The Hidden Strifes event gives us new info regarding Kaeya’s eye, yet we still have too many open ends.
First of all, let’s quickly gather what we got:
- we get confirmation, that Kaeya’s right eye is at least functional. And it’s heavily implied, that Kaeya’s eye was wounded in his conflict/fight with Diluc, and that while he was not blinded, he was left with a permanent scar.
Now, I’ve seen some people take this info and assume that’s it. That Kaeya’s right eye must be otherwise normal and that there’s nothing special about it.
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but I disagree.
Given how Hoyoverse is constantly mentioning and foreshadowing Kaeya’s eye.
- His constellation is Pavo Ocellus (Peacocks eye(spot)/feather)
- his namecard text in many translations directly states “Kaeya is not missing an eye, but rather…”
- Kaeya talks about eye(s)…a lot (Diluc literally asks Kaeya to stop mentioning eyes). Some people even mention eye(s) when talking about him.
- Beidou and Fischel also have an eyepatch. But when you bug it and look under it, Kaeya’s eye is the only one that has not been textured.
It would be wasted potential to have all this foreshadowing and have it just be Kaeya pranking Diluc.
So, I think there was and still is something odd about his right eye
Yeah, at first the line: “Hah! To think that all that play-acting as a one-eyed pirate would eventually end with one actual wounded eye.” even fooled me.
But like Kaeya’s character story likes to say, it’s actually a carefully constructed lie.
We have to remember, that with Kaeya we can’t take anything at face value. We have to look at the info more metaphorically. He tells half-lies, so to get which is which, you have to go a bit deeper.
Let’s go back to an earlier point in the game. What did Kaeya say in his story quest:
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“As a matter of fact, my grandfather was a pirate!”
“Look at my eye patch! I inherited it from my grandfather and this is solid proof that we are related by blood!“
Damn, Kaeya must really love pirates!
(Side note: By “inherited eyepatch” kaeya might in fact be implying he inherited whatever is under his eyepatch. That would genuinely genetically make sense)
Putting together all the lines, I think the Hidden strifes note is referring to the line in Kaeya’s story quest, both of which are derived from perhaps the image and story Kaeya kept up in all the years growing up in Monstadt. That he wore an eyepatch because, he was a one-eyed kid with a pirate heritage.
Whether he passed it off as a silly habit of his or as a “truthful” story about himself. Kaeya has been described to be eccentric already before the death of Crepus, so It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say Kaeya made up an obscure reason for wearing an eyepatch and everybody just went with it.
So essentially, by “play-pretending” Kaeya rather means deceiving.
Plus, there’s currently some canon art of younger kaeya wearing an eyepatch before his fight with Diluc.
(Though, we have to keep in mind that the Genshin manga is from 2018. They might have changed some story plans since then. Mistakes have been noted in the past, most prominently showing Kaeya having a vision before the fight)
So as said, unless the eyepatch is yet another mistake/change, I don’t believe Kaeya was just play-pretending a pirate while he was on knight duty and witnessing the death scene of Crepus.
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So gathering all those points, I’d say Kaeya has been wearing an eyepatch at least since he came to Monstadt. Pre-fight he was wearing it just to hide his (most probably abnormal) right eye. When Kaeya confessed to Diluc, he exposed his right eye and in the fight, it ended up getting wounded. He probably continues to wear the eyepatch for the same reasons, there’s just a scar now too.
If we keep this in mind it adds a new perspective to the letters:
I don’t think kaeya meant to prank Diluc, as we initially thought.
As Kaeya writes, he wasn’t purposefully hiding his eye, to trick Diluc into thinking he was blinded. What probably happened was that Kaeya simply kept wearing his eyepatch after the fight. So, because Diluc couldn’t see it, he had, at first, no way of knowing the state of Kaeya’s eye, and just assumed the worst.
(Side note: Even if Kaeya was not blinded, he could still have limited vision in his right eye. Because, medically speaking, from just wearing the eyepatch constantly for years, he has been weakening his right eye. And If in the fight his right eye was wounded enough to be left with a permanent scar, then it would probably have also wounded the eye itself. Idk eyes seem pretty fragile)
But that leave’s the question: Why was Kaeya wearing an eyepatch already back then? And if it’s to hide something, then: What is Kaeya hiding?
Unfortunately, all I have currently are just some headcanons, with most of them having an equal amount of proof. But I’ll lay out the ones I’ve heard:
My personal favourites:
- It’s cursed/corrupted
- It’s a magical eye, with powers
But some others I’ve seen:
- The eye or the area around the eye has special markings, which can be used as an identification. Overall the eye stands out (perhaps he has heterochromia).
- The eye is or can be used by others to observe/spy.
(Feel free to add more possibilities, or expand on the above-mentioned ideas. I’m interested to hear your thoughts)
(I personally really like the idea of Kaeya’s eye having black/dark sclera and blue or golden iris, that might or might not glow in the dark, as a result of the corruption or the curse. Basically just something more abnormal than different coloured irises)
Lastly, I just need to point out, how symbolic Diluc injuring Kaeya’s hidden eye is.
Kaeya’s right eye represents his secrets, being literally one of them, and his eyepatch is the lock behind which he hides them all. When confessing to Diluc, Kaeya exposed his secrets by revealing his right eye. After the fight, Kaeya keeps wearing the eyepatch, once again hiding everything, but now there’s one more secret to hide, the secret of what happened that night (also the scar which is a testimony of that night).
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
