Written by Amber Yu
Few playable characters in Genshin Impact have earned the community’s label of “the craziest of them all” quite like Lohen. Yet, what makes him compelling is not simply that he is violent, unpredictable, or extreme. It is that, for once, a character’s story quest succeeds in making him stand out because it allows a Genshin “hero” to be unpleasant, selfish, and unresolved instead of forcing him into a clean redemption arc.
Genshin Impact has long struggled with what could be described as a sanitization effect: watering down characters rooted in tragedy, violence, or moral ugliness into something easier to embrace. When the main character of the story quest begins to flirt with darker themes, Genshin Impact frequently pulls punches, steering them back towards respectability, maintaining emotional distance from the consequences of their actions.
Instead, miHoYo gave us Lohen.
Until now, Mondstadt’s prominent leadership roles have largely been defined by dependable figures who astutely occupy unique positions that demand a great deal of sacrifice and responsibility.
However, even as the Vice Captain of the Fifth Company of the Knights of Favonius, a unit specializing in long-range combat under Grand Master Varka’s expeditionary force, Lohen defies that trend entirely. He doesn’t bend backwards trying to justify himself.
More than just another eccentric knight, Lohen represents the kind of character Genshin Impact rarely allows to exist: someone contradictory, morally ambiguous, and, at times, deeply uncomfortable.
In fact, HoYoverse’s marketing seemed intent on emphasizing just how unlike Mondstadt’s traditional heroes he really was. His character trailer, “Lohen: A Masterpiece,” establishes a character who treats knighthood less as a moral ideal and more as a suggestion. As a member of the Knights of Favonius, his position grants him access to conflict, powerful opponents, and the authority to act as a ‘good guy’ even when his methods blur the line between justice and brutality. Such as, during the underground auction infiltration, Lohen deceives his opponents by hiding in the item storage container before ruthlessly eliminating everyone.
The unsettling part is not simply that Lohen uses violence; Genshin Impact has no shortage of fighters. What separates him is his lack of the moral performance that typically accompanies violence in the game. He fights because his position allows him to, and because the pursuit of stronger opponents gives his life meaning. While other knights justify their actions through duty, honor, or protection, Lohen does not seem interested in proving that his choices are heroic.
More importantly, those qualities remain intact when players finally meet him in the quest. Rather than softening Lohen’s darker impulses or steering him toward easy redemption, Lepus Miles doubles down on the discomfort that makes him so compelling, beginning with the significance of its own title—a motif that appears throughout his character.
Roughly translating to “Rabbit Knight,” the phrase evokes satirical medieval stories with grotesque illustrations of rabbits overpowering, humiliating, or even brutalizing knights, which mocked cowardly knights as so pathetic that even a timid and vulnerable rabbit could defeat them. This completely turns the traditional power hierarchy upside down. The result is a character archetype built on a man obsessed with proving himself against impossible odds, regardless of the personal or moral cost.
Lohen’s obsession with challenging stronger opponents suddenly feels less like simple ambition and more like a desperate attempt to escape the idea of being powerless. Whether he wins or loses becomes almost secondary—the act of fighting itself tries to prove that he is worthy of being taken seriously.
Long before becoming the Vice Captain of the Knights of Favonius, Lohen was a child subjected to experimentation and rescued from a life where he was treated as little more than a test subject. For Lohen, the greatest insult is not simply that he suffered—it is the possibility that suffering is all others see when they look at him. He does not want to be remembered as a victim, an experiment, or someone who needed to be saved. His pursuit of strength becomes an attempt to rewrite the role that was forced upon him.
However, the quest’s most compelling choice is that it refuses to use his trauma as a simple explanation or justification for his often manipulative and ethically questionable actions. Lohen’s past informs who he is, but it does not erase the harm he causes or the choices he makes. Instead, Lepus Miles allows him to exist in the uncomfortable space between accountability and understanding.
Lepus Miles begins not with Lohen proving himself as a hero, but with a question of succession. His mentor, Adorno, the person who rescued him from experimentation and gave him a place among the Knights of Favonius, is preparing to pass on his legacy. The position of “Benevolent Knight” could eventually belong to either Lohen or Theodore (his medic friend who was also rescued)—a decision that immediately places Lohen’s greatest contradiction at the center of the story.
Players see Adorno expressing his hope to Lohen that his time among the knights so far has helped him grow into the title of “Benevolent Knight.” To prove that he has changed, Lohen is sent on a simple assignment: help the people of Mondstadt and learn the value of ordinary acts of service.
Instead, Lohen is almost immediately dissatisfied. He begrudgingly does his tasks, while complaining the entire time about how tiresome this is. The routine of helping civilians feels meaningless to him; he argues that his strength is better spent facing threats directly, where he can actually protect people. His frustration reveals a fundamental divide between Lohen and the ideals of traditional knighthood. While others see heroism as patience, responsibility, and service, Lohen believes traditional heroism creates weak people because it allows them to hide behind titles, manners, and ideals instead of proving themselves through action.
Interestingly, this philosophy was not something Lepus Miles introduced out of nowhere. Earlier marketing in the teaser, “Standardized Test,” had already hinted at Lohen’s belief that adversity is the quickest way to expose genuine strength from empty appearances. The trailer presents him as an innocent rookie among fellow knights, sharing a moment of camaraderie as they exchange ghost stories around a campfire before their knight exam. Yet the moment they lower their guard, trusting the bonds they have formed, Lohen drugs their drinks and leaves them helpless.
To Lohen, this is not simple cruelty. It is a test. Titles, reputation, and social expectations mean little to him if they are not backed by the ability to endure a real challenge. A knight who cannot withstand pressure is, in his eyes, only pretending to be one. The problem is not that Lohen values strength; it is that he has reduced strength into the only measure of a person’s worth.
That is what makes Lohen such an unusual figure within Genshin Impact. He is not wrong because his beliefs are completely irrational. His actions often protect others, and his desire to challenge weakness comes from a genuine belief that he is preparing people for the dangers ahead. But protection is never his primary motivation. If his pursuit of stronger opponents happens to save people along the way, that is merely a consequence. Heroism is something Lohen does, not something he seeks to embody.
Lohen’s relationship with Theodore in the quest also reveals what makes him such an unusual protagonist for Genshin Impact. The two survivors spend much of Lepus Miles pursuing the same goal: saving Adorno, the man who rescued them, at any cost. Together, they turn to illicit drugs and increasingly dangerous experiments, hoping to overcome the limitations that have haunted them since childhood.
When those experiments begin creating monsters and threatening Mondstadt, however, Lohen condemns him, saying that continuing down this path will only destroy Adorno—the very person they were trying to save—and cause even greater harm. But Theodore refuses to let go and as a result, the quest positions him as the villain who has become consumed by the pursuit of strength. But that doesn’t make Lohen the hero because he helped create that obsession in the first place by encouraging Theodore’s research and sharing his desire to overcome human limitations.
This reversal is hypocritical—and it is. But that hypocrisy is not a weakness in Lohen’s characterization; it is one of the qualities that makes him compelling.
Lohen has never pretended to be an ideal knight or a moral authority. From the beginning, he rejects the values that Mondstadt associates with heroism, dismissing ordinary acts of service in favor of strength and direct action. His condemnation of Theodore only reinforces his worldview that strength must be earned through hardship, even though he himself pursued dangerous shortcuts to achieve it. Lohen wants to prove himself against overwhelming odds, whereas Theodore tries to overcome those odds by changing the rules of the game. That difference is what finally drives a wedge between them.
After defeating the monsters and serving his period of solitary confinement, Lohen still just remains Vice Captain, while Theodore’s fate is left uncertain. The story does not offer a clean judgment on whether Lohen has truly changed or simply learned to better explain away with his own contradictions. He is left suspended somewhere between responsibility and self-justification, and the story is more interesting because of it.
Some people can never really be neatly understood. And so, for perhaps the first time, Genshin Impact comes remarkably close to overcoming its own Sanitization Effect.
