okay so. (This is not related to the best contest chapter coming out soon btw) I have come to a VERY interesting conclusion with my friend i_MilkToast_i on hoyoverse and the genshin men. You can pick up on most of it in our conversation, but I'll summarize the topic now. Feel free to debate me or add onto this, I posted it here to have some conversations over it!
Hoyoverse has an EXTREME problem with writing male characters properly. They don't have good backstory, their story quests (excluding venti and zhongli's 2nd one) are boring and irrelevant to getting to know them or the plot (venti has a nice one, but it doesnt really flesh him out, just that he abandoned his people for centuries then made a guy look at his dead friend and cope with identity theft) and overall don't give the character any sort of closure or relevance. take beidou and xiao for example!
Beidou appears in the archon quest less than xiao and they both have story quests, but hers (despite being a 4 stars and much less rewarding/lengthy) fleshes her out and gives much more lasting impact as well as closure. her story Quest hit home and I remember a lot of the things she said. It made it easier to understand her and her motives and when i think of her I think of her story.
XIAO on the other hand... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was boring. When i think of Xiao I think of a guy with annoying fans and little to no character. His friends are dead and that's really sad, but watching them all KILL EACH OTHER IN FRONT OF HIS EYES means nothing to his story. Hoyoverse literally dumbs the last surviving yaksha to a sad guy who eats almond tofu. Nobody talks about it, it's mentioned once, and xiao never develops or holds any significant meaning. Even if he appears later in the game, he will still feel so irrelevant.
Here are screenshots going more in depth:
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I really hope they do better with cyno and don't make him a lone wolf who's backstory doesn't even get brought up in his story quest!!
