A little investigation about possible connection of the Seven Ideals to the Seven deadly sins (and other things that comes as 7).
The world is always flawed for being dual, for every good thing having dark, sinful equivalent. But this is how it is supposed to be, because there is only one who can be one and abslute. The Monad, the Original god.
The Sins have been contracted to 7 to fit the meaning of the number for the religious purposes. They also come linked to 7 virtues:
• intense longing - Lust - Chastity
• overconsumption of anything to the point of waste - Gluttony - Temperance
• desire to acquire or possess more than one needs - Greed - Charity
• absence of interest or habitual disinclination to exertion - Sloth - Diligence
• uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred -Wrath - Patience
• sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else - Envy - Gratitude
• dangerously corrupt selfishness - Pride - Humility
Freedom
"Still, the winds change direction."
"Someday, they will blow towards a brighter future..."
"Take my blessings and live leisurely from this day onward."
Contracts
"The currencies that flow through this land are my flesh and blood."
"For thus did I become the guarantor of the people's hard work, wisdom, and future."
"This is the trust I have placed in them. Betray it, and you taint my blood."
Eternity
"This body is the noblest and most eminent of all in this world."
"It should hold absolute control over this world."
"It once promised its people a dream: the never-changing 'eternity.'"
Wisdom ?
Justice
"My ideals have no stains."
"I must correct you. People here bear no sins in the eyes of the gods... Only laws and the Tribunal can judge someone."
They can judge even me. So praise my magnificence and purity."
War
"A pilgrimage for a wish; a battle to earn a name..."
"Burnt to cinders for a dream."
"If the intention yet remains, achieved ██'s truth he has."
Love
"Sorry... to also have you shoulder the grievances of the world."
"Since you could endure my bitter cold, you must have the desire to burn?"
"Then, burn away the old world for me."
Connecting the Seven Archons and their ideals with the Sins directly could be huge speculation. The more I tried to find possible links the more I think that the Sevek Ideals are rather ways, paths chosen for the humanity to achieve its humanity. The corruption of the humanity is the danger that continues to destroy civilisations. Probably knowns as 'erosion' in Genshin terms. Geological erosion is process in which earthen materials are worn away and transported by natural forces such as wind or water. Considering that Baal casted the vision hunt decree as a part of her way to stop the erosion of the mind of her subjects, maybe she considers the elements to be causing erosion. Even tho she was tricked to declare the vision hunt, just the idea of how she reacts to the possible danger shows that the elements could be dangerous for carying ambitions.
Few dangerous words we keep on hearing during our journey - arrogation, ambition, desire, aspiration. All of this could be also considered corruption. One way to attempt fighting with it is the Eternity, the Euthymia of the mind but even Eternity can be shaken. We know that the Seven Ideals originate from the Archon war and we also know that they can also change. During the cataclysm the Tsaritsa seems to have changed her ideas but also Ei, becoming the second electro Archon and purchasing Eternity to be 'closest to the heavenly principles'. Which we don't really know much about in fact but we do know that the heavens are punishing and the unforgivable sin is arrogance.
Baal/Ei gives up on her Gnosis and ties with Celestia 500 years ago after the Cataclysm, probably along with the Tsaritsa. That could mean that eiher Celestia caused the destruction or that it had nothing to do with it but it also didn't prevent it. The second I want to believe in because if Celestia gave the 7 Gnosis and played a game of Chess using the archons and probably using vision welders as pawns, then who is it playing against. Again everything must be dual because only the original god can be absolute and as an Absolute the god is opposite to everything else alone. I don't think the traveler is a pawn because they are originally not part of this game yet they of course can become pawns by resonating with different elements. But it feels like each vision holder can be a pawn.
As suspected the Archon have nothing to do with giving visions as well. As many things on the game that we read in the sotries, we should probably dig not too deep. As with the three moon sisters that could be just a story interpretation of the moon phases. The moon we see in Lumine's trailer is sure red and Khaenri'ah is said to fell during a Solar eclipse. This could mean that there was second moon at that time or - that there was something else that covered the sun, since we don't see that but we saw the red moon. We also see the red moon [resent in Ei's plaine of Euthymia, he state of mind desperately trying to save exactly this catastrophic memory for the eternity. Her world froze in the memory of destructions and pain. The Electro archon quest (which was brutally dull but that is another topic) at least confirms something - Archons have way more knowledge of science that they show (even tho Ei who created a puppet aka artificial inteligence for her own puposes just like that needs explaining for what a photo means... makes no sense). Therefore we can assume that Teyvat is as much magical as it is sciantifical and they could tell us that it is all artificial with the same dull manner that Yae told us about the Shogun's puppets (I guess she is excused because she is a fox). As if it is something .. obvious and not shocking to us/people. We could expect such dull revelation now.
Somehow tho these happenings tunred over some idels into their oposites - transience into eternaity and possibly love into hartred. And all of this because of a country without a divine ideal. Why were others punished for it. The famous War with Destiny and the whole Teyvat built under the Shadow of destiny sure feels better to understand now as we met Ei and her devine ideal that was supposed to bring people closest to the Heaven through eternity. Eternity could as well be parallel to Destiny.
• a state to which time has no application; timelessness
• the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future
If things was locked in time, hapening the same way isn't this like a mutual destiny shadow, bigger than the individual. In which way it truly is closest to Destiny.
However Destiny is also something that individuals fight better than the whole civilisation. Yet we had a whole civilisation of Khaenri'ah standing against it and falling.
Progress being stomped for it causes the ideals to fade and turns the Sins into ideals. Even Ei's idea of Eternity actually corrupted her because she became too prideful, the statement of holding absolute control over the world is striking contrast to the previous two we read. For someone who truned away from Celestia why would she pursuits this ideal. Unless it is not Celestial. Compaired to Freedom and Contracts - Transience comes in line as an ideal while Eternity comes in oposite. In this manner we could try to complete the pair:
Freedom -
Contracts - agreement to
Transience - Eternity - being one with Time and denying the time completely
Wisdom - Sentience - as experience that is learnt and read opposed the ability to experience, to feel
Justice - Reason - justice based on moral and reason based on logic
War -
Love? -
What defines the 'sins' in Teyvat seems to be the way they were pursuit as absolute. Absolution that cannot belong to this realm and always leads to corrosion. In a way the divinding the world to 7 paths starts to seem to a way to escape the absolute ... destiny, fate, belief, which also starts to seem like the right thing to do so people would know respect to the other's thoughts, to other's gods. Because human's place is between the absolute and the chaos.
This way the contracts become most human thing because they always include at least two sides signing the deal, sharing responsibilities. Honring your own word but also requiring the others to honor their own. Which can also lead to corrosion - pride and greed. Contracts are interesting for an ideal because they present ful cycle of other ideals - the eternity and absolusion of law, the control, but also the freedom to make an agreement, the must to honor your own word but also to be punished if you cannot fulfil what you've agreed to (maybe). Agreement forcable by law. It's dual on its own. But what makes it different than law? In fact in Liyue the law is bint to serve the contracts and the contracts are the absolute form of the law. While Justice says only Law can judge in different meaning. Each land has own system of laws by which it funtions. But when it comes to Fontaine it says that People here bear no sins in the eyes of the gods... Only laws and the Tribunal can judge someone. It feels like Fontain too has no fear of Celestia or connection with it anylonger.
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