Listen up everybody, it's lore time! As we all know, Honkai Star Rail has, just like every other HoYoverse game, much more lore and storytelling than most might think! This time around, we want to direct our attention to one of the most mysterious characters the game has to offer: Black Swan!
Let's be honest, ever since one of the very first trailers, “Fables About the Stars, Part 1” which was released over half a year ago, the Honkai Star Rail community has been after this one certain character. Especially because she seems to be much more important to the overall story line than your average 5-Star unit! Of course, we are talking about the mysterious lady with the beauty gray hair and her set of tarot cards: Black Swan.
Now that HoYoverse has finally announced her appearance on an upcoming banner, as well as sharing her official splash art, it's time to find out who Black Swan actually is!
Honkai Star Rail Lore: Who Is Black Swan?
Personally speaking, I love writing about the lore of Honkai Star Rail! There is just so much hidden information you can find, when paying attention during dialogues or even HoYoverse's trailers! (If you are interested in articles like that, you can find much more at the end of this one!)
Some things you might only notice, when you're already at least a little familiar to a couple of background facts, which is why we should continue learning about the story behind our favorite characters!
“Let's make an exchange, shall we? — An exchange of memories.” — Black Swan
This time around, we will tackle a pretty exciting new, upcoming character and try to look through her mystical appearance.
In order to understand, who Black Swan is and which role she plays regarding the Star Rail universe, you have to know that she is a Memokeeper!
Enigmatic Memokeepers live in the Garden of Recollection, which is a very special realm in the world of Honkai Star Rail and no normal, mortal being can enter this place. This is also why the appearance of Black Swan, as we can see her right now, is not her true nor only form. Memokeepers like to adapt to their environment in order to become part of the society whose memories they preserve. In order to do so, Memokeepers shed their mortal flesh and live on as memetic entities. With this unique gift, they can freely traverse between worlds.
“To think is to exist, and memories are proof of that. All things that make up the material world will eventually perish, but they can live on in another way — through Remembrance.” — Black Swan
And speaking of which, it is equally important to know what the job of a Memokeeper is. Memokeepers from the Garden of Recollection are dedicated to preserving and sharing memories. They do so, with the help of Memory Bubbles and Light Cones! — Yep, your Light Cones are basically only memory storage!
As of right now, there is not too much information on Memokeepers out there, however, we do know about some other members of the Garden of Recollection! One of them is actually the Messenger, who is standing in front of the Memory of Chaos portal in the Astral Express. Next to them, we know of Roy Hampton and Lark.
Another pretty neat detail, is that the Memorykeepers seem to have at least a tiny connection to the Stellaron Hunters! In Kafka's official release trailer, you can see her holding the exact same cards as Black Swan holds in the picture above! And it does make sense, since Kafka is known to believe in fate, in fact she trusts so much in it, that she follows every single one of Elio's commands without questioning it. You could even say she is obsessed with her very own fate.
Black Swan is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting characters the Star Rail universe has to offer and I, personally, can’t wait to find out even more about her and her personality!