I like how he's allowed to be unapologetically ruthless and villainous. Obviously, Hoyo making him a scapegoat was a huge mistake in my opinion, but it's still better than seeing a watered-down version of him cough cough Columbina, Sandrone, Rhinedottir, Ei etc. cough cough. He truly feels like a character, not a narrative tool.
Secondly, his voice actor did a really good job (I'm speaking about the English version; I did not listen to the other ones). I can count on one hand the times when I found the voice acting in this game to be truly interesting (Childe in the Golden House boss fight, Yae Miko in Inazuma, the Winter Nights Lazzo trailer, Dottore and Pantalone in the last patch, and maybe Neuvillette in his own trailer).
Third, I think a sad backstory alone doesn't make for a complex character. Complexity can come from a moral dilemma or a question posed by a character that is very hard to answer. In Luna III he made really good points about progress and the gods, but what stood out to me in his story was Collei. We can agree that what he did with the Eleazar patients was bad, but his treatment managed to stave off the illness in Collei. We have to remember that Eleazar afflicted certain Sumerians for the past 500 years, since the Cataclysm. Nahida was the only person who could have cured it. Now, assuming the Akademiya scholars operated within the framework of their own version of ethical research, they could not come up with a cure for 500 years. Dunyarzad managed that well because her wealthy family had access to the best medical care in Sumeru. Il Dottore injecting his patients with god remains wasn't a perfect solution; it came with its own downsides, but Collei may have died or been rendered comatose/immobile before the game started, and we could not have met her. The question really poses itself: ethics vs efficiency? Being efficient while remaining ethical is the ideal, but what would you choose? I don't know; maybe I'm just reaching with this one, but I don't think this aspect of the story between Collei and Dottore gets talked about a lot.
And last, there is a certain duality in him. He has no problem dissecting people for his research (fully embodying the evil scientist trope, which is *chefs kiss* for me), but he made an immortality elixir for Pantalone, and made segments of himself. He is dismissive of humans, yet curious about the world and its secrets. He is destruction and creation at the same time.
This is why, during his scenes, my eyes were glued to the monitor. Archon Quests rarely have the same effect on me nowadays.
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