childe tartaglia ajax

oh god deep breaths. here's my solid attempt at putting my boyfriend's character into words. no wikia involved <:]

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belonging entirely to hoyoverse, and not to me unfortunately, childe [as he's mainly referred to] is one of genshin impact's playable characters. he's also a weekly boss, and a somewhat antagonistic force for a good chunk of genshin's main questline.

first appearing in the game's initial release and then becoming playable in 1.1, he was not only the first fatui harbinger and the first snezhnayan to be playable, but also the first male hydro vision holder and the first hydro bow user released. as of 4.6 [current update upon writing this], he is still the only male hydro bow user.

childe's main appearance in genshin so far has been for the liyue chapter of the archon quests. the player meets him as 'childe', and he is referred to as such for the entire chapter.
he is friendly to the player for most of the quest, the exception being when you have a three-stage boss battle with him, but childe himself states that the shared fight has made him friends with the player.

he also appears in the fontaine chapter of the archon quests, but his role is much less centrestage. at face value anyway.
he is once again referred to as 'childe' for the duration of the story, though his appearance isn't so much as a fatui harbinger this time around. he remains on good terms with the player this time too, although he does have 0 lines for two-thirds of the quest...

three name syndrome

upon becoming a harbinger, the fatui gave him the name 'tartaglia' to replace his birthname, and 'childe' as his codename.
this is the equivalent of arlecchino's 'the knave' codename or dottore's 'the doctor'.

'childe' roughly translates in the original chinese to 'prince', and seems to be the option hoyoverse go for when he's in harbinger mode, if you will. whereas 'tartaglia' is the option used in the context of him being playable e.g. as a party member or in the teapot.

his birthname is, of course, 'ajax'. there's been no mention of him even acknowledging this since he became a harbinger, and it has never been spoken in-game, the only mention being in his character profile.
[it was the assumption between fans that his old mentor skirk would refer to him as 'ajax' when they reunited in 4.2, but seemingly both the player and childe were robbed of any interaction. when the player meets skirk in 4.2, childe is unconscious next to her, and in 4.6 he states that he never actually got to speak to her. so it's radio silence on the ajax front.]

what's this dude all about?

childe is described time and time again as being unpredictable, which makes it difficult to explain him...
i would say that his two main motivators are his family and getting stronger. his loyalty to the tsaritsa is also important to him, but as much as he respects her, i think that's more an effect of his job than anything else.

there's no indication of whether childe has held his family close to his heart ever since he was young, but it's one of the main facets of him nowadays. i assume falling into the abyss and having his youth ripped away made him into the childhood-dream-protector that he is today, but that's just my opinion. [he just kissed me and said i'm right]

childe's strength is something he's practically obsessed with. he's always described as being incredibly capable to take on any threat, but he seems to put achievement over his own health, often throwing himself into battles without thinking twice. it's also purely about practice and improvement for him, rather than something like a motivation to defeat evil, which paired with being a harbinger, puts him in an extremely morally-grey area.