I Hate How Much I Love Ruan Mei in Honkai: Star Rail

It isn’t uncommon for HoYoVerse to offer Honkai: Star Rail players morally dubious characters as allies. I mean, consider Kafka, Silver Wolf, Blade, Jingliu, and Luocha. There’s even a hint that Duke Inferno, who is head of the villainous Annihilation Gang and appears in recent 1.6 missions, could be playable after 2.0. But with Ruan Mei we have a new playable person in Honkai: Star Rail who is constantly questionable and doing things that are wrong, which I hate, but also became my favorite and most beloved support.

Editor’s Note: There will be Honkai: Star Rail spoilers for the 1.6 Trailblaze Continuance Missions storylines.

I suppose it’s easier to explain why exactly I like Ruan Mei. Mainly, because it’s also the more obvious. Yes, a small part of it is because there’s some amazing character design here. HoYoVerse has a habit of “same-ness” that can come up for characters of certain body types. It happens in Genshin Impact too! Characters can “always” have some sort of scarf trailing behind them. Even if they’re supposed to be “buff” in-game, someone like Alhaitham can look really similar to Itto. The company’s been getting better about that in Honkai: Star Rail, like with characters like Dr. Ratio definitely having more of a muscled appearance than other adult male body type characters like Luocha or Welt. With Ruan Mei, the additional sashes and scarves help set her apart a but more, which is nice. (Also, in general, her outfit is adorable.) The elegant style that also doesn’t make her look exactly like any other character is appreciated.

But the main reason I love Ruan Mei in Honkai: Star Rail is because she’s one of the most versatile characters in the game. As one of my coworkers pointed out, she works on any team. Using one skill point every three turns to make sure Overtone is consistently active, via her Skill, means everyone in the party’s damage and weakness break efficiency increases. Her Ultimate generates a field that makes their RES penetration increase and lets everyone’s attacks inflict a temporary status effect that makes Weakness Break last longer on affected enemies. Her Talent increases her allies’ speed and has her deal damage when allies cause a Weakness Break. 

Prior to her appearance, I’d usually never stray from my E1 Bronya as my default supporter, due to her Skill’s ability to cleanse, buff DMG, and make another character immediately act and her Ultimate’s ATK and CRIT DMG party buff. Maybe, in certain specialized instances, I’d go with Tingyun for the Energy and DMG buffs. But now having someone with the Freeze ailment potential I love and all these buffs that affect everyone in the group and impair enemies further… I can’t refuse her. She’s too good, and she’s on every team.

The problem is, Ruan Mei is a monster.

HoYoVerse wastes no time in establishing this. When you start the Honkai: Star Rail Trailblaze Continuance Mission “When the Stars of Ingenuity Shine and find Ruan Mei, she seems congenial and pleasant. It’s a bit weird that she touches the player character’s face. However, she also offers some of the dessert she’s eating. It’s only after this initial meeting, that seems like a pleasant conversation, that you realize you’ve been drugged. When Ruan Mei asks you about her own field of research, no matter what you select, you say, “No. My research area is short stories about toilets.” She then admits that she not only touched you without your consent, she drugged you ahead of forcing you along as her research assistant.

As the questline and subsequent  stories go on, as well as the Critter Pick event, Ruan Mei’s sins keep adding up. She’s obsessed with creating life forms, which she then just abandons. However, they still love and adore her, from the dumpling-dog like characters or the cat-mochi critters. They lament being far from her, dumped in a storage area of Herta Space Station, and often beg people who interact with them to help them get in contact with their creator. She obscures her actions from other Genius Society members. 

It all culminates in her absolutely horrifying resurrection of the Emanator of Propagation Starcrusher Swarm King: Skaracabaz. Her pursuit into “the true essence of life” resulted in her bringing back one of the most devastating members of Tayzzyronth’s Swarm. For those unaware, the Swarm Disaster led to relentless reproduction that threatened the safety of the whole universe. It was only after multiple Aeons intervened that Tayzzyronth was defeated. While Argenti’s Companion Quest did confirm the Swarm still exists in the universe, we are faced with the knowledge that Ruan Mei willingly created a biological weapon that could have killed everyone not only on Herta Space Station, but done massive harm to the universe. 

Worse is the conversation with Ruan Mei after the fact is ambiguous. She does say “I regret my actions. There’s no defending what I’ve done.” However, in the same breath she also says, “Time and again, my experiments have fallen short, and they’ve always yielded predictable results.” My take away is that she doesn’t regret creating that abominable, dangerous weapon-in-bug-form, but rather regrets that it died and was an “incomplete attempt.” At the very least, the conversation with her comes to a close with her saying, “Do I seem irresponsible? I’m sorry. I am often at a loss as to how to face my own creations.”

Which, as much as I hate to say it, I almost sort of appreciate in a way. I hate who Ruan Mei is as a person and what she represents in Honkai: Star Rail. I love how she functions as a unit, think her character design is great, and also in a way appreciate that not every playable person in the game is going to be “good” and “nice.” 

Honkai: Star Rail is available for the PS5, PC, and mobile devices, and the featured characters banner with Ruan Mei will be around until January 17, 2024.