And there he is! You see him? Right there. That little guy, right in the balloon. That's Dottore. Now, look, I know we've only got confirmation that Arlecchino is in Fontaine but I am thoroughly convinced that Dottore is also here. His stupid fingerprints
are all over the evidence, your honor. In fact, I think a lot of the stuff
we've encountered so far in Fontaine has to do with who and what he really is. So, let's spend some time
going over all the things we've learned everything we know about Dottore so far and how it all comes together
in this nice and neat little package. And I promise, this is going to be a wild wacky, and head-spinning conclusion at the end so I hope you're ready for a nice
little visit to the doctor's office. But just a heads up, this video
does require you to have completed Acts 1 and 2 of the Fontaine Archon quest as well as the Pari quest in the desert and the Narzissenkreuz Institute world quest. I apologize for my American accent. No, it is not going to get better. I'm doing my best. Now, perhaps if you've also completed the Melusine quest as I'll be referencing a couple of things from that too but it is nothing that isn't found in the Narzissenkreuz Institute Quest as well so don't worry too much about that. With a disclaimer out of the way let's go ahead and dip our toes into the shallow pond that is the established Dottore lore
so we can get to the good stuff. I think that after the events of Sumeru most people are in agreement that Dottore is actually the exiled scholar known as Zandik. The arguments for this are pretty sound. The name Zandik means heretic, a term commonly conflated with Dottore from his base name "Haeresys" to the many times he's straight up called blasphemous or a literal heretic. As a scholar, Zandik was enamored with the idea of enhancing humans
and also had a fascination with machinery especially that of the Khaenri’ahn variety. If you put those ideas together you have a wonderful formula that the Akademiya just hates so ultimately he was eventually exiled to the desert over his research where he was
later recruited into the Fatui by Pierro. Now, while the name Zandik is never directly referenced alongside Dottore some people have tried to rename their Wanderer "Zandik" and he gives the response that's usually reserved for other named Harbingers. That makes it very likely
that the name Zandik. at the very least whether it's Dottore or not,
is important to the plot at some point because otherwise, you wouldn't
just reference a random scholar that you found papers about in the jungle, you know? So, all of this is just to say
that Dottore's real name should be Zandik and that he's a Sumeru native with some crazy ideas about forced human evolution. I mean, Dottore himself even claims Sumeru as his homeland on-screen during the Archon quest so that's it, right? It's a pretty simple backstory. But hold on a second,
because I don't think this is the whole story. It's far too simple for such
a high-ranking Harbinger, don't you think? So, there are three things in particular that stand out to me as being quite odd if Dottore
is a Sumeru native and only a Sumeru native. First, his design is plague doctor themed and as far as my research can tell plague doctors were a bit exclusive to Europe and not really to the Middle East or Northern Africa. And second, every time we've seen an alternate Dottore he's been very... French? So Fontainian. Like, back when he was manipulating Scaramouche he took the identity of Escher, a Fontaine mechanic. That's a little bit weird
since he could've just as easily done the job with an Akademiya identity. And in the manga, young Dottore dresses in European clothing. His Fatui uniform also does seem to have a couple of symbols from the Akademiya on it but on the whole, he still looks very European. And I am not the only one who seems to think this. I found this analysis from a Chinese player who pointed out that Dottore appears
to reference Julien Offray de La Mettrie a French physician and the author of "Man a Machine" who was also exiled for his work
being considered a bit too heretical only to receive an offer by a Prussian king later on. Now, Prussia being Germany before Germany was Germany so this would be a reference
to Pierro based on the assumption that Khaenri’ah is at least in part Germanic but that is a topic for another video entirely. Now, coincidentally, Zandik also
called the human body a type of machine. This will become a running theme so remember it for later. Now, I did say there were three things that bothered me and I have only listed two, but listen. There are a lot of French in Fontaine references here which makes a third thing that falls into the French Fontaine basket all the more is suspicious. See, one of Dottore’s influences is "The Phantom of the Opera" and the trials of Fontaine are held in... an opera house. The original mask worn by the Phantom, whose real name is Eric covered half of the face
vertically to hide his disfigured features. This matches the type of mask the Dottore of the manga wore. You can easily argue that the manga version of Dottore was just redesigned for the game but I'd argue that the Dottore in the manga is supposed to be a younger version of Dottore proper; a segment made from one of his younger perspectives. While the in-game model for Dottore doesn't really resemble the Phantom anymore however, he did retain some elements in common with him. For example, while little is known about the Phantom's past what we do know is that
he traveled notably to Persia, France, and Russia. So, that would be Sumeru, Fontaine, and Snezhnaya. An unnamed Persian character from the book apparently saved the Phantom's life in Persia as well and that seems coincidental given that Khaenri’ah is located beneath Sumeru and that happens to be where Pierro is from. Also, in Travail, Fontaine bears
the title “Masquerade of the Guilty” and, lo and behold, "Phantom of the Opera" has a masquerade theme and one of the major plot points of the book involves a chandelier falling
and killing somebody on stage. It's a bit like how the water tank fell and killed Cowell on stage during the 4.0 Archon quest. Now, I know Dottore wasn't present so this argument doesn't really
hold very much water on the surface. But this is where two other unique details from “The Phantom of the Opera" start to come back into play. When Lyney goes to investigate
the Oratrice during the performance he hears a voice that calls out to him referencing him by name and that spooks him. And during one of the scenes in “The Phantom of the Opera” the opera calls out
the female lead, Christine, through a mirror which he then uses to lure her deep beneath the opera house and across an underground lake. Now, while we have no evidence of an underground lake beneath the Opera Epiclese there are some things
that suggest this could actually be the case. Firstly, the Fountain of Lucine predates the opera house as illustrated in one of the notes found in the Institute for Natural Philosophy. All wishes of the people
of Fontaine apparently accumulate here including the consciousnesses of the people who were dissolved by Primordial Water. Now, given that Furina is the name of the Goddess of Springs this fountain may be constructed over a natural spring drawing from an underground water source. And since the core of the Oratrice
is also located underground and also draws upon the thoughts of the Fontaine people the two may be directly connected
through an underground channel. I can make this assumption because between Acts 1 and 2 of the Archon quest you can actually stand
in the fountain and hear Furina crying. It could be that we're just hearing her through the water through some elemental attunement shenanigans but it's equally possible
that she's just under the fountain hiding. Now, in “The Phantom of the Opera“ the female lead, Christine, made a deal with the Phantom so that he would teach her music. Now, I think this mirrors a deal
that Furina could have made with Dottore. See, Christine wanted to be an even more skilled vocalist and Furina wanted to make the most perfect judgments. The Phantom granted this wish for Christine so Dottore could have granted that wish for Furina. Now, from what we've seen Furina doesn't have the highest self-esteem and doesn't handle high pressure situations all that well when she's at a disadvantage. She's mostly playacting the role
of someone who's really confident and proud, but she's really got the heart of a very scared child. She backs down from real fights and tries to bluff her way out of being wrong whenever she can and what confidence she does seems to have appears to stem from the fact that the Oratrice will always make the correct judgment. So, Furina can effectively
absolve herself of a lot of responsibility and thereby a lot of pressure. Hehe, water pressure. Uh, French jokes. But watch her closely
when Childe is falsely declared guilty. She doesn't look confused about why this machine that she supposedly created is acting up. She looks shocked and panicked like she doesn't know what's going on and I think that's because she didn't build it. Dottore probably did. And not only is the machine
is very Dottore-core─although, to be fair most of Fontaine steampunk tech is very Dottore-core─ but I think Dottore might have an even deeper connection to Fontaine
and the mysteries therein. Now, this next statement
is going to give you massive whiplash but I think Dottore, like Furina, might actually be an Oceanid. And yeah, that's gonna take a lot of explaining, so... let's see if I can break this down. As the 4.0 Archon quest illustrated Oceanids are a sort of collective consciousness: a being made up of a lot of smaller beings that gain a new, collective identity. They also have the potential
to separate into smaller beings something we get to witness first hand with Ann during the Narzissenkreuz Institute world quest. Now, based on what little we do know they're supposed to be elemental beings, or spirits but now we have proof that the minds of the people of Fontaine can merge together and form an Oceanid providing their bodies have been dissolved using the waters from the Primordial Sea. And the thing is, we've seen liquids that look just like this purple-ish,
blue-ish Primordial Sea water before in the form of the Sanctifying Essence which is a bottle of distilled ideals and memories that we use to level up Artifacts which are crystallized ideals and memories. By this logic, we can deduce that the Primordial Waters are also a form of distilled memories. Now, Oceanids function by
merging memories and identities together in order to form new ones, and it's very easy for them to become overcome or corrupted by vicious minds even if they're a little bit weaker than the greater mind. This was explained all the way back
in 1.4's "Wishful Drops" event. So, with that in mind what happens if you dump
a whole bottle of liquid memories onto one? Well, they'd probably fall apart. And this is what happens to the people of Fontaine. They lose their identity by being overwhelmed by the concentrated memory juice and then they fall apart coming together again
in the waters of Fontaine as a new being: an Oceanid. In fact, it is possible that Sinthe ─which is a diluted form of the Primordial Waters─ gets people high because it's diluted so people become overwhelmed momentarily
with a pure emotional rush. Just not one strong enough for them
to forget who they are and fall apart. Now, if you've done any of the world quests (which you should have, because of all my spoiler warnings at the beginning of this video.
This is your last chance to back out.) you've probably run into some notes and dialogues about a guy named Rene de Petrichor. He's about to become really, really important. Rene was a rather special child who was orphaned after the events of the siege of Poisson. He was taken in by the
newly formed Narzissenkreuz Institute along with several other children,
notably Alain, Mary-Ann, and Jakob. The Institute was an orphanage ran by an Oceanid director presumably named Lyris and a human military commander vice-director named Basil. An odd combination for sure,
but these kids were far from normal. While they were still young and at the Institute the Khaenri'ahn Cataclysm struck and the director left with her Oceanid sisters in order to help the Hydro Archon
Egeria deal with the disaster. Meanwhile, the vice-director Basil
left to fight the fell dragon Elynas who was likely a creation of Rhinedottir's, much like Durin. Without their leaders, the Institute disbanded and the kids were adopted by some appointed adults. Rene and Jakob, most notably, were adopted together by an adventurer named Karl who would take them onto expeditions into Sumeru. Once the Cataclysm was over, that is. And it was during one of
these expeditions that Rene realized that his and Jakob's bodies were not like normal human bodies and instead bore more similarity to that of the sacred lotus found in the Vourukasha Oasis. In other words, they were more closely related to the remains of the former Hydro Archon. Rene proved himself to be a child prodigy at this time performing complete analyses
on the ruined Khaenri'ahn technology and Azosite energy sources they found before he even lost all his baby teeth. It should be around this time too that he began studying abyssal energy as well claiming that it had higher authority over Teyvat than normal elemental energy as it could posses a will.
So, you know, like a form of sentience. Just for context, this is like an elementary schooler doing crazy particle physics
and nuclear fission reaction research. Like, it's- it's at that level. Anyway, during one of these expeditions Jakob fell ill due to malnutrition and in order to save him Rene attempted to use some kind of abyssal energy through some kind of process we don't know the details of. And this process only succeeded because of his and Jakob's unique non-human constitutions. This would be one of the first
early successes of his research. Now, the topic of this research happened to be saving the world from imminent disaster or at least, at the beginning it was saving Fontaine from imminent disaster because Fontaine
had experienced multiple floods in the past and Rene thought that there
was evidence that more floods were to come and he wanted to prevent them. Makes sense, right? This led him to discover that the world of Teyvat had been through multiple apocalyptic cycles and that the current cycle is the last one. There would be no new civilizations after this one. This is the prophecy made by his so-called "World Formula" and it's a conclusion that other civilizations, like Remuria seemed to have discovered as well. Rene's one goal in life after this was to ensure that humanity survived by any cost. Rene and Jakob would later establish a secret society named after the orphanage where they first met: the Narzissenkreuz Ordo. Its purpose would be to find a way
to thwart the inevitable apocalypse. Rene concluded, through his new research that only evolved humans,
or neo-humans, could survive such an apocalypse and began performing experiments with the dragon Elynas having Jakob consume its flesh as part of those experiments. This is what caused Jakob to gain the body of an abyssling and I think this is the first instance
of this happening to a human ─that we know of─in-game so far. But I want to point out that Consecrated Beasts were actually just normal humans
that then ate the flesh of gods and mutated in a very similar way. So, Jakob's condition
might not likely be an isolated incident. Rene was unable to repeat this success and ended up killing his friend
and research assistant, Carter in the process of trying to save him,
the same way he tried to save Jakob. This made him realize that his neo-human plan wouldn't work so he came up with a new plan: instead of making neo-humans,
he'd dissolve the people of Fontaine into one liquid mass using the Primordial Waters. By discarding their physical form they should be able to survive the apocalypse. Rene and Jakob tested this process on Rene first. Rene declares that "he would be reborn through water and that he will return and save the people of Fontaine" which is very fitting for him since his name, Rene comes from "Renatus," which means to be reborn and his last name, Petrichor, is the scent of rain so he's basically being reborn through water. Anyway, this experiment succeeded and although the aftermath is a little bit murky it seems like Rene managed to revive Carter in the process by absorbing his memory from within the Primordial Waters thus making Rene an Oceanid-like being that I'm gonna call Rene-Carter. Or, if you like making puns about historical figures maybe it's Rene de Carter like René Descartes. You know, like the French philosopher? You probably know this guy as the "I think, therefore I am" guy but he was actually a big proponent of the idea that the human body and mind are completely separate things from each other. He argued that the mind could exist without the body but the body could not exist without the mind. I don't know about you,
but that sounds a lot like a dissolved person casting off their physical shell and existing only as, like, a ball of liquid memories. Now, I would be remiss in this situation not to mention Rene's possible connection to the infamous philosopher by the name of René Guénon as Guénon's work seem to cover basically every important esoteric
reference found in Genshin so far including, but not limited to: the inverted world tree hermetic alchemy, and Freemasonry. But most relevant in this case is in his book "The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times" where he talks about the final dissolution wherein everything and everyone dissolves back into some kind of atomic dust at the end of a cosmic cycle. I am grossly oversimplifying
this philosophy again, out of necessity because philosophy is egregiously complicated. But even so, Guénon's ideas
do seem like a very solid foundation for Hoyo to base Rene's World Formula plans on, now doesn't it? But honestly, the scope
of this guy's work deserves a video by itself so we'll get to that eventually. So, Rene-Carter then figured out
that this whole dissolving process allowed for memories and skills of other people to be dissolved and absorbed by him and others in the Ordo much like how an Oceanid can absorb other Oceanids. They then managed to successfully
dissolve and absorb some people and realized that these people can basically be reduced to a liquid consciousness
and then implanted into robot bodies. They needed Alain's help for all of that, though because he was the mechanical genius of the lot. And Alain didn't want to because of reasons that are unimportant for right now. So, they went back to Rene's original plan of dissolving all of Fontaine into one gigantic Oceanid 'cause that's really what the plan is. They're just making one big collective consciousness. It's just like the Golden Slumber, you know what I mean? Like, there is a repeating pattern
that's showing up here, but I digress. It seems like they never actually
succeeded or finished this plan and instead died in a conflict
that took place inside of Elynas wherein the presumed remains of the Oceanid director Lyris sabotaged the whole thing and dissolved everyone present except for Jakob, in the process of her sabotage. Now, Rene-Carter swore to return
one day to save all of the humans and Mary-Ann, who you might know as Ann, the little baby Oceanid well, she turned into a little baby Oceanid. Alain, however, did survive. I'm not actually sure if he was actually present there or just found out about it later but he went on to found the Fontaine Research Institute and lose himself in his research on machines and mechanics, and energy methods. Now, I know you're all wondering how the hell this actually relates to Dottore and frankly, I was running entirely on vibes for a while. And then I realized that the connection is actually a little bit... obvious. Because this whole story just reeks of Evangelion. So, spoilers for a 25-year-old series, I guess. But here's the basic context
for this show that you need to understand to find out where I'm actually coming from. Basically, some super advanced space aliens created a method of seeding planets with two different types of creatures which we will just call humans and angels, for now. And only one type of creature was supposed to be present on any one planet at any one time but Earth got unlucky and got both types. So now, humans use giant robots to try and prevent angels from causing cataclysms and destroying everything. The worst of these cataclysms
were called the first and second impacts and the goal is ultimately to prevent a third. If you're a long-time HoYoverse fan this should sound kind of familiar. And if you've watched my complete Scaramouche analysis you may remember
that I compared him to the main character, Shinji. He's severely traumatized,
not that mentally or emotionally stable he's depressed, motherless and he has a horrible father figure in the form of Gendo who, you know, basically treats Shinji in the same way that Dottore treats Scaramouche. Shinji was also taken in by a person named Katsuragi and at some point, had to shut down
a reactor to save all sorts of people. And his giant Eva robot is also
powered with the soul of his mother. And, you know, like, the Gnosis is the heart of god that powers Shouki no Kami, right? The reason I bring this up is that Dottore is to Scaramouche is what Gendo was to Shinji,
a terrible father figure with a ton of power and a shady organization that is trying to save the world from an imminent apocalypse whose methods are incredibly unethical and very sketchy. Now, Gendo intended to save humanity by melting down the entire human race into a
bright orange, primordial liquid called LCL and no one really knows what this stands for, so don't ask me. The point here is that Gendo
and Rene happen to have the same goal: return the human to a magic liquid. Gendo's office also contains
a lot of kabbalistic symbolism in it and Evangelion is, in general, very heavily based on kabbalic practices, teachings, and symbolism. Very fitting, since Kabbalah's tree of life matches Rene's World Formula diagram. But I've already likened Gendo to Dottore and if Gendo is likened to Dottore,
but Gendo is also likened to Rene then Dottore should also be likened to Rene, right? And if we're going on full Eva, then I have to admit acknowledge that Zandik's notes also make
mention of how the desert golems lacked gyroscopes and they would therefore have needed humans to make modification to their vestibular system or be bound to the machine in order to pilot it. And that sounds a lot like an Eva plugsuit which Scaramouche later references
while inside the Shouki no Kami. And that was when I realized that... Dottore might be both Zandik and Rene. Remember how I mentioned that the Narzissenkreuz Ordo realized they could dissolve people, absorb them and then distill them back
into liquefied, individual consciousnesses that could pilot robot bodies? That sounds a lot like Dottore, and also Evangelion. This guy created robotic segments that he based on decades of research on Scaramouche's mechanical body. He then claims these are his perspectives from different stages of his life and that he made all of them independent individuals and every single one of them
has a vial of this blue liquid present. This sounds suspiciously like the Ordo's attempt at making liquid human robots. And Rene-Carter realized that he could absorb the memories and skills of other people, right? So, it's very possible that Dottore could do this as well. Imagine Zandik scouring books
and old research labs, stumbling upon Rene-Carter's research
and then using himself as a test subject. Imagine if he recreated their Oceanid-ification and then managed to find the consciousnesses of Rene-Carter and the Primordial Water and then absorbed them into himself. I mean, these guys have so much in common with the way that they think and their goals that they'd probably be quite compatible, right? And it would directly reference how Mettrie built upon the work of Descartes 'cause he kinda did. Mettrie believed that a human
functioned a lot like a machine and he often referenced
Descartes' idea of body-mind separatism and how the mind could exist separate from the body but the body could not exist separate from the mind. This is basically Zandik
building on the research of Rene-Carter. In that situation, Dottore's segments
from different points in his life could span multiple lifetimes and multiple people since he'd be this completely new identity altogether. Being an Oceanid of sorts means that he could be one person while still being many individuals. Plus, Dottore is Oceanid color,
and all human-shaped Oceanids are blue. And the mask that he wears
could be hiding some kind of robotic features or deformities, kind of like Phantom of the Opera-style because the Phantom actually wore a mask in order to hide his physical deformities. And it would also explain why the manga version of the Doctor has a mask that doesn't have any nose holes in it 'cause, like, if he's a robot, he doesn't
really need to breathe, you know? But all of these little details fit together so nicely that it's so implausible for me
to think that they're coincidental. And I'm sure there may even be more references that we're just not aware of yet because Dottore hasn't had a ton of on-screen time. If I'm right about these connections
between Zandik and Rene-Carter then, technically, Dottore should have the ability to absorb as many minds as he wants to. So, like, after deleting his segments as per Nahida's request he didn't seem all that fussed, right? He claimed he would just simply find some few perspectives. So, maybe he makes a habit of going around dissolving and absorbing other scientists
and people with interesting knowledge. So long as his mind is the dominant one he would reap infinite benefits from this and it would make him disgustingly powerful. I think that all of this will actually lead into some events in the Archon quest regarding the Oratrice. And if it happens to be this robotic machine with a liquid-based consciousness of its own... Well, that's not too far off from what Dottore is, now is it? Let's just say I think his involvement is pretty clear. And thus concludes the end of this Dottore theory that nobody saw coming, not even me. I had a whole another section here too about how this all connects
to Arlecchino, but I'm actually gonna put that in the Archon quest analysis video instead 'cause I think it fits better there. I will leave a link in the description for that if you're interested in figuring
out how this all connects together. But while the credits roll with all the names of my very, very patient channel members I have two fun facts to share with you. Or two fun observations. Take you pick. So, because Evangelion's LCL is orange a lot of fans call it Tang or Fanta, and... Fontaine has this stupid drink called Fonta because Fanta was apparently invented in France and with all of this talk about
people melting into a sentient liquid I don't think I've ever been so mad about a pun in my entire life. Also, the prophecy of Rene's World Formula shows a sky that shattered like it was glass. And this is very similar to the sky from Fischl's Golden Apple Archipelago event suggesting that Fischl's story ─not Amy's, but, like, actual, real Fischl─ might actually tell the story
of a previous apocalypse that happened. But it is worth pointing out that it was Dottore who told Nahida that the sky is a lie. Previously, this was knowledge
only Scaramouche, Pierro, Barbeloth and, to a lesser degree, Mona were aware of. And it makes sense that
the number two Harbinger knows this as well but it is interesting to see it line up with Rene's prophecy if Dottore is at all connected to Rene himself. So, anyway guys, that's it for me for today so I hope you're all enjoying Fontaine. I obviously am having a Baal here. [laughs] Thank you so much for watching. I'll be back very soon with even
more wild lore and theory findings because this lore of Fontaine is kinda nuts so take care of yourselves
and I'll catch you all in the next video.
