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A Study in Contrasts

Recovering from some real life health stuff, so I don't have all my thoughts together yet, but this has been scratching at my skull since I played the most recent Genshin patch:

"Truth Amongst the Pages of Purana" tied up several loose ends, featured many characters, and explored several of Sumeru's overarching themes all at once. But one of the patch's core messages--I'd argue its most core theme--was a straightforward question:

What does it really take to achieve your ideals?

Broadly, Genshin Impact has a very simple and morals-affirming answer to this question: Teamwork. Collaboration. Trust. Despite evolving from a crew of professional gooners, Hoyoverse has actually always had writers whose central goal is to create games that banish negativity (life triumphs over nihility), reinforce passion for one's dreams, and convey the value of human tenacity. This positivity is written into basically every single quest, from HI3 to ZZZ. Hoyoverse even has strong external political pressure to closely consider how they portray ethics and the "morals of the story" they put out for players (it is essentially a legal mandate for Chinese media to avoid positive portrayals of bad behavior or to avoid rewarding villains for poor morals). You may have even noticed that Hoyoverse version satisfaction surveys sometimes feature the option to say that you "liked the moral message of the story"--because for Genshin, moralizing is often the point.

So at least on the surface, this patch's main takeaway was likely intended to be just as straightforward as it seems:

To achieve great goals, you need the help of other people.

You must be a team player.

But I think Genshin's 6.6 patch is particularly interesting because of WHO the writers decided to convey this moral message through: One of the most queer-coded pairs of male characters in the game and... a pair of (also queer-coded) male villains.

By focusing so much on the emotionally fraught collaboration between two well-liked "hero" characters (Alhaitham and Kaveh), this patch openly invites players to draw parallels across the aisle to Dottore and Pantalone, whose collaboration both mirrors and subverts the romantic tension in Alhaitham and Kaveh's interactions.

Yes guys, you're supposed to compare the ships. I promise.

(Before I go any further, to head off any bad faith takes here--this is not a "which ship is more implied" post nor a "which ship is better" post. I ship both Haikaveh and Panttore/Dottolone and they're each excellent ships with many unique features, so while this is a post highlighting similarities and comparing the roles both ships play in the story, it is not a "Dottolone is better because X" or "Haikaveh is better because Y" post. If I catch y'all using my posts to fuel ship wars, I will bite you.)

Okay, that out of the way:

As fans have discussed plenty of times before, the core of Alhaitham and Kaveh's struggles to work together is a quintessential clash in their personal ideologies. Both Kaveh's and Alhaitham's character stories/quests/hangout, etc. establish them as perfect mirrors reflected across the philosophical divide between egoism and altruism. When we're initially presented with these characters, Alhaitham is said to stand for self-centrism, caring for one's own needs and desires and allowing the rest of the world to fend for itself, while Kaveh supposedly stands for the opposite ideal, giving to others even at great personal cost to oneself. (Of course, it's never so simple: Alhaitham's stern stance toward self-preservation comes partly from his desire to protect Kaveh; meanwhile Kaveh's generosity is tainted because he's using it "selfishly" as a form of self-repudiation.)

Importantly, we players have seen Alhaitham soften his philosophical views over time, stepping up to protect Sumeru from destruction twice, making friends and aiding others, and continually going out of his way to help Kaveh even when there's no tangible benefit to himself (such as researching Kaveh's father's death). But while Alhaitham has made progress, Kaveh still largely stands firm in his perception of Alhaitham as utterly antithetical to himself. He continues to assume Alhaitham is mocking him, takes the things Alhaitham says in bad faith, and instists that every single one of Alhaitham's actions must have selfish motivations because there is no way that Alhaitham of all people could ever, ever be altruistic.

None of this is said in a judgmental manner, by the way; having flaws is necessary for characters so that they can undergo character development arcs! There's a reason Kaveh is so set in this vision he's created in his mind, this strawman he props up to avoid confronting how Alhaitham has actually changed as a person: It's because Kaveh needs to define Alhaitham as diametrically opposed to himself in order to maintain his world view. The statement "Alhaitham and I will never see eye-to-eye" is a fundamental pillar holding up Kaveh's current understanding of the life he is living and his own philosophical and psychological stances. This conflict is vital for their plot!

So long as Alhaitham remains the "self-centered egoist," Kaveh never has to feel indebted or guilty over Alhaitham's generosity to him. So long as Kaveh can continue to assign selfish motivations to each of Alhaitham's actions, then he never has to confront the question of whether his own altruism is really the right course of action or not. So long as he can assert that Alhaitham has not changed, then Kaveh also has an excuse not to change.

If one day they're no longer mirror opposites, then how will Kaveh even define himself?

While Alhaitham has a vested invest in helping Kaveh change his life by slowly but surely pushing Kaveh to admit they've grown as people, Kaveh must "selfishly" maintain the status quo to protect the delicate idealism he's made his self-identity. This tug-of-war is the central conflict of their relationship, and the quest to learn to compromise is central to both their character development arcs.

Being opposites who actually exhibit each other's core traits is the point.

This 6.6 AQ calls extensive attention to to this tension, to the way that Alhaitham and Kaveh struggle to work together: Alhaitham is too quick to rile Kaveh up even when it's not productive; Kaveh jumps to negative assumptions about Alhaitham's meanings at every turn...

Throughout the course of 6.6, we get to watch the story intentionally force them into a position where their only option is to overcome this, a world-ending crisis where the only way to advance is by relying on each other. But then the quest invites us to do something new:

To compare this pair of men who are struggling to work together with a pair who (seemingly) don't struggle at all.

Right away and consistently throughout the quest, the writers ensure that players understand Dottore and Pantalone are ideologically aligned. While Pantalone says that he and Dottore disagree on what the ultimate outcome should be, he explicitly informs the Traveler that they align in terms of both their understanding and approach toward the world, and that they philosophically carry the same disdain for "rules," the old world's order, and the gods who enforce these supposedly arbitrary limitations:

Pantalone explicitly describes them both as not "tolerated" by the world, theoretically meaning existences that Teyvat's fate system is actively working to remove. Dottore echoes this same exact sentiment later, confirming they have harmonious views on Celestia, fate, and blasphemy:

It is clear the pair are (roughly) on the same page and that they perceive themselves as sharing similar core beliefs. They're not mirror opposites--they're mirror images, reflecting virtually identical ideals back to each other again and again.

The plot calling such obvious attention to Kaveh and Alhaitham's struggles to work together is supposed to invite comparison to Dottore and Pantalone's unity, with the progress of the two pairs' ability to work together serving as narrative foils throughout the entire quest. The writers show us the divide between Alhaitham and Kaveh's ideologies and its impacts on their collaboration specifically to make Dottore and Pantalone's surprisingly seamless teamwork all the more apparent in the plot, and vice versa: Dottore and Pantalone's unified ideology suggests a forbidden fan what-if: What if Alhaitham and Kaveh one day come to see themselves as this closely aligned?

The thematic echo is the point.

And the writers are really not subtle about drawing these deliberate comparisons either, hammering the narrative similarities into place as often as they can throughout the quest:

Unlike Kaveh who bristles at the very thought that Alhaitham might perceive himself as smarter or better, Pantalone is perfectly content to pass himself off as a "subordinate" of Dottore (which, hey, also intentionally mirrors Kaveh and Alhaitham's later discussion about being upperclassman and junior). The writers make sure they highlight the difference by having Pantalone explicitly state he is willing to take on the supporting role, simply because--

Oh the word "partner" does so much extra work in English.

While Kaveh can't even admit to being Alhaitham's friend, the quest makes absolutely sure we can't miss Pantalone and Dottore referring to themselves as friends, both to each other's faces and also when they are each speaking to the Traveler, essentially unprompted.

Ultimately, Pantalone is able to achieve all the things Dottore needs him to do to complete the Irminsul experiment without any of the fuss and bluster Alhaitham and Kaveh face while working together, which leads to a very strange takeaway for players: In essence, Alhaitham and Kaveh have to become more like Pantalone and Dottore in order to achieve their joint goal of saving Sumeru. The player has to literally move Alhaitham and Kaveh like chess pieces around each other to achieve teamwork, in the exact way that Dottore and Pantalone masterfully manipulate Sumeru's situation together from the start.

On the surface, this may seem like a bit of an odd choice for notoriously moralizing writers to make--why show villains who can work together when your heroes aren't on the same page? Nobody is thinking the dev team wants Pantalone and Dottore to come across as role models, surely?

But there's narrative logic to this decision. Highlighting an example of effective teamwork against the backdrop of Alhaitham and Kaveh's struggle suggests that heroes, though flawed, are those who have the capacity to grow constructively--their teamwork may be fraught with tension, but it does not stem from a mutual desire for destruction. Assuming that mindset, we can see the two pairs functioning as a reversal in the flow of conflict throughout the quest: Alhaitham and Kaveh's tension produces a harmonious end; Dottore and Pantalone use their ability to harmonize to produce tension. The question becomes the classic ends versus means, with one side obviously coming out as morally superior in the equation.

But really, I think this type of writing--assigning a positive trait to the villains--makes the most sense if you work under the assumption that the dev team was deliberately trying to humanize Dottore. Making your heroes and villains excellent foils by giving the villains the positive ability your heroes lack is a quick shortcut to suggesting "There's still something redeemable in these people." Or perhaps: "Maybe the good guys and the bad guys aren't so different here at all."

Through a Mirror, Darkly

Of course, the parallels go beyond just actions taken in this one particular quest. In many other ways, the devs also parallel both sets of characters outside of the events of the plot.

I'm sure other people have commented before (and at length) about the similarities between Alhaitham and Dottore, for example. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest Alhaitham and Zandik have some obvious overlap--even just looking at the Akademiya pictures we have of Zandik, he's drawn with a suspiciously Alhaitham-esque silhouette, complete with pointed boots, half-hand gloves, and a winged capelet that isn't Akademiya standard. There's also the obvious personality problem: Both of their stories center around an unwillingness to bow to the opinions of the masses, which naturally invites players to compare how Alhaitham--raised with his grandmother's love--could have easily become a much, much colder character if he faced childhood rejection to the extent Zandik did.

I often think back to that line from Alhaitham's story quest where he suggests that Siraj's hivemind experimentation was "too conservative," boring, and doomed to failure because Siraj didn't strip his victims of their humanity.

The Dottore jumped right out of him that day.

And I don't want to get into a debate about autistic representation in Genshin, so I'm just going to make this statement and leave it as-is, but the obvious theme of neurodivergent people struggling in a neuronormative culture absolutely haunts both Dottore and Alhaitham's narratives. The similarities are apparent.

Pantalone, on the other hand, is much more of a wild card because we know so little about him, but even from the little we know, there's hints that suggest we can find similarities between him and Kaveh:

Pantalone's spicy temper is supposedly well-known amongst his underlings (and in the original source material, Commedia dell'arte, too); it's with a grain of salt that I take anything from the original theater productions, but the Pantalone of the Commedia definitely has a fiery personality and is prone to shouting when angered, just like a certain blond someone in Sumeru. And then there's the aspect of having such an obvious vice of choice--Feofan clearly uses cigarettes as an emotional crutch, just like Kaveh relies too much on alcohol.

We even learn in this recent patch some of what Pantalone's backstory includes:

Failing at one's business and being sold into medical slavery has an obvious echo to the unexpected failure of the Palace of Alkazarzaray, Kaveh's fall from grace, and "selling his soul" to Dori for a debt that continues to shackle him to this day. It's not an accident in the "alternate universe" that Kaveh turns into a rich merchant with a bunch of underlings, you know?

(Meanwhile Alhaitham takes over again as the Akademiya's head researcher; they literally became the nice-guy versions of Dottolone in the nightmare-verse hello?!! lolllll).

And, okay, this is mostly as a joke, but there's also the fact that aesthetic beauty is emphasized in both Kaveh and Pantalone's characters, being models intentionally decked out in jewelry, with refined, flowing lines, elegant features, and obvious attention put into their outward appearances. (In one of their character stories or message board messages, I can't remember which, it's noted that Kaveh has been able to "live like a noble" since moving in with Alhaitham, and it's implied elsewhere that Kaveh uses his rich aesthetic appearance in part to disguise his poverty.)

But perhaps the most interesting parallel between Kaveh and Pantalone (to me) is the repeatedly stated belief that their partners cannot change--both Pantalone and Kaveh are convinced that neither Alhaitham nor Dottore will ever alter their set courses.

Although Kaveh might only think this way because he's subconsciously refusing to acknowledge Alhaitham's growth, both Pantalone and Kaveh perceive their partners as fundamentally set in their personalities and therefore also fundamentally unable to grow. The Alhaitham that Kaveh knew in the past is the person Kaveh believes Alhaitham will be forever; the 35-year-old segment of Dottore is, of course, literally locked in time and bound by the limits of the personality Zandik possessed at that age.

For Alhaitham, of course, this thinking is flawed--we know that Alhaitham's care for Kaveh has made him a better, more generous, and more gentle person over the years, one who has learned to at least partially soften his individualistic philosophy to ensure that he no longer causes real harm to others, best exemplified by his event line: "Sometimes being correct means nothing at all."

Pantalone, meanwhile, is (probably?) right that Dottore, being no longer human, can no longer change how he views the world and therefore can never give up on the course he has chosen, even though it will lead them both into death. Dottore himself mentions that being a segment has trapped his ideology in the past, limiting him even as it "completes him".

Like Kaveh, Pantalone has resolved himself to an unchanging, unwavering future. He is convinced his understanding of his partner is complete, and that Dottore's philosophy could only have ever led to one end. Although he makes some wistful attempts to get Dottore to turn back during this quest--

--he doesn't genuinely try to stop Dottore from killing himself or enacting the "experiment;" Pantalone simply accepts that this is who Dottore is he will never change he will never improve that is a promise. The only course of action for Pantalone now is to fulfill his supporting role in the scheme, even knowing from the start that it is a doomed endeavor. As much as he despises fate, Pantalone seems somewhat convinced that Dottore (or at least Omega) will not be the one to escape it.

Maybe Pantalone's right, unlike Kaveh. But then again... Maybe he's not. The fact that the fandom itself seems convinced Dottore isn't really gone, that he must have had at least one more trick up his sleeve, suggests to me that perhaps the writers want us to wonder whether Dottore himself cared more about surviving than he claimed...

The lizard... The lizard... 😂

Okay, one more because I thought this was actually quite funny: The entire chess board scene in this 6.6 quest is such an obvious parallel between Alhaitham-Kaveh and Dottore-Pantalone that it's almost too on-the-nose.

On the board, Kaveh can manipulate pieces to get them out of Alhaitham's way, while Alhaitham can interpret information and interact with terminals (it's even a bright red data lock lol) to unlock pathways. This is alllllmost like, uhhhh, Pantalone spending the entire quest manipulating the major characters by moving them here and there across the landscape to buy Dottore time to... interpret and unlock the information in Irminsul...? Just #noticing, you know, as you do. 😂

But With a Twist

As obvious as some of the Dottore-Alhaitham and Pantalone-Kaveh parallels are, the writers also went out of their way to subvert or at least twist these parallels in places, swapping the roles that the characters play to give more nuance to the narrative echoes.

As a basic example:

Out of the two, Dottore is the tech-and-computers guy, a role which is matched by Kaveh, not by Alhaitham, to the point that Kaveh flat out states in this patch "Oh, this is a highly technologically advanced system? Yeah, better let me handle that." And, despite both Kaveh and Dottore being functionally engineer-scientists with extensive knowledge of computers in an otherwise fantasy society, out of the four characters, it's also Kaveh and Dottore who are shown to have artistic sides, with this patch confirming Dottore can canonically play the piano, a skill that otherwise seems irrelevant for a mad scientist.

Meanwhile, Pantalone (despite also being inexplicably ripped just like Alhaitham--why do the economist and the secretary have pecs like this, Hoyo; I mean I'm not complaining, but why?) states repeatedly that he's just a feeble scholar not much use when it comes to fighting in before this turns out to also be a lie just like Alhaitham's claims. Pantalone repeats a couple times that words and thinking are his primary weapons--which is also a typical refrain from Alhaitham, who has always used his intelligence and provocative turn of phrase as his first salvo in any conflict. Certainly, Dottore's comment that Pantalone can always talk his way out of a quandary has a clear echo in the way Alhaitham always has a snappy retort ready to go in any situation.

Hell, even though there's obvious visual parallels between Akademiya Zandik and Alhaitham, if we're talking modern models, it's not a stretch to say there are at least some visual similarities between Dottore's design and Kaveh's:

Kaveh's boobs are out, that's how you know he's a good guy according to Hoyo.

Both of their designs feature a white top with trailing edges, gold accessories, black shoulder accent, black gloves, and loose black pants. They're also both bright red-eyed characters, though Dottore's are a bit more saturated.

Pantalone, whose height and build are closer to Alhaitham's, also mirrors Alhaitham's model's black color base with pop accents (green versus purple) largely only on their draping coats; if we go back to the Pantalone from "Winter Night's Lazzo," there was also a recurring eye motif shared between both of their designs too.

By the way, another little contrast which makes a great example of color design as a vehicle for conveying messages to the players:

(This chart came from the Copic Markers website.)

Many people have noted that Alhaitham and Kaveh are designed with the complementary colors of red and green, which lie directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Complementary colors oppose each other, but in doing so, also highlight and enhance each other through the contrast between them, creating visual tension that reinforces their status as opposites that are nevertheless meant to be seen together.

However, Dottore and Pantalone's accent colors--blue and purple--are analogous colors instead. Analogous colors, which sit right next to each other on the color wheel, create an impression of harmony, unity of purpose, and similarity. Rather than portraying them as opposites and highlighting their contrasts, using analogous colors for Dottore and Pantalone highlights their alignment and closeness.

In both cases, the color language of the characters echo each other nicely while also cleverly articulating the central difference in their relationships! (This is great design, A++ Hoyo.)

Twists on the parallels also manifest in interesting ways in their personalities too. On the Haikaveh side, Kaveh is the one who frequently verbally doubts Alhaitham, repeating constantly that if Alhaitham is agreeing to work with him, it must mean that Alhaitham is getting something out of it for himself. Effectively, he maintains a tit-for-tat mindset that puts all of their joint efforts in a bad light: Alhaitham would never save the drowning except if there was some benefit for himself.

This, of course, finds a mirror in Dottore, who blatantly fails to understand Pantalone's motivations. Dottore continually suggests Pantalone's support must be transactional, suggesting repeatedly that the only reason Pantalone came to help him was because of the elixir of immortality or a need to fulfill his Fatui duties:

Dottore exhibits the same kind of flawed thinking that characterizes Kaveh's reactionary approach to Alhaitham: Kaveh cannot see the good in Alhaitham because his world view hinges on having egoism as an opponent to validate his altruistic ideology. Dottore cannot easily accept that Pantalone genuinely supports him, because doing so would challenge his core view that the world is a vile and irredeemable place that will only ever meet him with rejection.

However, there's a twist on the parallel again: Pantalone and Dottore are ultimately able to achieve more harmony than Alhaitham and Kaveh in this area because Pantalone does not respond to Dottore's doubts the way Alhaitham does to Kaveh's.

Alhaitham has (at least until the tail-end of this particular archon quest) primarily responded to Kaveh's provocations with smart quips and rhetorical questions that only exacerbate the situation. If you're trying to resolve a conflict, clapping back with something infuriatingly dumb like "If I'm going to evolve into another species due to lacking humanity, will you evolve into a fungus?" is certainly not going to help. I don't blame Kaveh for popping a vein over the way Alhaitham has handled their bickering in the past.

In fact, because it has actually helped Kaveh improve his own situation, giving him a target to channel his frustrations toward instead of turning them inward and self-flagellating, Alhaitham has intentionally continued to allow Kaveh to think poorly of him, extending, rather than contesting, Kaveh's belief that they'll never see eye-to-eye and that Alhaitham has no positive feelings for him. (Even in this quest, Alhaitham responds to Kaveh's statement that "People don't change" by claiming that Kaveh's complaining has also not changed, instead of, you know, saying anything productive about how much he's actually changed himself.)

But Pantalone and Dottore (mostly) model a different path: Rather than responding to Dottore's Kaveh-level doubts and provocations with Alhaitham-level ragebaiting, Pantalone responds to Dottore's doubts with Kaveh-like ideology. Just like Kaveh's uncompromising attitude toward selflessness, the writers suggest that Pantalone has fundamental principles he upholds vigorously, chief among which is trustworthiness (at least toward those who have earned that trust).

Simply because he made an agreement with Dottore, Pantalone jumped through massive hurdles to keep that agreement, even though (vis-à-vis Kaveh martyring himself for the Palace of Alkazarzaray) the plan was to Pantalone's own extreme detriment, effectively throwing his life away to uphold his belief in the value of honoring one's promises. Like Kaveh questioning why Alhaitham would ever do anything for someone other than himself, Dottore asks why Pantalone would ever really aid him--and like Kaveh, Pantalone answers that he came because it was the right thing to do.

Even funnier is the fact that, also like Kaveh, Pantalone apparently has a habit of blaming Dottore whenever things go wrong--but unlike Alhaitham who lets Kaveh yap, Dottore is whiny about the fact that Pantalone has tanked his reputation. Cute.

Frankly, I could probably keep going for another five posts if I really started splitting hairs over all the comparisons and contrasts, but before I get to the last point, there were several other funny echoes that popped up throughout the quest that I think are worth mentioning briefly:

Alhaitham's approval of Heryshaf's roundabout way of speaking deliberately mirrors Pantalone's earlier refusal to give the Traveler and Paimon any useful information about himself to work with; Heryshaf, Alhaitham and Pantalone are absolutely the kind of people to hit you with a "Certainly" and nothing else.

Thoth's established connection with Zandik makes the whole comment about sincerity really noticeable when the patch started with Pantalone describing their relationship as insincere:

You know who else likes someone just because his personality matches--

Kaveh's experiences manipulating Aaru also match nearly word-for-word with Dottore's descriptions of his experiences in Irminsul, with the possibility of a mirrored outcome:

There's even something to be said for the way Dottore's room has some visual similarities to Alhaitham and Kaveh's home, with the Sumeru style window framing the facing seats and table between:

Which of course is later contrasted with Pantalone randomly bringing in furniture for his conversation with Dottore, setting up the seats and table not so that they face each other from opposite sides but so that they sit together on the same side this time.

There was no reason to set up furniture here, let alone a chair for a dead man, except out of a genuine desire to recreate a moment of closeness, reflecting both the flashback scene of Dottore and Pantalone sitting across from each other and also the much more familiar domesticity of the paired seats and coffee table in Alhaitham and Kaveh's house. (Even the book Pantalone places on the table here is a model from Alhaitham and Kaveh's house.)

Then, of course, there's the somewhat oblique ways both Dottore and Alhaitham choose to show their concern for their partners. I'm going to run out of room to add more pictures, so I'll just summarize: At the end of the 6.6 quest, Alhaitham and Kaveh stand in the ruins of their house, sorting through their damaged belongings. For Kaveh, the tangible items of the house are symbolic of the deeper concept of "home"--he cares about the damaged paintings and books because his understanding of family is closely and painfully tied to the material presence of the roof over their heads. (Having sold his childhood home to fund the building of someone else's palace, only to then end up entirely homeless and alone in the world, is definitely understandable grounds for forming an emotional attachment to the physical presence of a house and its decor.)

Alhaitham, on the other hand, doesn't care a lick about the damage to the house because the most important element of his household stayed perfectly safe: Kaveh made it through the crisis without a scratch. That's what matters to Alhaitham. His brand of care is entirely entangled up with Kaveh's physical safety and mental well-being--to hell with everything else.

On the other side, the Dottore we see in this patch is no longer human and was never a mentally or emotionally healthy adult to begin with; I don't think he was capable of care and concern for another human being in the same way that Alhaitham is (at the very least, Omega the segment wasn't); nevertheless, this brand of care that is particularly fixated on the health and well-being of the partner still manages to worm its way in. Like Alhaitham inserts himself into every emotional problem Kaveh faces, Dottore is very attentive to Pantalone's physical health, even when the conditions aren't life-threatening (like the nosebleed after tripping over his own bedframe), even when there's no reason to have bothered making Pantalone specifically immortal in the first place other than to keep his only ally close.

"Yeah, I think instead of telling him I like him like a normal human being, I'll go another couple decades being his personal guard dog; if he doesn't get it eventually, that's his problem." - Alhaitham and Dottore, probably.

Then, of course, most obviously: The entire "stand together looking out at Irminsul" scene was so intentionally designed to parallel each other that the devs actually moved Alhaitham and Kaveh's models to the complete opposite side of Deshret's Mausoleum for a single clip just so that they could frame them as staring out at the tree.

When your character approaches Alhaitham and Kaveh, who have come out to the roof of the mausoleum for... some reason that they're definitely not going to claim is alone time, they're on the northern side of the mausoleum, facing toward Fontaine with the aquabus tracks in the background. Butttttt as their meaningful conversation about being able to save Sumeru together this time starts, suddenly...

They're on the eastern edge of the mausoleum, looking out toward the rainforest instead, a 90 degree turn that would have required the devs to completely reposition their models in the middle of the cutscene. The only reason to do this was specifically to align Alhaitham, Kaveh, and the Irminsul tree during this heart-to-heart, so that this scene would then, very intentionally, mirror the later scene of Dottore and Pantalone facing the burning Irminsul together.

It's intentionallllllll. You're supposeddddd to see the two pairs as analogies for each other.

I like how they put Pantalone further down the hill here to make him look shorter than Dottore. The devs are fighting between Dottolone and Panttore, I can feel it lollll.

Even specific lines from the two conversations end up mirrored. Alhaitham and Kaveh discuss their fears about what will come tomorrow (and Alhaitham's supposed lack thereof), just as Pantalone and Dottore later discuss mortal fears (and Dottore's supposed lack thereof):

It's a parallel and a contrast--Kaveh who struggles to see the human emotion in Alhaitham and Pantalone who refuses to accept that Dottore has no humanity left! It's symbolllicccccc!

Even the following lines, where Kaveh discusses what the previous crisis in Sumeru was like (the one he wasn't there for) and contrasts it to the present, asking Alhaitham if it things went better with Kaveh there, obviously evoke the player's knowledge that the same exact thing happened with Dottore and Pantalone: Pantalone wasn't there to help Dottore in Nod-Krai, the same way Kaveh wasn't there in Sumeru to help Alhaitham during the first crisis.

Alhaitham flat out says that the second crisis in Sumeru went much smoother specifically because Kaveh was there, and the same is functionally spelled out on the opposite side, when Dottore repeatedly notes that things are going to plan because Pantalone has been able to successfully buy time by misleading the good guys. Juxtaposing Alhaitham and Kaveh's greater-success-together with Dottore's plan seemingly staying on track more than in Nod-Krai thanks to Pantalone's help is supposed to invite comparison between the ships and give viewers the impression Alhaitham and Kaveh operate better together... and so do Dottore and Pantalone.

I also think that there's enough of a clear juxtaposition here that there ought to be some narrative pay-off. When moralizing, the most common storytelling pattern is "Main character shows off a positive trait, then gets rewarded for that good behavior." The plot immediately rewards Alhaitham and Kaveh for their ability to set aside their personal drama and successfully team up to save Sumeru--they achieve their goal and safety/peace is the result.

Unlike in Nod-Krai, where Dottore goes on about how "Only the weak rely on each other for comfort," in Sumeru, he sets aside his isolationism and accepts Pantalone's aid--and that change in moral behavior, from rejecting community and collaboration to accepting it, ought to be rewarded in some way by the narrative. It simply makes sense that if you go out of your way to show a character who normally refuses the help of others deciding to finally accept it and appreciate it, then the moral of that growth should be "Teamwork does work."

"Villain finally learns to utilize the power of friendship and then still doesn't achieve his goal" just doesn't quiteeee get across the message one would hope, right?

This, more than anything else, is the reason I'd like to believe the devs are not done with Dottore. There was too much effort taken showing that Dottore has the capacity to exhibit better moral behavior--that he can work with others, that he can demonstrate appreciation and respect, that he can maintain a friendship, that he is willing to stop progress on his plan just to check in on someone else's well-being, and that he is aware of things like basic social niceties ("Miss Columbina? Madam Columbina?"). There is, in all of this, the unaddressed moral question: "Is it really okay to let someone die believing the world a loathsome and irredeemable place?" In a game that is so strongly and blatantly about establishing love for the world and for life, it seems like it would be unforgivably massive missed opportunity if the person who hates this world the most is never given a reason to change that mindset.

Ends and Means

Back at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that one of the most obvious effects of drawing so many parallels between Alhaitham-Kaveh and Dottore-Pantalone is that it (deliberately!) gives the impression "These good guys and bad guys aren't that different." But in terms of the actual plot outcomes of this patch? I think that statement might be even more literal than it seems.

While Dottore's plans are oftentimes written in nebulous ways (he wants to ascend to godhood but like, not really; he wants to create a "new world" but like, not really; he wants to overthrow the Heavenly Principles but like, not really), the last few patches have made it clear that Dottore believes his motivation is pure scientific curiosity to push beyond the boundaries of Teyvat's "rules." (Something something in denial about lingering resentment over the world's rejection something something crippled by an unfulfilled need for external validation--buttttt that's a story for another day!) Dottore's goal with experimenting from the afterlife in this patch was, presumably, to come to understand exactly the role and limitations Irminsul imposed on the world, and how memory (and thus reality itself) could be manipulated by the Irminsul system.

Irminsul is inextricably tied to the concept of fate in Teyvat, and fate is tied to the control of the Heavenly Principles. If your desire is to push beyond the boundaries of destiny and the shackles of Celestia to bring about true change to the world, then... getting rid of Irminsul is basically be step one, right?

"Overthrow the gods' control on destiny" makes a great premise for a pair of villains... except uhhhh *checks notes* Alhaitham and Kaveh were the ones who did it. (Alongside the other good guys, of course.)

In order to "stop Dottore," Alhaitham, Kaveh, and the rest of the good guy crew literally burnt down the old world order and rebuilt a new one.

One of the chief weapons wielded by the Heavenly Principles to shape reality within Teyvat? Gone.

The number one system for repressing memory and hiding secrets the heavens have decided humanity shouldn't know? Gone.

The tool used to inscribe and therefore bind people to their fates assigned by the Heavenly Principles? Gone.

Like... WHO WON HERE??

Rather than thinking of 6.6's plot as "Two similar but diametrically opposed pairs fight for control of Sumeru," it feels more like "Teacher Hoyo assigned homework but waited until the day of the presentation to admit it was a group project all along."

All four characters--Alhaitham, Kaveh, Dottore, and Pantalone--contributed to the destruction of Irminsul in equal measure.

Dottore and Kaveh both manipulated nearly identical data systems archiving souls and records of humanity, literally picking and choosing what history to keep. We get to watch Kaveh (at least he's reluctant) flushing Gurabad's history down the toilet because it was in their way! At one point, Kaveh even blatantly says that he doesn't give a fuck that he's actively profaning heavenly technology because their goal is more important and pressing.

And then, the piece de resistance of image overlaps and narrative parallels: Dottore and Pantalone's plan ends up creating an enormous tree, manifesting Irminsul for all to see. And when Alhaitham, Kaveh, Nahida and the good guy crew's plan comes to fruition? They also create a new tree of knowledge.

From start to finish, what the good guys accomplish in patch 6.6 is visually and functionally identical to what the villains achieve. Despite being on opposite sides and having completely opposite motivations, both groups intentionally set out to seize control of Irminsul, disrupt its functions, put themselves outside of the gods' gaze, and ultimately wrest the shackles of fate out of Celestia's hands, bringing "destiny" itself under the control of mortals.

Alhaitham, Kaveh, and the good guys "won."

But frankly, so did the Fatui, the Tsaritsa, Pantalone, and Dottore.

Dottore and Pantalone were trying to create a "new world order"--and as the old Irminsul burns to ashes in the background, it is very clear by the end of patch 6.6 that Teyvat's order has been changed forever.

But what are we, the players supposed to make of all this? Why would the devs go so far out of their way to make sure these two pairs of people mirror each other to such an extent that even their direct roles in the patch quest become nearly one-for-one reflections of each other? Why show villains who do teamwork better than heroes, and heroes whose actions feel like they achieve the villains' goals? Especially in a climate where your game faces even outside political pressure to ensure audiences receive "good mortal education," why go out on a limb to make "Maybe the good guys and bad guys have more in common than you'd think" a central theme of the story?

I'm sure there's many reasons--humanizing Dottore and Pantalone, using Alhaitham and Kaveh's relationship as a shorthand to rapidly project queer-coding onto Dottore and Pantalone (despite having just a small part of the patch to develop their relationship), laying the groundwork for "He's not really THAT evil" to make Pantalone and/or Dottore playable in the future, or just from sheer love of writing parallel plots left and right, which I wouldn't put past the devs...

But I think there's also something a little bigger in it, something connected in a meaningful way to the overarching story Genshin is telling, the direction the plot wants to go from here: Who is the Traveler's real enemy? Whose crimes can be forgiven and whose can't? Which fates should be allowed to come to pass, and which ones should be consigned to the Abyss? Does Celestia need to be toppled--and, if so, by who? All of these questions get much more interesting, and with far more complicated answers, if your heroes and villains share outcomes and actions, share admirable or at least redeeming traits, and share relatable relationships that help both the protagonist and the players see their humanity.

Dottore and Pantalone's parallels to Alhaitham and Kaveh aren't just for the fanservice; they're not even there just to help Hoyo make quick yaoibucks. They're serving an important narrative purpose, another major step along the established path of adding nuance to the Traveler's--and the players'--journey throughout Teyvat, complicating our understanding of what actions we should take, who we players should trust, and what fate Teyvat should be aimed toward. If we're to believe the narrative that Genshin seems to be building toward, the one in which our protagonist inevitably overthrows the rules to face the full truth of Teyvat's history, addressing the complex themes of trust and revolution against the status quo will be vital--and certainly much richer for the involvement of interesting villains.

I began this post by saying that the primary theme of patch 6.6 was actually a central question which has resonated across Genshin's storyline for a very long time:

How far will you go to achieve your goals?

Or, in other words: What price will you pay to achieve your "dream"?

This has been the central conflict of Alhaitham and Kaveh's relationship since day one, the sticking point that Kaveh constantly comes back to--but it's also a core sticking point for Genshin's most important storyline, the rift between the Traveler twins, whose differing experiences and beliefs have led them down fundamentally incompatible paths. Facing this question in miniature through Alhaitham and Kaveh--and Dottore and Pantalone--suggests hope that greater ideological gaps can be bridged elsewhere, to resolve even the most central of conflicts in the broader story.

And like the suffering the twins have been going through since the beginning, patch 6.6 presents us with a microcosm of the game's core moral quandary:

What pain are you willing to bear in pursuit of your ideals?

Kaveh refuses to give on his ideal of altruism, no matter how many times Alhaitham points out that it is tearing him apart--no matter how many times Alhaitham picks at the wound to remind Kaveh that generosity can stem from a much darker origin: Kaveh continually gives to others at his own expense on purpose, deliberately making choices that cost him too much and cause him harm because suffering has become integral to his identity both as an artist and as a person.

What is Kaveh, without the guilt of his father's death? What is he, without the weight of his failed family? What is he, without his overwhelming debt? His frustration? His vices? His conviction that everything he believes in is worth suffering for?

You know, I know someone else who is suffering for his convictions.

As a banker, I expected Pantalone to be a hedonist character, someone deeply concerned with amassing personal riches; I figured that his most obvious character trait would be greed, and that his actions would be driven by self-interest first and foremost. There's an obvious archetype they could have gone with for the loan shark character aiming to surpass the god of gold himself. And while the day is still new, there's still plenty of time for Hoyo to pull a 180 or have Pantalone go "I was just lying about all that 'respect' and 'reputation' talk," I just don't get the overall impression that Hoyo is going for the straightforward "banker in love with money itself" trope here. (At least, they're not going for it in the one-dimensional way they could have.)

Instead, there's a fascinating undercurrent to what we have seen of Pantalone's backstory and current role in the story so far: An inability to escape from suffering.

A willingness to suffer, even.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that Pantalone is being written as a passive masochist. Rather, I mean that every action we've seen him take--even those that help him advance in authority and power--ultimately comes at the cost of his own physical and emotional well-being. Like Kaveh, every choice he makes seems tinged with self-destruction.

Dottore's recommendation helped him get a safe job as a Fatui banker, but instead of being content with safety, Pantalone worked his ass off and used his own merits to rise to the extremely dangerous rank of Harbinger. Dottore told him not to do field work because it's dangerous for him, and Pantalone just said "Welp, nothing I can do about that" and went right back into life-threatening missions where people tried to assassinate him with acid. Dude got shot and wouldn't even tell Dottore why. He nearly killed himself by smoking; but when Dottore told him to stop... Pantalone instead rubbed it in Dottore's face that the first thing he was going to do after Dottore's death was go smoke. Like Alhaitham with Kaveh, Dottore tried to get Pantalone to take better care of himself--and is met with the same stubborn obstinence.

Pantalone accepted the immortality elixir only to then be "unsettled" by Zandik's death (come now, you don't actually buy his "I never said that," right?). The game itself even flirts with the idea that Pantalone may have needed antidepressants after Zandik's death--Omega treats this like a joke and never actually gives him any, but Pantalone's comment about the antidepressants is: "Does fighting time require a stronger mind?" We're later told that he reacted to the deaths of the segments by becoming "little more than a decorative vase" at their next meeting, revealing none of his own thoughts or feelings but unwilling or perhaps unable to contribute otherwise.

Pantalone agreed to continue aiding and partnering with Omega, despite having reason to believe Omega contributed to the original Zandik's death and despite recognizing that Omega was the most twisted and cruel version of Dottore possible. We're told that, at some point in the past, Pantalone may have tried to speak out about Omega's unhealthy mental state despite the potential danger of doing so--there's something very ominous in Omega's statement that "My friend realized quickly he had spoken out of turn."

In 6.6, we watch Pantalone go to aid Dottore in his final Irminsul plot, despite explicitly stating that he wants Dottore to live, despite knowing that helping Dottore would likely mean killing himself. One of his last lines in the quest, "I've been particular about many things in my life. Regarding the manner of my death, I choose not to be," can effectively be read as a prettied-up version of "If I die, I die." I don't think he's actively suicidal, but he's not exactly trying to keep himself alive either.

Over and over again, this quest chain presents Pantalone as someone who does nothing to save himself from pain--physical or emotional. In pursuit of immortality, power, and his goal to overthrow Celestia, Feofan seems to have decided that his anguish is a fair price to pay.

If gaining the power to fight against fate requires an equivalent sacrifice, then so be it.

Maybe this will turn out to be nothing more than a skewed first impression (Genshin is famous for them, after all), but the quest is so insistent on reminding us just how little Pantalone cares for his own health and just how willing he is to downplay his own emotions, that I can only assume at least some of it is genuine, and that, like Kaveh, Feofan has accepted suffering as a necessary outcome of the path he has chosen to walk.

If, as Kaveh says, anguish is the "cradle of creation," then how much suffering must it take to birth a new world order?

Dottore himself proves it: No one defies fate itself without facing the consequences.

The twins' story, the Khaenri'ahn plot, the Abyss, the Tsaritsa, patch 6.6, and even Alhaitham and Kaveh's tumultuous relationship all ask us again and again:

How far will you go to pursue your ideals?

This is the central question our Traveler will soon have to face--and the one Pantalone seems to have already answered.

In this war of gods and monsters, the currency the Regrator is most willing to spend is his own blood, sweat, and tears.

(And how will you break it, Feofan, your reliance on this anguish?)

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my, my, those eyes like fire