Now I'm back in Genshin Impact due to my new interest in the Japanese dub voice actors, as well as ACG overall, so I'd present this new proposal.
What Is the Work?
Genshin Impact's main story is about the Traveler's journey to find their sibling, throughout the overarching storyline of the Archon Quests. The Fontaine arc serves as a two-part story, with the first half being about solving a murder mystery involving the dissolution of Fontainians within Primordial Seawater, in which Fatui Harbinger Tartaglia was being roped into, connecting to the second half being about the prophecy of Fontaine sinking which plays a key part in Tartaglia’s visit hastened by the presence of the All-Devouring Narwhal.
Who Is She and What Did She Do
Navia Caspar is a major playable protagonist in the game. She is the current leader of the Spina de Rosula, a non-governmental organisation which covers the places the government of Fontaine cannot reach like the underground establishments of Poisson and Fleuve-Cendre.
From a young age, Navia started out as a very mischievous lady. This was because after her mother Clementine died from complications during Navia’s birth, Callas was left in a catatonic state leading to him becoming more of a neglectful parent who hid lots of secrets from Navia, and his pride would get the better of him, leading to Navia getting a lot of undeserved shade and being involved in arguments involving Spina de Rosula where she was entirely uninvolved in. As he became engrossed with the Spina’s footwork, he left Navia with the hopes that she would become independent, not speaking of his own struggles like his terminal illness that will kill him in five years and even of Clementine's death to spare her the emotional baggage. They had to rely on the other Spina members to take care of her. At a little over ten years old, Navia met Clorinde before her stint as a Champion Duelist, who praised her sharpshooting skills when they first met and would eventually play tabletop RPGs together.
Spina de Rosula would eventually be dragged into the case with Marcel’s Sinthe cartel three years before the events of the game, where Jacques informed on the cartel to Callas with info about the Sinthe vendors and drug makers guilt-ridden of the damage it caused. As a result, the cartel would take the wife and daughter of Callas' business partner, Jacques, as ransom and blackmailed him into murdering his business partner Callas personally to test his loyalty. When he relented, Marcel hired another assassin to kill him, and dissolved the latter with Primordial Seawater to hide evidence and Callas would be implicated for the crime in that way. Since the properties of the Primordial Sea dissolving Fontainians were poorly studied at the time, Callas would use his terminal illness as an excuse to order Clorinde to end his life in a duel, to clear his name and deter the cartel from attempting to kill Navia themselves unless she stood in their way of their plans. This would lead to Navia and Clorinde’s friendship deteriorating.
Back to the present, the traveler joins Navia after a trial was launched regarding the serial disappearances' during Lynette and Lyney‘s magic show in the Opera Epiclese while finding evidence. Neuvillette, the Chief Justice, launches a trial for the incident next day, and as Furina is about to implicate Lyney, Navia brings up the box and orders Lyney to replicate the trick, swapping places with the Mondstadter thief Liliane who went under the false identity of Halsey, the thief they pursued who snuck in with a stolen ticket, enough to allow the trial to be in Lyney’s favour.
The Traveler notices that Cowell had carried vials of Primordial Seawater which he used to sabotage the props and unsuccessfully tried to dissolve Liliane (pretending to be Halsey) who is not Fontainian, which was proven alive by two macarons she took from Navia before Cowell got crushed to death by the water tank he sabotaged with Primordial Seawater once Liliane fought him off and placed him in the magic box, as well as hearing that Vaughn, his accomplice, was killed before he could reveal the identity of the boss. Realising that there is an organisation behind the crime, Navia stumbles back into Callas' case knowing that the same people might also be involved there. The next day, the traveler and Paimon drink Navia’s Fonta glass at Hotel Debord, with Paimon remarking it tasted bad. The traveler then hears something similar to the voice he heard when they went back to the Fountain of Lucine, meeting an Oceanid-like manifestation which asks them about Vacher, who was seemingly responsible in their demise, followed by an ambush by unserialized Gardemeks in which Clorinde intervened. Turns out that Navia’s Fonta glass was laced with Primordial Seawater in an assassination attempt as Paimon notes that Fonta wasn’t supposed to taste “salty and icky” and had a weird colour. The Traveler brings up intel about the manifestation, and resting in the sewers, Navia believes that the disappearances were tied to the Callas case, gaining the determination to find the truth, learning that Callas sacrificed himself to maintain his honour rather than to stand trial for killing Jacques.
Navia spends the night trying to find out who is Vacher to no avail, so the traveler and Paimon hurry to find info about Vacher in Neuvillette's office. Unfortunately, Neuvillette has no info about Vacher but heads to apologise to Navia, who calls him out for disregarding Callas’ life through empty words despite knowing something was wrong, but she apologised and leaves. Neuvillette cries in response, sending forth rain which reveals his identity as the Hydro Dragon and piqued the Traveler’s heightened Hydro senses caused by ingesting the Primordial Sea-spiked Fonta, leading to them to learn that the culprit was dissolved to leave no evidence, which Navia separately remembers suddenly and heads to Poisson, where she finds out the truth of the Sinthe case, in which Primordial Seawater was diluted with plain water to make the aforementioned compound, which was popular for recreational use, but extended drinking brought dangerous risks. They suspected Marcel for being the one able to afford the Gardemeks sent forth as the ambush knowing that he made loads of cash from Sinthe and its creation.
Marcel was brought to court as the lead suspect, involving the Gardemeks, with Tartaglia that is also inside the nation being charged as he was also accused for the disappearances through his Fatui connection. Navia intercepts the trial and places Marcel as the prime suspect and explains the truth of the matter to the witnesses. She brings up Vacher which causes Marcel to feel familiar with the name all while the Traveler and Paimon recovered evidence for the trial against him, allowing Tartaglia to be proven innocent with Marcel being pronounced guilty. However, the Oratrice Mechanique D'Analyse Cardinale (cue the dance), powered by the Hydro Gnosis to decide the outcome of trials, as well as having another purpose we will describe later returns to a guilty verdict which infuriates Tartaglia, though Neuvillette promises to give a thorough investigation. Marcel asks to be taken to the fountain upon hearing that the Traveler found that he was Vacher, leading to his defeat as the Oceanid manifestation drowns him as punishment for his murders. Finally after winning the case against Marcel, Navia goes to Callas’ grave with his honour restored, and finds Neuvillette who tells her why he let the duel continue, admitting that Callas proved him wrong and without his sacrifice, the case wouldn’t be solved, while Navia eventually becomes friends with Clorinde again.
The Primordial Water below Fontaine's reservoirs eventually breaks loose with the All-Devouring Narwhal hastening the prophecy, leading to the deaths of Melus and Silver, Navia's personal bodyguards who sacrificed themselves trying to save people from the floods, which she confirms at Callas' grave, lamenting that she couldn’t hold a funeral for them as they requested to have their bodies placed next to Callas' tomb. Navia meets up with Arlecchino, who reveals that she had placed her subordinates to work with relief efforts and a child stumbled across the Poisson ruins. The Traveler accepts the task with Navia tagging along, only to find out that it is flooded with Primordial Water. As a result, they flee the scene, but Navia slips and falls into the floodwaters. After a lengthy hallucination of going to trial against her wishes with the dissolved consciousnesses as audience members, she is rescued by the dissolved remains of Melus and Silver who criticise the rest for being jealous that Navia could still exist as an individual eventually encountering them as Oceanids, long for Neuvillette to rescue her, as he arrived at Poisson to meet up with the Traveler, surprised to see Arlecchino who asked where the group had gone. The four explore the ruins and read about the prophecy, which depicts Egeria, the first Hydro Archon, kneeling before Celestia, the great flood and Furina weeping on her throne. With no leads, they leave the ruins, with Navia, the Traveler and Paimon going back to Fleuve Cendre, the base of Spina and Neuvillette heads to confront Furina about the prophecy.
The next day, the team, including Navia, create a plan to capture and interrogate Furina surrounding the prophecy. The Traveler finds Furina in Poisson grieving the dissolved victims only to be pursued back to the Opera Epiclese by several people to Lyney's opening act. She attempts to refuse the idea of being trialled again, only being convinced to agree when she was given an offer to duel with Clorinde that she refuses not complety surrendering, allowing the Traveler to prosecute Furina.
Before beginning the trial proper, Navia reveals she has her subordinates dress in plainclothes and demonstrate in front of her at the Opera Epiclese. Knowing that she would flee the courtroom and head to Poisson personally, she has another group to pursue her back to the courtroom through Lyney's Giant Magic Box alongside the Traveler, where Clorinde would await her to duel should she refuse. The Traveler accuses Furina of being a fraud through their documented interview with Charlotte, escalating into Navia having her touch the Primordial Seawater sample that she collected from Poisson, to which Furina received the adverse effects of a Fontainian being exposed to impure Primordial Water, allowing the audience to be finally convinced that she is guilty. However, the Oratrice instead insists that the actual Hydro Archon is guilty with the sentence being death penalty. Freminet arrives suddenly with the missing stone tablet from earlier, revealing in full that the first Hydro Archon, Egeria, created the Fontainians from Oceanids using the Primordial Seawater when they yearned to live on land and so was cursed with the "original sin" for appropriating the power of the Primordial Sea. Through Furina's words later, the aforementioned Oratrice now comes into play for Focalors, the actual Hydro Archon's deception to save her people; it used gather Indemnitium from trials and cast it into a guillotine for Focalors' own execution. In the meantime, she set up Furina as a figurehead for the Archon for about 500 years cursed with immortality to cheat the Heavenly Principles. With Focalors destroying the seat of the Hydro Archon in her self-execution, Neuvillette is returned to his full power, averting the prophecy caused by her "original sin" and allowing him to turn the Fontainians back into humans.
Navia continued to work as part of Poisson's reconstruction from the flood caused by the prophecy, while being persistent despite the Spina being hit with massive losses. However, Colter, a Spina de Rosula member who was released from the Fortress of Meropide following his sentence, turned against the group and joined Romeuf and his team, who were dismissed from Spina due to a monetary dispute between him and Callas over the Aquabus funding, as he believed that he'd rather improve the quality of life in Poisson than to fund public transit which didn’t sit well with Callas as he found that the opportunity with the Court of Fontaine or the Research Institute didn’t come by easily though the gains were convincingly large, and went with their plans to destroy Poisson as revenge with Navia at the centre of the blame through a terrorist bombing on the Aquabus Callas Line through falling debris. Navia orders the entire town evacuated while the Traveler takes on the explosives. They manage to take out one set, but are too late to stop the other resulting in boulders dropping at Poisson, to which Navia manages to block from advancing, just as the Gardes arrive to apprehend Romeuf and his group. When Navia was approached with the offer to talk to the gang, she declined believing they’re no longer worth talking to for trying to cause harm to innocents. She sympathises with Colter's issue, saying that she is now looking into the future and will try to implement the Aquabus system in Poisson, and dismisses him as a Spina member, but tells him he is welcome back once released. The Story Quest ends with some closure on the sacrifices Navia had endured by the heroes agreeing to support her future endeavours.
Admirable Standard
Seems like the first and foremost admirable act she committed was evacuating around hundreds of people from Poisson to protect them from a terrorist bombing which would drop boulders at their houses causing mass property damage, and when a stray bomb caused more debris to drop at the vicinity of Poisson, deflected the boulders and nearly exhausting her energy doing so. And since this is Genshin we're talking about, there is a fair share of normal humans or humanoids, wielding the Elements or not, who saved or protected dozens to hundreds of civilians, if not thousands such as Furina de Fontaine, Diluc Ragnvindr, Wriothesley, Ningguang, Thoma and even the Traveler themselves. But even with these in the way, Navia manages to stand out with her other degree of heroism, through personally collecting and providing evidence against her archenemy Marcel in his trial, diverting Tartaglia away from the false blame as the mastermind for the serial disappearances, by putting Vacher as the prime suspect of the case utilising his familiarity with his "Marcel" identity, shutting down his Sinthe trafficking ring and avenging the death of her father among several others killed thanks to his machinations and allowing her to reconcile with Clorinde as well as playing a minor role in the Traveler and Neuvillette clearing Tartaglia's name in Fontaine.
She also seems to play a role in Furina's case, which triggered the execution of Focalors to save the entire Fontaine region by proving her and Furina's deception, where she provided a sample of Primordial Seawater, and dared Furina to touch it just to prove that she is the real Hydro Archon which should be immune to its symptoms. With Furina being pronounced guilty for pretending to be the Archon, Neuvillette is able to save the entire Fontaine region from dissolving in the flood, and Focalors' execution can be carried out. What makes her role in Marcel's case unique is the narrative separately presenting the Traveler and Navia's perspectives when they individually gathered evidence against him, showing their unique roles they played at the stands. Besides, I don't think she has done anything remotely admirable enough to pass standards in the Simulanka event, and thus with all that was given, admirability is in the clear.
Corrupting Factors
There looks like one moment that might look problematic; when she dares Furina to dip her fingers in Primordial Seawater just to prove that she is the Hydro Archon which would be immune to it while. However, this is alleviated as she has Furina do it not wanting any more people dissolving from the seawater proving that she was reluctant to the idea, with some witness stating that her suggestion is valid, not to mention Navia looking at Furina's predicament in horror when she got severely injured by the Primordial Water. It also helps her case that she changed the sample from a direct one from Poisson during the flood to one that is less concentrated to dissolve a human in addition to hiring Sigewinne, the Fortress of Meropide's head nurse as a witness for the symptoms, after a discussion in regards for her life; wishing not for any more individuals to lose their lives to the Primordial Sea, making it more than understandable than being actively malicious.
Originally, Navia started out as a very mischievous youth. However, this trait seemed to have faded with age and her character growth; it is mainly due to Callas being a neglectful father after her mother Clementine's death from childbirth, leading to him enabling such behaviour in Navia which she eventually matured from afterwards, making it look more like she had actually reformed rather than having no other corrupting qualities alongside simply being kind and forgiving.
Final Verdict
For Archons' sake, the unlucky yellow rose really needs a break from everything she been through that I listed here despite the gentleness she tried to give. Simple yes.