I'm not an expert on Genshin lore, and I think to an extent there's not enough actual canon to make a canon statement on who exactly decides visions, but here's what I think/I've heard others say:
I've heard it theorized that archons don't consciously hand out visions most of the time - for instance, Raiden did not watch Beidou slay that sea serpent and then say "I want that one". We see Scaramouche getting his Anemo vision and it's never suggested that this was a specific gift from Venti. I believe this is what Ei means when she said that voiceline. What may instead be happening is the archons subconsciously give out their elements visions. I've heard it theorized that the element a person gets is related to them sharing a deeper connection to the archon's values. For instance, although Venti didn't pop up, literally or metaphorically, to give Scara his Anemo vision, Scara's lifestory resonated with Venti more than any of the other archons, due to their shared history of dealing with loss and grief, so the vision he was given was Anemo and not any other element. If it were a purely conscious decision by the archons, he probably would have gotten a Dendro vision instead, since it was Nahida who was working tirelessly to rehabilitate him. Furthermore, this is why there were no new Electro visions given during the Vision Hunt Decree - Raiden came to believe that visions were bad, so it subconsciously affected the distribution of Electro visions. By this logic, neither Ei's voiceline nor Neuvillette's flavor text are wrong - it is still technically the archon's job to divvy out visions of their element, but Ei was not wrong to say she didn't know about the lack of new Electro visions, and that this voiceline hasn't been retconned by the Fontaine archon quest.
Also, Neuvillette isn't technically the Hydro Archon, he's the Hydro Dragon Sovereign, which means I'm not sure he plays by the exact same rules as Venti/Zhongli/Ei/Nahida/Murata/Tzaritza do. There technically isn't a sitting Hydro archon after the 4.2 AQ, but obviously, as we saw with Furina, that doesn't mean that Hydro visions will no longer be given out. As a dragon sovereign, he may have more direct control over giving visions than, say, Zhongli does.
A couple of
lore theory videos I used as research (note: none of these are canon)
Planeswalker
They both give Visions seems to be the simplest answer, and the answer most of the fanbase seems to agree with. The Archons do so but the Sovereigns can also do so even without their full powers (there's no indication they need their full powers to grant Visions and before Neuvillette all the ones we met had reasons why they probably wouldn't want to). That's why most of the fanbase seems to believe The Electro Sovereign was giving Electro Visions while the Raiden Shogun could or would not, but something happened to the Sovereign coincidentally around the same time as the Vision Hunt Decree did and now there's no more Electro Visions being given out.
Edited by PhiSat on Jan 17th 2024 at 3:25:30 AM
Oissu!
I don't want this thread to look like a CIA document, so to make things easier for us, if you don't want to be spoiled on Genshin Impact, don't read this.
For the past 2 years, fans have been under the impression that the Archons do not grant Visions, magical devices that grant Elemental Powers, because of this line:
It seems like Ei is saying, in a pretty cut and dry manner, albeit without providing full context, that handing out Visions is not her responsibility. Which is the assumption we operated under for years, with it being stated in so many different places because it was treated as a Wham Line.
We still don't know precisely what she meant, but Neuvilette's in-game bio confirms that it is in fact one of the Archon's responsibilities.
I would like some help with this, because while TV Tropes isn't exactly a very fact-focused wiki, there are almost certainly more misused examples because of this misconception than I know.
For instance, one of the examples for Ambiguous Situation under the main page is false, because the editor did not know that Neuvilette had given Furina her Vision himself. Contrived Coincidence on the same page is also false, as the example was about how "coincidentally" no new Visions had been handed out since she rejected Visions, which we now know is most likely not a coincidence given that it was her responsibility to do so in the first place. Of course, that just makes her confusion even more baffling, but that's no reason to assume these things are unconnected.
Obviously, this issue shows up under Wham Line and the Raiden Shogun's character sheet. The example for Control Freak is still accurate without this detail, but Not Me This Time isn't for obvious reasons.
It also shows up on the page on the character page for "Other Gods." In fact, one editor somehow got the impression from the second passage I quoted that it was the Sovereigns that gave out Visions, when the passage says specifically that that is the Archons' responsibility. Neuvilette the Hydro Sovereign is doing it because he got back the power the Archons stole from them and believes that Visions are a good thing. There's also another misused example of Ambiguous Situation by someone who didn't know that it was All There in the Manual that it was the Archon's job to hand out Visions after all and wrongly assumed it was a mystery.
Lastly, there's a mistake buried in the notes of the memes page, where someone says that a joke about how the Pyro Archon regrets giving Klee a Vision had become Outdated by Canon. Technically, it still is, because both of those passages suggest that the Archons are doing so according to Celestia's criteria rather than their own, but still. And this isn't even getting into wicks and the dozens of pages I didn't bother to check.
If someone could help me with this, I'd highly appreciate it.
Edited by GM_3826 on Dec 25th 2023 at 8:41:35 AM