Reminder that Pantalone is not named after pants. Pants are named after Pantalone.
Our modern English word pants comes directly from the 16th century commedia dell’arte stock character Pantalone, whose costume famously included a pair of egregiously tight-fitted trousers.
Pantalone’s outfit was so well-known that, when similar trousers came into fashion in the late 1600s, they were referred to as pantaloons because of him. This is where we get the shortened words pants and panties, so he’s pretty much a fashion icon.
Extra fun fact: the stock character’s name might have been a tongue-in-cheek reference to Saint Pantaleon, patron saint of doctors.
Yeah… yeah...
Commedia dell’arte history, a sprinkle of Shakespeare, and some thoughts on the patron saint of physicians ↓
Commedia Dell’arte Background
Unlike a lot of modern theatre, commedia dell’arte performances aren’t scripted. Instead, they’re more like highly-structured improv where performers take on the roles of stock characters and act out comedic scenarios following an outline from the Director (hi Pierro).
Most scenarios are built around pairs of archetypes, which include:
Vecchi, the old men (Pantalone, Dottore)
Zanni, the trickster servants (Colombina, Arlecchino, Pulcinella)
Innamorati, the lovers
and then a handful of other characters that combined tropes such as Capitano, Signora, or Scaramuccia
To ensure the audience could immediately recognize stock roles across scenarios, these characters needed distinctive looks that could be carried from town to town, generation to generation. To that end, each character had a unique mask and costume tied to their characteristics.
Pantalone’s was one of the most recognizable by far.
Pantalone as a Stock Character
Pantalone’s inclusion among the stock characters dates back to at least the mid-1500s. As one of the principle “antagonists” (along with his foil, Dottore), Pantalone was often the catalyst of the action making up many of the routines. So he needed a recognizable appearance.
And, whoo boy, did he get one.
Keep in mind that the commedia dell’arte was hyperbolic. Everything was exaggerated, and Pantalone was the ultimate exaggeration of a greedy, lecherous, materialistic old man prone to emotional outbursts.
One of the defining features of Pantalone’s outfit were his long, red, extremely tight trousers, a stark contrast to the more common wide knee-breeches worn at the time. These were so tight that they flaunted his codpiece—a piece of fabric that cups the genitals. During the Renaissance, codpieces had started to become increasingly padded and sculpted, not to hide the crotch but rather to call attention to it.
(In some cases, instead of wearing the codpiece, Pantalone would wear a strategically-placed money pouch around his waist, and you can probably imagine what that looked like... )
The effect was meant to be vulgar and comedic. Here’s an old, greedy, horny man whose tight trousers and slippers make him look frail, yet he’s walking around with his hips cocked, showing off a his codpiece.
The audience found him hilarious because raunchy humour never goes out of style. And yet, while he satirized the ego-driven fool, he also served as a melancholic musing on aging. Even Shakespeare nods to this role in As You Like It, when the fool Jaques gives one of his most famous monologues on the link between life and theatre:
All the world’s a stage
...
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side
That’s our guy, a representative not only of older characters but also of older actors whose time on the stage was coming to a close.
When long, tight-fitted breeches came into fashion in England during the Restoration Era in the late 1600s, they were called pantaloons after the Anglicized name Pantalone. He was so popular that the role defined an entire clothing item.
By the 1700s, pantaloons came to be used to refer to any long trouser, regardless of cut and also began to denote women’s undergarments as well (earliest record for that is from 1797). Pantaloons was eventually shortened to pants, and it also gives us the word panties. Do with that information what you will.
The Patron Saint of Doctors
There’s been a lot of speculation over where the name Pantalone came from in the first place, since the earliest attested records are from the commedia dell’arte itself.
One of the potential inspirations—and the one noted in the Oxford English Dictionary as the likely etymological root—is San Pantalon (Saint Pantaleone), a Christian martyr who was condemned to death for miracles of healing and who earned the title all-compassionate for begging Heaven to forgive his executioners.
San Pantalon was a popular saint in Venice, and Pantalone is one of the primary Venetian characters in the commedia dell’arte. The audience would absolutely recognize the irony that the extraordinarily greedy stock character Pantalone is named after an all-compassionate saint who, notably, gave all his money to the poor.
What makes this potential origin so so delightful is the fact that Pantaleon is a patron saint of physicians
Given that Dottore and Pantalone had a deeply intertwined relationship in the commedia dell’arte—as sometimes rivals, often friends, always ridiculous together—this also feels quite fitting. (Pantaleon is also the patron saint of lottery winners, funny enough, so that works here too.)
"Are you suggesting I worship you as a god?" "No, but as a Saint might be nice."
Wearing the Pants
All this to say: the reason we have the modern word pants is because of the stock character Pantalone. Our Ninth Harbinger is not named after the clothing item, he’s its etymological origin. His costume helped bring them into fashion.
So the ludicrously tight pants he wears in Genshin? Canon event. He started that trend. Give this man his royalties, please.
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.
Dottore's decision to let Pantalone live some more time after his death is kind yet also cruel. It's cruel bc of the loneliness because of leaving him bc of how Feofan may feel about not being able to stop him. But it's somehow kind bc Dottore is giving Feofan an opportunity to live without being owned. A life where every person that ever sold and bought him is dead.
Despite the fact that Pantalone had a good relationship with Dottore and he treated him as a partner, it's actually interesting to think that, now that Dottore died, it's the first time in the 400 years of Feofan's life that he isn't owned by someone. First, his mother that sold him, next the man that bought him, later the nobles, and the ending of that type of life was Zandik. He bought Feofan, the last one to do so, but also, he gave him an opportunity to have a better life, to become his equal. Still, Zandik was somehow above him as the one who bought him and the one that kept him alive, a control over his life, a power dynamic between them.
Now Pantalone is, in some way, "free." But he felt free with Dottore, he was happy, they became partners. Feofan, who always was under others and tried to become their equal, did it with Zandik. Yet it's true that the power dynamic was still there, Zandik kept it that way bc that's how he was sure Feofan would be with him, not being able to believe that Feofan wants to be with him bc he truly likes him.
Dottore's decision is kind but cruel. And it's cruel bc he is still the one deciding whether Feofan lives or not, now deciding that he is leaving him more time, but this time is a time of loneliness.
I love Dottolone. It’s two awful men who take solace in each other in a world that was cruel and rejected both of them. Trauma can make monsters of us all but doesn’t love do the same thing?
Just realised another gay asf thing idk how i missed this
To replace Pantalone's lungs, Dottore had to open Pantalone's chest, he would've seen Pantalone's heart
That is both the most visceral and intimate shit ever???? He literally saw Pantalone in his most vulnerable both literally and figuratively, he would have to work around Pantalone's heart too???!!!
Hoyo can drop a two hour long, graphic, no music, uncut scene of these two rearranging each other's guts and SOMEHOW the lung surgery is gonna be more smutty than that, what the hell is up with these two 😭
YES! This is the shit I’m talking about!
Dottore has been inside Pantalone in such profoundly visceral ways through the surgeries and the experiments themselves. This is the man who is fascinated with the possibilities of humanity, the man who has dedicated entire lifetimes to probing the limits of the body for the purpose of summarily rejecting them. Dottore is relentless in his pursuit of knowledge—justifying his means for the ends—and so often we see him use this knowledge in service of giving Pantalone more time. The Elixirs, the surgeries, the transplants, the emergency resuscitations.
And then Pantalone lets Dottore dissect him.
My mind can’t even process the intimacy of it all. What better gift could Pantalone offer in exchange for 400 years of living than the opportunity for Dottore to revel in the raw, intimate, indisputable evidence that his experiments worked.
And they say romance is dead. Please.
The localized anatomical dissection lasted 1h 30m 52s, and I bet each of the Segments loved every single second of it. (What a way to get all the Doctors to work together, too. A little bonding exercise for his various selves. I see your game, Pantalone.)
All of this to say: you are so entirely correct, anon. Hoyo could give us a montage of these two getting freaky in every corner of Zapolyarny Palace tomorrow, and I’ll still prefer whatever the fuck is going on in Anomalous Tree Marrow I.
I love how this scene is bc this type of scene is mostly associated with the end of archon quests when the traveler can ask different things to the archon and at least one question is about what's next in their journey.
It's an interesting choice bc it's like placing Dottore in the traveler's shoes and Pantalone in an archon/god position. It's more funny bc this scene is literally after this one:
Literally after Pantalone telling that story, the metaphor clearly placing Dottore as the man confessing his sins and wanting more time (something he did when telling Pantalone about his plan and telling him his story), and Pantalone as the god helping him to gain more time.
But Dottore in the traveler's place means he helped the archon/god. In this quest, Pantalone is the one helping Dottore, but it's a known fact that Dottore helped Pantalone since they met. They have a close relationship. At the end of each archon quest, the traveler becomes friends/allies with the archon, not having a relationship of god and follower. Just like Dottore and Pantalone. Despite the metaphor of Pantalone being like a god for Dottore, in the end, it's not like Dottore is his follower, it's more like Dottore has a relationship with a "god". Not a god to worship from a distance, it's a "god" close to him, so close that he can take care of him, even being the one providing life to him.
What it's ironic, it's that Dottore isn't physically there. Pantalone is the only one there, and it looks like he is talking alone out loud. This can be read as if he was talking to a god. Yet, like I said before, despite those physical positions, Feofan is the one placed as the "god" in Zandik's heretic path/journey, the closest he got to a god, the manifestation of god in a human. Zandik rejected his god to choose another one that isn't even a god but a human.
The fact that Pantalone and Dottore reflect a priest and a plague doctor makes so much sense...
At fiiiiirst the alliance between these two seems like a simple pact where one provides the money and the other runs the experiments (everyone and their mamas know that not really) however mihoyo do several details behind their visual designs that go far beyond mere sthetics their attire reveals a very interesting past.. why does the banker dress like a cleric, and the scientist like a plague doctor? 🤔
The Dance of Death
During the worst epidemics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, cities became total quarantine zones. Whenever the plague rolled in, rulers and wealthy citizens packed up and fled to the countryside. In the middle of all that abandonment and chaos, plague doctors and priests were pretty much the only authorities who actually stayed behind to face the horror on the streets, since the science of the time blended religion with medicine, both professions needed each other to manage the chaos of the infected cities, Doctors treated human bodies while clergymen treated the soul (since the plague was considered a divine punishment) so doctors rarely treated a patient if he had not confessed to a cleric beforehand bcs a cursed soul could not be cured
The Lazarillos and Pure Faith (14th Century)
In the original Black Death outbreak, their teamwork came from sheer desperation. Back then, doctors just wore regular cloth clothes (no bird masks yet ☹️ ....) and they worked side by side with priests in lazarillos (make-shift plague hospitals administered by religious orders, but the technical staff were plague doctors) and it was a total team effort:
While the doctor tried to stabilize the patient's body, the priest kept people from completely panicking, which was a huge deal because hysteria caused massive riots in the wards.
If they visited an infected house, they went in together. The doctor figured out if the patient had a fighting chance, and the priest stepped in right behind him to prepare the dying for the afterlife bcs they breathed the same infected air and handled the same fluid exposures, both professions caught the plague and died at insane rates, literally they were literally wiping out together......
Bureaucracy and the Bird Mask (17th Century)
Flash forward to 1619, and a French doctor named Charles de Lorme invents the famous leather suit with the beak-shaped bird mask 🙂↕️ and by this time the doctor and priest dynamic wasn't just about faith anymore... it was a highly regulated government control system
The doctor called the shots, Protected by his leather suit and beak mask, the doctor was the only one allowed to go in first. The priest had to wait outside at a safe distance until the doctor tapped the door with his wooden cane to give him the green light for last rites.
Shared paperwork, Since people were dropping dead in days, wills had to be written on the fly, the doctor (from a distance) certified that the dying person was still lucid, and the priest blessed the document, both had to sign together as official legal witnesses.
Counting the bodies, at the end of every day, the bird-masked doctor and the parish priest had to sit down and cross-reference their lists of the dead to make sure the government's body count was completely accurate.
I find it curious that Pantalone and Dottore are inspired by the two professions that have helped people the most in slowing down a disease as great as the plague.
Pantalone's design evokes a high ranking Orthodox cleric with liturgical vestments and the Globus Cruciger constellation and its strong inspirations based on a real priest named Feofan Prokopovich Dottore, for his part, reinterprets the 17th century beaked mask and all its characterization linked to crows
The Clergy banks and economy
Although the Church declared greed a sin.... in the age of the plague, the clergy controlled the world's economy, Monasteries functioned as the first modern banks, lending to kings and insuring fortunes. When the plague struck, the fear of hell became a multimillion dollar financial business.... wealthy people paid fortunes in gold for "indulgences" (papers that bought their entry into heaven) furthermore, if a wealthy family died without heirs from the disease, the Church automatically inherited all their lands and palaces while the people lay dying in the streets (lol rests in piss granny), the clergy accumulated capital and controlled the flow of money.
The Doctor alchemy and science
In those centuries, medicine was not separate from magic or alchemy, Plague doctors didn't know what caused the disease, so they experimented with the occult, searching for the "Elixir of Life" to become immune, their prescriptions were a bit...well hum.... they made the sick drink ground gold and used arsenic or mercury to try to "neutralize" the plague's poison, but the most disturbing thing was that, although the Church forbade opening corpses, considering it a horrific sin, these doctors secretly performed illegal autopsies in dark basements to study the anatomy of the dead.
In the end.... these two professions were two sides of the same coin........ Clergy controlled the economy while the Doctor controlled the bodies, ppl who perform religious functions suffered massive mortality during the Black Death (estimated at between 42% and 45%), this high death rate led to a severe shortage of priests and a crisis of faith that called into question the moral authority of the Church, and forbidden science churches and wealthy cities needed to pay these doctors fortunes so that the financial system wouldn't completely collapse due to a lack of workers and the Doctors were critical figures during the epidemics, most were junior physicians or young mens hired by cities to care for all citizens rich or poor, needed the clerical capital to finance their clandestine laboratories and potions, It was like a perfect and twisted alliance 🙂↕️ the economy provided the funds and science did the dirty work in the shadows.
(It's kinda funny that two minds abandoned by the world have inspirations based on two professions that helped humanity from a deadly disease lmaooooo I never fell for the Panttore/Dottolone retcon anyways)
You guys ever think about what Pantalone had to go through following the original Zandik's death? Obv all the grief and morning, but he also left his segments behind. How long did it take him to decide that these people were both his husband and not at the same time? That they were just fragments of the picture that was Zandik? And that his self-hatred was forever frozen in a way that ultimately cost him his life? How do you think Pantalone felt knowing his husband had, essentially, killed himself? That he couldn't even be angry at the people who left him for dead? And then to continue living for another 400 years with his shadows haunting you only to watch him die again and again and again?
Did you know the original Pantalone in the Commedia dell'arte was often depicted as a widow?
pixelskylines
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
gummygunk
