TL;DR
- Parsifal was a Mondstadt aristocrat from 1000 years ago, heir to the Landrich family
- He had two brothers: Eberhart (illegitimate heir) & Ingbert
- He became a “Phantom Thief” and stole from the Aristocracy to give to the poor etc
- He fell in love with the Blue-Eyed Spear Witch, but it didn’t work out
- He eventually left Mondstadt as an exile and began traveling with the Skipper
- Later, Coppelius wrote a play about Parsifal and the Blue-Eyed Spear Witch that inspired Parsifal the Great and Josephine’s stage names
- Parsifal also has a lot of weird connections to Childe
His chivalric nature and desire for justice, egged on by Eberhart led him to become a vigilante who targeted his fellow aristocrats. Eberhart would eventually turn on him, forcing him to flee to Liyue in disgrace. He joined the Skipper’s crew and eventually met his end in battle against the sea monster that the Skipper sought to take revenge on.
The Heart of Depth artifact set tells the story of his travels with the Skipper. The Exile set might also be about Parsifal, but it gets a little muddy. First, it’s unclear is Parsifal was actually “exiled” from Mondstadt or if he just chose to leave. Second, the Exile’s goblet was a family heirloom of the Exile, whereas all the other Parsifal lore says he carved out the sapphire of a goblet he stole from some noble house. Who knows! Could be another exiled aristocrat, but a lot of the details do seem to match up.
Blue-Eyed Spear Witch
Sometime while Parsifal was in Mondstadt, he met the Blue-Eyed Spear Witch (BESW), who was a servant for an aristocratic family at the time.
he was leaving a mansion with stolen goods and noticed a woman in a window whose eyes were as blue as the gem in the silver cup he had just stolen. Struck by her beauty, he climbed up to her, pried the blue gem out of the silver cup and gave it to her as a gift.
Unfortunately, this blue gem had the crest of the ruling family on it, and when the woman’s master found out she had it, she was punished, which caused her to become angry at Parsifal despite still being in love with him. The next time they met she warned that someday she would pay him back for the scars inflicted on her due to his actions, and they seemingly never met again.
At some point before he left Mondstadt, Parsifal stopped at the shop in Heart’s Desire (Sapphire) to buy “the special wine that helps you forget about the one you long for,” but it had already been purchased by the BESW, who exchanged the sapphire he gave her for the wine.
The Wine and Song catalyst description tells the story of them meeting, but gives them a happy ending where they went to explore the world together — “For no matter how the real story went, or how the two truly ended up, wine and songs brim with hope.”
Supposedly, Eberhart was trained by the BESW after Parsifal left Mondstadt, and later killed her — I don’t think it explicitly says anywhere that she died, but it’s heavily implied in the Crescent Pike weapon description.
One other thing that I’m still not sure about that swirls around in my head a lot is the Hex and Hound book, which is about two shapeshifting sisters, one of which has blue eyes. I think it’s possible this is the BESW, and if that’s true then I think it’s possible she survived.
Eberhart
Eberhart was the half-brother of Parisfal and Ingbert — he resented his noble lineage and wanted to “recapture the glory and pride of ancient nobility” and “destroy these rotten foundations.”
He was the owner of the unnamed gladiator that was killed by Vennessa, from the Gladiator artifact set (to give you a sense of the timeline).
Mostly notably, he went on an expedition to Dragonspine with Ingbert and a few other aristocrats, where he laid traps & killed them all. He was gravely wounded, and we’re not sure if he made it back to Mondstadt.
Jillian
the timeline here keeps confusing me but i think parsifal left mondstadt first, then eberhart trained with BESW, and then the dragonspine expedition happened. nothing is really clear tho.
At some point, he became the BESW’s disciple (knowing she was in love with Parsifal) “to learn the fatal loophole in her art, all the better to slay her with…” and killed her.
So what if those who came after should despise me? I will do anything to achieve my goals.
The many versions of Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera written by Richard Wagner, based on the Arthurian legend Parzival that was written about a character named Percival. Are we taking notes.
Jillian
this is where i confess that i’m really not very familiar with any of this source material. i sure have done a lot of reading about it on wikipedia, but that can only get me so far.
Percival
The original Percival was one of the knights of the round table, and was the hero in the quest for the Holy Grail (before later being replaced by Galahad in a lot of stories, I guess).
To be honest, the story of Percival doesn’t seem to have a ton in common with Genshin’s Parsifal: Percival comes across the wounded Fisher King, and if he asks the king a particular “healing question,” he can heal the king & save his kingdom & get the Holy Grail etc etc. He doesn’t know this, so he doesn’t ask the question.
Parzival
In Parzival, the story continues past his initial failure to ask the healing question & leads to him becoming the Grail King. One interesting thing about this version is that the Fisher King gets a name, Anfortas, which is also the name of the leader of the Schwanenritter in Khaenri’ah.
Parsifal
The opera version is called Parsifal, “informed by one of the theories about the name Percival, according to which it is of Persian origin, meaning ‘pure (or poor) fool’” — whenever the word fool comes up, I obviously think about the Fatui.
Anyway! In this version, the Fisher King (now named Amfortas) was stabbed with the holy spear, and it basically turns out that Parsifal is fated to find the spear & heal his wound. This version also gives more of a backstory to his injury — Amfortas had the holy spear, but lost it & was stabbed with it in battle because he got distracted by a pretty lady.
There is a lot going on in this opera & it’s all really cool and definitely shares themes with Genshin but it’s too much to get into right now — hopefully I’ll get a chance to revisit it later.
Lohengrin
Good news: the Parzival character also shows up in another Wagner opera called Lohengrin, which is based on the story Lohengrin, which is a sequel to Parzival. Isn’t this fun.
Lohengrin is the son of Parzival, and he is “a grail knight sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity” — this is basically just a variation of the classic Knight of the Swan story.
Jillian
Fun fact: In one of the original Swan Knight stories, the name of the Swan Knight is Helias (sun god!).
Lohengrin’s twin brother inherits their father Parzival’s land while Lohengrin is sent out as a grail knight “in secret” to help kingdoms that have lost their protectors. He shows up in a kingdom without a male heir & offers to marry the duchess there and defend the kingdom, on the condition that she must never ask his name. All is good for a few years, but then she asks the question & he gets right back on his swan boat and never returns.
Jillian
see the fun part is that parzival’s problem was about asking a question and lohengrin’s problem is about not asking a question
In the opera, the reason Lohengrin shows up and has to defend this duchess in the first place is because she’s being wrongfully accused of murdering her brother — in the end, it turns out the swan from the swan boat is her brother, who was cursed by a witch.