Hilichurls

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Hilichurls are a common enemy found in the game Genshin Impact. They are small, tribalistic humanoids recognisable by their painted facemasks and crude weaponry.

Canon

Hilichurls are initially introduced as a nuisance that needs to be kept at bay; monsters with low level of intelligence who are aggressive toward humans. They build barricades to ambush merchants, as well as huts and watchtowers. They can be found all over Teyvat, even in isolated islands or archipelagos, implying that they are also able to navigate or use boats to establish themselves in other lands. Later we learn that they have their own language, and that there are linguists trying to study it, namely Ella Musk; the Mimi Tomo event focused on tracking down the Unusual Hillichurl with Ella's help.

Players usually interact with hillichurls by destroying them, and they are particularly prevalent in Mondstadt and feature in daily commissions like destroy the hillichurl towers. In one exception, one daily commission on communicating with hillichurls assigned by Ella Musk is disliked by players for being rather tedious to complete(This has lead to this particular commission being memed; for example see keyade's "Ugh!! Daily Comms!" stickers).

There are a few variations of Hilichurls; the larger (and more agressive) Mitachurls, and their even larger, mutated varient, the Lawachurls. Additionally, packs of hilichurls are sometimes lead by shamans, the Samachurls.

In Dainsleif quests, we learn about their origin and that they were originally people that got transformed into monsters, have a curse of immortality and cannot die.

Fandom

On AO3 a large number of fanworks with hilichurl characters tagged are rated Explicit. As of November 2023, the number tagged E is slightly more than twice the next most popular rating.

Common Tropes in Fanworks

• Churled - fanworks in which Genshin characters are shown being dominated by hilichurls described the characters as having been "Churled", and the term has appeared as both a tag and in story titles on AO3. Many fanworks claim inspiration from art by ThiccWithaQ.

Controversies

#boycottgenshinimpact

In early April 2021, the hashtag #boycottgenshinimpact started trending on Twitter . This was the culmination of several trends deemed problematic, and chief among them was the appearance of Hilichurls, which were viewed as a caricature of native peoples.

Example Fanworks

Fanfic

• blood and legacy by morphasia.

Fanart

• Hilichurl Meat Xiangling EXPLICIT the first entry in ThiccWithaQ's "Churled" series.
• Ugh! Daily Comms and Iconic Enemies stickers by keyade, which sparked a "Life is not mosi mita" microtrend. The words mosi mita are in the hillichurlan language
• mosi mita attack on Grem! I love hilichurls so I had to draw this cute fella - hashtagged #artfight2021 by hobogobbo

Fancomic

• Hilichurl Impact (instagram) webtoon on WEBTOON, a parody webcomic of genshin impact by Thank You Ty]

Memes

• "Male Team" by Gents of Teyvat used hilichurls in their promo graphic screenshot game

Meta

• Cn fan translates the language commission and others

Fan Merch

• Enamel pins by suu.gr studio

Other Fannish Resources

• Hilichurl Characters tag on AO3
• Hilichurls tag on AO3