u/Agreeable-Morning524

First of all, english is not my first language so sorry if there is any mistake.

Anyway, let's get to it.

I always knew Dottore was going to die. I held out hope that something would happen; a guy that clever must have an ace up his sleeve, even three if necessary! But deep down, I always knew his fate was to die because of the role he plays and the type of game this is.

So, with that said, no. My anger isn't because they killed off my favorite character like that.

I'm a writer. I have published novels, but this path is never easy; publishing houses are a world unto themselves... well, we're not here to talk about that, but, in short, I always aspire to improve, I always think that the stories I read are better than the ones I write, and their authors are better than me. Today, I don't think that. In the Lorecrafter community, people have BRILLIANT ideas. And among Dottore fans, we've seen things, analyzed things, found patterns that only he would notice. I always thought they were clues, but once the mission ended, my world came crashing down. Not because of the obvious. But because of how poorly written and absurd the mission was.

At first, I was enjoying it: they were bringing back things from Sumeru's deep lore, the situation was as dramatic as it needed to be (they're destroying the Irminsul, the thing we've waited years for, obviously it was going to be tense). But when they started saying things like, "No, now the Aaru will take over as Irminsul," and stuff like that... I started to see a real downer.

As a writer, this has been almost an insult to the art of writing and storytelling.

When you create a problem of this magnitude in a story, yes, you can conclude with the good guys winning, the power of friendship, and all that crap, I don't care, BUT. THERE HAVE TO BE CONSEQUENCES.

I expected to see Dottore burn the Irminsul HIMSELF. Break the chains of fate. As always, goals that could benefit humanity, but taken the wrong path.

And they go and leave it all as: no, Nahida used the Pyro Gnosis to burn the Irminsul, which could in itself cause a tremendous catastrophe, but nah! Better yet, they just transfer the Irminsul from one machine to another so Nahida stays fine, everything goes back to normal, and everyone's happy! Woohoo!

...

Let's take a simpler example.

In a superhero story, you create the greatest villain of all time in that universe, you push him to the limit to achieve his goal, and this entails great dangers for the "good guys." And then, you decide to eliminate him before he succeeds, BUT the heroes decide to do it for him without any real change.

A piece of advice I've received many times while writing (I write fantasy, and this kind of thing comes up a lot in books of this subgenre) is that a villain and their actions, a problem, however small, must have consequences; otherwise, it's as if nothing ever happened.

I feel like this mission was unnecessary after all. Dottore? They could have just said he died in Nod Krai. If you remove the fact that Dottore has fallen, the mission and the story are meaningless. Collei? You can put him in any other kind of mission.

I'm the first to enjoy a good happy ending for the heroes, the first to cry tears of joy when the storm subsides and the sun rises and the protagonists realize it's all over, that we've won. But only if it's done well. In The Lord of the Rings, we have a very good example of this: you don't suffer significant losses, hardly anyone dies, the journey is terrible and incredibly difficult, and often it's friendship that pushes you to keep going, but it's so well done that it doesn't feel forced. But in the end, when the villain has been defeated in an epic fashion and without any hero falling, there are real consequences. There are scars, there are memories, there are things to rebuild.

I wasn't asking for Dottore to be saved: they made it clear he was always dead. I was asking for a dignified end for him. That he be the one to break the Irminsul.

And this brings me to my next point.

Okay, Hoyoverse, we get it, Dottore is bad, very bad, terrible (you don't want to tell us why, but OK).

And the Heavenly Principles?

Celestia?

Because they spent the entire mission whitewashing Celestia: how they protect humanity, how, oh, Celestia modified the tree for the good of humanity, the appearance of the shadows, all super passive and good, warning Nahida how dangerous it was to destroy it?

And then they wonder why I like Dottore.

Thanks to Pantalone and that tremendous line he delivers (that thing about a god descending from heaven and being worshipped, but a human who acquires divine power is questioned and judged), I have faith that at least one neuron is still working in the Hoyo offices because it seems they've forgotten that Celestia has wiped out entire civilizations because someone revealed her shady dealings. Either that, or they don't read the lore.

I remember reading once that Nabu Malikata told Deshret that faith lay in humanity, that they should break the yoke, that his people (the angels) rebelled to break that yoke. Nahida, by "replanting" the Irminsul as she has done, has not broken that yoke. Everything remains tightly bound to fate, and therefore, to Celestia and HP.

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I don't know, I'm really angry about how they've decided to handle this story.

They had a great opportunity to steer the game's ending in the right direction, but they're cowards and don't want their story to be as dense, serious, and dark as it actually is. It's no wonder we get weird looks for playing "a loli game."