fun fact one of the world champions in pepper-eating contests is a trans woman and she actually faced significant backlash because people somehow thought she had a biological advantage. to eating spicy pepper
update bc i went back and checked: her name is brianna โthe chilli queenโ skinner and she set a record in 2017 by slamming back 23 carolina reapers consecutively. she only stopped when told to by the referees, and the next year she stepped down out of boredom. queen
The championship, it should be noted, is unisex. Apparently being a trans woman gives you an innate biological advantage over both cis men and cis women.
On Pantalone, Dottore, and their Longing for Different Parts of Each Other
Still thinking too hard about the 6.6 Archon Quest and Anomalous Tree Marrows, so hereโs an unhinged essay on the breathtaking tragedy of Pantalone and Dottore.
TLDR version
Pantalone insists that Dottore is Zandik because any alternative would be viscerally intolerable. He has to believe that some part of Zandik still persists within Dottore or else he has spent the better part of three centuries with his partnerโs murderer
35 is the most selfish version of Dottore because he is Zandik immediately after he met Feofan, the manifestation of the moment he experiences what it means to be known, seen, and valued for his worldviews. In other words, he is Zandik once he knows what itโs like to have something to lose
Their final scene in front of Irminsul is an acknowledgement that they are out of timeโliterally and symbolically. Dottore will die and Pantalone will eventually follow, yes. But they are also out of each otherโs time, each longing for different versions of the other
(No, Iโm not okay, but letโs do this)
Let me preface this by acknowledging that my reading is informed by the fact that I ship them. Iโve been writing them as lovers since A Winter Nightโs Lazzo came out, based solely on a familiarity with the Commedia dellโarte, a degree in identifying queer subtext, and a dream that Hoyo most definitely fulfilled. But the game is not being subtle here. Even if you donโt see their partnership as romantic, it is, at the very least, queerplatonic.
Regardless of how you interpret their relationship, the game makes it clear that Pantalone is the most significant person in Dottoreโs life, more significant to Dottore than Dottore himself. Dottoreโs primary recordโhis first memory in a game where memory is tantamount to life and identityโis a meticulously kept catalogue of every time his many selves saved and extended Pantaloneโs life. It is Anomalous Tree Marrow I on purpose because Pantaloneโs survival is written into every part of Zandikโs soul, down to the 8 year old who scolds Pantalone for misplacing his glasses. Forget the bickering Segments, forget the god-making, world-changing experimentsโPantaloneโs safety, survival, and even comfort (looking at you, Alpaca wool) comes first.
I hardly have words for how incomprehensibly tragic they are.
Feofan spent 50 years with Zandik, the notoriously unsympathetic scientist who had already cauterized his compassion by the time of their first meeting. This is the heretic who preferred to view humans as test subjects and machines rather than leave himself open to more rejection than what he had already experienced.
This guy sets his eyes on Pantalone and immediately wants to keep him forever. Zandik fell hard enough for Test Subject 3 after a single meeting that he not only decided to refrain from experimenting on him, but went and learned his name, put in a good word with Pierro, and spent the rest of his life (and death!!!) guaranteeing Feofan's continued existence. This is U-hauling to the nth degree.
Now for some quick math: Pantalone is 72 years old when Zandik dies on his 85th birthday, meaning it was a 33-year-old Zandik who first met a 20-year-old Pantalone.
I donโt think itโs a coincidence that the 35-year-old Segment is the one who sees himself as the most selfish. Heโs the closest to the 33-year-old Zandik who only needed one encounter with this nameless, injured, smooth-talking test subject before saying: โthis one is mine. Iโm keeping him. Not just until I get bored. Not just until I need a new test subject. Forever.โ And this means that 35 is the first version of Zandik who sees himself as having something to lose. This is the Zandik who experienced a desire to keep Pantalone at his side for the rest of time. And also the Dottore who is still in the throes of NRE lol.
Prior to their in-game appearance, I headcannoned Pantalone as avaricious and possessive based on the Moment of Cessation artifact description. I still think he is in some respects, but Dottore definitely has him beat when it comes to sheer obsessive devotion.
If Dottore is the Segment who is closestโtemporally speakingโto the moment in which he found a genuine partner whose views and values align with his own, then it doesnโt seem surprising that he would be the one most threatened by Zandikโs existence. Again, his selfishness is the same selfishness that made Zandik want to keep Pantalone in the first place. His envy is that of knowing what it is like for someone to look at him and not see a monster for the first time, and it makes him monstrous. Dottore might not have actively killed Zandik, but the Anomalous Tree Marrow III certainly makes it seem as though he, at the very least, persuaded the other Segments to agree to a DNR should Zandik end up in critical condition:
The fact that he often refers to his fellow Segments as โmeโ and โmyselfโ makes me think heโs talking about getting the other Segments onto his side here rather than to Zandik, who he often describes as being somewhat apart from himselves.
I think itโs important to note that Dottore recognizes how Pantaloneโs immortality cannot be guaranteed until Zandik dies. Zandik is the missing ingredient and Dottore understands this much. His willingness to let Zandik die can be partly attributed to his own selfishness and desire to supplant the original in all ways (including as Pantaloneโs partner). But, regardless of intent, it also succeeds in ensuring Pantaloneโs immortality, which has to be a fairly bitter pill for the latter to swallow.
Although Pantalone plays off the fact that he was unsettled by Zandikโs death and dissection (interjecting with โI never said thatโ when Dottore calls him on his past reaction during story time), it is abundantly clear that Pantalone experiences a potent emotional response every time one or more Zandik dies.
In the medical logs, for instance, Dottore makes a โjokeโ about developing antidepressants for Pantalone. But, given the timing and the fact that there had been no prior indication that Pantalone suffered from depression, one can easily assume that Pantalone is grieving and Dottore is being an envious asshole about it. (โUnsettledโ also feels like a very Dottore way to describe someone suffering the grief of losing their partner of 50 years).
Similarly, when Dottore eradicates the rest of the Segments, he pithily describes Pantalone as behaving like โlittle more than a decorative vaseโ at the Harbinger meeting, which again comes across as a rather cold way of telling us that Pantalone is dissociating to cope with the grief of losing five more versions of Zandikโaspects he had, by then, lived with for four centuries. Ouch.
(At least Dottore thinks heโs pretty.)
Pantalone never shares his emotions with us players directlyโhis feelings are always focalized through Dottoreโs mocking asides about Pantaloneโs behaviorsโbut that honestly makes me think that Pantalone was even more distraught than what the text tells us. If even Dottore is making flippant comments that speak to him picking up on Pantaloneโs distress, then it has to be pretty bad.
Partners, at the End, Even Still
And so Pantaloneโs ongoing decision to maintain his partnership with Dottore is utterly excruciating on multiple levels. There is, of course, the fact that it dooms them both to deathโDottore immediately (big asterisk here because I donโt think heโs dead for good but thatโs another essay) and Pantalone once the Elixir runs out and old age finally catches up to him. But the emotional registers beneath all this are, in my mind, even more devastating.
Dottore is all Pantalone has left of Zandik. And yet Dottore is also the reason that heโs all Pantalone has left of Zandik.
When Pantalone follows Dottore and stands at his side, he is standing beside his partner and his partnerโs murderer at the same time. The only way Pantalone can reckon with the abject tragedy of this fact is by holding onto the belief that Dottore is Zandik and Zandik is Dottore and that he will always be part of him.
Feofan and Zandik had 50 years where they (presumably) continued to learn, grow, and evolve together. Dottore is fixed in time at 35, but Pantalone is mentally fixed in time at 72, the year Zandik died, after which 35 perfected the Elixir so that it would pause physical and mental aging.
When Dottore explains that the other Segments had erased his โuniqueness,โ he talks about how โa soul living forever in the past inevitably holds different views than he did in his later years,โ acknowledging that heโs imprisoned by the moment of his own creation. The fact that he immediately pivots to then focus on Pantaloneโs preservation is important because it reminds us that Pantalone is also frozen in time. He says:
There are a lot of ways we can read these lines. On the surface, we can simply read it as expository information to give the player some background on Pantaloneโit definitely is that for sure. We can also read it as an example of Dottoreโs callousness, how he casually brings up Pantalone being trafficked.
But I think thereโs another layer, too. Itโs an example of how Dottore still latches onto the Pantalone that Zandik met at 33. And this isnโt the first time in the conversation that Dottore demonstrates how fixed his perspective is. Nearly four centuries have gone by and yet he still thinks the reason Pantalone is helping him is because he spared him as a test subject. Pantalone has already had to remind Dottore that he ascended to the rank of Harbinger on his own merit and that he isnโt there because of some quid pro quo from centuries ago. Rather, he sees their values and goals as fundamentally aligned. Pantalone is there for Zandik because he still sees Dottore as Zandik.
And so, when given the opportunity to say his final farewell, Pantalone says goodbye to Zandik. Despite the literal words he speaks, I donโt think heโs actually asking what 35 prefers to be called. He already knows that 35 sees himself as Dottore from their prior conversation. What Pantalone is really asking is who he can say goodbye to in this moment, at the end, when they are finally free from fate itself. After the enormous personal sacrifices Pantalone has made, Dottore gives Pantalone the choice to see him as Zandik. And how heartbreaking is it that Pantalone does even though, by this point, it is Dottore who has spent some 330 years with Pantaloneโcenturies more than Pantalone had ever experienced with Zandik.
It is, as far as final acts go, surprisingly selfless of Dottore to recognize what it means for Pantalone to see him that way, even though he himself despises being forever tied to Zandik. It is especially surprising coming from the Segment who wholeheartedly embraces his own greed and repeatedly proclaims himself to be the most selfish of them all. So much for not being able to change!
For me, their greatest tragedy is the fact that they are out of time from one another, asynchronous, yearning for each other in different forms and ages. Dottore is forever looking for the Feofan he met at 33; he sees their present relationship as contractually predicated on saving Feofan in the past. Pantalone, frozen at 72, looks for the remnants of the man who shared his worldviews in the most selfish version of Dottore.
The beautifully doomed romance of it all is that Pantalone isnโt in love with Dottore; heโs in love with the idea that Dottore is still Zandik. The mercy of their final scene is the acknowledgement that theyโre yearning for different pieces of the whole and, to me, the recognition that takes place in this exchange feels like a final act of forgiveness.
I really like segment 45 because it directly confirms that there was a period in Zandik's life around ten years after he met Feofan where he was just a super happy extroverted guy with dad energy. And why wouldn't he be. His best friend just got a promotion, he's secured plenty of funding, all his projects are going great, he's about to create the elixir of immortality, he's torturing a puppet on the side. Things cannot get better for Mr Zandik "Il Dottore" Veksel at this moment.
