This is one candidate I have waiting for a good long time to propose for NPG for a while.
What Is the Work
To repeat again, Genshin Impact is about a traveler that goes on a trip around Teyvat in search of their twin sibling who becomes affiliated with the Abyss who want to ruin their natural order. For this one however, we'll be talking about the Liyue arc. After the (false) death of the Geo Archon Rex Lapis, real name Morax, the Traveler meets the 13th of the Fatui Harbingers, Tartaglia/Childe, who is planning an attack on Liyue Harbour, so they must join forces with the Qixing and Adepti to repel the threat. However, it turns out that Childe's attack was a test of character set up by the Geo Archon himself, intending to prepare the Qixing for his retirement and hand over the Geo Gnosis for the Fatui's endgame plan.
Who Is She and What Did She Do
Ningguang is the Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing who lives in the Jade Chamber, a floating palace that serve as the Qixing's place of work. Coming from an impoverished background, she worked her way towards the upper echelons of society, becoming a money-minded yet successful businesswoman, governor and lawmaker. She also had a rivalry with a ship captain named Beidou, who utilised her calculating tendencies to smuggle goods from everywhere, acting in disregard for the rules. Ningguang tried to convince Beidou to change to no avail, as she was mainly doing so to help the poor and help the sailors in their jobs.
On the Rite of Descension where Rex Lapis faked his death, she orders the Millelith to capture any potential suspects, only for them to be beaten by Childe. Meeting the Traveler, he gives them a Sigil of Permission to prevent the Adepti from attacking them. The Traveler goes to spread news about Rex Lapis' alleged death to the Adepti heads, and tells Childe about their arrival. The Qixing had ordered the concealment of the exuvia, and Childe brings the Traveler to a man named Zhongli who is going to give Rex Lapis a proper farewell, and they prepare the materials to set up their rite. Ningguang invites the Traveler to the Jade Chamber through her emissary Ganyu, so the Traveler took steps to find a way to go to the Chamber, and prepares a gift for Ningguang as part of the steps needed. In the Chamber, they follow a map to some ruins finding that the Fatui are researching Sigils of Permission. Ningguang begins cracking down on the Fatui upon being informed of this, and after the Traveler defeats Childe in the Golden House, Childe decides to summon Osial, an ancient water deity sealed beneath Guyun Stone Forest, to destroy Liyue Harbour as his backup plan. The Traveler, Adepti and Qixing unite to defeat Osial, and Ningguang sacrifices her Jade Chamber, pinning Osial to the bottom of the ocean. After the battle, the Rite of Parting proceeds as usual, and the Qixing came up with a story to explain Morax’s retirement.
In the first Interlude Chapter in the game, Ningguang would commission a rebuild of the Jade Chamber, and would ask the public to acquire the needed materials in a contest that the Traveler participates in. They gather the materials with the help of several familiars, including an exorcist named Shenhe, and ultimately win the contest. Ningguang reveals that she rebuilt the Chamber to lure out Osial’s wife Beisht, and builds an army of men from the Millelith and Qixing to fight the threat without relying on the Adepti before the Traveler and Shenhe finish off Beisht. The chapter ends with Ningguang holding a victory feast on the Jade Chamber.
What Makes Her Close to Pure Good
Ningguang passes based on sacrificing her Jade Chamber to pin down Osial to prevent him from drowning thousands of civilians while destroying Liyue Harbour, while training her fellow civil servants to govern Liyue in preparation for Rex Lapis' retirement and in the Interlude Chapter, playing a big role in stopping Beisht from doing the same thing as her husband Osial to avenge his second defeat by rebuilding the Jade Chamber to lure her out, without the Adepti's help even claiming that she would be ready to sacrifice another Jade Chamber doing so, protecting the city two times. Despite those acts being shared with a lot of people, it was with her sacrificing the Jade Chamber that Osial got sealed and as for Beisht, she was the leader of the army and is prepared to sacrifice a second Chamber against her. The 5.3 update gave her a new act which is setting up Homa Altars around each gate at Yujing Terrace to allow Hu Tao to destroy the fetor through her sacrifice, allowing her to pass the general standards.
What Prevents Her from Being Pure Good
Though her cracking down on the Fatui led to even those who were initially sent to volunteer work, like the Ninth Company who were left behind in the Chasm's Underground Mines, with nowhere to go, it was portrayed as equally justified by the narrative due to Tartaglia summoning Osial to destroy Liyue Harbour which would trace responsibility back to the Fatui forces. It helps that neither was it even implied to be xenophobia against the Fatui forces as the only concern they had was being at risk of being captured by the Millelith. What mitigates her money-minded attitude enough is that she expressed a willingness to finance other businesses in Liyue even if they don’t make profit for her.
While she primarily subverts her cynical attitude and jerk moments from early on, the real problem is that she slightly fails the standards to Vision bearers with less resources such as Navia who prevented the destruction of a village of hundreds and playing a role in resolving the Fontaine prophecy by having Furina reveal her deception, Wriothesley who stopped the leak of Primordial Seawater from the sluice gate below the Fortress of Meropide from threatening thousands and Alhaitham who obfuscated insanity to replace the order to ban performances with a prompt to trick the Sages into going for a mindless pursuit of Lesser Lord Kusanali to allow Cyno to capture and corner Azar, rescuing the city from his tyranny, all of which possessed slightly either less resources since Wriothesley not has a smaller army of wardens with his rule confined to the Fortress which acts outside the government and Navia’s Spina de Rosula are more of a NGO like the Fortress with hundreds of men, and Alhaitham while working for the Sumeru Akademiya who governs the nation is more of a high-ranking janitor who declined opportunities to become leader making him having less resources, compared to Ningguang who is basically the leader of a political party in the national government, having a big army of various backgrounds to fight Beisht proving her high resources, with her new unique act in 5.3 being less significant when even Hu Tao had less resources on her sacrifice to clear the fetor. Cyno gaining newer acts in the 4.x versions after he regained his law enforcement general powers simply make it harder for Ningguang to stand out considering his similar resource pool of an army of Matra guards and Corps of Thirty; the new acts amount to putting an end to deadly games in the Inter-Darshan Championships and reabsorbing the Ba Fragments to put an end to their torment, among his unique acts.
Even if her telling the Traveler not to approach the Gate of Death and save Hu Tao in the 5.3 Lantern Rite event when Lan Yan fails to connect the Traveler’s rattan figure to the Ley Lines appears to be overly reckless at first glance, where if it weren’t for Zhongli telling them they could try to connect themselves, Hu Tao would be trapped, it’s highly implied that she didn’t know that the Traveler could bypass the Ley Lines coming from outside Teyvat.
Final Verdict
Highly unsure with preventions that are rather hard to spot.