@@elgetelminouch198 Sounds like something he'd do for sure, getting us to do all the hard work for him. I wonder how Childe will add to the chaos since he's hunting Scaramouche.
I think Dottore is trying to make Scaramouche an artificial god Thats what him and the Fatuis want, and Scaramouche was planned for that before he was discarded Plame Flame lore about Dottore: “Merely an enhanced human? If your great nation can furnish me with sufficient resources and ample time, I could even manufacture that which you would call a god. What say you?”
About the lady's death. As I biologist myself, I think that Zandik just killed her quickly as she was heavily injured. Common thing with rats at the lab
If so, it would hint at some "common sense" in Zandik and I am so intrigued into which category he will fall!? The mad scientist with zero grains of empathy (killed her for his own joy, conduct of research) or rather a bit misunderstood researcher (killed her so she wouldn't suffer-maybe he actually felt sorry for what happened to her kinda bc of him, maybe even liked her, maybe wants to contact her through dreams, etc.) I've been so fascinated by his character and am reading & listening to a lot of theories on him!
@@Teddy_Bear8181 I think, intitially, he'd be type 2 (misunderstood), but as the Akademiya piled on him for being a heretic and proposing unethical studies, he embraced his Zandik title/lable and became type 1 (mad scientist)
Hi ..another great video as always..but i want to clarify one thing since i'm an arabic ..zandik "زنديق" in arabic doesn't necessarily means 'hypothetic' ... We call someone in our culture a zandik when he tries to come up with new ideas(revolutionary ideas) in fields we consider sacred (religious texts.. scripts... habits..ect) so my guess is that the academiya sages saw that zandik's ideas revolutionary and might broke their lies so they ended him
I always appreciate clarifications, thanks Elget! I think maybe the auto-translated English subs might've thought I said "hypothetic" though haha, I've gotten rid of that now for my own script which says he's a "heretic" which I think kinda fits with the description you've given. It does make me wonder if he's pretending to be someone else to the sages of the Akademiya in the present day or whether they've just become so much more corrupt that they're willing to listen to him even though he was driven out of the Akademiya in the past.
hello! thank you for the clarification, it is really important, i think. may i also ask you, where is the stress in word "zandik"? i studied various essays on the subject of word formation in middle persian, and realized that "ik" or "ig" is an adjective suffix, but i still have no clue how to pronounce this word correctly.
I don't think arabic term is used here. In arabic it is called zindiq(زنديق),not zandik. Zandik is a zororsitrinism term which means heretic,in wise Doctor's Pinion artifact too it gives a discription about a heretic person which is dottore. The arabic zindiq(زنديق) was derived from zororsitrinism term with the same semantic field but related to Islam rather than Zoroastrianism. In official harbinger constellation too,there is a bird like constellation that is very similar to zororsitrinism's logo. It could be of dottore.
Zandik is a Persian word that was transferred from Persian to Arabic and the Arabs pronounce it Zandiq. Arabs have different pronunciations, for example, they pronounce vitamin as fitamin and they don't even have letters like: G-CH-P-ZH. Uk?
NPC Trofin Snezhevich even goes as far as saying "The Doctor" when describing an unknown person who ordered the capture of Aranara. And Mentions that this "Doctor" wants to weaponize dreams and the Withering. Now that Signora is gone, a bigger bad ("doctor") lurks in the background.
I actually think it's also possible Dottore was from the Spantamad school instead (the Akademiya faction that studies leylines). In Tighnari's story quest it was mentioned how the Akademiya banned the reproduction of mechanical/artificial life bc researchers from Spantamad had started to become increasingly unethical with their experiments for this to happen, even going as far as to cruelly experiment and dissect animals (basically there's no way machines could ever truly be, you know, an organic being and thus would never truly act like one since they rely on coding and commands rather than thought and feelings, so the experimentation on animals was to see if there was some way to somehow transfer that organic intelligence or smth onto machines or smth of the sort). That last part about the ban and unethical conduct in regards to mechanical life made me feel a bit suspicious, bc 1.) Dottore was banned (exiled?) from the Akademiya due to some kind of unethical/blasphemous misconduct; 2.) In the comics he was somehow able to turn his human minion into a machine (immoral experimentation on organic life to turn into a machine); 3.) He has a ruin guard factory in Childe's story quest (reproduction of mechanical life, smth the Akademiya frowned upon); 4.) Purely from a narrative standpoint there had to be another reason that bit abt illegal mechanical life was mentioned other than to give context to the friendly crab machine, if i've learned anything from character story quests is that they not only give more context to the character the story's about, they also give more context to things that have happened/are happening in the region or the world Plus we know from the Fatui trailer that Dottore is (or was) gonna have smth very ominously important to do with the Irminsul tree, which is heavily connected to leylines and whatnot, the specialty study of Spantamad. If he was a Spantamad student who was one of the ones who was committing unethical acts for mechanical life and what have you, it would make sense as to why he has a fixation on strange life forms, and why he's even daring to dabble with the Irminsul tree in this manner.
That makes a lot of sense, they do drop little hints like that in the character stories so I think you're on to something there. The vial he's holding in the Harbingers trailer is something we see in the domains too which I think could have some alchemical significance and would line up with him being in Spantamad. Thanks for the insightful comment Tyrone!
Maybe Dottore uses Khemia to create Scaramouche's Megazord? Perhaps his using Khemia is the blasphemous act he refers to in the trailer? Maybe its because of Khemia that he can create clones of himself and is ranked so high among the Harbingers... 🤔
…as I think, he might get the Joker treatment. I mean: “I had a bad backstory but it doesn’t matter now as I enjoy killing others and experimenting on them”
I first thought that the exile set was about the lawrence clan, but if Dottore is Shiruyeh it might make more sense that it is about him. Especially since the illustration on the card in TCG is of a man with brown hair fading to blue. I wanna say it's about him especially with his whole "no sense of belonging and no sense of self" theorized backstory, I think it might make a lot of sense. !spoilers for the new archon quest if you haven't played it! In the newest quest, there's the narrative that dottore was a monster disguised as a wolf. (Later growing jealous that the foxes could accept the cat but not the monster - ie he was jealous and killed them because of it) Considering this, alongside the shiruyeh narrative and the idea that he always causes destruction or isn't accepted everywhere he goes. On top of nahida calling him out saying "you make segments of you because you don't know who you are" (to surmise). I think it's becoming more likely that he's shiruyeh, zandik, etc etc Making aliases for himself to fit in but also making different versions of himself to figure out who he is/used to be. Let me know what you think!
Hmm, I sort of follow this theory too. I think each segment has a "name" depending on where they're stationed at (eg. Sumeru names for Sumeru stationed segments). It'll help his plans since no one besides him and a select few know which one the original is
I thought the Exile set was about Kreuzlied but now that you mention it, I hope it is about Dottore haha. I was thinking the same things when I was playing the archon quest, it all seems to fit in with him not being fully human and always feeling out of place. Him disguising himself could be from his jinni heritage as iirc they could transform into many forms. Ofc the disguise could be explained a bunch of different ways so that isn't the biggest hint but did make me go hmm. I think jinni have a malicious streak in them too so that could explain why he's jealous and cruel while also being cold/aloof most of the time. It all fits in really well at the moment so I hope we're on to something here, would be an epic backstory for the #2 Harbinger.
@@TheLaughingManLore On him being a jinni, he gets a lot of monster imagery too. For example, on Nahida's fairytale, the monster in fox fur is symbolic of Dottore. Sure it could be referring to how he treats those around him, but it also might hint to his non-human origins too
after doing aranara quest in ruin golem, i kinda hope zandik is dottore. since i don't want him to be french (lmao) plus zandik lore really interesting since he sound so evil. so hoping him to be dottore
Yesss, same here! Nothing against France and French people, but knowing he grew up in Sumeru, seeing his research and victim's experimentation results = him being Zandik, feels so threatening. I wanna know more about him, the research team and of course Sohreh (how her relationship with Zandik was-were they friends that had mutual respect, was she the only one really interested in him, was this all an accident or did he kill her really?-I have so many questions!) Can't wait for 3.1 and < !
@@Teddy_Bear8181 yes. i know both dottore as french or zandik still unknown. but people who become villain from their own hometown sounds more threatening than villain from other region. i mean look at signora and scaramouche, they're villain and get hate first from the people in their hometown and their lore really sounds interesting than childe lore as villain in liyue (still love childe tho)
Best analysis on Dottore/Zandik I've seen, thank You so much! Also after reading some comments, I really am wondering if Dottore killed Sohreh/killed her so she wouldn't suffer/or sth else? What was their relationship like? I really want hyv to talk about/reference it somewhere.
Thanks Teddy, it's good to know it's appreciated! In my mind I see it as him starting to develop feelings for her and his analytical side taking over to remove her as a threat to his goals. He could've just been straight-up murderous from the get-go though and took her out to keep her from telling the others he had set her up to get attacked by the tigers (assuming the tigers weren't a cover for his failed attempt to take her out.). Hopefully we get some stuff on him in 3.1!
@@TheLaughingManLore yes, definitely a good take on that! On one hand I'd love to see him as a psychotic man without empathy towards other people and only caring about his research (justifying that his goal will be enough to cover up for his "sins"), one the other hand though it would hurt good to hear that he used to care about someone and that it was more or less an accident (whether or not on his side). As a writer I'll appreciate both writings of his character as I like to analyze them, though a more dark outcome of his past would satisfy me a bit more if I'm being honest. Thanks for sharing your theory! I'd love to hear from You when the 3.1 quest and further ones come up!
@@Teddy_Bear8181 Yeah I think whatever way they go about it will be satisfying as long as it's written well but I'm with you on kinda hoping it's a darker history too. I've got an idea about some other stuff to do with him but I'm waiting to see if there's anything extra in the desert we can find out about him before committing to making a video on it. Too easy for me to get carried away with speculation haha
I'm very late to the party, but wanted to share my take on it. I think Zandik's notes are a hint at how Dottore came to be. Hear me out. I don't believe Zandik killed Sohreh (at least intentionally) for two reasons. Firstly, the notes never state him having any sort of inhumane tendencies towads people or animals at that point in time, so it's unlikely he killed her just for the sake of it. Secondly, the man's too smart to leave behind evidence while still enrolled in the Akademiya. If Sohreh did find out some of his secrets, i feel like he'd be much more meticulous about getting rid of her without leaving much to interpretation, so he could continue his work in peace. Back then enrollment in the Akademiya provided him with resources needed for his research. So he'd at least try to hide the body, or make it obvious that it wasn't him, who killed Sohreh. Or he'd try to reason with her and get her on his side, since she was already inclined to get closer to him. Since he did neither, i believe he was innocent and did not expect to be blamed for her death. We know that he was somewhat of an outcast. This could either be a "let's blame the usual scapegoat" situation, or the Sages saw it as an excuse to keep him under control/have a reason to exile him. And i think this might have been the turning point for Zandik, that led to him becoming Dottore. Like many smart/neurodivergent people he was shamed and blamed by all from early age. Like, for example, autistic people used to often be accused of being unepathetic and cold just because they were bad with social cues and reacted differently in social situations. He tried to find his place in the Akademiya, thinking that his mind would be appreciated and cultivated, but instead he's genius was viewed as dangerous, and his attempts at pushing the boundaries of knowledge were misinterpreted and suppressed. Sages saw him as a threat, but not necessarily to others. It could've been to save their own face, and not let it be known that some youngster is smarter than them. One of the notes stated, that during a tiger attack Zandik reacted quickly to save others and prevent more deaths, so he at least somewhat cared for others and tried to fit in (again, if it was staged, it would've been more thought-through in my opinion, so i believe this to be a genuine moment) But even when he tried his best to fit in and even saved his team, he still got blamed for something he didn't do. So eventually he became the "monster" people wanted him to be. He's ideas could've been revolutionary, but he was bullied, feared and hated since childhood, and it shaped the path he took eventually - joining the only group that accepted him and his mind, and gave him the freedom to pursue his urge for knowledge. Unfortunately, he became resentful of the world and the society by then, and gave up on trying to "fit in", starting to see people only as means to an end. The world has failed him, so he has failed the world. As for Sohreh, she seems to be one of the few, who actually saw Zandik as a human being and was nice to him. I don't think he picked up on her having crush on him, since he was (for the lack of a better term) not socially fluent. He could've interpreted the picnic thing as a "let's meet and exchange ideas" kind of event. But even so, he'd view such an invite as a positive thing. I also find the idea of Zandik killing Sohreh out of mercy to be somewhat plausible, in case her wounds were likely to prove fatal. But him not killing her fits better with the narrative of him being betrayed by society. Please excuse my broken English, I tried my best 🙌
That'd be an interesting twist, I hadn't thought about him being falsely accused and that sort of fueling his feeling of resentment towards people. Since there's only fragments of information about the incident, maybe we're missing pieces that he could elaborate on in the future. I feel like even if I'm right and he killed Sohreh then tried to cover it up as a tiger attack, she has a special place in his heart for treating him with kindness when he was still quite young. Hope we get some more information on it when we next encounter him. And you're English was perfect, better than many native speakers haha
Kind of a nit pick but Atheism is not just not worshiping gods but denying they exist due to lack of evidence. I would not call Dainsleif for example an Atheist as he saw first hand what the gods did to Khaenri'ah. It's kinda hard to not believe gods exist when they actively rule over (or smite) nations. Non-religious would probably be a better term.
True, I think the etymological root "atheos" meaning "without gods" would be more appropriate but I get the general gist they were going for with naming the ruins Dahri.
Atheist - he knows these creatures exist, but doesn't believe their divinity. He just thinks that gods are powerful jackasses and doesn't believe in worshipping them. After all, what separates gods from other powerful creatures? The worship. If no worship, then they're not as "godful" just powerful. (Just a hypothesis, this isn't necessarily Dainsleif's mindset, but there are many other ways to be an Atheist depending on how you define it in Genshin's world.)
Other than obviously keeping his story secret for now, the whole issue with Sohreh makes no sense. Her name literally means "famous." But here we are only seeing a snip or two of her end, and the only thing she's known for is for supposively naming beetles she found. Nothing else. Not even a voiceline talking about her. With Dottore basically messing with the tree, it wouldn't surprise me if something is going on with Sohreh and the leylines.
I don't think dottore would actually strangle sobreh, tho if it's true I wonder why he would do that, did she do something that pissed him off...he wouldn't just strangle her for nothing would he? I think dottore's actually a nice person he must've just been through a lot we don't know much about him
I'm not sure why he'd strangle Sohreh but since he conducts/oversees experiments on kids like Collei that kill most of them I wouldn't exactly call him a nice person haha. He probably does have a messed up childhood though yeah.
@@TheLaughingManLore wasnt it a Ruin guard who strangled her, the other letter mention "thanks to Zandik's quick reaction" and deactivated the ruin machine
@@Darkry_Obv they said the ruin gaurd killed her but the ones who got her body saw markings on her neck and a ruin guard wouldn't possibly strangle someone if it did her whole neck would've came off-
It's in the cave you teleport to to enter the Ruin Golem's circular door. Turn around and keep gliding away from it and you should find her note on a wooden platform near some huge machine parts.
The author of this video mixed all the documents! He seemed to take all the information and put it in a blender. Firstly, we now know that Dottore is over 250 years old, which means that the faculty of studying ancient engineering did not yet exist in the Academy, which is why Zandik was called a mad heretic because of his offer to study the ancient machines of Kaenria'h, this was partially confirmed with the release of patch 3.3 and Faruzan. Secondly, what makes you think that all these documents belong to the Doctor? There are no names of Dottore or Zandik in the found papers (not taking into account the records of the expedition). And the hidden orders of the sage Amurta Siman indicate that the Academy was also looking for Aranara, but for their own purposes, and there is absolutely no evidence that she (Siman) did it on the orders of the Doctor. The academy wanted to find Aranara to try to restore the lost memory of an elderly scientist from Amurta. The conclusion that can be drawn is that you attributed to the Doctor cases and actions to which he is not related, or which he may not have committed, all evidence is circumstantial. We don't know the truth. And the people who watch this video take your word for it, and you mislead them...🤔
Trofin Snezhevich Capture Aranara. It's an order from "The Doctor," so that he can study the connections between Aranara, dreams, and The Withering. Are you ignorant, or just stupid?
This will be interesting to find out more about as we've had stuff in the past (Gold being referred to as a man as well as the Dendro Archon iirc). Does the original CN specifically call Sohreh a man?
Of course! It's in Apam Woods underneath the Varuna Contraption (drop down to the caves right under it), go to the room with the weather controlling machine that looks like the one just outside and the letter should be in front of you on a rock. Lmk if you need more detailed directions as some of these notes can be pretty awkward to find.
It's highly possible that this is Dottore and i think there's some info about how Dottore has taken interest in the Aranara. Thanks 👍 for the video will have to look into it more But i don't think Dottore and the Akademiya are working together atleast not directly as in like a behind the scenes manipulation or an agent infiltration of the Akademiya. I don't think they'd work together as the Akademiya was the one who rejected and then expelled Dottore i doubt he'd wanna work with them after that and as the first terminal of Akasha surely Nahida would've noticed this. I won't be surprised if the Akademiya was doing all this on their own we know a lot of Shady people from The Akademiya (Tighnari's master, the old dude who was inviting Tighnari, Alhaitham, the Grand sage) and we haven't even canonically interacted with the Akademiya A Suggestion If you're looking for video material look for two book "The lay of Al Ahmar" and "The Ode of soul light" they're very interesting
That's a fair assumption too, it's hard to say what the Akademiya are really up to behind the scenes as we've limited interactions with them as you've said. I think either way, they've fallen a long way to entertain Dottore's old ideas to use the Aranara and dreams the way they have. Hope we get some good story with them in 3.1. Haha I was going to include part of those books into this video but it felt like a bit too much of a stretch. I think the exiled Shiruyeh might've been Dottore at the start of his story but it's more of a feeling rather than having any evidence for it. It would make for a really deep backstory though so I kinda hope it's true.
@@TheLaughingManLore oooooh really....... I have yet to read the Shiruyeh one but you have leaked my interest so I'll check it out. Have you read the two books i mentioned they might be referring to the "Scarlett King" or maybe a even more ancient king either way there's a lot of lore in those, if you haven't them check it whenever your free or looking for new lore
@@Ren_rz Yeah those two books are fantastic (and I think you're right about the Scarlet King). They're what lead me to the next ones The Shepherd and the Magic Bottle (pt1) and The Tale of Shiruyeh (pt2). Let me know what you think of them as they're just as fascinating as The Lay of Al Ahmar and Ode To Soul Light I think.
I was actually thinking that maybe a few sages actually were in on it with dottore, esp the sage shown in the pt 1 of the archon quest bc blah blah the desperation we want our original god back now and we're out of options, bc it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they clown themselves that way, mayhaps they think they'd have the upper hand when this is all over (like the former kujou clan head in inazuma when he thought the fatui couldn't do shit bc praise the almighty shogun) bc the Akademiya's such a prideful bunch, at least the higher ups are
Oh also, throughout sumeru we discover a bunch of npc aranaras that look so dazed and out if it that the only way you could even awaken them is by using the power of dendro. It occured to me just now that this feels like strange behavior, we never really figure out why they're like this (aranaras that sing, ask/give resources, and play games with you are all easily explained bc the aranara world quest makes it clear that this is regular behavior from them, the oddly confused and unresponsive state some of them are in isn't normal tho). Several aranara in world quests make a constant mention of bad guys too, and in one certain quest an aranara asks you to help/save other aranara. The help/save part was v specific, like what happened to them that they need help? Like maybe their power was used up for some reason and that's why they're dazed and confused. Maybe these are aranara that dottore have managed to successfully capture and experiment on (extract power from?) and either he let them go once their purpose was served or they managed to get away afterwards somehow. A rather dark thought, but still maybe a slight possibility?
![How The Traveler Hides Their Identity [Genshin Impact Lore Speculation]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xy3XOPdMXkg/mqdefault.jpg)
What do you think Dottore's plans for Scaramouche are?
Making traveler fight Scaramouche so he weakened both of'em .i guess he will guide traveler to Scaramouche's den .
@@elgetelminouch198 Sounds like something he'd do for sure, getting us to do all the hard work for him. I wonder how Childe will add to the chaos since he's hunting Scaramouche.
I think Dottore is trying to make Scaramouche an artificial god
Thats what him and the Fatuis want, and Scaramouche was planned for that before he was discarded
Plame Flame lore about Dottore: “Merely an enhanced human? If your great nation can furnish me with sufficient resources and ample time, I could even manufacture that which you would call a god. What say you?”
@@TheLaughingManLore he'll end up finding us fighting the staircase then he'll run away😂
@@robertsanssouci2093 scaramouche doesn't have an gnosis that's the electro archon's gnosis if dottore does this tsaritsa would murder him🤐
About the lady's death. As I biologist myself, I think that Zandik just killed her quickly as she was heavily injured. Common thing with rats at the lab
If so, it would hint at some "common sense" in Zandik and I am so intrigued into which category he will fall!? The mad scientist with zero grains of empathy (killed her for his own joy, conduct of research) or rather a bit misunderstood researcher (killed her so she wouldn't suffer-maybe he actually felt sorry for what happened to her kinda bc of him, maybe even liked her, maybe wants to contact her through dreams, etc.)
I've been so fascinated by his character and am reading & listening to a lot of theories on him!
@@Teddy_Bear8181 ooo this is kinda interesting and I believe it might be possible
@@Teddy_Bear8181 I think, intitially, he'd be type 2 (misunderstood), but as the Akademiya piled on him for being a heretic and proposing unethical studies, he embraced his Zandik title/lable and became type 1 (mad scientist)
Hi ..another great video as always..but i want to clarify one thing since i'm an arabic ..zandik "زنديق" in arabic doesn't necessarily means 'hypothetic' ... We call someone in our culture a zandik when he tries to come up with new ideas(revolutionary ideas) in fields we consider sacred (religious texts.. scripts... habits..ect) so my guess is that the academiya sages saw that zandik's ideas revolutionary and might broke their lies so they ended him
I always appreciate clarifications, thanks Elget! I think maybe the auto-translated English subs might've thought I said "hypothetic" though haha, I've gotten rid of that now for my own script which says he's a "heretic" which I think kinda fits with the description you've given.
It does make me wonder if he's pretending to be someone else to the sages of the Akademiya in the present day or whether they've just become so much more corrupt that they're willing to listen to him even though he was driven out of the Akademiya in the past.
hello! thank you for the clarification, it is really important, i think. may i also ask you, where is the stress in word "zandik"?
i studied various essays on the subject of word formation in middle persian, and realized that "ik" or "ig" is an adjective suffix, but i still have no clue how to pronounce this word correctly.
I don't think arabic term is used here.
In arabic it is called zindiq(زنديق),not zandik. Zandik is a zororsitrinism term which means heretic,in wise Doctor's Pinion artifact too it gives a discription about a heretic person which is dottore.
The arabic zindiq(زنديق) was derived from zororsitrinism term with the same semantic field but related to Islam rather than Zoroastrianism.
In official harbinger constellation too,there is a bird like constellation that is very similar to zororsitrinism's logo. It could be of dottore.
Zandik is a Persian word that was transferred from Persian to Arabic and the Arabs pronounce it Zandiq.
Arabs have different pronunciations, for example, they pronounce vitamin as fitamin and they don't even have letters like: G-CH-P-ZH. Uk?
As Persian myself, I’m so glad that one of the coolest-looking characters in Fatui Harbingers might be Persian as well…! So, thanks Hoyoverese
Dottore is such an interesting character! I can’t wait to see more of him 🙏
NPC Trofin Snezhevich even goes as far as saying "The Doctor" when describing an unknown person who ordered the capture of Aranara. And Mentions that this "Doctor" wants to weaponize dreams and the Withering. Now that Signora is gone, a bigger bad ("doctor") lurks in the background.
I actually think it's also possible Dottore was from the Spantamad school instead (the Akademiya faction that studies leylines).
In Tighnari's story quest it was mentioned how the Akademiya banned the reproduction of mechanical/artificial life bc researchers from Spantamad had started to become increasingly unethical with their experiments for this to happen, even going as far as to cruelly experiment and dissect animals (basically there's no way machines could ever truly be, you know, an organic being and thus would never truly act like one since they rely on coding and commands rather than thought and feelings, so the experimentation on animals was to see if there was some way to somehow transfer that organic intelligence or smth onto machines or smth of the sort).
That last part about the ban and unethical conduct in regards to mechanical life made me feel a bit suspicious, bc 1.) Dottore was banned (exiled?) from the Akademiya due to some kind of unethical/blasphemous misconduct; 2.) In the comics he was somehow able to turn his human minion into a machine (immoral experimentation on organic life to turn into a machine); 3.) He has a ruin guard factory in Childe's story quest (reproduction of mechanical life, smth the Akademiya frowned upon); 4.) Purely from a narrative standpoint there had to be another reason that bit abt illegal mechanical life was mentioned other than to give context to the friendly crab machine, if i've learned anything from character story quests is that they not only give more context to the character the story's about, they also give more context to things that have happened/are happening in the region or the world
Plus we know from the Fatui trailer that Dottore is (or was) gonna have smth very ominously important to do with the Irminsul tree, which is heavily connected to leylines and whatnot, the specialty study of Spantamad. If he was a Spantamad student who was one of the ones who was committing unethical acts for mechanical life and what have you, it would make sense as to why he has a fixation on strange life forms, and why he's even daring to dabble with the Irminsul tree in this manner.
That makes a lot of sense, they do drop little hints like that in the character stories so I think you're on to something there. The vial he's holding in the Harbingers trailer is something we see in the domains too which I think could have some alchemical significance and would line up with him being in Spantamad. Thanks for the insightful comment Tyrone!
Maybe Dottore uses Khemia to create Scaramouche's Megazord? Perhaps his using Khemia is the blasphemous act he refers to in the trailer? Maybe its because of Khemia that he can create clones of himself and is ranked so high among the Harbingers... 🤔
There's also lore from the Eleazar hospital in one of the drawers,also on the notes around
I liked how Dottori exploits everyone to reach his goal, and I liked his entire story. I want to marry him
wtf
real
…as I think, he might get the Joker treatment. I mean: “I had a bad backstory but it doesn’t matter now as I enjoy killing others and experimenting on them”
I first thought that the exile set was about the lawrence clan, but if Dottore is Shiruyeh it might make more sense that it is about him. Especially since the illustration on the card in TCG is of a man with brown hair fading to blue. I wanna say it's about him especially with his whole "no sense of belonging and no sense of self" theorized backstory, I think it might make a lot of sense.
!spoilers for the new archon quest if you haven't played it!
In the newest quest, there's the narrative that dottore was a monster disguised as a wolf. (Later growing jealous that the foxes could accept the cat but not the monster - ie he was jealous and killed them because of it) Considering this, alongside the shiruyeh narrative and the idea that he always causes destruction or isn't accepted everywhere he goes. On top of nahida calling him out saying "you make segments of you because you don't know who you are" (to surmise). I think it's becoming more likely that he's shiruyeh, zandik, etc etc
Making aliases for himself to fit in but also making different versions of himself to figure out who he is/used to be.
Let me know what you think!
Hmm, I sort of follow this theory too. I think each segment has a "name" depending on where they're stationed at (eg. Sumeru names for Sumeru stationed segments). It'll help his plans since no one besides him and a select few know which one the original is
I thought the Exile set was about Kreuzlied but now that you mention it, I hope it is about Dottore haha.
I was thinking the same things when I was playing the archon quest, it all seems to fit in with him not being fully human and always feeling out of place.
Him disguising himself could be from his jinni heritage as iirc they could transform into many forms. Ofc the disguise could be explained a bunch of different ways so that isn't the biggest hint but did make me go hmm. I think jinni have a malicious streak in them too so that could explain why he's jealous and cruel while also being cold/aloof most of the time.
It all fits in really well at the moment so I hope we're on to something here, would be an epic backstory for the #2 Harbinger.
@@TheLaughingManLore On him being a jinni, he gets a lot of monster imagery too. For example, on Nahida's fairytale, the monster in fox fur is symbolic of Dottore. Sure it could be referring to how he treats those around him, but it also might hint to his non-human origins too
after doing aranara quest in ruin golem, i kinda hope zandik is dottore. since i don't want him to be french (lmao) plus zandik lore really interesting since he sound so evil. so hoping him to be dottore
Yesss, same here! Nothing against France and French people, but knowing he grew up in Sumeru, seeing his research and victim's experimentation results = him being Zandik, feels so threatening. I wanna know more about him, the research team and of course Sohreh (how her relationship with Zandik was-were they friends that had mutual respect, was she the only one really interested in him, was this all an accident or did he kill her really?-I have so many questions!) Can't wait for 3.1 and < !
@@Teddy_Bear8181 yes. i know both dottore as french or zandik still unknown. but people who become villain from their own hometown sounds more threatening than villain from other region. i mean look at signora and scaramouche, they're villain and get hate first from the people in their hometown and their lore really sounds interesting than childe lore as villain in liyue (still love childe tho)
@@travelerscramine +1 on Childe and I get what you're saying! Let's wait and see then :D
good news!! He's canonically Sumerian
@@medeiapsyche Yesss!
Best analysis on Dottore/Zandik I've seen, thank You so much!
Also after reading some comments, I really am wondering if Dottore killed Sohreh/killed her so she wouldn't suffer/or sth else?
What was their relationship like?
I really want hyv to talk about/reference it somewhere.
Thanks Teddy, it's good to know it's appreciated!
In my mind I see it as him starting to develop feelings for her and his analytical side taking over to remove her as a threat to his goals. He could've just been straight-up murderous from the get-go though and took her out to keep her from telling the others he had set her up to get attacked by the tigers (assuming the tigers weren't a cover for his failed attempt to take her out.). Hopefully we get some stuff on him in 3.1!
@@TheLaughingManLore yes, definitely a good take on that! On one hand I'd love to see him as a psychotic man without empathy towards other people and only caring about his research (justifying that his goal will be enough to cover up for his "sins"), one the other hand though it would hurt good to hear that he used to care about someone and that it was more or less an accident (whether or not on his side).
As a writer I'll appreciate both writings of his character as I like to analyze them, though a more dark outcome of his past would satisfy me a bit more if I'm being honest.
Thanks for sharing your theory! I'd love to hear from You when the 3.1 quest and further ones come up!
@@Teddy_Bear8181 Yeah I think whatever way they go about it will be satisfying as long as it's written well but I'm with you on kinda hoping it's a darker history too. I've got an idea about some other stuff to do with him but I'm waiting to see if there's anything extra in the desert we can find out about him before committing to making a video on it. Too easy for me to get carried away with speculation haha
@@TheLaughingManLore the desert for sure will have some of his notes and the ones from his team-maybe Sohreh will tell us more?
Sadly hoyo wouldn't give us anything on that they said there will be little stories for now
I'm very late to the party, but wanted to share my take on it. I think Zandik's notes are a hint at how Dottore came to be. Hear me out.
I don't believe Zandik killed Sohreh (at least intentionally) for two reasons.
Firstly, the notes never state him having any sort of inhumane tendencies towads people or animals at that point in time, so it's unlikely he killed her just for the sake of it.
Secondly, the man's too smart to leave behind evidence while still enrolled in the Akademiya.
If Sohreh did find out some of his secrets, i feel like he'd be much more meticulous about getting rid of her without leaving much to interpretation, so he could continue his work in peace. Back then enrollment in the Akademiya provided him with resources needed for his research. So he'd at least try to hide the body, or make it obvious that it wasn't him, who killed Sohreh. Or he'd try to reason with her and get her on his side, since she was already inclined to get closer to him.
Since he did neither, i believe he was innocent and did not expect to be blamed for her death. We know that he was somewhat of an outcast. This could either be a "let's blame the usual scapegoat" situation, or the Sages saw it as an excuse to keep him under control/have a reason to exile him.
And i think this might have been the turning point for Zandik, that led to him becoming Dottore. Like many smart/neurodivergent people he was shamed and blamed by all from early age. Like, for example, autistic people used to often be accused of being unepathetic and cold just because they were bad with social cues and reacted differently in social situations. He tried to find his place in the Akademiya, thinking that his mind would be appreciated and cultivated, but instead he's genius was viewed as dangerous, and his attempts at pushing the boundaries of knowledge were misinterpreted and suppressed. Sages saw him as a threat, but not necessarily to others. It could've been to save their own face, and not let it be known that some youngster is smarter than them.
One of the notes stated, that during a tiger attack Zandik reacted quickly to save others and prevent more deaths, so he at least somewhat cared for others and tried to fit in (again, if it was staged, it would've been more thought-through in my opinion, so i believe this to be a genuine moment)
But even when he tried his best to fit in and even saved his team, he still got blamed for something he didn't do. So eventually he became the "monster" people wanted him to be. He's ideas could've been revolutionary, but he was bullied, feared and hated since childhood, and it shaped the path he took eventually - joining the only group that accepted him and his mind, and gave him the freedom to pursue his urge for knowledge. Unfortunately, he became resentful of the world and the society by then, and gave up on trying to "fit in", starting to see people only as means to an end. The world has failed him, so he has failed the world.
As for Sohreh, she seems to be one of the few, who actually saw Zandik as a human being and was nice to him. I don't think he picked up on her having crush on him, since he was (for the lack of a better term) not socially fluent. He could've interpreted the picnic thing as a "let's meet and exchange ideas" kind of event. But even so, he'd view such an invite as a positive thing.
I also find the idea of Zandik killing Sohreh out of mercy to be somewhat plausible, in case her wounds were likely to prove fatal. But him not killing her fits better with the narrative of him being betrayed by society.
Please excuse my broken English, I tried my best 🙌
That'd be an interesting twist, I hadn't thought about him being falsely accused and that sort of fueling his feeling of resentment towards people. Since there's only fragments of information about the incident, maybe we're missing pieces that he could elaborate on in the future. I feel like even if I'm right and he killed Sohreh then tried to cover it up as a tiger attack, she has a special place in his heart for treating him with kindness when he was still quite young. Hope we get some more information on it when we next encounter him.
And you're English was perfect, better than many native speakers haha
Kind of a nit pick but Atheism is not just not worshiping gods but denying they exist due to lack of evidence. I would not call Dainsleif for example an Atheist as he saw first hand what the gods did to Khaenri'ah. It's kinda hard to not believe gods exist when they actively rule over (or smite) nations. Non-religious would probably be a better term.
True, I think the etymological root "atheos" meaning "without gods" would be more appropriate but I get the general gist they were going for with naming the ruins Dahri.
Atheist - he knows these creatures exist, but doesn't believe their divinity. He just thinks that gods are powerful jackasses and doesn't believe in worshipping them. After all, what separates gods from other powerful creatures? The worship. If no worship, then they're not as "godful" just powerful. (Just a hypothesis, this isn't necessarily Dainsleif's mindset, but there are many other ways to be an Atheist depending on how you define it in Genshin's world.)
dottore is a interesting character but i need to cleanse him
Other than obviously keeping his story secret for now, the whole issue with Sohreh makes no sense. Her name literally means "famous." But here we are only seeing a snip or two of her end, and the only thing she's known for is for supposively naming beetles she found. Nothing else. Not even a voiceline talking about her. With Dottore basically messing with the tree, it wouldn't surprise me if something is going on with Sohreh and the leylines.
Where did i find the Sohreh's Note? 2:39
It's in the cave behind the Ruin Golem in the forest
Another amazing video
I don't think dottore would actually strangle sobreh, tho if it's true I wonder why he would do that, did she do something that pissed him off...he wouldn't just strangle her for nothing would he? I think dottore's actually a nice person he must've just been through a lot we don't know much about him
I'm not sure why he'd strangle Sohreh but since he conducts/oversees experiments on kids like Collei that kill most of them I wouldn't exactly call him a nice person haha. He probably does have a messed up childhood though yeah.
@@TheLaughingManLore wasnt it a Ruin guard who strangled her, the other letter mention "thanks to Zandik's quick reaction" and deactivated the ruin machine
@@Darkry_Obv they said the ruin gaurd killed her but the ones who got her body saw markings on her neck and a ruin guard wouldn't possibly strangle someone if it did her whole neck would've came off-
@@TheLaughingManLore yeah maybe his childhood is what makes him like that
@@Sephariim honestly I’d prefer If he’s just born naturally a psychopath
Where can i find the sohre note saying zandik is handsome ?
It's in the cave you teleport to to enter the Ruin Golem's circular door. Turn around and keep gliding away from it and you should find her note on a wooden platform near some huge machine parts.
@@TheLaughingManLore thank you i've found it! ( ◜‿◝ )♡
So Dottore is sumerian or sneshnayan?
99% sure he's Sumerian unless they throw a big twist in.
The author of this video mixed all the documents! He seemed to take all the information and put it in a blender. Firstly, we now know that Dottore is over 250 years old, which means that the faculty of studying ancient engineering did not yet exist in the Academy, which is why Zandik was called a mad heretic because of his offer to study the ancient machines of Kaenria'h, this was partially confirmed with the release of patch 3.3 and Faruzan. Secondly, what makes you think that all these documents belong to the Doctor? There are no names of Dottore or Zandik in the found papers (not taking into account the records of the expedition). And the hidden orders of the sage Amurta Siman indicate that the Academy was also looking for Aranara, but for their own purposes, and there is absolutely no evidence that she (Siman) did it on the orders of the Doctor. The academy wanted to find Aranara to try to restore the lost memory of an elderly scientist from Amurta. The conclusion that can be drawn is that you attributed to the Doctor cases and actions to which he is not related, or which he may not have committed, all evidence is circumstantial. We don't know the truth. And the people who watch this video take your word for it, and you mislead them...🤔
Trofin Snezhevich
Capture Aranara. It's an order from "The Doctor," so that he can study the connections between Aranara, dreams, and The Withering.
Are you ignorant, or just stupid?
Could you make a guide to where zandik's notes are and others that explain his lore please 😭🙏🙏
I'm sure there's probably guides out there but if you can't find any, I'll make one after I've finished this next video I'm editing.
Sohreh is a man.
You can't tell in English, but in other translations with gendered terms, he's male.
So by ur logic my sister is a man
This will be interesting to find out more about as we've had stuff in the past (Gold being referred to as a man as well as the Dendro Archon iirc). Does the original CN specifically call Sohreh a man?
@@TheLaughingManLore I don't think so I mean it's possible it's a guy and also possible it's a girl since girl's can also be called sohreh
Sohreh/Shohreh is a feminine name though, so they’re female. Most likely just grammar mistakes in the story.
May i know the letter location of Zandik about experimenting people on mins 04.20 ?? Im very interested in it !
Of course! It's in Apam Woods underneath the Varuna Contraption (drop down to the caves right under it), go to the room with the weather controlling machine that looks like the one just outside and the letter should be in front of you on a rock. Lmk if you need more detailed directions as some of these notes can be pretty awkward to find.
@@TheLaughingManLore thank you!!
It's highly possible that this is Dottore and i think there's some info about how Dottore has taken interest in the Aranara. Thanks 👍 for the video will have to look into it more
But i don't think Dottore and the Akademiya are working together atleast not directly as in like a behind the scenes manipulation or an agent infiltration of the Akademiya. I don't think they'd work together as the Akademiya was the one who rejected and then expelled Dottore i doubt he'd wanna work with them after that and as the first terminal of Akasha surely Nahida would've noticed this. I won't be surprised if the Akademiya was doing all this on their own we know a lot of Shady people from The Akademiya (Tighnari's master, the old dude who was inviting Tighnari, Alhaitham, the Grand sage) and we haven't even canonically interacted with the Akademiya
A Suggestion
If you're looking for video material look for two book
"The lay of Al Ahmar" and
"The Ode of soul light" they're very interesting
That's a fair assumption too, it's hard to say what the Akademiya are really up to behind the scenes as we've limited interactions with them as you've said. I think either way, they've fallen a long way to entertain Dottore's old ideas to use the Aranara and dreams the way they have. Hope we get some good story with them in 3.1.
Haha I was going to include part of those books into this video but it felt like a bit too much of a stretch. I think the exiled Shiruyeh might've been Dottore at the start of his story but it's more of a feeling rather than having any evidence for it. It would make for a really deep backstory though so I kinda hope it's true.
@@TheLaughingManLore oooooh really.......
I have yet to read the Shiruyeh one but you have leaked my interest so I'll check it out. Have you read the two books i mentioned they might be referring to the "Scarlett King" or maybe a even more ancient king either way there's a lot of lore in those, if you haven't them check it whenever your free or looking for new lore
@@Ren_rz Yeah those two books are fantastic (and I think you're right about the Scarlet King). They're what lead me to the next ones The Shepherd and the Magic Bottle (pt1) and The Tale of Shiruyeh (pt2). Let me know what you think of them as they're just as fascinating as The Lay of Al Ahmar and Ode To Soul Light I think.
I was actually thinking that maybe a few sages actually were in on it with dottore, esp the sage shown in the pt 1 of the archon quest bc blah blah the desperation we want our original god back now and we're out of options, bc it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they clown themselves that way, mayhaps they think they'd have the upper hand when this is all over (like the former kujou clan head in inazuma when he thought the fatui couldn't do shit bc praise the almighty shogun) bc the Akademiya's such a prideful bunch, at least the higher ups are
Oh also, throughout sumeru we discover a bunch of npc aranaras that look so dazed and out if it that the only way you could even awaken them is by using the power of dendro. It occured to me just now that this feels like strange behavior, we never really figure out why they're like this (aranaras that sing, ask/give resources, and play games with you are all easily explained bc the aranara world quest makes it clear that this is regular behavior from them, the oddly confused and unresponsive state some of them are in isn't normal tho). Several aranara in world quests make a constant mention of bad guys too, and in one certain quest an aranara asks you to help/save other aranara. The help/save part was v specific, like what happened to them that they need help?
Like maybe their power was used up for some reason and that's why they're dazed and confused. Maybe these are aranara that dottore have managed to successfully capture and experiment on (extract power from?) and either he let them go once their purpose was served or they managed to get away afterwards somehow. A rather dark thought, but still maybe a slight possibility?
:)
UuU