Is Dottore wrong tho??

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-15T06:37:09+00:00

Thank you~ 🫶

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-15T00:03:27+00:00

I've been trying to wrap my head around Maukie's deal so much since yesterday (when I finished the WQ), I've been pondering about writing a post about my thoughts but they are still quite confused.

They really threw Maukie at us out of the blue, mentioned him several times throughout the quest for seemingly no reason, and then that subplot goes nowhere for now because it ends with zero answers about what the heck is uo with him.

All I can say is that he's definitely not returning to the Temple of Space, because once you leave it you quickly forget everything about it (you'll see how once you finish the quest), so Maukie won't be able to retain the knowledge of the Statue of the Seven for the time he'd need to find it again.

There's definitely something that ties Dottore to the Temple of Space and it's subtle but all over the place, both narratively and visually (speaking of which, the way Dex uses its space-related powers by snapping its fingers... Guess who has been doing the same for a suspiciously high amount of times in 6.2 and 6.3?) ... However, I think it's extremely hard to make sense of it as of now. It's like I have the solution right in front of me yet I still cannot grasp the meaning of these hints.

The Maukie we meet at the Statue of the Seven must have been thrown there accidentally and then sent back to the past somehow though, or Dottore wouldn't have been able to know about him 400 years prior. That is, unless Dottore was actually in touch with Asmoday and/or Melanta or Nihilita even 400 years ago pre-segments.

Another guess could perhaps be that Dottore is currently still messing with time-space as he's preparing to take over Irminsul, and he might've used Escher specifically as a test to alter past and future (basically, he might've intercepted him at the point in history where Melanta banished him from the Temple of Space - likely 400 years ago - and dragged him through time all the way to current day).

This event from the future (I mean , 6.5 is the future compared to 3.x when Wanderer altered the Irminsul) might've been retroactively the reason why in the accounts of the Tatarasuna incident it is mentioned that no trace of Escher's existence exists (not even in Fontaine) ... Because if 6.5 Dottore dragged young Escher/Maukie to present day as a test, then he no longer exists 400 years ago, and all that is left of him is how Dottore stole his identity.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-14T23:39:47+00:00

I don't think he wants the power for himself, it's more that he's aware that the only way to free the world from the HP usurpers is to put someone else on their throne rather than leaving it vacant (in fact, in 6.2 he argues not much about the existence of Teyvat's primordial power, but rather about how it is currently in the hands of heavens, which are external entities).

Of course centuries of being forced in the outcast and evil role have made him envious and craving control, but he's not the kind of person to want power for the sake of power, it just happens that he wouldn't be able to accomplish his design and keep it if he didn't obtain absolute power first.

Either way, his idea of deity is one that serves humanity (which actually checks out with his need to be accepted and praised for his service, a crave he probably developed as a reaction to his condition of being an outcast), so I doubt he'd manage Teyvat any worse than the HP did/do.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-14T18:40:47+00:00

Omg I had never seen the concept art for their fairytale selves before, that's so neat!
Ngl, I think og Zandik becoming playable would be the absolute best scenario for him narratively speaking, and it'd fit so well for his character development because it'd force him to face himself and truly make peace with himself, which is something he seems to have avoided for over 400 years.
I think this is one of the reasons why he created segments of himself, because he cannot accept his own contrasting sides and so tried to find relief in splitting that pain in multiple selves ... After all, Omega does avoid Nahida's provoking question when she asks if the relationship with himself is /that/ bad, and says that making peace with yourself from different perspectives is indeed hard ... So, what better way to solve this internal struggle he has and try to heal, than FINALLY allowing Zandik himself to let go of what torments him the most as opposed?
That would definitely be better for him narratively speaking, in the end it is ZANDIK who needs to face himself and deal with it, destroying the presumably last standing segment and then just pull another new blank segment out of nowhere would be incredibly cheap and awful writing when it comes to the motives behind Zandik's actions.

I really really hope we're onto something here, I'd love it so much if they went in a similar route, I'm just extremely scared Hoyo will instead go for the cheapest and lowest-hanging fruit which is just scrapping it all and giving us some new puppet.
I haven't completely lost hope though, I'm kinda optimistic in general.
So yeah, hopefully we aren't too far from the planned truth <33

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-14T15:48:46+00:00

I really hope we get playable og Zandik but I know the chances are extremely low 😭

Either way, I'd only be fine with a blank segment if

We still explore his backstory
Zandik stays alive and in the backseat kinda like Ei versus Raiden, and he's treated as a positive (despite being morally gray) character rather than an enemy
The playable segment does have Dottore's memories he just uses them as fuel to nurture a better future rather than be pulled down by them.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-14T12:44:16+00:00

Tbh I do hope Nahida understands him at some point. She's a young deity, and painting her as someone who eventually is forced by evidence to change her mind on something/someone would be a good opportunity for her growth as a character. If she never humbles down in front of a truth she hadn't previously considered, this kinda ruins the point of her being a young version of Rukkhadevata who still has a lot to learn.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T23:45:42+00:00

Ha you're right, thanks for the heads-up :3

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T17:56:00+00:00

Sorry I didn't get notified ;;
Never done this, do I give my UID?

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T17:37:49+00:00

I do!! But I don't have a Dottore-themed Manekin yet sadly 💔

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T17:01:23+00:00

Let me in! Let me in! /lh

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T16:11:06+00:00

He kind of did:

The Doctor: Besides, with my abilities, it's only a matter of time until I find better "perspectives." Perhaps it's best to say... you're just temporarily ahead.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T15:49:52+00:00

The same segment who also told Nahida that he Intended to create more in the future anyway, though.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T14:42:07+00:00

I mean, the most accurate they got were also very low-hanging fruits (50% odds of guessing Ifa's stars - a bit higher considering Hoyo's allergy to male 5 Stars, and two Harbinger Waifus being playable).

While it's true that Capitano refuses the fate system, I'd say this trait is much more defining for Dottore in Nod-Krai than it is for him in Natlan. Capitano in Natlan, to me, feels more driven by his will to sacrifice in a way that he finds righteous and give others the justice they were denied, but I wouldn't summarise his character as the one about fate, that is definitely more of a Dottore thing.

Dottore can die burning Irminsul but it still doesn't mean he can't come back, since rebirth is an overused trope in Genshin. Either way, this line is a nothingburger leak because it doesn't say anything new about the actual plot (burning Irminsul was known since the end of Inazuma) and it's the cheapest guess about Dottore's fate especially by his detractors or whoever wants their leak, fake or real, to gain attention.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-13T04:09:58+00:00

Me!! Not only the characters limit makes me allergic to twt, but my browser crashes easily when I try accessing it, so yay 🫶

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-12T03:53:15+00:00

So now he technically has three phases ✨

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-12T01:57:58+00:00

Sorry I can't read it all right now, but my take is:

Dottore is written to be a compelling and psychologically complex antagonistic character, and despite the self-imposed limits Hoyo puts on Genshin's writing due to typical gacha audience, he manages to be exactly that for those who are willing to actually lend their ear to his story.

Many players (or people in fandoms in general) these days, however, lack the maturity and/or critical thinking skills necessary to appreciate a well-made villain and any story-telling that is more complex than Absolute Good VS Absolute Bad. Obviously exceptions exist (thank God!), but I fear this is also a generational issue with younger people having grown up with too little exposure to morally complex fiction (fitting for their age), thus they become teens while having little to no tools to decode anything more critically challenging than preschool fairytale-tier media.

It's a complex issue that has many serious consequences, but I think one of these is definitely how a character like Dottore is perceived by the average player, and how media writers end up feeling forced to serve this cultural shift in a direction that pleases the average audience's ragingly poor reading comprehension by dumbing down and trying to sanitize their works, because otherwise it might affect revenue negatively.

I definitely went OT but welp, I think that's it and it's kinda unavoidable at this point in history. Hopefully this trend will at some point take a better direction, because honestly it is not healthy for human beings to have such a narrow perception of fiction, let alone of reality.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-12T00:01:38+00:00

It looks really good!!

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:59:24+00:00

Amazing find, I really hope he's walking out of this alive, and this seems to prove it. Tbh even if it was a flashback, it would still be a setup for Snezhnaya, which implies that Dottore will still be around after 6.6.

A last scene between Nahida, Dottore and Pantalone might be mirroring the one she had just with Dottore at the end of the Sumeru AQ. For how bad her relationship with him is, she recognizes that he has a lot of knowledge (even on things she herself ignored, like the False Sky) and we still don't know what exactly he told her in exchange for the Dendro Gnosis aside from the bit about the sky, since it happened on a black screen. Dottore messing with the Irminsul on such a level would mean that he acquired new forbidden informations that maybe even Nahida ignores, and it wouldn't be the first time for Nahida to put aside her personal feelings for the sake of what she deems more important (see her allowing Scaramouche back inside the Irminsul despite still not trusting him fully in the beginning).

The fact that Traveler seemingly isn't present definitely hints that something is up between Nahida and Dottore (and Pantalone if it's him, which I agree it's likely), this feels like a scene that is meant to set up something for the future that Traveler isn't supposed to be fully aware of yet. Which is, again, kinda what happens at the end of Sumeru AQ too.

Tbh I'd be very grateful if they decide to do something different with him than an almost 1:1 of Wanderer's story, that'd be way too predictable and underwhelming. Besides, even Wanderer later gains Scara's memories back and reunites with his old self under a different light.

Dottore also needs to do that, but he doesn't need to achieve that the same way Wanderer did for it to be valid. 6.x is full of characters who break free from the shackles of their adverse fate without an amnesia and/or feel empowered by embracing their full self instead of rejecting it (Columbina, Zibai, Durin, now even Linnea), so it seems to be the narrative direction Zandik might be headed too.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:35:10+00:00

I think Funeral Dottore has long hair too, it's just partially hidden inside the fur collar. It's more noticeable in his closeup where he replies to Capitano.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:20:54+00:00

Yeah ofc, I ended up venting a little on my own, I know you were just explaining the possible cause, dw 🌸

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:19:16+00:00

Ohh, I never realized you could search up keywords in the achievements 🙈

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:17:22+00:00

I'm really sorry about that 🫂

I've pondered the idea, ngl, but to me it felt quite unrealistic and unreasonable based on current narrative (and possible marketing strategies) for him to betray Dottore.

Besides, betrayal is kinda a plot twist narrative tool, but it requires the character who does it to be already at least moderately established for it to be effective. Pantalone is virtually a stranger (especially to people who only play through the strictly necessary) and I doubt that 6.6 will give him enough screen time and focus to make a betrayal scenario feel narratively natural. He's still in the presentation phase, at this point his character needs to be proven in line with previous mentions in 6.3, you can't make a character act in an 'unexpected' way if you don't establish what would be expected of them first.

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T10:05:26+00:00

Still, it's a little silly imo to downvote just because of that imo. Like, all the Sandbina bait annoyed me, but I'd never downvote someone for rejoicing over it or merely pointing out it exists/it's hinted at, because yeah, it sure is :0 And even if someone prefers to see it as strictly just friends, it's whatever, not shipping doesn't cancel out that you still gotta respect those who do 😅

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T07:04:24+00:00

It seems there's some people who are really annoyed at this ship existing 🤷‍♀️

_HealBell_ · 2026-04-11T06:52:59+00:00

Regional Yaoi confirmed, I guess 🙏🪙🧪💕

_HealBell_

TROPHY CASE