[4.0] Dottore was in Fontaine - A Genshin Impact Theory 

**NOTES AND CORRECTIONS** - When I was talking about consecrated beasts I misspoke and said that they were humans originally who ate the flesh of God's but they were really animals that ate the flesh of gods. I somehow did not catch that I said that in three reviews of the final video. Probably because I knew what I meant, because it was a comparison about how animals eating the flesh of God's turns them into the supernatural monsters the same way that a human potentially consuming abyssal energy can warp them into the shape of an abyssling. Oh well, I think the idea got across. - I'm also aware the dude in the balloon in the opening scene isn't Dottore, this was done for the conspiracy vibe. And also because I thought it could be him back when I first did the 4.0 trailer analysis with chat lol - I do feel like I should clear up one thing regarding the primordial water and the fact that Zandik is not from Fontaine and therefore can't dissolve: I don't necessarily think Dottore is using Primordial waters so much as I think he's leveraged Rene's research to create liquid minds in robot bodies. Kind of like Scaramouche's robot connection tubes were full of a purple liquid that let him pilot the robot shell Dottore built. The idea of him being both Zandik and Rene assumes he figured out how to distill conciousnesses from living and dead people, even those dissolved by primordial waters or even the leylines. My apologies if that wasn't particularly clear in the video. I'm in dire need of a vacation.

I can’t beleive they still cooking with the evengalion inspiration. Just imagining the storyboard team going “So… what should we make Fontaine’s story centered around?” “French turning into Fanta.”

Me: after Sumeru, I think Genshin lore can't get any more complicated. Ashikai: Hold my beer.

I love how Yanfei has detective buddies showing up all over the place now. Kaeya, Albedo, Scaramouche, the mystery machine has room in it today fellas edit: I am extending a public apology to Kuki Shinobu and Heizou, my goldfish brain and I will reflect

"I know that we only have Arlecchino in Fontaine for now" Yeah, Childe is canonically just visiting

Fun fact, Fonta doesn't have any effects except make you sparkle

Let's not forget that one of Dottore's earliest known (to us) feats is turning one of his own lackeys (Krupp) into a robot that glows blue...

The body and mind separation works as Pneuma refers to the Soul and Ousia refers to the body. One has an absorbing animation, the other has a releasing animation, showing a contrast but similarity between the two. So it's likely that this was on the right track with the French philosopher

Your pronounciation of Narzissenkreuz is way better than any other non-german-speaker's I've heard. Kudos!

Dottore's outfit has blue accents that I initially thought could be blue liquid flowing through his clothes. If he's supposedly an oceanid, he definitely could be primordial water with his consciousness inside a robotic suit, which could very well make him near impossible to kill, so maybe that's why he's so willing to take so much risks as he doesn't fear death?

Wait why would the Fatui bother so much with trying to find out how the Oratrice work, if Dottore made it? He would just have the blue prints to it. I will agree that Focalor didnt build it, and it dont seem to be the style of Egeria to make it either...So I think that maybe it actually have something to do with Phanes and the shades.... And I doubt that Dottore is an Oceanid... He may have blue hair, but he also has red eyes, oceanids seem to get blue eyes when in human form. Also, if he was an Oceanid, why would Nahida think it was such a blasphemous thing for him to create clones of himself? Considering Oceanids merge witheachother, it feels like they would easily be able to divide too...

Gosh I miss Dottore so much, I hope we see him again soon TT

Now i want to see the doctor drop a opera number and just leave without saying anything and randomly pop up again and beat us up while still singing Well now i want to know what the problem was

Hearing the Rene Descartes link was simply mind-blowing, WTF! If this is true (which I would think there are too many coincidences to not be), The Hoyo writing team's loremasters never stop being absolutely insane XD

4.2 update: we know now for sure that Rene's consciousness has remained his and that Dottore is thus not Rene.

People want Dottore so bad in Fontaine, but what about Sandrone? Are they gonna just forget about that character and all her themed based design around Fontaine, Meka and puppetry? Like there is almost no room left to implement her into the story if not just a side character in Snezhnaya :( EDIT: She also hates Childe, so she controlling the oratrice to convict him and doing a little adjustment isn’t that far fetched. EDIT 2: Was wrong about Childe, but actually semi right in Sandrone’s part, we only need confirmation that Mary-Ann was her either as a puppet designed after her or Alain did something to her body after she was presumably dead.

This is not the first time I've heard that eating the flesh of Elynas turned Jakob into an Abyssling, but I don't think the evidence holds up. Rene's notes are pretty clear about what happened to Jakob-he became inhumanly strong and stopped needing to eat. There's no mention of him taking on an inhuman form, or the ability to use abyssal energy like he does in the quest. In the Nymph's dream set, it mentions that one of the children was taken in by adventurers and embarked on a journey beyond normal comprehension. Jakob, hadn't returned to Elynas since the battle. This child was Jakob, he travelled to the Abyss after the battle of Elynas and gained his Baptist form and abyssal power there.

Dottore getting yassfied in the trailer was very unexpected for me lol 😆

If the theme of a hive mind conscious is repeating for all the places that Dottore has been, then can we say that Shenezhnya is gonna have a hive mind theme in it too? So it follows the Sumeru, Fontaine and Shenezhnya trio.

My mind was compltely blown away by all the phantom of the opera and Evangelion references, stunning video and theory, I will make sure to watch it again to keep track of everything because as an Evangelion enthusiast this is gold. Keep it up! Would love to contribute to these lore discussions

one thought...why would the fatui be investigating the oratrice if dottore invented it?

This is a great theory but Im laughing at the idea that dottore created something that caused tartaglia to go to jail without planning to 😂

Dude, thanks so much for the effort you put into Genshin lore & speculation. Hope you are doing some Natlan speculation soon, the game has told us next to nothing and it would be super cool to hear your thoughts on it!

I don’t know if this would be considered a leak since I doubt Hoyo will bother taking Dottores mask off, but I remember seeing someone trying to get his model and taking it off manually. There was just a core in the center instead of eyes, which I got reminded of when the possibility of him being a robot popped up. Liquified consciousness also brought my attention to the liquid vial earpiece, which may actually be where he stores all the collective consciences in, or maybe he himself is in there too. This is a comparison to Baizhu and Changsheng’s relationship, but consider that a far reach.

I'm actually surprised it took the genshin community this long to finally realize that Evangelion is the main inspiration for the honkaiverse as a whole 😭

All this work you put into these has made the game SO much more fun... and hearing how much fun YOU'RE having with it makes it all the better.

Ahhh I love Dottore so muchhhh. I hope he’s playable soon.

Not sure what got fixed, but this is such a great video! Thank you for covering Dottore! I’m so stoked for the next act 💙

As soon as I heard your opening I knew exactly where you were going, but dayum you took some twists and turns that I really did not expect! It all came together so neatly, really well done. Quick note about the Phantom of the Opera references. In the original book his mask covers his entire face. The musical changed it to half because it was too difficult to sing and emote with the full mask. So that would line up even better with Dottore’s mask. I wonder if we’ll see some mazes or traps then, since that’s what Erik (the phantom) is known for.

19:52 Giant synthetic Angle... one of which has the soul of a human inside it(Unit 1) and from what I could find LCL stands for "Link Connected Liquid" or "Lilith Connected Liquid" which makes sense in a literal sense

That cycle theory reminds me of what Wei introduced us of why characters have constellations and what are even constellations.

Ashikai when game-changing prophecy and magic space whale: I sleep Ashikai when Dottore reference: real shit

Not ashikai trying to whitewash our Persian harbinger 😭

What's interesting is that in the commedia dell'arte, Dottore is either a doctor of medicine or a doctor of law (lawyer). It would definitely be understandable if Dottore makes an appearance in Fontaine considering his title. Imagine if he fulfills this doctor of law criteria too and ends up being a puppet master of some kind in Furina's role hahahha.....

Since back in the chasm I was wondering why the water was so important, now that fontaine came out it's all coming together now

It would be hilarious if the actual reason Oratrice declared Childe guilty was not because if his primordial water connections or because of some 5D chess plan from Arlecchino, but simply because Oratrice is one of the "slivers" of Dottore and Dottore hates Childe's guts

the primordial water you mentioned looks super similar to that vial Dottore was holding in the Winter Night's Lazzo trailer, idk if theres anything to this but im surprised you didnt mention it, great video regardless!

Cant wait for Dottie to serve c again I miss him greatly

I was singing the Fanta jingle sooo much when I first found Fonta in Fontaine. Another excellent video btw I really love these!

One of the tracks in the opera sounds way too similar to dottores first introduction song. I always felt that it was too similar to be a coincidence but now it makes much more sense. It connects well

This actually makes me wonder what Arlechino's role is in all of this since she supposedly watns to use the gnosis to save Fontaine? There's also the fact that some people are starting to think she might be another Honkai expy- specifically of Raven/Natasha from Honkai impact 3rd. This is definitely an interesting theory since all Honkai expys have played major roles in the story so far

Considering how you raised the points that some of the themes of Fontaine point to Dottore's presence, I suddenly realised that alot of the themes in Fontaine also point to either the presence of the Hexenzirkel (maybe Alice might finally make an appearance in main story content?) or perhaps even The Sinner from the Caribert quest. The latter is mainly because of the hive-mind theme (considering your previous video on King Irmin = King Deshret = The Sinner), which might also hint at why Jakob is in the form of an Iniquitous Baptist? (also the text describing the Iniquitous Baptist boss in the event screen when it first appeared in-game sounds alot like King Deshret (Quote: "Cleansing of Sin: A seeker of truths once caught a glimpse of the pitch-dark world beyond the skies. They continue to whisper accursed prayers, guiding mortals toward the path to the paradise of truth." Sounds very familiar....)) Regarding the Hexenzirkel, there's alot of things tbh: some of the more obvious are Childe and his suddenly not-working Vision and the theories surrounding that (so Skirk, who you previously theorized was a member of the Hexenzirkel), the blatant Alice in Wonderland themes (so Alice, but there's also alot of hints associated to other fairy-tales that is very very interesting) shared between both the Hexenzirkel's tea party and Fontaine (The Mad Hatter's tea party, plus the umbrella stand in the tea party set-up is exactly the same as Fontaine's umbrella stand just with a different colour), and the most blatant, the sudden appearance of "witching circles" (aka the meaning of the name "Hexenzirkel") in Fontaine when previously there had been absolutely none other that popped up anywhere in Teyvat other than Mona's scryglass in "Unreconciled Stars" that I can think of off the top of my head. There's also alot of other things tbh that are mainly idea/word associations and so are really just me digging into the soft ground that is Fontaine's current lore titbits: 1) Egeria's lines in "The Final Feast" pv: "The original sin is the fairest." This particular line bugged me for the longest time because while a translation of the CN lines would be "The original sin is the most just/fair" which just makes sense as it is, the wording of the EN lines has alot more mythological and biblical implications (see "The Last Supper" painting of Christ and his disciples, and oh boy that link has yet alot of implications to explore again). The original sin is clearly Eve eating the apple after being tempted by Satan as a serpent, so when you look at the idea of "original sin" = apple, coupled with the "the fairest", its a very blatant hint to the Golden Apple of Eris, who as established in one of Ashikai's previous videos is likely to be an inspiration for Genshin Alice. 2) The theme of reflected perspectives links to the theme of mirrors, and an interesting thing is that the first natural "mirror" is actually water (which is written in John Milton's Paradise Lost, most commonly known as a fanfiction of the Book of Genesis, so again the biblical implications). But apart from the clear associations with Mona and her master with their hydromancy, when you combine the themes of a "poisoned" apple of sin, the phrase "the fairest", and magical "mirrors", you get another fairy-tale: Snow White. And Snow White fell into an Eternal Slumber after biting into the poisoned apple... (Golden Apple of Discord, Golden Slumber, King Deshret aka The Sinner is that you?) 3) The blatant parallels in the Fontaine Archon quest to Hyv's other game Tears of Themis, and which made me really start to wonder abt how the Greek goddess of Justice Themis is most likely a blueprint for Furina. I haven't as yet really started to research this but for those who play Tears of Themis, we know that Themis has four main symbols represented by the 4 male leads of the game, a sword (Fontaine Statue of the Seven, and considering Luke's situation the idea of a double-edged sword is incredibly fitting for Furina), a pair of scales (The Oratrice, or perhaps the Oratrice + Neuvilette system), a blindfold (this one isnt very clear yet but can again be attributed to either Neuvillette or even the Oratrice itself), but most importantly, what/who represents the snake (Satan?) then?

This is soooo good, Dottore is easily one of the best characters to come from Genshin Impact

I have to say i love the energy and passion you convey through your voice, and i always enjoy your videos, thank you for your work!

I'm still on the fence about Dottore being an "Oceanid"-like character, especially if the first theory about him ties him to the irminsul and branches(dottore segment theory) there should be a heirarchy of which world being is more powerful? Is it irminsul or the primordial sea?

Great video! So this sets up the Doctor verses the Knave... Can't wait to see how this all plays out! Thanks!

I'm glad to have seen your video. I don't know if I'm dumb but many times I loose important parts of the world story quests and end up super confuser about what I learned. Now things are clearer but those theories do make my mind blow steam haha

What doesn't make sense for me is that if Dottore built the oratrice, then why would lyney and lynette be tasked with gathering data about it?

Awesome video, as always. Thanks for all you do for us.

Dottore being an -video spoiler- is interesting but maybe he did the inverse way and got similar result. Instead of merging several consciousness into one he grew his from one to many. Having multiple versions of himself, also saving whatever they knew before erasing their bodies on the Nahida's gambit.

At the start of the video i was like 'okay that sounds crazy but I'm listening' and by the end I'm almost 100% convinced 😂. i love the real life inspirations and references and i really appreciate your videos for pointing them out. much love!💜

HONORARY EDITOR APPRECIATION POST Dude the editing for this video is so goddamn funny i love it!!!

Love your lore & your research into obtenebrated clues. Sadly, not enjoying the game play of water world myself, but I would never miss your insights into the story.

Somehow Ashikai made Dottore being some kind of oceanid hybrid, oh having assimilated oceanid characteristics make sense. I'm shook! 😲

As a hardcore Evangelion fan who is overly obsessed with researching it’s lore and Gnosticism, I’m having so much fun with this that I could cry! Thanks for pointing out it parallels, so satisfying 😭

So, my favorite character may not just be a person who exists as multiple separate organisms("segments"), but actually several individuals, presenting as one person. And I thought it couldn't get any worse.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention him holding a vial of suspicious blue liquid in the winter night lazzo trailer.

Fun fact: I think (I THINK) that in the part of Dahrian Breach in the Sumeru desert, if you pay attention, the OST is very similar to the OST that the Fatui trailer has when Dottore talks to Collei, that desert being so near Fontaine it may be that he traveled there, idk im being delusional 😭

The test tube Dottore has in his hand during A Winter Night’s Lazzo also match the primordial water tubes during the archon quest

Anyone else finding it hilarious how shes just waiting for the ship to slowly fly into frame and going there he is! ya see him! Right in the balloon! *Dottore.*

I always avoid story spoilers except for your vids bc I love them so much so im just here kinda confused but having a good time

This video is amazing. Great job!

I'm not sure if Dottore is an oceanid but it certainly interesting. I have noticed that another harbinger who resembles an oceanid and that is actually Childe. I also think he might be possessed by the hydro dragon

Isn't Dottore also holding a vial of the Primordial Water in the harbringer trailer?

I always enjoy your analysis videos.

If we see more doc we might see more Scara which is a win win

The video is really fun but wasnt René a little boy during the Cataclysm when he went to the desert ? While Dottore was a grown ass man already during the cataclysm when he planed everything in Inazuma ? I dont quit understand all of this.

I CRACKED GESHIN’S WORLD STRUCTURE; IT’S A MIRROR!!!! clues: Alice (Klee’s mother) and Alice through the looking glass; mirrors are commonly correlated to 2 opposite views; the newest update trailer hitting at their being another perspective (it being beautiful for organisms corrupted with abyssal energy, as if they are looking from the reversed side of the mirror); Khaenri'ah being upside down; the twin seeing their twin in the mirror in the most recently “we will be reunited” quests; and one twin being classified as a descender and the other not.

You are unimaginably smart. I look forward to more good content from you!

I think you meant to say that consecrated beasts were normal *Animals* 😅

**eats the deliscious brain thoughts**

I know that I'm a bit late to this video to correct you ashkai but when it comes to phantom of the opera, the half mask is a musical only thing; Erik of The book wore a full faced mask that covered everything but his eyes and mouth, which relates even closer to the webtoon dottores mask

Consider me shook 😅 I love your video ❤️

In regards to the underground of the Opera Epiclesce [or however it goes 😆], an interesting thing is that if you cross the bridge behind it, and use elemental sight, the circle in the center of the floor turns white, like interactive objects do, suggesting that that circle might turn out to be an elevator towards some underground part of the Opera house.

About the Evangelion references of this game (spoilers incoming from Eva) I might add the correlation between Dottore and Rei The segments parts of his making artificial beings, segments he could mold into fragments of his life is kinda the same as Rei, being also an artificial being stored in a way to achieve immortality for Dottore and being the perfect catalyst for Rei. The hivemind of Rei used to create her, the hivemind oceanid Dottore...

i love this video and it really actually lined up with a lot of the thoughts i had about dottore after this patch!! tho, honestly, i think the timeline might be a little more different bc i feel like dottore might be older than rene? tho i dont entirely remember how old dottore was during the cataclysm (if he was alive) so id have to do more personal research there. you did a lot more research prior to this so im sure you know their ages quite well. i also think that there must be some sort of correlation between his work with scara and his clones which i agree do seem to be some form of oceanid-type life form, but i believe they have more to do with scara's puppetry alongside that to keep their physical form. it is a very interesting topic and im genuinely excited to learn more about him in the future!! i really feel like we'll get something when the research institute is released... my only real problem is... im kind of tired of the nge thing. like i get it, i do. the team loves nge. we all do. its a great show. but it feels kind of repetitive now and pointless in this case specfically bc it really feels like youre only referencing nge bc its the mecha anime you know and you know hoyo team likes it as well. well, the hoyo team also likes gundam. when i heard the term "neo-human" my first thought was about the concept of "newtypes" from gundam. to then come here and hear you mention it but then quickly brush all that aside just to go on a lengthy nge ramble... well, kind of disappointing. i also find your analysis of dottore being gendou, as well as scara's correlation to shinji to be quite wishy-washy (i cant talk about the phantom of opera stuff, idk anything about it lol). idk i just feel like it might be better to entirely remove that from the analysis of his character as it detracts from the overall quality of the theory imo. i am personally a fan of nge! its just very surface-level and doesn't really even begin to get into the depth of mecha references in this game (that is supposedly fantasy haha)

ive never seen phantom of the opera but damn there's so many connections you made that make A LOT of sense you might be a genius lmfao

Fun fact: in the italian version of evangelion the sea of lcl is more often called “mare primordiale” wich in english is translated as “primordial sea”. Idk if english evangelion ever calls it like that but as soon as i saw that name in game i Made the connection. Also dottore is by design a fusion between gendo and rei. Light blue hair and red eyes like rei (also his clothes have a similar colour scheme to rei’s plug suit), and has clones of himself just like her (also previous clones of rei have different ages just like dottore segments ). These clones for Both characters are all destroyed at the same time by someone’s else decision (nahida for one and ritsuko for the other) . Tartaglia (wich is the character most similar to asuka) now lost control of his vision (just like asuka loses her connection with eva unit 02) and is being detained in an underwater fortress ( and asuka in the beginning of the end of evangelion is stuck inside the Eva 02 at the bottom of a lake ) . Well i could stay here making parallels all day…

Bro I thought that Dottore was running experiments on the judge device I didn’t expect you to say he made the device let alone was a elemental enemy type

i hope you can make a video about remuria and sort of catagorise what we know about it and where in the timline it was, since i remember it being formed alongsinde gurabad (i think mentioned in the books) also remuria seems to take inspiration from rome with their whole superiority complex and looking down on tribal socities thats not in remuria (rome vs germanic tribes) Also I know you dont usually talk about it but it would so nice if you could touch on the smaller lore bits, like for example evrything that happened in the dessert after gurabads fall, the various kingdoms or about makhariah, farmaraz, or that one time when the blood stained knight and his deaf brother were in the rainforest ans the deaf brither gave the viridecent huntress the hunters oath bow etc

Ok, hear me out. I know there's a joke about Dottore and Eula being related because both have a similar shade of hair... So here goes my silly attempt. Has anyone noticed Eula's constellation translates to "brilliant SEA FOAM," that her banner is called "born of ocean swell" and that Lawrence is an Anglicized version of the French "Laurent"? I think she has Fontainian blood 👀

I've been thinking about all the evangelion references, I'm so glad you included it in the video

the way u were talking about the "one consciousness" thing and I immediately thought of eva and then u mentioned eva😭also u pointing out the parallels between shinji and scare made my jaw drop LMAO. this whole video is so good lmao

Oceanids are one of my favourite elemental creatures since release day, annoying to fight but extremely cool lore wise. Im happy they're getting the spotlight they deserve Also, shark themed oceanid dottie would be badass as hell (even tho the shark association is fanon lol)

If Dottore is there, then Wanderer is on his way to Fontaine lol

so dottore is a walking hive mind that explain his power level and having a good personality inside the hive mind would be the perfect excuse for playable dottore

i'm undecided on whether i agree with this theory, so i'll give my full thoughts- in enigmatic page XII, we learn that the third person absorbed by "Master" (the rene-director oceanid thing) is some kind of scientist who was also researching "transplanting consciousness". we also have it basically confirmed that the first two people were marfisa (see "rightful reward" polearm) and emanuel (see "forgotten vessel" from the marechaussee hunter set). here's the excerpt from enigmatic page XII- "Very interesting mechanism. With the right organ, consciousness can be transplanted... Has the knowledge to operate the mechanism. Understand the general idea after absorption that other than an experimental model, all operated on a simple logic tree... An interesting attempt, but the path he chose was regrettable. Rene would definitely think so." so, we have a few traits to go off here. - experimenting w/ transplanting consciousness through some mechanism/"organ" - their mechanism operated on a simple logic tree - rene would find his path "regrettable" - male, if the pronoun is to be trusted we know it's not jakob or carter. however, as well as it lines up, the idea that it's zandik is suspect. according to Fell Dragon's Monocle, Master had to have dissolved into the primordial sea or something somehow while facing Alain, making alain victorious (this would have been during the battle inside elynas) notably, if master ceased to exist in some level, they can't have been dottore. BUT ALSO, dottore's segments didn't exist until after he studied scaramouche, as shown in wanderer's character story 4-- so it can't be that master absorbed a segment. and if dottore was an oceanid the whole time, then there would be no need for studying scaramouche, because oceanids can quite naturally make self-projections without needing to study a thing. (and it's possible master actually did so, because if lyris is supposed to be the director, well-- the director was the base of master! so if master sent lyris on a mission, it implies master made a hydro mimic of lyris, or something........) this is very disorganized and spitballed, but basically my point is, as nicely as zandik fits the desc of this "third person", the timeline just doesn't line up. definitely going to try to see ways it COULD work, though, because the vibes are unparalleled!

So, is Dottore Gay or European?

i audibly gasped when i saw you point out dottore in fontaine

Edit: looked into it and man on the aircraft is 100% not Dottore. All you had to do was zoom in, and see this is a blond Fontaine NPC carrying a backpack. 🤧💀 Dunno why I got the urge to look into it, normally I just watch these kinds of videos and leave it at that, but yeah…. it’s 100% not him. Arlecchino seems to be the main Harbinger and Childe sort of the supporting actor. Zandik also means 'interpreter,' too, though the manhua Dottore I think is a separate entity to Zandik/Dottore. I would also say the Akademiya's issue with him is multifaceted. Dottore is from Sumeru, though. But we do know he's spent some time in Fontaine in the Archon Quest Interlude. I would disagree that Dottore looks very European at all, though -- if you look at his outfit carefully, the majority of it IS from Sumeru. It's only the jabot and maybe the glove armour that are European-looking, but this could be Snezhnayan or Mondstadtian, it's not necessarily Fontainian. (There are three different countries that are based on Europe.) Dottore's lore is also very highly tied to his homeland being Sumeru and him being exiled from it -- it he had another place to go, he wouldn't have been in the desert, he could have just gone to Fontaine or whatever. I'm pretty sure he is 100% from Sumeru. I'd also say that the name he took when he was infiltrating Fontaine is actually German, not French (Escher = Asher in German.) That's important, because why choose that name specifically, or a German name more often assocciated with Mondstadt, than a Fontaine name? He's never been 'French' at all, even remotely, and people who have thought so were idiotic, to say the least. Even his Segment's manhua design (they are clearly NOT the same person, they don't even have the same personality ffs lmao, and manhua Dottore is very bombastic/extroverted/impulsive, whereas Zandik is methodical, reserved, and meticulous. Not to mention the huge gap in their intellectual abilities, with manhua Dottore making just rudimentary little robots and altogether unimpressive gadgets, and Zandik literally curing Eleazar/making pretty much everything the Fatui has in terms of weaponry/Delusions. It would also not make any sense that the manhua Segment fixated on Diluc's Delusion so much if he literally created it -- we know Zandik created Delusions, but if it was a Segment who may or may not have access to all of Zandik's memories [as we see in Al-Haitham's quest with Siraj's 'segments,' they don't have access to Siraj's entire consciousness, only parts of it, so that would explain why the manhua Segment was drawn to the Delusion, but didn't recognise it as Dottore's invention.) I do think we'll inevitably see traces of Dottore in Fontaine because we know he's spent time there from the AQ interlude in Inazuma, clearly he had to do something there during that time, and we've seen traces of him literally everwhere else we've been thus far, including Mondstadt (he's literally the reason the Fatui are there.) So, that's obvious. Dottore's character arc hinges on him being STRICTLY from Sumeru, too. His exile from HIS HOMELAND hurt him greatly, as he says in the very AQ dialogue you reference, and it did so badly he TRED TWICE to return, but he 'isn't being interested in being rejected a third time.' This is someone who is clearly very hurt by what the Akademiya did to him, which we know precious little about by the way, people just make assumptions thinking they know what he's like or that the Akademiya was correct to banish him when we have seen how corrupt and awful they are. I think Dottore's story is a LOT more nuanced than meets the eye, and that his being from Sumeru is INCREDIBLY important to his character (that isn’t opinion, it’s fact given his dialogue with Nahida, and the reverence he shows her.) He's not remotely European-looking, either, in his in-game design, anyway. His manhua design also means nothing, considering Collei looks Snezhnayan in her manhua design and she clearly isn't from Snezhnaya at all -- Dottore DOES currently live in Snezhnaya and his outfit partially reflects that, but it DOES also reflect his native Sumeru, even more so, and subtly at that (what makes it genius), in the Jodhpurs he wears (the poofy pants that are horse-riding pants, for that matter his boots are also riding boots, and the spurs on them used to basically stab horses to make them go faster, all of that is pretty Middle Eastern), his lab coat being a ROBE, not unlike that of the researchers in the Akademiya. It *looks* sort of like it would be a Western-style coat but it is not -- it's a robe, like those people of Sumeru wear, which is where he is from. The armour in the gloves and shoes is just that -- armour. I mean, the guy DOES go out of his lab and actually risk his neck for missions, he isn't like Pulcinella who just works behind the scenes, so yeah, that has practical use. His wings/the raven feathers are also very much Sumeru, the wings look like the stained glass of the Akademiya (though they are partially based on Fatui agent coattails too), and the feathers are crow/raven feathers, but we've seen mostly Sumeru characters wear feathers, not really any other region aside from Neuvillette’s writing pen pin, but that’s clearly because he is a judge (birds are holy in the Middle East, so it is not surprising.) The accessories he has are also suitably gaudy, which matches a Middle Eastern aesthetic, and for that matter, his blue shirt is as well. The *only* things that looks out of place is the jabot (also royal blue), but Russians/Snezhnayans wore those too, especially since Russia had a pretty big Francophile period around the 19th century, so it is more likely this is merely referencing the fact Dottore lives in Snezhnaya now. Everything else, even the gold accent on his clothes, is from Sumeru, and the reason he chose to disguise himself as someone from Fontaine in the AQ interlude was obviously to hide his actual identity (the trail ran cold after that, and he is not from Fontaine AT ALL, he even EXPLICITLY says there, and that this is the reason why Niwa/the Tenryou Commission found nothing.) The Phantom of the Opera thing is also only applicable to the manhua Segment, I do agree that the mask is reminsicent of that, but that isn't applicable to Zandik/Dottore in-game, even slightly. His design is partially inspired by a plague doctor, and Eleazar was a plague -- in trying to cure it, Zandik did kind of do as much harm as good, as we see in Collei and Abbas' case, though to his credit/in his defence, it wasn't like he did so on purpose, it was a side effect of the Archon Residue. So, yeah, I do hope we get to see him in Fontaine only because I want to see Dottore hehe, but I think the story will mostly focus on Arlecchino and Childe, we'll likely see just traces of him there/him playing a more passive role than the one he played in Sumeru, which btw was his homeland, so of course he showed up, as Sumeru is difficult for foreigners to navigate due to the fact it's divided/mercenary factions and the Akademiya run everything, so he was the only Harbinger who was qualified to do so. So, yeah, Dottore is NOT from Fontaine at all, as he himself explicitly states in a piece of dialogue you for some reason completely ignore. The Harbinger from Fontaine we DO have is Arlecchino, which is why she is there. Erik/The Phantom is also originally Persian (I’ve read the book, it doesn’t seem you have, they don’t go over this in the musical but The Persian is the one who brings him to Paris, *from Persia,* where he is from, at some point designing torture devices for the entertainment of a Persian princess), he is not French, it’s worth saying. He lived in France towards the latter part of his life, under the Paris opera house obviously, but he is not a native of France in the book. The Persian tells us about Erik's past (that's the name of the character, just ‘The Persian,’ iirc he was caged as a kid for his deformities and basically treated like an animal when he was a child.) This isn't really gone into much detail in the film/musical, but is in the novel, as stated. Eventually, he ends up in France but he isn’t from there, and it seems Genshin is taking Arlecchino more as a Phantom-like character in-game, even though she’s based on a Harlequin, she seems to be poised as that sort of overtly tragic villain with a flair for the dramatic, for the last part, Dottore very much is not, and although he is very tragic, more subtly so. It’s a shame, I hoped to see Dottore in Fontaine, but yeah there’s some issues with your theory here, the biggest one being that the guy in the Fontaine trailer riding the balloon 100% is NOT DOTTORE. I zoomed into the trailer image and it’s just some random NPC blond guy, not even wearing a coat or boots lol, literally just some guy wearing a backpack/package lol. I’d suggest not reverse-engineering conclusions because it just feels more like fanfiction than theory, and although I usually like your videos, this one was kind of ehhhh.

I love ur accent i have insomnia and i live watching ur things it makes me super sleepy its so good i watch it again after im dine sleeping ure a mastermind!❤❤❤❤

Don’t know if someone already pointed this out, but you can hear Furina’s voice in the fountain even after act II is over. It’s not limited to between acts I and II. It’s just quiet, and you have to wait a second. I turned off music and sound effects, and then it was easy to understand

IT'S OUUUTTTTT!!! Typing this as I'm making popcorns! Gotta watch it like if it's a movieeee

Question: If Dottore is an Oceanid like you say he is, why does he have red eyes?

this videos, and that lore/story long videos and others made me know all about the lore and theories....now i should like play the game...

i hope you can make a video about remuria and sort of catagorise what we know about it and where in the timline it was, since i remember it being formed alongsinde gurabad (i think mentioned in the books) also remuria seems to take inspiration from rome with their whole superiority complex and looking down on tribal socities thats not in remuria (rome vs germanic tribes)

the hive mind situation also reminds me of Alhaitham's quest and once a topic is introduced we know it can have relevance.

I also noticed that Rene and Zandik are quite similar but I never realized that it could run that deep 😭

I always get hyped when you connect the Eva references

It's insane that Genshin devs put soo much thought into the lore, not just some bs. Most ppl just skip through the dialogues. How unfortunate.... And we get all this for free!