About "Drink your blood and tears" (artifact 7.0)
I think that, as a fandom, we haven't talked enough about Artifact 7.0... I know there was a lot of discussion about whether it was Dottore who poisoned the village, but I think we focused too much on that and forgot the rest, which is a gem for trying to understand what was going through Zandik's mind.
Honestly, when he starts by saying:
"Contrary to what others might have thought, Zandik understood humans very well. First, the typical human being has two hundred and six bones."
I burst out laughing. Of course, I thought, it was logical that he would start with the physical and clinical aspects. And then:
"Most use their brains to think and usually feel fear when startled or threatened."
I cracked up. Seriously, isn't this guy a comedian in his spare time? Those two sentences were enough for me to say out loud, "He doesn't understand humanity at all, or at least, if he does, it's in a very superficial and incomplete way." And on top of that, how audacious to talk about human emotions, but only mention fear, resentment, and instinct.
So I thought... aren't these the emotions that drove Zandik since childhood? I think fear, and resentment have been the foundation of his emotions, and perhaps the only ones he's ever known.
It's curious that he never mentions hate or love, the two most common emotions in humanity, so deeply intertwined. Perhaps he's never experienced either... despite everything that happened in Sumeru, he still respects his hometown, but he neither loves nor hates it; he resents it and longs for it. Maybe his inability to feel those emotions is what makes him feel different or incomplete, but anyway, I'm just rambling.
Perhaps he saw his homeland and himself reflected in that village, and that's why he looked at that child who seemed different, also driven by curiosity, because that's been the only thing that motivated him to ignore his fears and save himself. But that doesn't mean he overcame them. I think the original Zandik was full of fears, and he filled those voids and insecurities with research; it was the only thing that drove him and allowed him to keep going. Just like for many of us, our passion is what sometimes pulls us out of the pit we're in; he took it to the extreme and made it his identity, despite being aware of the harm he caused. Like the line in the description of his death video on Irminsul: "Leave me the fire of sin, or I shall be left with nothing."
And I keep thinking about that conversation with Pantalone, where Dottore accuses him of being afraid of dying miserably. I think he was projecting his fears because the original Zandik died that way, and he, of course, was going to prepare something magnificent so as not to end up the same way. This makes me think that Zandik's greatest fear was probably time, because in the end, it ran out for him and he couldn't control it (which coincides with Borbonaro's fear, hello Simulanka theory). Pantalone himself also mentions that Omega was running out of time, I suppose because of the whole Stuzha project. If he had carried out his experiments in the middle of the war against HP, it would have been detrimental to everyone. Here I want to point out how all of Dottore's actions ended up benefiting Fatui in one way or another (I watch them with suspicion).
Well, this is just my interpretation. I loved this artifact, despite the mystery surrounding his true actions in that village. This guy was unhinged and lost, far from improving, and he joined an organization that amplified everything that was already wrong. That's why I hope, I truly hope, that this dark side of Fatui will be revealed at some point, because the way Pierro responded, saying that as long as they brought the Gnosis, everyone was free to do whatever they wanted and that it didn't represent the organization, tore me apart. He washed his hands of it as if he hadn't taken advantage of a teenager going through a psychotic episode, giving him absolutely everything he needed to exploit him while watching him sink into his worst emotions. Ughh--- (I still love you, Pierro, but you're a jerk haha)
