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| “ | Do you think...do you really think I wanted to do any of this? Pay attention to you? What for!? Have you ever paid attention to me? Ever empathized with my pain? Ever known what it feels like to have the love of your life dissolve right in front of your eyes? | „ |
| ~ Marcel's villainous breakdown after being exposed by the Traveler |
Marcel, real name Vacher, is a major antagonist of the 2020 action role-playing fantasy game, Genshin Impact who serves as the main antagonist of the second act of the Fontaine Archon Quests and the overarching antagonist of Furina's Story Quest.
He was the founder of Confrerie of Cabriere, a sister organization of the Spina di Rosula and a drug lord who discovered the psychedelic properties of Sinthe, a mixture of Primordial Seawater diluted with water. Seemingly the ally of Callas and Navia, he was in truth the culprit of the serial disappearances cases of young woman in Fontaine for a desperate attempt to bring back his lover, Vigneire
He is voiced by Tony Waldman in English and Tada Keita in Japanese.
Personality[]
| “ | You are a liar, a heartless murderer, and a cowardly narcissist | „ |
| ~ The Mysterious Oceanid to Vacher |
Marcel was originally a kind and loving person with a passion for adventure. However, following the death of Vigneire, he became utterly obsessed with his desire to reunite with her. This resulted in him developing a sort of nihilistic perspective, seeing his life had lost all meaning without Vigneire, and therefore consistently attempting suicide to be with her. When he realized suicide was not an option, he became extremely ruthless and willingly resorted to kidnapping, serial murder, and illegal drug trafficking all to discover how to resurrect his deceased love.
Since his actions made him extremely paranoid of being caught by the law, this fear allowed him to adopt both a deceitful and strategical way of thinking. Not only could he easily take up an innocent persona, but he had also plotted out his schemes to ensure that he would remain undetected and unsuspicious in his acts. He was not however, completely foolproof as he left several pieces of evidence which ultimately led to his arrest
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Although not directly stated, it can be assumed Vacher was born and raised in Snezhnaya before he chose to become an Adventurer. During his travels, he visited Fontaine, whereupon he met a Fontainian Adventurer name Vigneire. The two fell in love and planned to marry. Tragedy soon struck however after Vigneire came into contact with Primordial Seawater during one of their underwater expeditions, causing her to dissolve into water in front of Vacher's eyes. Heartbroken, he attempted to follow her several times after her death, yet since he wasn't Fontainian, the water did not dissolve him.
Realizing he could not follow her, Vacher instead began to study the Primordial Seawater. He kidnapped several Fontainian Women around Vigneire's age and used them as test subjects to discover how to undo the water's effects. This resulted in them too dissolving into water. Over the next 20 years, Vacher would continue his kidnapping and experimentation in a hopeless attempt to try and resurrect his deceased lover. To cover his tracks, he took up the identity Marcel, being the name he was to give his first son with Vigneire, and destroyed all records of his true name.
Sinthe Business[]
To fund his experiments, Marcel began a business selling a concoction made from Primordial Seawater diluted with normal water, called Sinthe, originally based on ancient research by Cataclysm-era scientists of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo: Jakob Ingold and Rene de Petrichor. The drug induced short-term feelings of euphoria, but also had dangerous side effects and even a withdrawal effect. He also founded the Confrerie of Cabriere, a merchants association considered to be a sister organization to the Spina di Rosula, led by his friend and partner, Callas.
Callas however, soon discovered the dangerous side effects of Sinthe, and began banning it from the village of Poisson and investigating it. Three years before the events of the game, Marcel heard that one of his associates, Jacques, had betrayed him to join Callas. In response, he set up an elaborate plan to get rid of them to keep his operations a secret.
Marcel hired an assassin to kill both of them during a banquet hosted by Callas, which he himself also attended. The assassin successfully killed Jacques, but Callas seized the gun before the assassin could finish him off. However, Marcel then secretly poured the Primordial Seawater on the assassin and dissolved him, thus removing all traces of the assassin in the crime scene. Callas was framed with Jacques' murder, yet he knew that if he defended himself in court by testifying against the Sinthe manufacturers, it would have caused them to retaliate against his daughter, Navia. Therefore, he instead chose to fight for his honor in a duel, and was killed by Clorinde. Marcel refrained from harming Navia years after the incident, as it would have triggered Callas’ associates to share crucial intel about the Sinthe business with the authorities.
Magic Show Incident[]
After the Traveler arrived in Fontaine, Marcel attended Lyney and Lynette's magic show at the Opera Epiclese to get his next victim. He planned to dissolve a Fontainian painted named Halsey and let Lyney take the blame, and tasked Lyney's prop manager, Cowell, and the Garde Vaughn with assisting him.
The plan was to rig the show's number generator to always choose her as the volunteer in the show's magic box trick, in which two boxes, one on the stage and one in the theater aisle, were to be used by both Lyney and the Volunteer. Underneath the boxes was a tunnel which both participants would use to make it appear as if they switched boxes. Cowell would tamper with the props by adding a balloon filled with Primordial Seawater alongside a metal hook in the volunteer's magic box. Once the box descended into the tunnel, the metal hook would pop the balloon and douse whoever was in the box. To destroy any traces of Primordial Seawater, Cowell also tampered with the rope holding the water tank from the show's previous act. The rope would therefore catch fire and snap from the stage's pyrotechnics, dropping the tank and spilling water everywhere, thereby destroying the evidence.
Unbeknownst to any of them, Halsey was actually a thief from Mondstadt named Liliane, and as a result, she did not dissolve from the water. Believing the water needed time to take effect, Cowell fought Liliane in the underground tunnel, but ended up getting knocked out and placed inside the magic box and subsequently killed by the falling water tank.
During Lyney and Lynette's trial, the Garde Vaughn still attempted to frame them by accusing them of having Primordial Seawater in their belongings. His attempts failed when Liliane was captured by the Spina de Rosula and confessed to her crimes in the trial. Vaughn was then ordered to confess his scheme with Cowell. Yet before he could reveal his boss's identity, Marcel dumped Primordial Seawater on him, dissolving him in front of the court audience.
[]
After Lyney and Lynette were declared innocent, Marcel attempted to assassinate Navia, who was now the head of the Spina de Rosula, due to her interference in the trial. While she was dining at the Hotel Debord with the Traveler, Marcel had her drink spiked with Primordial Seawater. Paimon however, drank it in her place, saving her from being dissolved. Afterwards, he sent a large number of Clockwork Meka at the Traveler for their interference, but this attack was foiled thanks to Navia and Clorinde.
Marcel's Trial[]
With these incidents, Navia was able to deduce someone was targeting them. She visited Marcel, who maintained his façade of innocence by reassuring them that the Confrerie of Cabriere would be willing to help them in their investigations. After some further investigations by Navia's attendant, Melus, both the Traveler and Navia began to believe Marcel had ulterior motives. To expose him, Navia would return to the opera house and interfere with the trial against Tartaglia, who had been accused of the serial disappearances case, by pressing charges against Marcel. Meanwhile, the Traveler would infiltrate Marcel's Sinthe facility to collect evidence to use against him.
Marcel was soon brought to the Opera house to stand trial. Initially, he was able to refute any of Navia's statements by utilizing his occupation as a Snezhnayan Businessman with valid border entry records and his first business license predating the serial disappearances case. However, he was quickly caught by surprise when Navia stated his true name "Vacher". He further attempted to maintain his guise by claiming he never heard of that name despite his initial reaction. Yet at that moment, the Traveler returned and exposed Marcel's true identity by using Vignere's notebook, which he found in the facility among other evidence.
With the Traveler's newly found evidence, Vacher's motives were exposed to the court. Vacher, in a state of mental trauma, began to criticize Fontaine's justice system for looking the other way when Vigneire was dissolved, while also provoking the audience by stating that those who he dissolved will never return just like her. Vacher then took out a bottle of Primordial Seawater. Drinking it, he cried as it still would not dissolve him. Vacher continued to lament for Vigneire, while also cursing Navia and Callas for exposing his plans. The court easily found him guilty and had him taken away by the Gardes as he wept.
Death[]
Later, as he was being taken away, he ran into the Traveler and Paimon near the entrance. He approached them and asked how they found out his real name, to which they revealed that they learned it due to a voice coming from the Fountain of Lucine. Marcel requested to be taken there, promising that it would be his last request before he paid for his crimes.
Due to having drank a large amount of Primordial Seawater, upon his arrival to the fountain, he was able to hear the Mysterious Oceanid residing within. Believing it to be Vigneire, he ran into the fountain and was put into a trance-like state where he came face to face with the Oceanid. He wept, declaring she was his everything and that he did not know how he could live without her. The Oceanid however, claimed that the world would be better off without him and that because of him, she was unable to finish her law degree, continue her pursuit in her love of the arts, or take care of her elderly mother. As she continued to blame him, Vacher realized that the Oceanid was not Vigneire. The Oceanid revealed herself to be the collected consciousness of all the women who had been dissolved due to his selfish experiments. Vigneire, who was also part of the collectivity, became disgusted upon learning of Vacher's actions, and therefore she was purposely avoiding him in the amalgamation. Refusing to believe Vigneire hated him, Vacher begged them to let him see her one last time. At that moment, the Oceanid began to split into many women, all calling out his name in anger, before saying one word: Drown. Vacher screamed in fear as all the women "drowned" him to death. His death in the real world would later be ruled out as a panic attack.
"The Little Oceanid"[]
In spite of his death, Marcel's actions left an impact on those related to his victims. Among the victims was a director by the name of Aurelie. Her death left her troupe devastated that they had struggled to put on shows without her. Realizing they couldn't continue without Aurelie, they proposed to do one last show before disbanding.
Trivia[]
- Marcel's two identities are references to two famous historical French serial killers:
- Vacher is a reference to Joseph Vacher.
- Marcel is a reference to Marcel Barbeault.
- Marcel's modus operandi of dissolving people with Primordial Seawater is not too dissimilar to real life serial killers disposing of people and their corpses through acid.
External Links[]
- Marcel on the Genshin Impact Wiki
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