Moni's artblog

The Intolerable Truth of the World

At the end of the 3.2 Archon Quest, after the Traveler and Nahida have seemingly purified Irminsul from the stain of Forbidden Knowledge, Dottore shows up for our annual Fatui-mandated Gnosis negotiation.

The first thing he does is knock the Traveler out while barely lifting a finger. This will be important to keep in mind. If Dottore didn’t intend to be defeated in Nod-Krai, he could have disarmed the Traveler at any point. He has the technology to do so.

With the Traveler unconscious and no witnesses around Dottore offers to tell Nahida about the false sky, the secret hidden by Irminsul concerning the “truth” of this world.

Despite knowing the dangers of Forbidden Knowledge—and despite knowing how dangerous Dottore is himself—Nahida agrees not only to hear him out but also to do so in exchange for her Gnosis.

The system that she is meant to protect—that she is quite literally a part of—has been hiding truth from her. Would this revelation not be enough to shake her convictions in the Heavenly Principles? Would Nahida, the God of Wisdom, be content to rule in a world that is lying to the people and binding their free will ? I don’t think so.

My out of pocket theory is that she and Dottore established the importance of divesting Teyvat of Irminsul’s control in the Sanctuary of Surasthana three years ago with the goal of liberating the world from pre-programmed destiny. This was the true agreement in exchange for the Gnoses, an agreement that would be paid in full with the final missing chess piece. Dottore’s note about it being time to say goodbye seems a little pointed in retrospect.

The Doctor: Once I finish telling you about this, it will be time for me to say goodbye. The Doctor: With negotiations, we've all gotten what we wanted. I'm very glad I got to meet you like this.

But the goodbye doesn’t come at the end of 3.2. It takes place in 6.6.

Instead, as their dialogue wraps up in the Sanctuary, the game’s narration tells us:

Several days seems like more than enough time for the two most brilliant minds in Teyvat to hatch a heretical plan to overthrow the false fates. That “everything falls silent” also seems a little suspect now that we know Dottore can use Irminsul to create a “bubble of silence” to shield Sumeru from Celestia’s eyes. They would have been able to script what comes next without any interference from the Shades.

The Theatre of Rebellion

So far, the game has shown us quite a few ways in which the Archons have performed surrendering or losing their Gnoses. Venti had his “forcibly” torn from him by Signora (we don’t actually believe it would have been that easy, do we?). Zhongli has his “contract to end all contracts.” Focalors has her 500 year play. Nahida is  reminded of the “disparity” between her combat abilities and Dottore’s.

All these reasons for forfeiting their Gnoses to the Harbingers don’t seem particularly compelling when we look at them through human intuition. But they might appear convincing enough to an Artificial Intelligence’s scans. Certainly convincing enough that the Shades won’t have to punish the Archons for collusion. In other words, the Archons have found loopholes in the computer program, which they exploit to assist the Tsaritsa without making it look like they’re participating in her rebellion.

If, as the game seems to be suggesting, (some of the) Archons sought to overthrow fate 500 years ago and were devastatingly punished for it, they understand that they need to be a little more strategic this time. And so they play a long game, often alluded to with talk of chess pieces.

There is no way Nahida can burn Irminsul of her own volition without the Shades turning Sumeru into Khaenri’ah 2.0. We’ve seen what happens when leaders go beyond their mandates. But what if there’s a compelling enough reason to convince the Shades that Nahida setting fire to Irminsul is the lesser of two evils. A villain so dangerous that destroying the primordial tree is the only option.

The Role of a Villain

One of the things I haven’t seen talked about much is the fact that almost everyone in Sumeru survived 6.6. Those that didn’t only died because they refused to follow the evacuation plan that Nahida had ready to go at a moment’s notice. Almost like she expected this!

Dottore is continually made out to be a violent monster who relishes murdering as many people as possible, but the moment he seems like greatest threat he… doesn’t actually hurt a hair on anyone’s head. Don’t get me wrong, my man has done some terrible shit (RIP Niwa), but he also seems to be judged rather harshly by the Traveler and their pals. Too harshly, in fact.

Isn’t it interesting that the Traveler is so quick to revile Dottore when they champion Wanderer’s rehabilitation? And isn’t it ironic that the Traveler won’t even hear Dottore out for a minute, yet they’re somehow chummy with Liloupar. Liloupar!!! You know, the one who cursed generations of her own descendants, puppeteered her children into incestuous relationships and murder plots, and ultimately destroyed Gurabad by harnessing the power of the Abyss. Yeah, that Liloupar.

I’ll take my chances with the blue haired guy, actually, thanks

Dottore is an arrogant little shit (affectionate) with questionable methods, but show me one time he eviscerated an entire civilization using an Abyssal plague. In fact, Dottore actually figures out how to cure a plague.

Which brings me to my most cancelable take: one of the things that bothered me about the 6.6 Archon Quest was the utter lack of nuance directed toward Dottore’s experimentation on and treatment of Collei. I fully recognize that a child who undergoes painful but life-saving medical intervention can see their doctors as evil because of the agonizing immediacy of the treatment itself. That trauma stays with you. But why do none of the adults around Collei acknowledge the fact that Dottore’s treatment saved her life? Be for real, there would be no Collei if Dottore’s god-science hadn’t cured Eleazar. We saw with Dunyarzad that the decline is quick. Collei wouldn’t have survived until the Traveler purified the tree if she was already in such rough shape as a child.

Which brings me back to a key aspect of Dottore’s character: he no longer minds being seen as a villain as long as it allows him to further his goal of liberating himself (and, by extension the world) from the fetters of fate.   

The Doctor: You know, I heard recently that a group of critics reviewed countless stories and drew an interesting conclusion: They found that it is more often than not the villains who strive tirelessly to push the boundaries of progress. The Doctor: In fact, long before this, someone voiced a similar idea in an Akademiya editorial. I felt a great affinity with this perspective. I have never been afraid to step up and play the role of the villain. The Doctor: But all sacrifices made during my experiments have been worthwhile, as you can now see. I can offer you something new, something unique, precisely because I am a villain. The Doctor: I say, better to be governed by a flawed humanity than a Gnosis. The true seeker of knowledge is the villain who undergoes countless tribulations in pursuit of their goal.

(Are you really a villain or are you just playing one? The lady doth protest too much, methinks)

Dottore has been called a madman ever since he was a child. We find out that he lost his compassion at 8 years old because the people around him were terrified of his ideas. This doesn’t condone what he’s done, but it certainly explains his outlook. We also know that, in many cases, Dottore’s ideas are correct even if his methods are not morally good. He’s frequently judged by people whose worldviews come from divine proclamations that have been shown to be unreliable or falsely planted by Phanes. In plain terms, Dottore is called a madman and a lunatic by flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers. Now what we’ve been to the moon and gazed upon Teyvat, we know those people are wrong. The Sages are out here banning books and constraining research through the cardinal sins because they fear the wrath of the Heavenly Principles, but this places knowledge and wisdom in fundamental tension. While Dottore’s experimental-free-for-all isn’t exactly an ideal solution, the game makes it clear that ignorance—while a blissful dream—isn’t the right answer either.

Dottore is disappointed in the Traveler in 6.3 because they have yet to realize that Teyvat is trapped in a simulation. It is the Sabzeruz Festival on a much, much grander scale. When Dottore implies as much, the Traveler refers to his question as “pure sophistry” that has “nothing to do with [his] actions” when in fact they very much do. Dottore had hoped that the Traveler, having already experience the dream cycle in miniature, would have picked up on it by now.

Anyway, because Dottore gave up on regurgitating existing research years ago, he’s perfectly content to embrace the mantle of madman. In fact, he’s fated to do so by the very system he’s attempting to overthrow. His name quite literally translates to Heretic. This was always going to be his role.

So Dottore doesn’t give two shits about the fact that Collei thinks he’s a monster; what matters is the fact that she’s alive to do so because he cured the uncurable (never mind the fact that people later refused the cure because they thought Eleazar was their “punishment from god,” which doubtless contributes to his absolute contempt for the “rules”). Similarly, he doesn’t care that the people of Nod-Krai think he’s a monster because his experiments in the moonlit nation allowed him to achieve two of his most lofty goals:

1. He created a god out of Columbina.

Her Character Trailer makes it clear through visual storytelling that Dottore is the one guiding her entire narrative arc.

2. He infiltrated Irminsul like a Virus

By having the “good guys” kill him and send him into Irminsul, he created an anchor for the other half of his soul (just as Luonnotar was the anchor for Columbina)

Let’s not forget that the entire Heretic of the False Moon boss battle is staged. It’s a performance.

That’s more like it; some results of value. Good, keep it up. I’m still collecting data.

He orchestrates his death as part of a long game of game of infiltrating Irminsul to put an end to the false fates. And if Dottore had all this planned out, I can only assume that he has his own resurrection planned as well, right down to the reunification of his soul in the crucible of Irminsul. In fact, I think his resurrection was foreshadowed in 3.X as well.

Rebirth and The Sabzeruz Festival

Since I was going down a 3.X rabbit hole, I figured I may as well go all the way and look at the rest of the quest, especially the Sabzeruz Festival. And boy is it ever interesting after 6.6.

The Sabzeruz Festival was a collective dream, which the Sages harvested via the Akasha Terminal to power Dottore’s false god project. In the initial loop, the Traveler and Dunyarzad walk the streets of the city, stopping at various stalls.

The first stall is Amal’s which offers food from the Haft-Mewa Feast which Dunyarzad tells us is when people “set their tables with seven different foods to symbolize the seven virtues of the Dendro Archon.”

The irl inspiration behind this feast is Half Seen (or Seven S’s), a core tradition in the celebration of Nowrus, the Persian New Year, which marks the vernal equinox. This tradition involves arranging seven objects on a table or mantle, each of which has a name beginning with the letter S, and that, together, symbolize life and renewal. In addition to these seven elements, celebrants also include a “book of wisdom” from which the eldest member of a family will recite a page for guidance on the upcoming year.

Which brings us to Kimiya, the next person we meet in the quest. Kimiya’s name derives from the Arabic word for chemistry, which is, in turn, connected to the Ancient Greek Kimia, meaning alchemy or elixir of life. Importantly, in a lot of Persian literature, Kimia refers less to the chemical or material side of alchemy than to its spiritual or psychological side, the transmutation of the self.

Kimiya has a bunch of interesting things to say that never really made much sense until Natlan and Nod-Krai:

Kimiya: ...The remnants appear to be in the form of the Moon. Paimon: Really? Paimon thought it looked like some kind of food. Kimiya: Hmm... The Moon signifies... Hmm... It's escaping me for now. Wait a moment... Paimon: Is he really looking it up in a book? Kimiya: Oh, right, it means illusions and lies. Kimiya: But if you trust your intuition and overcome your fears, the sun will surely rise. Kimiya: This is divine wisdom.

Moon remnants… illusions and lies… the sun rising… Sounds a little bit like Mavuika punching a hole into the sky to me. And, after Nod-Krai, all this talk about the moon followed by the loop of Number Four is pretty intriguing.

And then we go to Vihar’s stall where we meet Farris, the Knight of Flowers. In Iranian folklore, Hāji Firuz appears in the streets at the beginning of Nowruz after returning from the world of the dead, his red clothes symbolizing the resurrection of the sacrificed deity. These are common motifs in figures meant to symbolize the transition from winter (dead) to spring (resurrection).

Clearly, the Sabzeruz Festival is very much a celebration of Nahida’s liberation and her return to her power after Greater Lord Rukkhadevata’s sacrifice. But Genshin’s narratives often work on multiple levels, telling and retelling stories, foreshadowing overarching plots through mirrored themes in endless mise en abimes. Just look at how many times Simulanka has foreshadowed the plotline ever since the summer of 2024. This isn’t accidental; Teyvat runs on cycles, samsaras, repeating histories with minor variations on the theme.

And it's still going strong.

Beyond Nahida’s narrative, the Sabzeruz Festival can nod to Columbina’s resurrection from the world of the dead (the Moon’s Reflection) as moon number four. But it can also foreshadow Dottore’s return because Nahida and Dottore are set up as foils for one another.

Branches of a Whole

Dottore and Nahida share many parallels. They’re both 500(ish) year-old geniuses from Sumeru, they’ve both been victims of the Sages, they both adopt some questionable methods at times for the “greater good.” But most saliently to me, they’re both portrayed as branches of a whole.

Nahida is referred to as a branch of Irminsul, a segment of the original tree. After completing the Sumeru Archon Quest, we obtain the 5 Star Quest Item Silver Twig.

This twig is Nahida, a branch of Rukkhadevata now coming into her own being after Rukkhadevata returns to the people of Sumeru their ability to dream.

Greater Lord Rukkhadevata: From the earth Greater Lord Rukkhadevata: And from the rain Greater Lord Rukkhadevata: We perceive its wonders until we become a white bird Greater Lord Rukkhadevata: To perch atop a branch... Greater Lord Rukkhadevata: And finally snap off the most important leaf

Guess what we get when we defeat Dottore? A Twisted Withered Branch. Because Dottore is also a branch of a kind, a Segment of Zandik. The “most insane” branch, but a branch nonetheless.

In the God’s Limits trailer, we also get this striking visual image of a white raven with a black raven’s reflection.

If Rukkhadevata/Nahida is the white bird perched atop a branch, Dottore is her counterpart. He even wears the dark plumage on his shoulders and is constantly portrayed alongside motifs of black birds (his artifact being the Pale Flame feather is another good one).

Subtlety is not exactly his forte All of this also calls to mind the work MC Escher, which is full of tessellations of interlocking black and white birds. In these woodcuts, the white and black birds both emerge out of and give shape to one another. They are inextricable. And we know that Dottore has quite the connection with Escher.

Nahida’s resurrection in Irminsul wherein she meets the other part of herself foreshadows Dottore’s return after hearing the verdict of his own soul in that very same tree. They approach the parts of themselves from completely opposite sides, but these parallels are intentional, especially when we consider that 6.6 is a continuation of the Sumeru quest as much as the Nod-Krai quest. (The downside here is that Nahida forgets Rukkhadevata and it will suck if Zandik gets totally memory wiped, buuuut I’ll take it if it means he’s playable).

Another thing I thought was interesting: in Tlingit oral storytelling, the White Raven is a trickster and a key figure in tales of creation. At the beginning, the world is engulfed in darkness, the sun, moon, and stars hoarded in boxes by a wealthy noble. Boldly endeavouring to shine light upon the world, Raven transforms himself and infiltrates the noble’s house, playing the role of the man’s grandson for years until at last he shifts back to his true form, steals the light from their boxes, and escapes through the chimney. As he ascends, his plumage is darkened with soot. He becomes the Black Raven while bringing light to the world.

Dottore and Nahida are both tricksters of a kind. They both play long games with sleight of hand, and they both ultimately want to shed light on the truths of the world. While they might have different perspectives on wisdom and enlightenment, their overarching convictions aren’t actually all that far off from one another, despite what Nahida may say.

And so we might ask…

Who Really Won, In the End?

The ending of the 6.6 Archon Quest is weird. On the surface, it concludes the way most of the AQs do: good prevails over evil, team Traveler-and-the-power-of-friendship valiantly defeats the boss, and everyone celebrates with a grand feast. It appears to be yet another triumphant ending.

But… is it really?

Because, from where I’m standing, it still kind of looks like Dottore won.

The Harbingers’ stated goal under Pierro has been to “burn down the old world.” Dottore wants to liberate humanity from the limitations that have been imposed on them. Pantalone wants a world where humans can be on equal footing with the gods. The old world burned exactly as they wanted.

It just so happened that the “good guys” were the ones who struck the match.

Goodbye, We Will (Never?) Meet Again

I’ll acknowledge that Dottore’s conversation with Nahida at the very end of 6.6 seems to throw a wrench into my theory because he seems surprised that she set fire to the tree. But, again, he’s a stellar performer. Perhaps, now that the shield is down, he needs to reprise his role as villain one last time to really make it convincing for the Shades. “Ooh, you outsmarted me! I can’t see any other outcomes.” I don’t believe this guy for a second.

The fact that Nahida ends on “Goodbye” just feels so deliberate after Dottore promising her that it’s time to say goodbye after he tells her about the false sky.

And then that last little bit in the quest’s denouement where Nahida says:

The matter of Dottore can be seen as settled for now. We are sure to cross paths again in the future, and in that light, Snezhnaya would do well to uphold their responsibilities and keep a tight rein over their actions.

Maybe she’s talking about the other Harbingers but… that’s really not what this sentence says at all. On a grammatical level, she says we are certain to cross paths with Dottore again; there’s no pronoun ambiguity here. (This can certainly be a localization issue, but I will continue clinging to it until they go in and change it.)

I’ve also been a little confused about Pantalone’s comment to Dottore about not wanting “to admit defeat in the limited time [he has].” What limited time? Segments don’t age! For all intents and purposes, Dottore is effectively immortal. And, as Pantalone later says, there was no reason for the experiment to end.

Dottore knew he was going to die. In fact, I think he was counting on it as part of a plan already set into motion with Nahida in 3.2,. That plan also involves his return. He’s happy to play the role of the villain because there has to be a villain to work against the Shades programming. Had he not performed a convincing world-ending threat, Nahida would never have gotten away with burning the tree in pursuit of true wisdom.

But just as Nahida is a branch reborn in an effort to purify the tree of knowledge, Zandik will be reborn from the burning tree after brining light (true knowledge) to the world. Irminsul isn’t entirely gone. The roots are still there—surely enough for him to spring back.

Unshackled, from the fate of the heretic, when he rises again, he can choose his own path. Perhaps, then, this is what Pantalone meant when he said Dottore’s death his favorite part. They’re finally free.

In particular, Pantalone seems fixated on reminding Omega of Dottore's humanity--he insists that Omega is Zandik, the person, not just a Segment, and repeatedly refuses to accept that Omega is incapable of human feeling.

Putting aside the potentially very dark reason here (claiming that Omega is Zandik could simply be a way of avoiding the grief of losing the original Zandik--if he's still there, Pantalone doesn't have to mourn him), I think this is actually an incredible degree of kindness to Dottore.

It is clear, and not even particularly subtle, that the Segments (especially Omega) struggled with issues of self-identity, of not knowing whether to think of themselves as "Zandik" or as separate entities, unable to move on from the mindsets they were locked into upon their creation, unable to differentiate into their own people over time, unable to surpass the creator to become "real." Omega makes it particularly clear that he disdained this lifestyle and the other Segments, refusing to see them as anything but extensions of "himself," rather than their own individuals (because his egoism is a poorly projected mask he uses to hide his own struggle to see himself as an individual and not "the one who should be Zandik but isn't"). Omega ultimately craves to subsume the other Segments, becoming "the only Dottore" so that he can finally achieve a whole identity and personhood for himself. There's so, so, so much existential horror in this concept that it's hard to even conceive of how miserable a life it would be--mentally understanding yourself as someone while knowing that you are actually a something instead.

Out of everyone in the game, the only character we see actually affirming Omega's identity, telling him that he is a person, he has a name, he is entitled to the very identity he was born with... is Pantalone. Whatever his reasons--selfish or twisted as they may be--Pantalone is the only person treating Omega like a real human being, and the only one we see over and over trying to remind Omega that, deep down, he still has a human heart.

Even that final statement:

Is a powerful exercise in recognizing agency, allowing Omega to decide for himself what identity he wants to finally, finally lay claim to.

Pantalone doesn't just care about Dottore's intelligence or the benefits he's reaped by being Dottore's financial backer. He cares about Dottore's sense of self, his identity, his very existence.

And the game goes out of its way to make it clear that isn't just a one-off thing--Pantalone's been prodding at Dottore's mental issues for years, trying to get Dottore to work his way through some of his distorted thinking since well back in their relationship. The Anomalous Tree Marrow notes:

In this case, "selfishness" seems to refer to not only the idea of being literally self-centered (i.e. Omega wanting to value his own existence above the other Segments or even the original Zandik), but also to Omega's clear self-hatred. If all the Segments are Zandik, then viewing Zandik as weak, pathetic, or in need of replacement means seeing yourself as weak and pathetic; believing you are "better" than the others means first admitting that "you" were never perfect.

Omega's desire to kill the other Segments, to claim Zandik's identity, to elevate himself to the position of godhood, to fight with everything he has against the fate the heavens assigned "him", all ultimately stem from an inability to accept himself, a constant selfish refusal of reality, an all-consuming desire to achieve more, to learn more, to be more.

Pantalone, in fact, implies this with his metaphor about the praying criminal:

Dottore misunderstands and takes the metaphor literally, but Pantalone's point is clarified later for the viewers:

Over and over again, Pantalone tried to warn Omega that his views and behaviors towards himself were utterly self-destructive, that his self-centered fixation with being "Dottore" stems from an inherent disgust for "Zandik" [himself] and his very human limitations. Quietly, if perhaps too gently, Pantalone has been trying for years to help Omega rethink his fragmented self-identity and reconsider the value of his life as a person.

And it seems that he almost, almost made it through to Omega sometimes:

To an appropriate degree, of course.

Omega can never reflect too deeply on himself or his course of action, because doing so would force him to confront the gaping abyss that lies between the inflated, narcissistic front he projects and the significantly more fragile sense of inadequate "self" that lies below it.

It even seems that Pantalone was able to understand Dottore's mental needs much more than anyone else, being also the only character we see to deliberately, clearly, and repeatedly give Omega the validation he so blatantly fishes for, over and over:

Make all the jokes you want about Dottore giving the Traveler 16578698 chances to join forces, but the reason he did that was because--even while insisting he doesn't remotely care--he obviously desperately craves understanding, acceptance, and respect from others. There's a reason the very first thing he asked Pierro was "Are you going to reject me like everyone else?"

Pantalone knows that Omega--well, all versions of Dottore most likely--needed acceptance, admiration, and confirmation of respect from others, and he went out of his way to repeatedly reassure Omega, giving his praise and accolades wherever it was due, while literally every other character in the game--even Dottore's other Fatui allies!--have not a single positive word to say.

While everyone is busy talking about how much Dottore cared for Pantalone's physical well-being, I think it's incredible just how obviously that care was returned. Pantalone cared! He really did. Dottore tried to protect Pantalone's health despite all of Pantalone's attempts to self-sabotage, but Pantalone tried to protect Dottore's absolutely fractured mental health despite every action leading Dottore closer to total self-destruction.

The irony, of course, is that Pantalone's own mental health is clearly a disaster too, and Dottore has no regard for life that isn't Pantalone's, so this was one of the most obvious (and frankly sad) examples of "the blind leading the blind"--neither one of these characters is remotely healthy, but they still tried their best to help each other. Clearly neither one of them knows how to fix the incredibly broken people that they are, but they were trying! Even as their convictions and goals dragged them both further and further into the dark, they still saw each other's suffering and tried to alleviate it, where no one else in the entire world bothered.