A lot of people be like "I hope Dottore doesn’t have a sob story." But are they aware he has one already ?
Some parts of his backstory were introduced as early as 2021, in the artifact set Pale Flame, related to some Harbingers lore and past. The one corresponding to Dottore/Zandik is the plume "Wise Doctor Pinion", which means we had those texts before his own introduction in Sumeru.
It is speculated that he was a teenager during this discussion with Pierro, as he was referenced as "youth", which would be between 12-18 years old.
The timeline is unclear, as it is possible that the violent mob expulsion was before him joining the Akademiya which would make him a child when it happened, or after, which would still make him a teenager.
It is an important part of his character, he \*does\* have a "sob story." Confirmed in Sumeru when he talks about "two rejections" and "not wanting a third one", so it is not retconned and it’s very real. He is not an emotionless character. I suppose we will see it on screen in due time.
I suggest you look into the pale flame set lore in the archives, a few harbingers are referenced, and it is an interesting read. If my memory serves me right, you have Signora, Pierro, Dottore, Pantalone, Scaramouche.
It is speculated that he was a teenager during this discussion with Pierro, as he was referenced as "youth", which would be between 12-18 years old.
The timeline is unclear, as it is possible that the violent mob expulsion was before him joining the Akademiya which would make him a child when it happened, or after, which would still make him a teenager.
It is an important part of his character, he \*does\* have a "sob story." Confirmed in Sumeru when he talks about "two rejections" and "not wanting a third one", so it is not retconned and it’s very real. He is not an emotionless character. I suppose we will see it on screen in due time.
I suggest you look into the pale flame set lore in the archives, a few harbingers are referenced, and it is an interesting read. If my memory serves me right, you have Signora, Pierro, Dottore, Pantalone, Scaramouche.
Commentaires
And I don’t believe any child is born evil.
We can expect Dottore to be similar to that.
And I think its very clear Dottore didn't have some sob story to turn him into what he is, he has always been what he is.
During his Akedemiya years he fed a girl to an alligator, and when he went to the desert hospital he experimented on eleazar patients, literally sticking hilichurl limbs onto them. We also know that despite being a young Akademiya student he would have "accidentally" let Layla ancestor die if Toth hadnt lied to him.
This would all have been before he met Piero so even as a teen the guy was fucked up, he was a rotten fruit from the start. There is no sob story or justification for someone to be like Dottore.
Even Signora had more justification and reason for why she was how she was, Dottore has nothing and not a single redeeming attribute.
Now I really wanna know where that alligator story came from, and when did he stick hilichurls limbs into patients. Because that never happened.
While it is true that no one is born with psychopathy (or any other psychological disorder), however, some children are born at high risk for developing psychopathy due to inherited/genetic factors.
There are also perinatal factors like high stress during pregnancy, birth complications or bad habits that may increase risk for psychopathy of a child.
Genetic and environmental influences do not cause psychopathy directly, yet they influence the way certain brain structures and systems develop in a way that increases the risk a person will develop psychopathy.
About the alligator and hilichurl stories tho I have no idea where they came from either. But there were cases of Dottore being responsible for "recycling" his fallen patients by giving the pieces of them to another patient as an experiment of treating Eleazar. Abbas, the sole survivor of the Eleazar hospital, received new skin and arm from patients II and III, went mentally unstable, but managed to escape the place after multiple attempts. In the cave through which he escaped we find 2 bodies of dead hilichurls that presumably died from starvation in the cave, or scorpion we can find nearby, and that made some people believe those hilichurls were previously 2 of the four patients in the hospital, which is wrong.
"But my daughter is an angel! She would do nothing bad!"
This is what the mother of my bully told my mom after the girl from a good well-respected family in a small town cut my hair and threw away my school backpack into the trash bin because the boy she liked gave me his spare pencil.
That situation with a kid hurting animals isn't a stand alone case, it happens a lot because kids have no sense of consequences and not much empathy. Yes sometimes this is due to witnessing abuse at home and coping adults' behaviour, but sometimes it also out of being raised an entitled asshole with parents enabling everything because they refuse acknowledging misbehaviour. And sometimes it is also out of curiosity, or seeking control when you while life is dictated by adults, or etc. There are a million reasons for kids performing morally bad actions.
Some parents are genuine narcissists (most probably the case of the parents of your bully) and then their already amoral child become just like them. Just like an amoral child could receive redirection/support early on and develop cognitive empathy. The responsibility depends on the age of the child as well, from 12 and above it’s more their own fault.
And when a child that got no direction and believes themselves to have the right to act on any urges they have, they become fucked up adults. And once they’re adults, there’s really no justification about "by my childhood" because they’re already an adult.
That’s what I mean to convey when I say I don’t believe any child is *born evil*.
theres others things in zandik’s notes that could show surprising things even if its twisted. him leaving in notes behind in the ibis king palace and says "to the next person who read this, do not trust the ibis king", that’s the main thing im thinking at the moment. I am not sure a psychopath would do that. But that’s the same zandik which notes show that he may have strangled at classmate with his bare hands.
That is why i want to actually talk to him with the traveler. if it’s psychopathy, it’s definitely mixed with something else. But I am absolutely sure he has some sort of NPD.
"My community! I was merely dissecting animals and conducting unethical experiments on you why u have to b mad? Why u dont understand mah genius? I am such a victim!"
LMFAO this mfer can't even own up to his schizo scientist behavior and is playing the victim card. Lame and worse than Mr "I was betrayed by a terminally ill child" Scara.
But hey I'm not surprised by your shortsightedness and misintepretation, you did make this glaze thread for the designated Heretic after all.
Sob story is supposed to evoke sympathy and sadness. Dottore, after everything he did, makes me feel neither about him. Yes people are aware about this, but that's not enough to actually start feeling sympathy towards him. "Oh I acted as a bad person and people treated me as one". Well, deserved.
Since OP edited their comment after I sent mine, I'll add:
No one said this is not an extension of his character. The first screenshot particularly shows that he has no self-reflection about *why* that happened to him and why he is treated like that by people. Those are mere questions to determine if Pierro is aware of his methods.
> "Good. Then, we are now in partnership."
And this is where the "self-reflecting" and "emotional" moment ended, but OP conveniently left out of frame. Yeah, great sad story.
Here’s the whole artifact lore :
"A human is nothing more than a machine of a certain level of complexity."
Thus declared the youth from his lectern in the seedbed of wisdom.
If one were to disassemble a part of this machine and make enhancements to it,
Its performance could be greatly amplified.
With or without a Vision, and irrespective of their physique or combat skills,
"Enhanced humans" would surely display strength far beyond the average.
Despite the risk of being denounced as a heretic and permanently cast from the circle of the wise,
The youth candidly jotted down these thoughts in the margins of his research notes:
I. As anticipated, no research breakthroughs are possible, given the working style of the Akademiya.
II. Nevertheless, being expelled would be a loss. One needs an environment conducive to research.
So he knows very well why he is treated like that by people.
I believe even Pierro wasn't satisfied with Dottore's actions and the event in Tatarasuna. His order was to sabotage the weapon production of Inazuma to weaken the nation. But Dottore, driven by envy to Kabukimono belonging to the community when he himself was an outcast everywhere, orchestrated an experiment involving murder and perceived betrayal that in the end did actually nothing to weaken the nation per se. Scara's story implies that the tragedy wouldn't happen if he wasn't there in the first place, and him removing himself from Irminsul was due to hope it would change the fate of Niwa. But we know removing anything from Irminsul doesn't change the past, only alters the memory about it.
Yeah, the doctor might know why, but he does nothing to change that and still considers everyone in the wrong. And that is what is most important.
The only sad part about him is that we are about to defeat a great evil character.
I’m actually glad you got right that part about the Tatarasuna story, frankly. I have nothing to add on it it’s true, besides Nahida gave him that "I am a monstruosity" moment in her fairytale.
I just disagree on the Pierro part, i believe he just let him do it while knowing fully the reason he did it. But that’s because I believe pierro to see the harbingers as expendable chess-pieces.
He doesn’t nothing to change it and that’s why he’s doing nothing but fulfilling his "heretic" fate that he wants to transcend. That’s great. Hes going deeper and deeper.
I don’t think he’s dying anytime soon, he still has irminsul to burn and it has to happen at least in Snezchnaya.
Either way at least for me, he can have a sob story but what I think is that I don’t want his ‘sob story’ to be a method of redemption for him. In fact I don’t even want him to be redeemed, I just want him to remain an asshole and evil because that’s how and why I started liking him.
It is possible to write a compelling villain who started off as a victim but who refuses redemption (I just came from watching stranger things so)
Really, im just saying the sob story exists when lot of people assumes he doesn’t, and I haven’t tried to justify anything.
I fully agree with you, and I really want an answer about what he could’ve done…
Hope we get more clarification on what happened with him! (Still hoping he’s a playable even after all that pls and thank you)
We may have to wait for a fleshed out backstory lol, I wonder if it will be next version but I think there’s keeping it for when he burns irminsul.
I also hope he’s playable but that will be hard without a lot of explaining… and thank you as well, people tends to get any discussion with him the wrong way when u just point out facts :(
What we hate are his glazers that's trying to twist this him into some misunderstood genius that just wants to save the world from the "evil celestia" and whitewashing all his fvked up experimentations as a good thing because it helps him progress into "saving" more people. If they're larping as his glazers then respect for their con game but if they're not? Then that's even more horrifying.
And the most popular theory with him is that it was his fate because he’s called zandik which means "heretic" in arabic and persian. Hence why he’s adamant on trying to break his fate, but in fact sinks deeper in it. He doesn’t want to be a god, he wants to bring humans to god level, that’s the other way. He litteraly says it. Still fucked up, no justification here.
Two sides of the same coin but i digress. Im not refuting you we agree hes still fcked up and he's a villian. With or without the sob story, it's not going to change that he's still a villian. Im just explaining why there's this "intense" hate against dottore isn't necessarily about dottore but his glazers themselves.
While we don't know what he did to get chased out of his village, considering his track record, he absolutely did do something.
And that's what's great about him.
So far MHY is making it very clear that he's balls to the wall insane for his experiments, has zero regard for human life and treats everyone instrumentally, and is willing to hurt, maim and kill to get his results.
I adore that about him and hope he stays that way, let my man have hobbies and a personality.
They were both bad apples from the start.
1 Mihoyo fandom has an extreme bias against male characters, even nice ones. When Phainon was the focus of the HSR story, the HSR subs, especially meme-related ones, were spammed with hate and NTR jokes non-stop, and this was a heroic character whose story was explained across several patches.
2 Genshin fandom can't accept a villain unless it's a mommy with a sultry voice.
3 Male characters designed for the female gaze receive a special brand of hatred, just look at Wanderer and Sunday.
It doesn't matter what Mihoyo does, there will be hate regardless.
The whole mihoyo and genshin fandom genuinely makes me believe he’s a wasted character in that game. Hopefully they will ignore the hate just like they did with scaramouche, I don’t think they cater much to fans opinion, so far.
I saw your other comment but couldn’t respond somehow, well that was expected of them lol I didn’t know
But Nikki fandom is like 95% women, while the Genshin playerbase is full of whiny, violent manchildren.
Infold should adopt Dottore and save him from this game and its fans.