiden Shogun’s puppet harvested hyperblooms instead of thunderbolts, and where the Vision Hunt Decree was actually about protecting the sanctity of chlorophyll. It would have been a branching path worthy of Irminsul itself.