So like... If we think about it, Dottore is pretty damn loyal, isn't he?
400+ years, OG Zandik dead, and all of Dottore's remaining pieces still serving the Tsaritsa, to the point he literally killed all himself by pieces.
400+ years, potentially murdering or at least letting OG Zandik die, and all just to perfect an immortality elixir for Feofan. Hell, these segments who fights with each other (himself?) agrees on continuously taking care of Feofan (and explicitly works together on This One Thing, by the last check up's notes)
..... do you think if only Nahida / Kusanali managed to reach him when he's 8 or younger, even by dreams, Zandik might've grown up to be her best (but unwanted, due to his disregard to life) sword and shield?
TL;DR I think Dottore would only have followed Nahida if she displayed a willingness to defy the imposed order of the world, which she does, but only after he forces her hand. So, paradoxically, Dottore makes her into a god he could have followed.
Loyalty is such an interesting thing to think about in relation to Dottore. I think you're right that there's a certain loyalty in the lengths to which he goes to guarantee Pantalone's survival. But this dedication also transcends loyalty—so much that it almost becomes devotion.
It's no coincidence that Pantalone, né Feofan, aka Manifestation of God, is positioned in the God’s role in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, the place from which Nahida reigns. The people who get these dialogue trees are Archons and Sovereigns. So what does that make Pantalone to Dottore when the latter takes on the Traveler’s role? Imagine:
Dottore: Are you suggesting I worship you as a god?
Pantalone: Oh, I think you already have for the last 380 years or so
Zandik spared Specimen 3 after indiscriminately one-shotting the other test subjects. But it wasn't enough to simply not experiment on Feofan.
No, Zandik became his doctor, helped him join the Fatui, and partnered with him. Not experimented on but partnered with, a distinction we don't often see him make. I mean really, why is the Second Harbinger—the heretic scientist whose power rivals that of a god—acting as the personal physician of a bank clerk? Super normal. Totally reasonable.
Dottore doesn't act this way with anyone else, and no other relationship of his has lasted for so many centuries. Even his relationship with his other selves didn't last as long as his partnership with Pantalone. It was profound enough that Dottore’s primary memory is of Pantalone. The Marrows are the essence of his soul, and Pantalone comes first.
Yet I think this loyalty or devotion is its own kind of selfishness. Their partnership only works because their worldviews are aligned. Their loyalty is guaranteed by their shared convictions. As Pantalone says:
Neither he nor I are tolerated by the rules of this world. We were both searching for a new order... Our ideas of the final form that should take may have differed, but our journeys took a shared path.
More than anything, I think Dottore is loyal to his ambition. He wants to understand this rotten world to make it into something better, to cure it the way a Doctor would. Pantalone also has a vision for a better world that is mostly compatible with his.
And so does the Tsaritsa. She, too, wants a new order. My sense is that their shared goal is precisely why 35 has been so content to adopt the role of the Second Harbinger, going as far as to emphasize the fact that he thinks of himself as Dottore in his own mind.
Given that the pursuit of knowledge is central to who he is (the Doctor of the decaying world), I’m not sure anything could have stopped him from becoming disillusioned with Teyvat and the Sages’ gag order on critical thinking. Exile might have eroded his compassion and hastened the development of his ends-justify-the-means approach to research, but he’s not wrong in his condemnation of Fate. We know the Heavenly Principles made some questionable choices.
So I posit that the only way Zandik would ever have joined Nahida is if she were to demonstrate a clear desire to challenge the imposed order. Which she eventually does... but only after Dottore forces her hand.
In their final conversation, he appears genuinely impressed with her:
You have a formidable mind, and you are braver than I thought. Setting fire to the very thing your survival depends on… Your previous threat was empty, but this time, it is real.
This is the moment she becomes a god he could have followed. But this is arguably also the moment she becomes a god instead of a branch of Fate. She is, quite literally, born of Irminsul. Yet now she's severed herself from it, bargained with the Shades, and saved her people's lives at Irminsul's expense, giving them free will in the process.
To deliberately misquote Venti from the beginning of the game, loyalty demanded by a god is not loyalty at all. Nothing less than setting fire to Fate could have made Dottore stand beside Nahida. There's a delightful little paradox to their arc: Zandik was fated to be a heretic. But in his heresy he found a way to respect his nation's god.
(For a guy so disdainful of the divine, he sure does have a knack for empowering gods...)
Lots to think about here, and I'm sure I'll keep chewing on this because the more I'm writing about it, the more fascinating these dynamics are becoming to me. Thanks for the compelling ask!
One thing about dottore never fails to make me sad is that he clearly still loves sumeru. His subordinate in the 3.2 archon quest mentioned that he got unusually happy, started smiling a lot and more and started behaving notably different the moment they set foot in sumeru.
He also held love for the national cuisine. We know from the records in dar al-Shifa that he fed his patients well.
He probably comes home from his expeditions with noticably chubbier cheecks because hes missed the traditional food so much that he ate a lot more while he was there.
He clearly still longs to have his scientific accomplishments acknowledged by nahida too. And even in his moon god form his attacks design and theme have heavy references to sumeru.
And he made sure to have his last moments spent in the littleral core of the earth of his homeland. Burning alongside the fiber of the same thing that bound his fate to him because he bound himself to it. He died being rejected by his homeland one last time.
He died as an outcast from sumeru and a traitor to the fatui. A man with no place to truly call home. The only one that stuck by his side in the end was Pantalone and when he did show up in sumeru ready to honer their agreement Dottore was surprised that he even showed up. So used to the rejection he expected even his only friend to abandon him in the end.
But he didnt. Out of everyone only Pantalone, someone who was once a mere test subject of his, stayed by his side. He went out of his way to travel out of snezhnaya, something he hates doing just to stick by him, knowing he would inevitably die in the end, knowing he would get nothing out of it.
I think the best thing about Dottore and Pantalone to me is that they're both incredibly broken people but their jagged pieces are perfect fits, dovetailing together in exactly the right way so that their worst vices inherently fill in the other's deepest seated insecurity:
Dottore doesn't care that Pantalone objectifies human worth and assigns a monetary value to every being he interacts with because Dottore has never felt valued in his entire life. How wonderful would it be to hear "Your research can make me profit" after a lifetime of seeing everything single thing you've done be rejected completely and instantly?
Pantalone doesn't care that Dottore fundamentally uses everyone he interacts with because Pantalone's entire sense of self-worth is tangled up in his distorted concept of "value": If you are being used, that means you are useful, and so long as you are useful, you will not be discarded. The greedier Dottore becomes, the deeper his debt to Pantalone grows, and then--only when the scales are so heavily weighted--can Pantalone feel secure in his relationship to another person.
The very same traits that would be highly toxic flaws in any other relationship instead fill mirrored, gaping holes in the other person's psyche, creating a cycle of validation that is ultimately comforting and beneficial for both parties, despite being deeply cognitively twisted in all other contexts.
Imagine being so written for each other that even the silhouettes of your mental illnesses fit together like mated puzzle pieces.
This is genuinely next level ship bait. You know the dev who came up with this stuff was putting that fire pen meme in their group chats.
Letting yall know about my angsty headcanon that Pantalone allways keeps one of his gloves on, pulled all the way up to his upper arm, because its covered in such severe scarring from the acid attack.
He himself doesnt mind it too much, sure the skin is highly sensitive to the touch, which is often annoying, but the problem is that its unsightly. The skin covering his hand and forearm was nearly completely burned off during the attack. Its repulsive to look at.
It would scare of investors, the public, anyone that would see it would only think less of him, reel back in disgust, or worse, pity him.
The people of snezhnaya always wonder why that one arm is always covered, no matter what. At balls, ceremonies, opera showings, even when hes on his pajamas it stays on. What could he possibly be hiding under there? But they will never know, its a secret he's entrusted only to Dottore and maybe Capitano.
do you think pantalone holds just a little itty bit of resentment towards dottore. he feels bad having the feeling deep inside him but its still there because of course it is.
hes a talented banker, hes cunning, but his whole life has been plagued with the loss of agency. he was sold twice, and the second time just happened to be the reason for his success. pure luck, he had no agency in it.
sure, he convinced dottore to spare him, it was a use of his negotiating skills. but it was dottore really who decided he got to live. do you think every now and then in his more cynical moments those feelings bubble up again towards the doctor. and then he lights up another cigerette and its gone again.
Infinite Possibilities: All the Pieces of Dottore’s Soul & the Anchor Back
Part V of the Dottore Ramblings (Part I, Part II,Part III, Part IV)
So, I’ve speculated that Zandik has more Segments than what we’ve seen so far, and I’d like to offer the theory that:
Zandik sliced his original soul into 13 pieces (12 + 1)
Dottore later split his fragment into another 3 pieces (1 = 3)
And one of those pieces is still on Teyvat
May I offer the memory-wiped Escher we find outside of Segment Domain Tau, perhaps?
Overview
The other day, Silvy and I were dissecting that fascinating visual from 6.6 that appears when Dottore tells Pantalone:
“I,” that is, Zandik, created Segments of various ages in his later years. To achieve this, he had to freeze time and part with a portion of his soul.
Seems significant that these red shimmers appear the instant Dottore talks about Zandik’s soul, so we counted them.
There are 13 fragments. Because of course there are.
13 is enormously significant in the Kabbalah, an esoteric tradition at the heart of divination, alchemy, and a lot of Genshin’s worldbuilding. In the Kabbalah, 13 symbolizes enlightenment and the infinite, and it also represents breaking free from cycles, constraints, and imposed order.
Sound a little like someone we know?
My theory is that, while Zandik used puppets to split his soul into 13, Dottore later split his soul fragment via the Three Deadly Selves.
In the Kabbalah 3 represents understanding and the resolution of opposites. This would be the ultimate form of spiritual and alchemical transcendence, the non-duality of the Mahayana philosophy that Silvy has written about here, and also… Dottore’s way back to Teyvat.
One piece entered Irminsul via death
One piece entered Irminsul as data
And one piece is left on Teyvat as an anchor.
Given Dottore’s connection to the Segment Domain Tau, my theory is that this anchor is Escher... or maybe the damn lizard.
TL;DR
On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, 13 is the crown signifying infinity, freedom from cycles, and the end as the beginning
Dottore’s mask is literally the upside-down crown of reason
The Watchers' theme is Pseudepigrapha of Zohar, which translates to "false author of the foundational text of the Kabbalah."
Dottore is visually and thematically connected to Segment Domain Tau. If the Watcher is the false prophet, Dottore is enlightened Truth
Dottore laments not being able to split his soul further, implying a second split; specifically, the game points to a threefold split
In the Narzissenkreuz Ordo quests, Caterpillar tells us that threefold soul splitting is how you defeat Fate
The missing part of Dottore’s soul is likely the memory-wiped Escher, whom we will have to restore
Which leads me to speculate: this is all part of the Tsaritsa’s plan to “wake up” the Heavenly Principles and finally battle it out. Dottore, her Second, has not gone rogue. He’s issuing her declaration of war.
Quick Primer on the Kabbalah
If you want to jump into the Dottore stuff, you can skip to the next section. This one is background on the Kabbalah and Genshin’s worldbuilding.
The Kabbalah is the esoteric tradition of Jewish mysticism that seeks to understand the hidden nature of the universe via the teachings of the Tree of Life. There are a lot of overlaps between the Kabbalah and Gnosticism, which also gives us the Gnoses.
And the Kabbalah is woven through Genshin’s worldbuilding.
From the Renaissance on, Kabbalistic principles influenced other mystical practices, most notably divination (such as Tarot) and alchemy. So in Part III, when I read Dottore as The Hanged Man and connected him to Azoth as the ultimate substance of alchemy, those were both already linked to the Kabbalah.
Like many real world cosmologies, the Kabbalah is centred around a Tree of Life (analogous to the World Tree Yggdrasil in Norse Myth, for example). The Kabbalah also uses this tree as a symbolic diagram for spiritual development, otherwise known as enlightenment.
It’s kind of like… a World Formula.
Behold: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life from the Zohar (left), and the World Formula from the Book of Esoteric Revelations Fontaine World Quest (right). Yeah… we’re way down the rabbit hole now.
The nodes in this image are called sefirot. They represent the structural forces of nature (Order) and the faculties of the soul. Likened to flame, they come from the Ein Sof, which literally translates to “without end.” Ein Sof is infinity, endlessness, and the state of the universe before order was imposed.
The sefirot emanate from above to below. The first of the sefirot is at the top and because it is closest to Ein Sof (infinity, divinity), it is the least comprehensible to the human mind. The node at the bottom is the most easily understood because it is closest to the material world.
Up is down, the beginning is the end, and who do we constantly see upside-down?
(Major credit to my gf for all the Kabbalah stuff. She has a background in the study of esoteric religion and also unending patience for my Dottore ramblings)
13 Signifying Infinite Possibilities
The goal of the Tree of Life is to understand how the infinite Ein Sof manifests as reality. This takes place in the highest sphere—the first of the sephirot—known as Keter or the Crown.
In Genshin, the Crown is our fifth artifact piece, known as the Crown of Reason, the Circlet of Logos, or The Mask.
Look at Dottore’s mask, and what do we see? The inverted crown of reason. It’s no coincidence that Dottore is associated with the Hanged Man in Genshin’s Lunar Arcana, the same Hanged Man suspended upside down from the Tree of Life on the corresponding Tarot card.
When Dottore hangs upside-down, the crown is right-side up.
As above, so below. This is transcendence or Azoth, which contains the first and last letters of the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek alphebets:
A & Z
Aleph and Tav
Alpha and Omega
Omega—the Dottore build who wears the inverted Crown of Reason as his mask—is at the top and the bottom of the Tree of Life. He finds enlightenment through infinite cosmic possibility (above, opening the sky, accessing the beyond) and the burning depths of Irminsul (below, the crucible, unification).
In the Kabbalah, the Crown is the first sephirot. It is number one and also the last step to be achieved. It is linked to the number 13 through infinity and the 13 Attributes of mercy that will bring salvation and liberate the people from suffering.
Which is what Dottore did at the end of 6.6 when his plan resulted in the shackles of Fate being stripped from the world.
In these same mystical philosophies, 13 also represents breaking free from the constraints of cycles, which we might know in Genshin as Samsaras. It is transcendence beyond natural limits.
Order, according to the Kabbalah, is represented by 12:
12 months of the calendar year (literally the cycles of time)
and the 12 signs of the Zodiac (or Fate written in the stars)
And as the Heretic of the False Moon says:
There is no inherent structure to life’s flow—order was merely imposed upon it. Strip away every shackle laid across this world, and the essence of all things will at last come into view.
13 represents stripping away these shackles. It’s transcendence, enlightenment, and freedom from cyclical suffering. It’s divine mercy and connection with “infinite oneness.”
All of this is the Kabbalistic mirror to Dottore’s Mahayana philosophy, which Silvy has written about here, here, here aaand here. The two of us started from completely different angles and ended up at the exact same place (and we’ve sorta been freaking out about it for days).
Occultists have mapped these connections out before, presenting Keter as analogous to other principles of enlightenment, including the Buddhist Dharmayaka (source as an example, not an endorsement).
In Mahayana Buddhism, Dharmayaka refers to the Prajñaparamita (the teachings themselves, analogous to the Zohar of the Kabbalah) and to the emptiness that is the true nature of things. Prajnaparamitopadesa to Quell Seven Calamities is Dottore’s boss theme as the Heretic of the False Moon.
Another thing I love about all this 13 stuff: In western superstition, the number 13 is unlucky, an ill omen, and a harbinger of death.
So isn’t it fitting that the Heretic who longs to liberate the world from the cycles of suffering but is constantly denounced as a madman is associated with a number that seems to be evil on the surface but is actually the number of infinite possibilities and truth?
If I’m not delusional and all this really is intentional, I’m giving Hoyo a standing ovation for the symbolism.
The Zohar
Before moving on to the threefold soul split, I have to talk about the Zohar, which is the foundational text of the Kabbalah. To summarize from this research primer:
All these ideas served the needs of the common people who hungered for supernatural visions and an opportunity to identify themselves in some way with the cosmic process itself. To such persons estranged from the goods of the world, the secrets of the Kabbalah provided new avenues of participation in a more true reality.
Wouldn’t you know! The word Zohar appeared in Genshin last week with the 6.6 soundtrack and the song: Pseudepigrapha of Zohar.
This track plays in two locations:
In the Temple of Space World Quest when we fight Melanta
On Windrest Peak as the boss theme for The Open Eyed also known as Nihilita or Watcher: Fallen Vigil.
It’s the song of the Watchers. The description of the Open Eyed says:
As sovereign of the world's watchtower, it wielded the authority bestowed by its creator—the power to correct all matters of "innovation" and "evolution." After enduring countless aeons of nescience, it finally chose to open that eye, defying the will of its creator, beholding both the falsehoods and the truths of the world.
Crucially, pseudepigrapha refers to a falsely attributed text, often in the context of biblical writings and those of Jewish mysticism (e.g. the Kabbalah). This tells us that the Watchers—the failed, artificial angels—are not the real author of this more true reality.
And if they aren’t the authentic one, then maybe the person who truly perceives the truths of the world is none other than Omega.
There are too many visual similarities between Moonttore and Melanta for them NOT to be connected. Not to mention the contrast between the blue of Dottore and the red of the Watchers. The same colours we see in Irminsul in the GIF with which this essay opens.
Segment Domain Omega... I mean Tau
All of this is happening in the shadows of Segment Domain Tau. The word Segment is not here by accident, nor is it a localization oddity, seeing as we have:
Segment Domain Tau: 切片辖域・陶
Dottore’s Segments: 切片
Here’s where things get (more) unhinged. Phonetically, the Greek Tau corresponds to the Hebrew Tav. But Tav is also the last letter of the alphabet and the last part of Azoth, the ultimate substance of alchemy, the process of enlightenment, the end, the... Omega.
Tau = Tav (phonetic) = Omega (end)
And, while I was already losing my mind putting this together, Silvy hit me with: did you know the Aranara smile is the letter Tav?
He definitely thought that. Probably.
DID ZANDIK START FIGURING THIS SHIT OUT WHEN HE WAS 8?!?
25: Is there something important written in that notebook?
8: My experiment proposal's in there.
45: You're not planning on abducting Aranara for your experiment, are you? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
As I read this to my gf, she pointed out that this helps explain why Zandik made an 8 year old version of himself (which is a pretty messed up thing to do). If, later in his life, Zandik remembered this missing piece, he needed a version of himself to be able to SEE it.
If Melanta is the false prophet of the Zohar, then maybe, just maybe, Zandik is its genuine author, the one who succeeds in discovering the truth. And after all, the next two songs on the album are Beyond the Sphere of Duhkha and Advaita of the Perpetual World, Dottore’s first and second phase boss themes from the battle in Irminsul.
The Second Split
So that’s the first half of my Segment theory. Now, we look at Dottore segmenting his already-segmented-soul and how this process gives him a way back to Teyvat. I anchor this theory around two points:
Dottore laments not being able to further split his soul
The game is hitting us on the head with threefold soul-splitting
The Threshold of Soul Splitting
In his conversation with Pantalone in 6.6, Dottore grouses that he can’t keep splitting his soul indefinitely:
It’s a pity. Despite running countless calculations, I find there is simply no way to reduce any further the amount of one’s soul required to sustain an individual.
While this could suggest Zandik couldn’t split his soul beyond the original 13 (12 + 1), I take this as fragment-of-a-fragment Datattore saying he cannot splice himself for a third time.
Because he has already been split into three.
We know 35 split himself into at least two pieces, Moonttore and Datattore, because Pantalone tells us so:
The remainder of your soul was split in two, with one half sent to Nod-Krai and the other stored in the most secure vault of the Northland Bank.
This seems like an obvious strike against my three-soul theory because Pantalone literally just said two... or does it?
The moment Pantalone says “two,” the camera cuts to an overhead view where we see a visual image of one path turning into three. This is not a 4-way intersection with 90 degree angles. This is decidedly 1 becoming 3 (video and screaming about it here).
Through visual storytelling, the game is correcting Pantalone's false assumption (or clarifying that, when Pantalone says remainder of your soul, there's the hidden implication of another piece already there).
From my perspective, it makes perfect sense for Dottore to not tell Pantalone about the third soul. Not because he doesn’t trust Pantalone but because this information would put Pantalone in danger.
Dottore has spent 400 years trying to protect this man from everyone who wants to kill him ever since Pantalone was a “bank clerk.” The guy has been shot, poisoned, and had acid thrown at him. So yeah, I buy him not telling Pantalone about the last piece for his own safety.
Instead, Dottore hints at it in the language of possibility:
In the event that my soul was depleted, say we extracted my data from someone else’s memories—yours, for instance—and then combined it with your intact soul as the base material... What would we create?
Three is a Pattern
The other evidence for the threefold split is more meta-textual. Since 6.3, we’ve received a lot of information on the Three Deadly Selves.
Early on, we hear about the practice from Caterpillar in Riddles Awaiting Answers, a World Quest in the Narzissenkruz Ordo series. This is the quest line that:
gives us the World Formula diagram resembling the Tree of Life
foreshadows Dottore entering Irminsul to create a new reality
and lays out the path of transcendence through alchemy
So this series is really important for understanding Dottore.
In 6.3, we get a helpful refresher thanks to Sandrone and Pulonia. One of the texts they peruse when searching for the World Formula is Explications on the Chymical Marriage:
Three pertains to appearance, while four pertains to the intrinsic. Seven, obtained through their overlap, constitute the number of paths for vertical transcendence.
As I talk about in Part III, this idea is foundational to spiritual alchemy, which begins with ego death and ends with enlightenment of the world-saving flavour.
When Caterpillar first tells us about splitting the soul into three, the exact words are:
They call it "Tri-Factor Excision" in Liyue, and in Sumeru, "Shattering Atmagraha." [Narzissenkreuz] called it "Renunciation of the Ego."
Narzissenkreuz believed the path of Truth required renouncing Fate itself. We get more insight in Note 2, which is found in the Ordo:
To excise the self is not to die, but rather to die before death. That way, there is no life to be ended. Thus may one achieve eternity. This step is vital, for by this, may one avoid receiving a Vision by some error. To receive a Vision is to sell oneself to the “fate” of this world—to Heimarmene, and to evermore lose the chance to walk the correct path.
Heimarmene is cosmic destiny. It is what is transcended through the signification of 13 in the Kabbalah. This is Fate, the imposed order of the Heavenly Principles, the construct they use to shackle the world.
Which means threefold soul splitting is how you defeat Fate. It’s the loophole, the way out, enlightenment, infinity, transcendence.
Remember when the devs told us the whole point of Nod-Krai was to clarify a lot of lore in the World Quests that we missed? Well, I'm not sure how successfully they clarified it, but they sure did put everything on the table for us to see it all with fresh eyes.
It’s not a coincidence that 6.3 is the patch that gave us Zibai. Not long after that, we learn Qiqi has Three Deadly Selves too. Genshin always uses their stories as tools to tell other stories (hello, Simulanka).
When events coincide within a patch, or when they recur again and again, we’re being told to pay attention.
The Mirror of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo
Prior to 6.6, I had a theory Dottore died on purpose in 6.3 to infiltrate Irminsul as a virus and destroy it from within. I only ever wrote about it in an author’s note of one of my fanfics (lol), and it was unnecessary to discuss after 6.6 once we figured out what he was up to.
But it’s important now. Not the theory, but how I got to the theory. Which was through the Fontaine World Quest Road to the Singularity.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: A callous, sadistic doctor undertakes experiments to enhance humans with machines after being kicked out of his nation's research hub. His goal is to create a neural network that spans the entire world so that he can eradicate the limitations and suffering of humanity by any means necessary.
The doctor’s name is Coutrot, and he was kicked out of the Fontaine Research Institute.
While Coutrot is not Dottore by any means, his story very clearly foreshadows Datattore and what he wanted to do in Irminsul: forge a new reality to liberate Teyvat from the endless cycles of suffering (Fate). As he tells the Traveler:
The limits of the body can be rejected. [...] You cannot conceive the extent to which your flesh hinders your mind and spirit.
The quest takes inspiration from a real-world book titled The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
My point is that Genshin loops its stories. There is foreshadowing in the foreshadowing. So when the game tells us about threefold soul splitting with Zibai in the same patch Dottore gets obliterated, we listen.
13 Segments & 3 Souls
Back to the Kabbalah: 3 represents understanding, balance, and the resolution of opposites between singularity (1) and duality (2).
This is, of course analogous to the principle of non-duality, the Advaita of Mahayana philosophy Silvy discusses in the context of Datattore’s Phase 2 Boss theme: Advaita Of The Perpetual World.
My take is that Dottore has synthesised his knowledge of alchemy (from studying Scaramouche) with his familiarity with soul-splicing (Shattering Atmagraha) to follow the path of infinity (13) and ultimate resolution (3).
And the reason he succeeds in overthrowing Fate where everyone else has so far failed is because he does both.
The 13 and 3 splits allow Dottore to transcend the limits of the human body, access infinity, and free the world from the imposed cycles of suffering and Fate. Not bad for a life’s work.
The Soul Anchor
And so we arrive at the final piece. If Dottore split himself into three, he also left himself a convenient soul-anchor on Teyvat for his return.
One piece entered Irminsul the proper way through his 6.3 death
One piece entered in 6.6 as Data
And one piece is still on Teyvat
Why am I convinced he has an anchor? Because we’ve seen this exact story happen before. Moon Sibling expert Silvy clocked it instantly:
Cyan: And again, that was a Fontaine World Quest. It literally foreshadowed Dottore entering Irminsul as data 😭
Cyan: Sooooooo it's not outside the realm of possibility that he has another fragment of a fragment of a soul out there (in the form of the MEMORY WIPED Escher, perhaps???)
Silvy: Wait, that's what Columbina did. 😐
Silvy: She left Luonnotar as a piece of soul anchor to be able to return after shattering herself into moonlight.
Cyan: YES! And didn't tell anyone she did that but there were hints
Silvy: I think even she didn't know why she did it, up until her converging backwards/forward flowing timelines intersected for the last time. But if the blank slate Maukie is Dottore's Luonnotar...
Cyan: And Segment Domain Tau is a perfect excuse for a memory wipe. Great way to store your lil soul fragment for a rainy day.
So yeah. I feel confident Dottore made his own Luonnotar as the third piece of his soul. Keeping in mind everything about the Segment Domain Tau and the Zohar, I suspect it takes the form of the Escher we met at the Statue of the Seven who didn’t even remember his name.
The other major piece of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo quest I haven’t mentioned yet is Four-Orthants: Wishes, Souls, Memory, and Persona.
3 + 4 = 7 is transcendence. If Maukie is the unfinished 4, then that last soul piece will need to be activated with Dottore’s memories. Like, you know, the ones the Traveler is literally walking around with in their bag…
You catch the faint sound of laughter, and like a thunderclap, it jolts your awareness back to the surface, pulling it free from the memories that nearly buried it. You let go of the tree marrow abruptly and wipe your face. You expect to find sweat, but there is none — it's all an illusion.
You try to trace the contours of this rather indistinct sensation, but it feels almost impossible. Morality and purpose, benevolence and malice... All that was originally good and virtuous within you is resisting every perception from those memories that don't belong to you. After an indeterminate amount of time — perhaps seconds, or perhaps minutes — you finally get a hold of yourself and put this unusual object away into your pack. (Anomalous Tree Marrow III)
Chekhov would like to have a word to you about his gun Tree Marrow.
Another option, which is less likely but possible, is that the soul fragment has been grafted on to Pantalone’s soul, either through the Elixir or some other procedure (the dissection, maybe?). This would fit with the idea of Pantalone living on “borrowed time” if he’s drawing power from Dottore’s actual soul.
That, or it’s the damn lizard.
Not as cute as Luonnotar, but still pretty adorable.
Bonus Speculation: When Fate Wakes
If you find yourself thinking, “hmm, I wish this essay was a little more unhinged,” here’s some real speculative stuff for you.
There’s another place we see the number 13 occur in Genshin: the Thirteen Dragonlords.
After Nibelung returned to Teyvat with forbidden knowledge, Xiuhcoatl “woke up” from his false nap and stopped Kukulkan and the Thirteen Dragonlords from trying to forge another moon and explore the stars.
Now, I’m not saying Dottore is connected to the dragons, but I can’t help but see some parallels here between the number 13, the pursuit of knowledge, and the transcendence of Fate.
The Dragonlords were stopped, but Dottore’s fascination with the sky rewarded him. The moon fell into the palm of his hand, and his plan to infiltrate Irminsul led to the Pyro Gnosis burning Fate.
He accomplished what the dragons could not.
And, if Xiuhcoatl “woke up” to stop the 13 Dragonlords from probing into the mysteries beyond, then who or what might wake up now that Dottore succeeded?
Maybe whatever imposed Fate in the first place.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the whole point of the experiment. Destroying a Gnosis, freeing the world from the fetters of Fate… If the Tsaritsa wants to wage war on the Heavens, what better way than to wake Order itself.
My theory is that Dottore’s pursuit of infinite possibilities never went against the Tsaritsa’s goals. Instead, it was her declaration of war.
Thanks for Reading!
Whew! This is my most out of pocket essay yet, but now that I’ve written 15,000 words in this series, I’ve fully convinced myself Dottore is coming back.
Huge shout-out again to Silvy for some truly unhinged co-conspiracy-theorizing and much nonsense-enabling. Between the two of us, we’ve either figured Dottore out or become as insane as he is.
If you have thoughts on this essay or your own theories on Dottore, his Segments, and his return, I’d love to hear them!
So I was writing a long analysis explaining why we shouldn't trust that Pantalone has all the information when he says:
The remainder of your soul was split in two, with one half sent to Nod-Krai and the other stored in the most secure vault of the Northland Bank.
I was arguing there could be a third soul piece Dottore didn't tell him about because that information could put Pantalone in danger, which Dottore has worked very hard over the years to avoid.
Turns out it was unnecessary because the game already told us the soul was split in three through some sophisticated visual storytelling.
Look at what happens the moment Pantalone says two
The camera cuts. To an overhead view. Of one path becoming three.
Here it is with some arrows so we can see how clearly the game just told us there's a third piece of the soul out there. Which means: we definitely have a path for Dottore's return. Oh, we are so back!
stormborns
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