After the events of the Prologue in Genshin Impact, Venti confesses that he’s only carrying around a glass bauble. He shaped it to look like a Vision, but it’s not actually one. During the meteorite event where various characters’ Vision glow near a shard, his ‘Vision’ wouldn’t glow. The majority of his power came from his Gnosis, which La Signora, eighth of the Fatui Harbingers, stole at the end of the Prologue chapter.
For now, there is a big mystery surrounding the relationship between Gnoses and Visions. Venti had said that Vision-bearers are those with the potential to ascend and become a god. However, in his own origin story, he had never mentioned bearing a Vision at all, though he was an elemental wisp at a time. Venessa too had no mention of bearing a Vision, yet she ascended right where the tree at Windrise is.
Furthermore, Gnoses have a clear chess symbolism. The shapes follow western chess where Venti’s looks like a queen and Zhongli’s looks like a rook. That presents a problem, as western chess only has 6 distinct pieces (pawn, rook, knight, bishop, king, queen). Chinese chess has 7, while Japanese chess (shogi) has 8. Being a Chinese game, it’s likely it will follow the pieces of the former.
If the Archons, who are gods in-universe, are represented by chess pieces, who is playing the game?
However, that’s a question for the future. The game isn’t even a year old yet, so there’s more content in the future that could hopefully answer that question. In any case, keep on enjoying Genshin Impact, whether by playing the game or enjoying fan-created works!
