After reading the proposal for Ren Sohma, from a manga series that spawn two anime series whose original JP voice casts I am very familiar with (some of them also starred in the media of origin of this character I'm proposing), I’m back to the topic of Pure Evil "parents." But for now, we'll be focusing on the non-familial legal guardian/caretaker figure side of things in ACG to take a look at.
What Is the Work?[]
Genshin Impact is about a Traveler's journey to find their missing sibling, going on an adventure through Teyvat.
But now, we are focusing on several side stories in the game related to the Fatui foster house, orphanage and military school operation known as the House of the Hearth ran by the Knave, Arlecchino, who the children refer to as their "Father." This time, we'll be exploring her backstory as a member of the very foster house and how she became the leader of it, as well as the Story Quest, about the children of the House meeting a phantom girl named Clervie who Arlecchino wants to lay to rest that turns out to be her slain former best friend.
Who Is She and What Did She Do[]
Crucabena was the abusive former holder of the title of The Knave and therefore the former "Mother" and director of the House of the Hearth. Crucabena was mentioned to be the master of Lyudochka's teacher and House of the Hearth member Efim whom she betrayed for the good of her motherland of Inazuma as she was tasked to ruin attempts to rebuild peace.
She was an extremely pretentious woman, whose good side was entirely only for show, manipulating children into becoming tools for the Fatui that don’t value their own lives. Crucabena was abusive to the children she took in, and subjected them to a toxic environment where they would kill each other and the fittest would become “king” of this place and those deemed unworthy would also be brought to be experimented upon by Il Dottore or sent on dangerous missions. It is also highly implied that Freminet was subject to constant abuse under her care upon being sent to the House of the Hearth, and Crucabena rejected any chance of redemption no matter how many times she was convinced resulting in Peruere, an orphan of the House who is a descendant of the Khaenri’ahn Crimson Moon Dynasty who lived in Fontaine, being the only one to trust Clervie, knowing "Mother's" dark secrets.
This all culminated 10 years later in poor Peruere being forced to murder her best friend Clervie who is also Crucabena's biological daughter that was driven to suicide, in a duel. Crucabena dismissed innocence and kindness as useless despite being wonderful qualities. Though she manages to overpower Peruere, the latter manages to awaken her innate Pyro powers coming from her Crimson Moon Dynasty heritage and kills the cruel abuser with them, destroying the old House of the Hearth building. Peruere was arrested by and extradited to Snezhnaya but the Tsaritsa, a.k.a. the Cryo Archon, pardoned her actions and gave her the title of The Knave, Arlecchino. The experiences Peruere had under Crucabena's reign of terror led to her more disciplined and friendly rule on the House of the Hearth, and she worked to wipe away traces of Crucabena’s dark legacy from records while letting rumours that she is a hyper cruel caretaker spread. She would pragmatically team up with The Doctor to make potions out of her Balemoon Bloodfire to wipe agents' memories instead of killing them, if they ever planned to quit or retire.
In the present day, the damage left behind by her rule of the House resurfaces as Clervie reappears as a ghost created from the traces of Arlecchino's Balemoon Bloodfire leading to the Bouffes d'Ete trio of Lyney, Lynette and Freminet to investigate, as the phantom Arlecchino was looking for. Freminet reveals he protected Clervie while knowing that Arle would punish everyone involved hiding who she was looking for. During there, Lyney found an execution list and on it was the name of a someone who was implicitly killed for trying to leave to meet up with his lover. The Traveler and Paimon meet Clervie out of town, who tells the of her fear of being given to The Doctor, a fate worse than death, after being given up by Crucabena. Nevertheless, they accompany her until Arle returns.
Knowing that betrayal is not tolerated, Arle plans on dealing with the Clervie situation. She decides to spare the Traveler and Paimon who were merely guests and while the Bouffes d’Ete trio could live, the others would be killed off. Arle agrees to not listen, but if they successfully laid Clervie to rest, she would spare the group. At the ruins of the former House of the Hearth building at Mont Essus East, Arlecchino tells the Traveler her backstory and how she killed Crucabena as mentioned above, revealing that her Balemoon Bloodfire powers left behind shadows of anything they consumed, which coalesced into a six-year-old Clervie whom she plans to lay to rest to resolve the conflict.
The Bouffes d'Ete trio arrived with the traitors, but tried to stop Arle from killing them, allowing Chapleau to side with Lyney and let him settle the matter with a duel. The Traveler sides with the trio, but wasn’t able to defeat Arlecchino. She readies a powerful attack, but surrenders afterwards, stating they aren’t strong enough to face her. Knowing of this, she lets the traitors consume the potion made of her Balemoon Bloodfire that would remove their memories of them living with the House of the Hearth, amending the rules. Arle has a talk with her late adoptive sibling, telling her the truth about Crucabena and how she tried to make right what she did wrong, and the next day releases Clervie from the house, allowing her to rest in peace, putting a good stop to Crucabena's negative influence.
Heinous Standards[]
In Genshin, there are a good amount of non-divine villains in the series that had did significantly deplorable things to at least thousands to millions of people, tried to destroy entire societies or even. An example for all that is given:
- Tartaglia who helped Morax in his test of character for the Qixing by summoning Osial to annihilate Liyue Harbor.
- Takayuki Kujou created the Vision Hunt and Sakoku Decrees to sell Delusions which sap the life force of most normal people and to pay off the Fatui whom he colluded with, to escalate tensions between the Sangonomiya clan and the Raiden Shogun solely for gaining more power.
- Nathan unsealed Orobashi's wards, releasing the Tatarigami that poisoned thousands of people living on Yashiori Island and offered Delusions as a spy in the Watatsumi Army in his short screen time.
- Azar tormented thousands of people in dream harvesting nearly killing them, and attempted to replace Lesser Lord Kusanali as the God of Wisdom which also utilised Forbidden Knowledge which is dangerous to Sumeru's Irminsul network, being a head of the Sumeru Akademiya as well as having access to the Akasha network.
- Il Dottore who experimented on many Eleazar victims and the children of the House that survived Crucabena's killing game, causing one of the three betrayals that caused Scaramouche to fall to villainy with his murder of Kaedehara Yoshinori and betraying and killing Soreh for disagreeing with his views to make a lifeform that could rival a deity.
- Matriarch Babel Tanit planned to obtain the Ever Oasis for herself, to attack Sumeru City and overthrow the Dendro Archon and Akademiya rule, relying only on her fellow men without the backing of the Fatui for her actions.
- Marcel dissolved at least a little over two dozen people and framed Callas for killing Jacques when the latter informed on him about the side effects of Sinthe.
- Jakob Ingold, whose research proved to be important for Marcel's plans to dissolve Fontainians, turned humans into half-human half-monsters which were left incapacitated, to resorting to buying Mamere's paintings for Elynas' blood which is required to make more of these trans-human monsters, reviving Elynas to cause terror on the Melusines, and whilst knowing that the prophecy of Fontaine would come, would summon the Narzissenkreuz and knowingly destroy the region through the Primordial Sea flood.
- Dougier brainwashed like dozens of people with Aqua Doloris and subject them to heavy abuse on the mental and physical ends, as well as forbidding them from having interactions, only qualifying due to his hyper-low resource tier of being a random convict in the Fortress of Meropide.
- Remus attempted to commit genocide on Oceanids and Vishaps alike as well as placing peoples' consciousnesses into Praetorian Golems, which is said to cause unbearable agony and shattered peoples' souls, however he also is the leader of a state and had access to Ichor to create sentient magical golems.
- "Phobos" turned against Sybilla to make Boethius into its puppet after taking over his consciousness and led Remus to wage war on the non-Remurians in the first place, while simply being a magical entity with only music playing as its special trait, and was responsible for speeding up the prophecy at one point leading to the sinking of Remuria.
Even with these candidates Crucabena has to compete with, she can stand out with her purgatory game being shown to have intense negative effects; around hundreds of children were actively being harmed or killed throughout the fights, and this act led Peruere to her breaking point when she was forced to kill her best friend Clervie to survive, which ultimately led to the former killing Crucabena in return upon growing up. It also doesn't help when she literally sends the weak to be experimented upon by Il Dottore, who always likes to subject people to dangerous experiments throughout various sources, and the look of fear in Clervie's eyes when she mentions about the children that did not survive going to be left with The Doctor. In resources, she has her House of the Hearth troops, in addition to some elemental powers (implied to be Cryo or Hydro), but they aren’t an issue though. While death games involving the losses of life aren’t unique in the series, in those cases, Crucabena passes by a lower on-screen presence than other death game masters like Krupp in the webcomic in addition to admitting that she would killed Clervie sooner when Peruere slain her, saying that she would have "pruned this flower long ago, not waited till it wilts," as well as basically admitting that the children's goal is to become "King" in her own twisted way, proving that she enjoys making the children suffer in her killing games.
Mitigating Factors[]
None. Crucabena doesn’t have any mitigating factors that could easily be brought up, as her good relationship with Il Dottore could simply be implied out of professionalism, as little is known about it. She also doesn’t care about her adoptive children, even her biological daughter Clervie like mentioned above, and any hint of having a genuinely good nature from her is plainly just a facade she employed to hide her sinister motives.
Final Verdict[]
Firm keeps for one of the evilest legal guardians (non-blood related) in ACG.