Pantalone, having just watched 35 admit that his time is up: :)

https://preview.redd.it/uqv4lz3w4dnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e975e713d149ff340ecf0f582a98fff290c8ceff

Seriously though, what's up with this? He took things seriously enough throughout the bulk of the conversation and then once 35 finally says that it's over, Pantalone breaks out that giddy little smile behind 35's back.

https://preview.redd.it/si2o7prr4dnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=258eca6dc4d0f4f5bf427095c2f8e71d53662317

https://preview.redd.it/asesv6d15dnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=7de33aa95d95caf09df8353830bb2e9b548fd370

https://preview.redd.it/bywhcr235dnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=922583d0ec5e3b401d7e53444bde7cb2663bc6e1

A little slip of the mask, perhaps? Looks like he's plotting something, hehe. Maybe his own Zandik revival plan that needed 35 dead and gone before it could proceed? Cause I don't doubt that the original Zandik was a true friend to Pantalone and the oldest two Segments would've been preferred companions among the lot once he was gone, but 35? That's the Zandik snapshot from a mere two years after they met, at a time when Feofan was a subordinate and Zandik would've treated him as such. Pantalone even hints at their less-than-rosy relationship during one of his chats with the Traveler in A Divergence Leading to Oneself:

>(‍Traveler‍): Just answer me one last question. Why do you continue to follow Dottore? He has conducted countless cruel experiments... even on his subordinates.

>???: "Follow" isn't quite the right word. Let's just say, even those you see as villains have their friends, even if they aren't the most sincere of friendships.

>???: When any set of rules is established, there will be those who benefit and those who lose out. People will do anything to justify what they have gained or escape from the hardship imposed upon them.

>???: Neither he nor I are tolerated by the rules of this world. We were both searching for a new order... Our ideas of the final form that should take may have differed, but our journeys took a shared path.

It's so very interesting, when you look at the dynamic and final conversations between 35 and Pantalone with the context that 35 would naturally tend to view Pantalone as a subordinate due to the age he's frozen at. And as if to play into that, Pantalone posed as one of Dottore's subordinates for 35's final hurrah rather than revealing his status as a Harbinger. The political reasoning behind his decision makes complete sense of course, but the cloak has so many Dottore-esque design elements that I wonder if it was the same one Feofan wore back in his 20s while he was working under Dottore.

https://preview.redd.it/h1h2t42hgdnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=182b43f14a86352175ae68f5731476870ba5789e

https://preview.redd.it/hd8lnc2hgdnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=13b6ddecdf1afcf6a68bae9ce193c65ee99c18bb

The cloak and the role being played are quietly reinforcing what Pantalone said about his friendship with 35. After all, how can there be a sincere friendship when one side is locked in a viewpoint that sees their "friend" as nothing more than a subordinate?

What an endlessly frustrating relationship that would be for someone who fought tooth and nail for his position as Pantalone did. All that hard work of gaining and maintaining the status of Harbinger and 35 still has the nerve to devalue it, coupled with a lovely "your life is in my hands" reminder for good measure.

>Regrator: Dottore, I've placed your final data backup into the Ley Lines as per our contract. I trust we are now square for the safe deposit fees you paid.

>Il Dottore: Is it not a little petty to split hairs like this, given our amicable relationship?

>Regrator: I consider sound bookkeeping a matter of principle.

>Il Dottore: Do not forget that you only live to see this day thanks to me. In fact, every day of your life since you met me, you've been living on borrowed time.

>Regrator: Why, that's hardly a fair assessment. I will concede that my survival was perhaps at your whim, but I became a Harbinger on my own merits.

>Regrator: Managing money is not like other professions. Mine is not a role I could have acquired based on your recommendation alone, and certainly not one I could have lasted so long in without genuine ability.

Another thing this little exchange reveals is that 35 is not shy about trying to put Pantalone "in his place" whenever Pantalone does something he doesn't like. Being too business-like about the current scheme? Well you're only alive right now because of ME and you'd better show more respect!

And this happens again just a few lines of dialogue later when Pantalone brushes one of 35's pain points.

>Regrator: Though I must say, your disdain for the other Segments is quite amusing. Zandik is you, and you are Zandik. Zandik created the Segments — yet you, a Segment yourself, reject him.

>Il Dottore: "I," that is, Zandik, created Segments of various ages in his later years. To achieve this, he had to freeze time and part with a portion of his soul.

>Il Dottore: But as constructive as it sounds, it erases my uniqueness. If each Segment is equally me, then by the same token, none of them are truly me.

>Il Dottore: A soul living forever in the past inevitably holds different views than he did in his later years. The same thing that completes me also restricts me.

>Il Dottore: You too might ask yourself, which stage of your life you want to be preserved at? The day your business failed? Or the day you were framed by a gang and sold off to a medical lab as a test subject?

>Regrator: ...We needn't dredge up the past.

Oh you're gonna remind me I'm not the "real" Dottore? How about I bring up one of the most painful and traumatizing events of your life and not even get the details right because I either don't care enough to properly remember what happened or you never trusted me enough to tell me the truth. Also notable that Pantalone doesn't tell Dottore about his full past until after he's become a Harbinger, which means those are memories 35 isn't directly privy to. Cause you just know 35 would be using the whole "sold by your mother" trauma against Pantalone if given the chance.

The regular instances of disrespect aren't something I'd expect a man like Pantalone to take lying down, but he endures and holds his own in their little dance of words. He's biding his time, needling 35 where possible, and waiting for the inevitable end to play out.

>Regrator: Clearly, the dividing of your soul did not affect the magnitude of your ego. Out of all the versions of you that have ever existed, this "you" is the most insane, and the most radical.

>Il Dottore: Is that why you chose to work with me? Which was it then... my insanity? Or my radicalism?

>Regrator: Could I call myself a venture capitalist without a suitably ambitious plan to invest in? Yours happened to fit the bill quite perfectly.

>Il Dottore: Well then, I must say... while I am surprised enough that you showed up at all, what surprises me more is that you chose to present yourself as my former subordinate and not as the banker, Pantalone.

So 35 knows that playing a subordinate role would likely injure Pantalone's pride, yet he was perfectly comfortable with insulting the man's hard work and status earlier. Another interesting thing of note, is that this is the only time 35 uses Feofan's title in their non-flashback conversations in this quest, and it's not even to address him directly but to comment on the fact that he chose to "bow his head" to 35 and play the role of subordinate.

>Regrator: Why make things harder than they need to be? Exposing my true identity in a situation like this would only serve to destroy diplomatic relations between Snezhnaya and Sumeru. I daren't imagine the consequences.

>Regrator: Showing up in the name of the original antagonist gives you the recognition you rightly deserve, while also being sensitive to Snezhnaya's predicament. It was an easy win.

>Regrator: As for why I'm here... If you're suggesting that your credit is in the negative, I won't argue with that. Many people say that about you.

>Il Dottore: I'd argue that a significant factor in your willingness to cooperate is the fact that you have but a few years of life left after my death. Living and dying together has a way of binding two parties together rather closely.

>Il Dottore: Is it not true that a relationship should be judged by both the positive and negative returns it yields?

>Regrator: Haha, so some of what I said actually made it into your head after all. It's true that I hope you don't die too soon... but don't you find that a strange thing for me to say? After all, you've already had quite a long life.

>Regrator: ...Especially for a human being.

There's the "your life is in my hands" bit again. 35 really loves to fall back on that when Pantalone says something that displeases him, or when he needs to take back control of the conversation. It sounds like 35 was counting on Pantalone's dependence on the Elixir in order to string him along, perhaps with the expectation that 35 would give him the recipe before the end. But Pantalone never begs for it, nor does 35 ever offer it to him. Pantalone's hard-won pride and 35's stubborn selfishness remain intact on that front.

This one is funny because 35 walks into the pain point himself, Pantalone follows along, and then during the bitter silence from 35 Pantalone decides to shove the conversation onward rather than wait for him to get nasty again:

>Regrator: It's rare to hear you admit to being unable to achieve something.

>Il Dottore: I beg to differ. For instance, as I've told you before, the original "me" was prone to motion sickness and couldn't make long train rides.

>Regrator: Ah yes, of course. One of the reasons you often sent "yourself" out on errands.

>Il Dottore: ...

>Regrator: What are you thinking about now?

>Il Dottore: A new experiment.

Must be great having to walk on eggshells when talking about a fundamental aspect of the guy you're supposed to be friends with. /s

Also shout-out to that time 35 thought of Pantalone as a useless vanity object in the Anomalous Tree Marrow:

>That Pulcinella, who usually has so much to say about keeping secrets, remained uncharacteristically silent today. Pantalone, too, offered no objection, content to serve as little more than a decorative vase at the proceedings. While the other Harbingers were not in attendance, they will hear of this soon enough.

Ah yes, how deserved after Pantalone committed the terrible offense of... *checks notes* not showing enough excitement when 35 brought back two Gnoses. Because Pantalone was having to mourn his friend all over again thanks to 35 deleting all the other segments.

Which isn't a surprising reaction from 35, given his insensitive joke about Pantalone's grief following the original Zandik's death:

>EXPERIMENT
Sex: Male
Age: 72
Test Drug: Trial Version 5
Route of Administration: Oral ingestion
Reaction: Vital signs are stable. No short-term side effects observed.
Observation Period: 5 years.
Experiment Results: Tissue aging has paused and cerebral neural imaging has stabilized while brain age has ceased to increase. Physical age of subject is estimated to be 45 years.
Objectives for Next Phase: The research and development of drugs for antidepressant pharmacotherapy.
Of course not, that was just a joke. Because fighting time requires a stronger mind?
The clinical data obtained from the autopsy of Zandik has been utilized to its full extent. Assessment suggests that any subsequent iterations are unlikely to yield breakthrough progress.
Any maintenance of observed effects is contingent on the subject's adherence to a scheduled drug regimen. The current report is hereby concluded.
Investigator: 35

35 could've just kept his mouth shut or taken the out offered by Pantalone's question, but he just had to do his little jab at Pantalone grieving over that useless old flesh body's passing instead, because what reason does Pantalone have to be sad when the Elixir was improved and he still has six other Dottores in his life? He should be more grateful and stop ruining the mood like this! /s

And while yes, 35 is literally incapable of changing as a person, that doesn't mean Pantalone has to like him or enjoy being around him. Not the most sincere of friendships indeed, and the sentiment isn't one-sided in the end. That lack of sincerity very likely goes both ways, if Pantalone's banker-speak optimism about his future and that giddy little smile are any indication. Why help 35 see himself out? Because Pantalone already had contingencies in place, there was the contract to fulfill, and he needed 35 out of the way for whatever he planned to do next. Playing the role 35 expected of him while quietly taking advantage of the blind spot it provides is a level of cunning I fully expect from Pantalone. It also seems like a fitting way to close this chapter of his life by taking up the subordinate role and playing along with 35's schemes one last time before putting that identity to bed permanently.

How appropriate it is that Pantalone's subordinate role should die with 35, since Pantalone is likely going to take the lead for whatever happens to Zandik next. He probably has something in the works already, given his lack of worry over the future. And so 35 is removed from the stage, leaving Pantalone to take the spotlight in due time.

And while Pantalone treats the events seriously enough in their final conversation, he doesn't seem very sad about the way things ended.

>Regrator: ...What a magnificent fire.

>Regrator: In Snezhnaya, we light fires to ward off the cold. Fire, it seems, is antithetical to ideas such as cold, frozen, and unchanging.

>The Doctor: Perhaps it has always been that way. From the beginning, fire has been used to drive away wild beasts and warm the body and mind... You could say it's a form of treatment. One that cures the human heart of mortal fear.

>Regrator: Mortal fear... Haha, something you haven't been acquainted with in a long time, by the sounds of it.

>The Doctor: Whereas you, I'm sure, must know the feeling quite well indeed. I remember when we first discussed the elixir of immortality, you claimed that extending your lifespan was about buying more time. But was that really the truth?

>The Doctor: You fear the prospect of dying a wretched end in this world, don't you

>Regrator: Of course I do. I'm only human, after all.

>Regrator: And while you may have forgotten it, you cannot deny that you, too, were once human, Dottore. I do not believe that there is no such fear in your heart.

>The Doctor: Perhaps you're right. But I abandoned it long ago and devoted myself to my experiments. I have felt no fear since.

Definitely not the level of grief that would've gotten 35 to muse about developing antidepressants. It's also interesting how Pantalone admits that he does fear dying a wretched death, yet when 35 again brings up the fact that Pantalone's time will run out after he dies(again) as if trying to wring some bit of regret out of his comrade, Pantalone is optimistic about his chances, and even contradicts his earlier statement about fear of dying a wretched death.

>Regrator: I'm afraid your journey ends here.

>The Doctor: After I die, there will be no one to make the elixir of immortality, and your remaining stock will only last a few more years. How then will you prove that you didn't perish in this incident alongside everyone else?

>Regrator: When I feel optimistic about market environments, I never forcibly adjust them — they have their own direction. And I myself am one such environment.

>Regrator: I have been quite particular about many things in my life. But where the manner of my death is concerned, I choose not to be.

>The Doctor: You make yourself sound so magnanimous.

>Regrator: Oh, but I am, and I hope you will be too. It may have been a long time since anyone told you this, Dottore, but I recognize that you are a truly rare talent.

>The Doctor: ...Hah.

Pantalone feels no need to alter course, his future is looking just fine, and he's not going to be choosy about his death. I do wonder if the banker-speak went over 35's head a little, either due to lack of interest in such affairs or because his consciousness is on its last legs. There's a bit of tiredness creeping into his voice. And it must be such a bitter feeling to have watched Pantalone mourn for the original Zandik, only to receive undeniable proof that Pantalone will never feel such sorrow over losing 35.

In fact, with how frequently Pantalone brought up Zandik and the fact that 35 was but one of multiple "selves", it's easy to see that prodding as deliberate. Like he's trying to get 35 to finally admit "defeat", which reminds me of what he said in the flashback cutscene:

>Pantalone: What does all that have to do with you depositing your data at Northland Bank?

>Dottore: It has made me cherish my time in this world all the more

>Pantalone: Fair enough. So you do have a sense of self-preservation

>(He slides the final page of the loose-leaf contract over the others on the table, and Dottore signs the bottom)

>Dottore: What do you mean?

>(Having picked up the contract pages from the table, Pantalone gets up and goes to look out the window)

>Pantalone: You're hardly normal, and you don't cherish life

>Pantalone: You just don't want to admit defeat in the limited time you have

>Dottore: Even so, don't I deserve an interesting ending?

>Pantalone: Hehe, I'm counting on it...

>Dottore: If nothing else, I expect my funeral will be a grand affair indeed

"You just don't want to admit defeat in the limited time you have," indeed. 35 sees accepting that he is a part of Zandik as admitting defeat, even though his return to the whole is inevitable at this point. Pantalone gave 35 so many chances to stop rejecting Zandik, to make peace with returning to the whole, but 35 just couldn't do it, even at the very end. It almost feels like Pantalone is doing a bit of psychopomping on the side by trying to help a lost soul make peace with death, which matches the reaper aesthetic of his hooded cloak.

https://preview.redd.it/lmss8bcu9enh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ec3ae53c289e36ae5ab87e8d846a105b8977bcb

https://preview.redd.it/ngr7s1c0aenh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d267bbece748845e9f33441fb9e851b537a91605

https://preview.redd.it/x5u4p5y1aenh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=fac22e021daa0c629486bbae88636945baac272f

And after 35 finally admits that the experiment is over, Pantalone does his little smile where 35 can't see him and gives him one last chance to make peace with his return.

https://preview.redd.it/pcb4rrxbaenh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=53fb656bd38e5baeeacb303efb1ad4558dcaa873

https://preview.redd.it/mzamokunaenh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c39d4cd994281aae41a8b67f4afda38a0e50dba

Which 35, of course, still refuses to do himself. Using Feofan's real name in his farewell could be an invitation to call him Zandik... except that's the name he would've called subordinate-Feofan by, and could be just another little insult to Pantalone's pride from 35 instead. Given that Pantalone wasn't showing the appropriate amount of sadness about 35's imminent passing, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see that as a final bit of disrespect before the end.

And to that, Pantalone answers with the worst thing you could call 35, once 35 has disappeared and can no longer hear him.

https://preview.redd.it/i874505e0fnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=92a0d57909466d96279cd4822871e57e30b6a1e9

Perhaps seeing 35's resistance all the way to the end was more than a little disappointing, that final lingering piece of his friend who could never accept himself. 35 betrayed himself six times over, was fully intent on sticking around forever if given the chance, and was only stopped when all other options were taken away from him. And Pantalone played along, fulfilling his contractual obligations and seeing everything through to the end. He looks tired and numb to me in that final shot, and given how the tiredness seems to have carried over to his performance at the Veche, it's clear that this whole ordeal took a lot out of him. Field work paired with an emotionally-strenuous client.

Another facet to all of this, is the part 35 may have played in the original Zandik's death, and the possibility that Feofan never got the full truth about what happened. Not only does 35 portray himself as a key antagonist in Zandik's demise during the flashback cutscene, we also see this section in the Anomalous Tree Marrow:

>The deficit in live specimen data in this phase of the new drug trial has been substantial.
I suppose a shift in experimental focus is necessary, even if it requires the task of persuading myself to comply.
The lifespan of humans is far too fleeting, and their physical vessels altogether too fragile. Fantasies of immortality are so common merely because people remain pathetically trapped by their own limitations.

Which implies that, whether through words or force, the original Zandik was sacrificed for the Elixir's development. Something that Pantalone may have never gotten a clear answer about. Or what happened to the body afterward, for that matter. Did they even hold a funeral? Did the segments allow Pantalone to have any kind of closure after his friend died? Or did they store the body away somewhere, perfectly preserved with the power of Cryo in case they needed it for future research, and Pantalone just never saw it again?

Maybe Pantalone asking about "the part where you died" was him yet again fishing for the truth about what happened to Zandik, only to have 35 give him a sugarcoated fairytale that was then followed up by a grim and gruesome retelling when Pantalone questioned the first version. He got the runaround yet again, rather than closure for his lingering grief. If this is the case then it was yet another emotional burden for Pantalone to carry around during 35's finale, and his repeated mentions of Zandik make even more sense. He hasn't forgotten Zandik, and he's making sure 35 can't get away from him either, even to the very end.

And once all is said and done, Pantalone gets to go home and deal with the migraine-inducing politics produced by Project Stuzha on top of the gang-related chaos Vasiliy stirred up when he took over the Izmaylovs, all while managing his typical workload as a Harbinger and working on whatever scheme he needed 35 gone to move forward on. Someone please give this man an actual vacation, even a smidge of respite will do! Or a trustworthy conspirator to share the workload, anything to keep him from collapsing at his desk from overwork again.

Phew, this kinda. Spiraled in length. idk the smile is just so out of place, and then the realization that Feofan would've been a subordinate to Dottore in 35's snapshot, how that lines up with his disguise in the AQ, and the yap just flowed from there lol.

https://preview.redd.it/czs412a5jfnh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5ec798190e16fda02408589550766293ec0a5a8

So behold once more, the smile that launched this really long yap! 🤣

EDIT: Also just for clarity, this post isn't at all meant to attack the Feofan x Zandik ship. I like that ship ffs, it's one of my favs in Genshin. 😭 This is a ship-neutral post, just because Feofan has issues with 35 specifically doesn't mean he dislikes Zandik as a whole.

I just thought it was cute and wanted to point it out. Kinda sad that they made his lapel pin less obviously heart-shaped vs what it looked like in Lazzo, tho. :(

https://preview.redd.it/fulqr98qq6nh1.png?width=948&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d236047b39144f4dd18d9be95a0c3fdda5537e7

The way it's so clearly a heart shape with the rounded top in Lazzo and it's even on the left side of his chest, but then you get to his in-game design and--

https://preview.redd.it/yh8uh00wq6nh1.png?width=577&format=png&auto=webp&s=b73a77c5ee4cb0e4b8dc46ed1bebe51eacfa7a66

The heart shape is still there but it's way less obvious than before. Maybe they were trying to make the heart shape more subtle for some reason? 🤔

https://preview.redd.it/84vdb2r7r6nh1.png?width=832&format=png&auto=webp&s=5bbe565a5163d742966279b3a02af6f36d705b96

The one just below his collar is still intact tho! 💜

Gotta say, interesting choice to put hearts on the guy whose name means "Manifestation of God" in the God of Love's nation. 👀 (The Archons hold that position and the Cryo Sovereign likely did as well.)

Ever since I finished the World Quest in Flamefeather Valley, I've been wondering if Pantalone's birthplace may have become Okurov at some point after he left. Some points of similarity have stuck in my mind and just refused to budge, and thanks to how murky Genshin's timeline is it's hard to rule it out. So I'd like to share them with you all and see what you think.

To start, a basic overview of similarities:

Pantalone's Birthplace	Okurov
Isolation	Noted as being "enclosed in its own shell" by ice and snow
Birch Trees	A birch forest surrounds the path to the outside world
Religious Zealotry	Fatui were called "apostates" and had water dumped over them to cleanse them. Feofan's name, meaning "manifestation of god", is religious in nature. The violent abuse Feofan suffered for "disobedience" is in line with those used by cults

As Zandik noted about the village in Chalice of Your Blood and Sorrow:

>Ice and snow sealed away all outside interference, forming a world within a world, each enclosed in its own shell. Human behavior remained primitive, while history itself had ground to a halt.

https://preview.redd.it/sgdlidnl7tkh1.png?width=1012&format=png&auto=webp&s=349c8cf9bed69c20b8a21c8fa31d74f341a555b9

Flamefeather Valley is a match in that respect, it literally sits within an ice wall eggshell and it's easily cut off from the outside world if you remove the train tracks. (I'm unsure of when the train tracks were laid, it's possible that Koshchei, under his alias Dr. Moreau, played some part in getting the town connected to the rail network while he was actively carrying out his experiments and growing the ranks of his creepy cult.)

>This place should have given rise to even more possibilities. And when Zandik spoke of humanity's possibilities, he by no means intended the word as praise.

Koshchei did take advantage of Flamefeather Valley's isolation to steer its residents down a new possibility for evolution... And he would need an especially remote place to carry out his experiments too since they involved the banned practice of bio-alchemy.

Another clue about the landscape comes from the Chalice again:

>This child must be very curious to venture out on a night cold enough to freeze a person to death just to watch him conduct his experiment. If he had been a little more curious and ventured a little farther, beyond the birch forest, perhaps he could have gone on to live a much better life.

Regrettably the trees of Flamefeather Valley have been altered by the alchemical experiments Koshchei was running there, so it's hard to say what the trees there looked like before the change in climate and... other things.

https://preview.redd.it/v9rqox2k7tkh1.png?width=1689&format=png&auto=webp&s=be789928f399440024b478219f39357895af7231

But, we do find white birch trees just southeast of Flamefeather Valley, in the type of climate it would've had on its margins before the change.

https://preview.redd.it/g0f46odg7tkh1.png?width=1306&format=png&auto=webp&s=847e38b5020c5333fc60306734e0459fdcaec7d3

https://preview.redd.it/7uzopush7tkh1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=875fec907fbe4dbc626e5246ebf6dd83f9d3ae76

So that's another possible connection between Okurov and Pantalone's birthplace.

EDIT: On top of that, the only two places you can find white birch on the current map is next to Flamefeather Valley and in Morepesok. So unless more birch trees get added in a new map expansion, the only place Pantalone's birthplace can be is in the northwest portion of the current Snezhnaya map.

On top of the location similarities, there's the cult/religious zealot aspect. It's very hard to miss the fact that Koshchei had a literal cult going to support his patient acquisition and control of the valley's residents. The way Nastya talks about her home community is just. *shudders* Peak cult. They even have a church with a secret passage leading to Koshchei's final lab!

>"Those people never even heard of Her Majesty the Tsaritsa. They thought it's still the age of the Belyi Tsar. At first, they called us lackeys of the fae and four-eyed monsters. They threw water over us, claiming they would wash away our sins of apostasy and our false faith..."

Could Koshchei have first planted the seeds for his creepy little cult after Zandik visited and before this squad of Fatui arrived? And given how extensively his alchemy changed the landscape of Flamefeather Valley, would it be surprising if those early experiments had mind-altering effects? He even carried them out in the sewer/water system of Okurov which he built before the climate shifted.

From the Sewer Entrance/Exit Guide, which seems to be written by him:

>Okurov lies nestled within a valley, with a low-lying basin floor... Under the influence of ▉▉▉▉, temperatures may rise and snowmelt may occur. If drainage within the valley proves insufficient, accumulated water could lead to severe flooding...

>Thus, an underground channel system was constructed. First, for drainage. Second, for ▉▉▉▉... From this, the tender sprout of ▉▉▉▉ began to emerge. I have begun to discern the correct path forward...

>For me, who may one day return to this place... When the floodwaters of melted snow become nourishment for life... when useless memories fade into indistinct echoes of the past... when I make my way to ▉▉▉▉ one day...

His first success was modifying Furiosa's body down in the sewers. And given that he was likely using Eitr to do so, it could've contaminated the town's water supply.

https://preview.redd.it/ijzc7rie7tkh1.png?width=1318&format=png&auto=webp&s=faaa12af79de20545cc35483030f45f7814c21ca

And as for why I think Eitr could be a dangerous contaminant: for one, "eitr" is an Old Norse term for venom, and for another it contains some sort of flesh within it and is mutagenic.

>Pavlina: Thanks to their sacrifice, Koshchei and I were able to make clear...

>Pavlina: Just what the "Eitr"(Embryonic-Ichoric-Telluric-Rudiment) you brought back from the Shadow Realm... from the ruins of Hyperborea, truly is...

>???: And your conclusion?

>Pavlina: It is the remnant of some forbidden experiments conducted during the age of Hyperborea... It possesses unimaginable power, and its composition is complex...

>Pavlina: Within it is not only some peculiar... flesh, but also the power of the Light Realm that has been modified to specialize in acts of creation, as well as...

>Pavlina: In short, it possesses unimaginable power. It comes into contact with life, and alters it...

>Pavlina: Then, these life-forms will gradually shift toward a certain tendency, ultimately converging into a single pattern.

>Pavlina: ...

>???: What kind of pattern?

>Pavlina: ...Forgive my over reaching, but the way power flows within these altered life-forms is remarkably similar to yours... Of course, they could never reach the heights you have.

>Pavlina: For an artificial race like the fae, this is not a power that can be fully contained by a body that has only been somewhat modified.

So imagine what could happen if even a little of this stuff got into the local water supply and people started ingesting it. Even fae can't fully withstand it without significant modification to their bodies, who knows what accidental exposure could do to a human.

Something that's also been bothering me a bit, is the fact that the Fatui squad was able to access the same water supply as the villagers at all... From Time Gifted Unto You:

>Capitano read the report. It consisted of accounts recorded after the survivors regained consciousness, followed by several notes Dottore had added after examining them. The locals had long been suffering from a virus-induced form of mass hysteria brought on by cannibalism. That, at least, was how Dottore had summarized it. The soldiers sent to suppress the unrest developed the same symptoms after coming into contact with the contaminated water. Their infections were less severe, however, and they could still be saved.

They lost consciousness soon after the squad leader tried to reason with the villagers, which looks like it was part of their first contact, so when did the squad drink from the village water supply? Could the valley's permafrost have already begun to melt by then, which made it far easier for contaminants to enter ground water and infect any streams found there?

Unless... contact with the contaminant was because of this?

>"...They threw water over us, claiming they would wash away our sins of apostasy and our false faith..."

Which means it was able to infect them through their skin after the contaminated water soaked through their clothes. And speaking of soaked clothes, wouldn't that be deadly in a place as cold as Snezhnaya? Could that mean that the valley, while still being incredibly difficult to access from the outside world, had already experienced a shift in climate?

Dottore said the illness was a "virus-induced form of mass hysteria brought on by cannibalism" and was able to cure it, but would he even know what he was looking at if faced with patients suffering from Eitr contamination? What would dumping mutagenic alchemy juice on someone look like on a physiological level? 🤔 Like a weird virus maybe?

It's also possible that the squad lost consciousness because Zhara had been created by this point and attacked them. She's certainly capable of ripping limbs off of people and it's her job to deal with outsiders.

Okurov also has a method of body disposal that could make one assume cannibalism at a glance:

>Nastya: Oh? They're burning the Badbugs! The Badbugs among the new friends, and the old friends who have turned into Badbugs too... They all have to be burned up!

>Nastya: "Once reduced to ash, the Badbugs will nourish the soil, while it is from that same earth that new family will grow." That's how the bad can become good all over again!

And well, those bodies are feeding the village in the end...

To align with the violence seen in Koshchei's firebird cult, the level of abuse used to control Feofan as a child is also typical cult behavior. From Testament to Your Faith(an ironic name if Feofan ends up being a cult survivor):

>His birthplace sought to tame those who refused to comply through violence and confinement, while his friend's homeland chose exile instead.

We also get confirmation that Feofan's path out of the village didn't start until he stopped revering the gods:

>That woman finally found the chance to rid herself of the disobedient freak, but in doing so, she also gave him the chance to escape that frozen wasteland, a place even wild beasts wanted nothing to do with. From the makeshift life of his "foster father," he learned money could be made to multiply. The nobles in league with the criminal underworld lured him into a trap with the illusion of profit, but at the bottom of that trap lay a path to powers greater than the nobility themselves.
And since every one of these bizarre turns of fortune came only after he stopped praying to the heavens, he began to question the established rules of this world all the more. It was only after he abandoned his reverence for the gods and cast his lot with the world's outcasts that he became eligible to be recruited by those very gods.

Koshchei needing funds and resources to build the sewers also creates reason for the debt collectors to even bother going so far out of the way to reach Okurov at all. The fact that loans were even given out to such a remote village seemed strange to me, since it seemed to be more trouble than it would ever be worth. But if Koshchei wanted to put Okurov on the map to grow his cult and acquire more test subjects, then the loans make sense due to the promise of future returns. Feofan being sold to pay off the village debt would benefit the cult twofold by removing a dissident and improving their financial standing.

Another line that caught my eye is this one from the same piece. It made me wonder if little Feofan did end up going beyond the birch forest after meeting Zandik:

>You must shatter the shackles of a decaying world and struggle onward, through forests and cold wind, before you can hope to glimpse the rooftops of a warmer world from afar.
But that is not the end. This seemingly warm world is no home of yours, either. If you have no value and can do nothing but beg for compassion never meant for you, nothing will change.

But nothing good immediately came of it because he was still at the mercy of the adults in his life due to his young age. Going where he wasn't supposed to and then telling others about what he'd learned could have made him more of a pariah in the community, and provided further motivation for his mother eventually selling him to pay of the village debt.

There's also the weird time discrepancies we see while investigating Okurov, which are caused by the presence of the Shadow Realm. It's possible that the village seemed frozen in a past era due to the Shadow Realm already having influence in the area before Koshchei even arrived, but I'm not sure. Something to keep in mind I suppose.

Now that we have some connections between Okarov and Pantalone's birthplace, here's my proposed timeline for how things unfolded:

20-something Zandik visits the village for the first time, traveling through the birch forest to get there. He shares food with Feofan's mother(the black-haired woman who appears older than she actually is due to a hard life) on the second night. Young Feofan approaches Zandik at some point during the experiments, and Dottore tests him by tossing the "four-eyed monster" water bottle at him. Feofan is startled and Dottore loses interest, but it's possible that Feofan returned several times afterward to ask questions once he got over his temporary fright.

Either way, the encounter with Zandik worsens Feofan's "disobedience" and he stops revering the gods.

Koshchei redirects the villagers' pre-existing religious fervor into his firebird cult and takes out loans so he can upgrade village infrastructure(sewer to prevent flooding during the future microclimate shift). At some point Feofan crosses the birch forest to "glimpse the rooftops of a warmer world from afar", then returns to the village, either keeping quiet about what he'd done or getting punished for doing it. The adults seek out the source of his loss of faith and find out about the outsider with the "four-eyed monster" on his water bottle, saddling everyone carrying the same symbol with the "apostate" label.

The debt collectors come calling and Feofan is sold to them. His mother did this either because she just wanted him gone or because the cult would've killed him otherwise, so she felt there was no other option. This saves Feofan from being experimented on by Koshchei and furthers him along the path to becoming a Harbinger in the future.

Decades pass, Koshchei has solidified his hold on Okurov via the firebird cult and creates Zhara. The disturbance that the Fatui squad is sent out to deal with is caused either by typical cult nonsense or by Zhara attacking outsiders. The villagers connect the Fatui squad with the guy who turned one of their children toward apostasy and dump Eitr-contaminated water on them, after which Zhara attacks them and they're dragged away to be burned. The survivors are extracted somehow, which would've been a difficult task, and Dottore has to step in to cure their Eitr contamination once they're brought back to HQ. He combines the survivors' reports with his own findings on their conditions and the location of the incident to reach his conclusions on the cause and the affliction.

Whether the village was cracked down on or not is unknown, but Koshchei would've realized that he had to play nice with the new government, at least for a time. Okurov expands its ranks for a while before being cut off from the world once again when its train tunnels collapse.

It's possible that Feofan sent Dottore back to his birthplace to get revenge on the people there, but the negativity of that idea runs counter to the exchange mentioned just before it:

>Besides, her creations have taken on the burden of all that tedious reception work. Though he cannot appear too willing, Pantalone has nevertheless ceded to Sandrone the share that is rightfully hers, and done so in complete sincerity. It is only fair exchange, a principle he fully approves.

Pantalone is giving Sandrone the payment she is duly owed for her hard work. Dottore also did a service to Feofan by tipping over the dominoes that would lead to Feofan escaping the cult and eventually becoming a Harbinger. The first 20 years of his life contained only fleeting happiness, and what happened when he was 20? He met Dottore(by being sold to him RIP) and ended up joining the Fatui as well as entering into a long-lasting partnership with him. Dottore might not even be aware that Feofan was the kid he met in that village, but it adds even more layers to their complicated relationship.

I think that's it. Sadly Reddit ate a big chunk of the first version when I tried to post it, so I don't know if I missed anything or not. 😭 idk, it just keeps bothering me, the similarities and the way things fit together. What do you guys think? Could Okurov be Feofan's birthplace? Are there other suspicious things you've noticed that could connect the two?

Another interesting thing, given the dragon motifs on Pantalone's outfit, is that the valley looks like a giant ice egg in the top-down view of the map. But from a distance?

https://preview.redd.it/g6cuofrb7tkh1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=3be3e26e5b37485bba1fe65b7cab86cb9bc08688

It looks like the bones of a giant dragon.

Something I realized today is how weird it is that the character inside the Eye of Graeae is just, gone already. The Little One was by our side throughout all of Natlan, and the Narzissenkreuz characters didn't get their conclusions until near the end of Fontaine's patch cycle. It feels weird that we only just met the Primordial Human but he's gone already. That would be like the Little One's story wrapping up in the first patch of Natlan!

And that made me wonder if the writers might be vacating the Eye of Graeae so quickly because they have plans for putting another consciousness inside. A quote from Paimon at the end of the questline really caught my eye:

>Paimon: Oof, finally! We've finally made it out of that Shadow Realm!

>Paimon: Hang on, Paimon doesn't see Goggles or Aksinya... and the Belyi Tsar's body is missing, too. Where have they gone to?

>I don't think we'll ever see them again...

>Paimon: Huh. Do you think it's possible that Goggles might actually be hiding inside that mechanism Aksinya gave you?

>Paimon: You know how it's like in those shows? They make you think that someone's vanished forever, and then, POOF! They pop up right in front of you again.

>Paimon: How about you let Paimon take a look?

>And so, Paimon makes several attempts at "cracking" the mechanism.
But the only voice that answers is a cold, lifeless one.
This is how the two of you learn that while "Goggles" has retained some of its abilities, it really is nothing more than, well, a pair of goggles at this point.

>Paimon: He's... really fallen into that deep, deep hole...

"You know how it's like in those shows? They make you think that someone's vanished forever, and then, POOF! They pop up right in front of you again." Who does that sound like? Hmmmm! Who said goodbye several times while the writers left multiple doors wide open for his return? 🤔 I think we all know who I'm talking about lol.

The idea of Zandik ending up in the Eye of Graeae until he can get a proper body is just so funny to me. Getting to watch him bounce off of the main duo would be so much fun. Imagine him being forced to play the straightman role to the Traveler and Paimon's gremlin antics! 🤣

>"So you both know this is a trap, right? It's so blatantly obvious!"

>"Yeah but. Treasure..."

>"Is treasure really worth your dignity? Imagine falling for a trap so obvious--"

>Paimon opens the treasure chest and springs the trap on them.

>"..............................."

And there are multiple possibilities for how he ends up in the Eye too. Like maybe Datattore just uploads himself into it when the Traveler gets too close to a specific section of Ley Lines. Or maybe the original Zandik's soul piece never made it to the Ley Lines and ends up jumping into the Eye(because the 7.0 AQ opened up him not even making it into the Ley Lines as a possibility), or he gets put in there by someone else.

If the original Zandik became a lost soul then it's possible he barely remembers anything about his past because the pain of remembering caused him to dissociate from those memories, so the Traveler and Paimon have to help him by exploring locations from what scraps he does remember so he can reconnect with those memories. Could be a great way to finally give some in-depth exploration to his backstory. Maybe he remembers that he had a dear friend named Feofan but little else about him, which means the reunion with Pantalone could be put off for a while. So many possibilities! ✨

idk. The fact that the Eye of Graeae character is just, not a character anymore in the first patch is very weird and makes me wonder if they're setting things up for a different disembodied character to occupy the goggles.

Also please don't doom on my post. :( It's meant to be a fun "what if" discussion about stuff that could happen. Emphasis on "fun".

Now that I've finished Wraith's Nocturne, I do wonder if Ronova was personally involved with the original Zandik's death...

https://preview.redd.it/tuqzmhgoa2jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=edf70b60b9d53a9dd87c3ff7573970742069e763

https://preview.redd.it/bpa0hxfra2jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=6103c7fdcc30f5453f65584af6eda85161fe2d28

The Grim Reaper story Alyosha told us already pinged my radar as something familiar(blurry faces by the deathbed, and once they become clear the Grim Reaper takes you), but then we got to interact directly with Ronova.

https://preview.redd.it/udzsas38a2jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b0defc5f31b14d065c0d431df634c7874ab1625

https://preview.redd.it/p6au0mbgb2jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6086f8c7dae35c98376d01c8814d85a901c6a4e

https://preview.redd.it/nero5brlc2jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=30492dd923f1107bcb427a4a7e7ad679c1b5c7f4

Those odd red flashes that happen as Zandik is staring up at the segments make complete sense if Ronova was directly involved. And the red eyes flashing down at him from the faces of his segments? Ronova's aesthetic. Crow feathers also float around her when she appears, and we saw those in the first portion of Zandik's death scene as well.

https://preview.redd.it/6dj7afl4d2jh1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49181b8375975e01e3e82eb4aed0daf248a6300c

Yes, they're supposed to be from the crow that's dying next to him, but given the red screen effects later on, the Ronova connection is there.

As for what Ronova's direct involvement could mean? Well, she might be the reason the Elixir of Immortality never worked on him. You can't pause your aging with mere medicine if a divine power is slowly sapping your life away. It would also mean that Zandik was very dangerous to Celestia, even at his advanced age. Or maybe he learned something after the age of 65 that made him an even greater danger to Celestia than any of his segments could be.

And on whether or not she could get his soul into the Ley Lines... It's possible that the existence of Zandik's segments kept his piece of soul anchored to the world of the living, a bit like what Luonnotar did for Columbina. And that's not even addressing the possibility that his lab was near another section of renovated Ley Lines that would prevent him from being claimed or have other effects. Maybe the light waves coming off of Zandik's corpse in the 2D cutscene are meant to indicate that his soul was still present in his body even after he'd died. And remember what Ronova said about souls that aren't claimed by the Ley Lines soon after the Curse of Death activates?

>Ronova: But if souls who die from the Curse of Death fail to return to the Ley Lines within a short window of time, they will miss their chance for good...

>Ronova: Then, they will remain forever suspended between life and death, no longer subject to the authorities of either.

>Mitya: ...So if you don't resolve this matter soon and see all of our souls returned to the Ley Lines, before long, we'll escape your control...

That means that Zandik's soul as a whole could have escaped the authorities of life and death a long time ago thanks to his segments, and this can lend further explanation to why half of 35 had to be Moonttore after he died. He needed to control both authorities so he could force himself into the Ley Lines when he died.

And if the segments were able to capture Zandik's soul after he died? Well, I find it unlikely that Mr. Heretic Who Spits on the Laws of Nature didn't do some resurrection experiments at least once. It would also be a golden opportunity to heavily modify his body before doing so. Whether they succeeded or not, who knows? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

Another part that caught my eye was this:

>Ronova: I see your dreams brought you many revelations... So you see, death in fact grants wisdom to mortals. Souls connect to all things in the world and see the chain of cause and effect between them. It's nothing unusual.

Becoming one with the world like that points toward the possibility that Zandik experienced ego death centuries ago when he died. And if the segments did succeed at resurrecting him and he came back too different because of that? Well, that would inevitably lead to conflicts with them. Which would be a tragic and interesting twist on the Came Back Wrong trope. Maybe they'd deny that it was even Zandik they brought back after a certain point...

In all, more evidence that Dottore won't stay down imo.

I've noticed people saying that Maukie himself was glitching when we ran into him at the Statue of the Seven, but having rewatched the footage I noticed that this is incorrect. No glitch happens as long as Maukie is on the screen, it's only once he's gone and the camera shows the Sanatorium in the background that the glitching occurs.

https://preview.redd.it/vybdvru5yz4h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=08d15296d43f1aa8c5af9296d61144a386ee98ce

https://preview.redd.it/wszkw9l7yz4h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d935546d1ee03fa7f379713ebdd0e31cf957e0b8

https://preview.redd.it/fdxer8fayz4h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e0e1c5a95da0666cf041da78829ef31aea1b335a

https://preview.redd.it/be6un6ibyz4h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=11c6be50f849bef6dc1e13aeeb844f72def90a8a

Which suggests that the glitching is not caused by Maukie himself, but by what's supposed to be concealed in the background: The Temple of Space.

When we do see this type of glitch while Maukie is on-screen, it's when Melanta is using Maukie's identity to trick the Traveler.

https://preview.redd.it/c04c3f9q305h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=194d7e22dbf34481ae0259491e4c8e85ef18dedd

Here's a few shots of the glitch happening when Dottore drops his Escher disguise during Inversion of Genesis to show that it's a similar type of glitch, though not as dramatic with the screen tear effect.

https://preview.redd.it/70fwr0tf405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=6067dcc3c1a30f0449643d5d3852c64fc1cc4fb0

https://preview.redd.it/hfeh9vjh405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=627a7dbebbdd502e6dc807020074124d46c121aa

The specific glitch "type" looks like an RGB split with intermittent video tear and fluctuations in ambient light. I mention the type because I recall seeing a few different varieties throughout Genshin, with one of the others being the visual artifacting that happens in association with the Iridescent/Crimson Moon. The visual artifacting we see from Moonttore is also different from the one we see above. As for the glitch we've specifically seen associated with Dottore and the Temple of Space, though, we do see it in a few other contexts.

For example, we also see it happen around Scaramouche after he's witnessed Dottore's Tatarasuna memory and learned the truth about Niwa.

https://preview.redd.it/qd92ni3v405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=4bc212190be3e63caf556bcca4480fcf3c3674b3

https://preview.redd.it/27mc8u8w405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=972348fa28cccc3166070450ae337407acd0e776

https://preview.redd.it/k63r611x405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c51a80113cc8bb11267a0a5d4f4f18b06a6cd56

https://preview.redd.it/eu0ns5wx405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5fda72aaa6aed03b3b159efc47f890e03594201b

https://preview.redd.it/xs8vxsdy405h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba02a1f860632dac382406bb923b5bc8641a71ed

And it also occurs while Zibai's Second Deadly Self(Zizhi) is possessing someone and has been spotted by the Traveler, something she is surprised and angered by.

https://preview.redd.it/0wzuvcfb505h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f97440761e7bcbcb7f93b7b02c21869b72be98a9

https://preview.redd.it/4i4woshe505h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5c79adb8a8f9a0913e4fdb233fc50568948d3c8

https://preview.redd.it/x9069hjf505h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=61c157240d6236aff959be041af339852fa418f7

https://preview.redd.it/2hog9vui505h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1933b3de7fe1c5b8a0382f2b342be39eb34b3e2

Meanwhile in the same quest, the brief glitch that occurred as the False Moon appeared had only the screen tear glitch without any RGB split.

As for what could connect all of these instances of the same glitch, I'm not sure. All but one of them(Scaramouche's reaction to learning the truth) have something to do with concealment, whether it's of a location, a person, or a soul. I wonder if it happens when the Traveler's perception of reality is being messed with, or when they're seeing through an illusion? (Though again, Scaramouche's rage causing the glitch doesn't seem to track with the others...)

There are undoubtedly more examples of this exact glitch(RGB split + screen tear + ambient light fluctuations) appearing in other parts of Genshin's story, but these are the only ones I can remember at the moment. (And the idea of coming through hours upon hours of game footage to hunt down every instance of that exact glitch... Oh god. I don't want to have to do that. 😭 )

Another interesting tidbit is that even though Kukulkan reveals the use of his soul-masks in An Omen of Annihilation and the Final Entreaty, there is no glitch effect at all. Just a smooth pan to get him out of camera view, and he's wearing his "disguise" on the other side. Maybe there's something to Dottore's disguise causing a glitch while Kukulkan's doesn't? 🤔

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure people had accurate info about the glitches going on around Escher. The more accurate the info you base a theory on, the better it will be after all. And if you guys have any speculation about what connects all the instances of this specific glitch, I'm all ears. 💜

(Also if you remember a time when the glitch happened that I don't remember PLEASE tell me! 🙏 )

Because I feel like everyone will have a better time theorizing if they can quickly find in-game lore sources that talk about souls, what they can do, what can harm them, etc. I'm not out to push any specific theory with the post I'm going to make, just to get as much info on souls in one place so everyone can have it as a reference and be able to find the source quickly and efficiently when making their own theories.

But given how scattered soul lore is, it's going to be hard to find everything. So I wanted to ask what quests or lore pieces you guys remember that involve souls.

These are the sources I already have in mind for the compilation:

• Skirk's SQ(all about the Traveler and then Skirk getting a piece of soul stolen from them and the consequences of that)
• Och-Kan(soul was incompatible with the body it was bound to, which contributed to his mental and physical instability)
• Ororon(born with an incomplete soul, needed Citlali's talismans to remain stable, would have died long ago had he not received outside support, more vulnerable to possession than others)
• Andrius and Boreas(soul division, noted as being difficult even for many gods with Andrius being a rare exception, his soul was still unstable despite his expertise and Boreas was shedding pieces of it during his journey south)
• Xiuhcoatl and Kukulkan(Kukulkan's soul is actually a piece of Xiuhcoatl's soul, and Xiuhcoatl experienced no known deterioration as a result of giving a piece of his soul away)
• Zibai's Three Deadly Selves(Zibai growing closer to humanity allowed the Deadly Selves technique to take effect, and Istaroth took advantage of that in order to preserve her for possible resurrection in the future)
• Kukulkan's Masks(Kukulkan uses a mix of stolen souls and Iridescent Inscriptions to create flawless human disguises that he uses throughout the Little One's quests)
• The Moon's Reflection(how it interacts with souls vs how it interacts with bodies, etc.)
• Luonnotar(made from a fragment of Columbina's soul, acted as an anchor that allowed her to return to the present with help)
• The "Boatman"(a psychopomp who has been trying to take the souls of Tsurumi island to "the moon-mansion that golden burns")
• The Moons(they were part of Teyvat's afterlife before two were shattered and the other banished. Diotima from the Temple of Space mentions that "noble souls" did not go to Irminsul back in the day, but to the moons instead)
• The Night Kingdom(for obvious reasons. Natlan had a lot of soul lore in it)
• Neuvillette(need to look deeper into the possibility that part of his missing Hydro Authority was a piece of the previous Hydro Sovereign's soul, since he regained memories from his past life after reclaiming it. Also he's got that human body with a dragon soul situation going on)
• Irminsul and Aaru(since Irminsul processes souls and strips their memories for reincarnation, while Aaru was meant to be an afterlife for Deshret's people)
• Dottore's Segments(info that can be directly confirmed in lore)
• Rejected Souls(when souls cannot enter the Ley Lines, they disintegrate. Seen in the people of Khaenri'ah after they were cursed, and when souls in Natlan are unable to enter the Night Kingdom in time)
• Moonttore's soul-swapping experiments(the third Marrow implies that this was what he was doing in that energy field Wanderer and Albedo broke into, and it also makes sense that the human bodies would die upon exchanging a human-sized soul for an animal one given what 35 says about the amount of soul that can sustain an individual. Also possible that he was putting Radiant Beast souls into human bodies and that's why we saw some Fatui soldiers turn into monsters)
• Ei putting her consciousness into her blade?(possible. The EN localization never mentions her soul as far as I've seen. Also the Shogun puppet has her own consciousness but again, soul was not mentioned)

That's as much as I can recall for now. If there's anything soul-related that isn't on the list, please let me know. I'm working on a longer post(probably will end up as a series of posts >__>) that'll have proper citations to the quest text on the Genshin wiki for the topics I've already thought of here and will add more as I'm reminded of others. 💜

Just another set of thoughts rattling around in my brain lately that I need to nail down so they stop bothering me, sorry if this gets a bit rambly. I'm operating with a few prior bits of theorizing in mind, foremost being the idea that Zandik's soul was incomplete from the start and was fragmenting "naturally" over time because of how it was damaged, followed by potential clues from Zandik's death scene that could be hinting at how that soul damage started. They're not essential reading, but you might find them interesting to look at if this post catches your fancy.

If Zandik's soul was fragmenting before he even made his segments, then the question that naturally follows is: what would agitate his soul so much that it would break apart like that? Intense emotional distress and trauma is the first answer that comes to mind, at least for me.

Something 35 said to Pantalone during their Sanctuary of Suresthana conversation comes to mind:

>Il Dottore: A soul living forever in the past inevitably holds different views than he did in his later years. The same thing that completes me also restricts me.
Il Dottore: You too might ask yourself, which stage of your life you want to be preserved at? The day your business failed? Or the day you were framed by a gang and sold off to a medical lab as a test subject?
Regrator: ...We needn't dredge up the past.

And this may be giving us a hint about the kinds of life events each segment originally "coalesced" around. The fact that 35 asks what stage of life Pantalone would like to be preserved at and immediately goes on to list only negative events suggests that such an event is what he himself was born from.

Another potential hint, is that the youngest segment of the lot is 8, and we know from the Anomalous Tree Marrows that Zandik lost his compassion when he was 8 years old. So it stands to reason that 8 would be the first piece of soul that fractured off, and he would represent the first majorly traumatic event in Zandik's life.

On top of the unknown traumatic event that formed 8, Zandik's Legacy offers a potential origin for 18: Soreh's death. Whether you think Zandik murdered her or not(I feel like they left the ambiguity there specifically so people would debate over it), the potential for trauma is still there. The potential source for 25, meanwhile, can be found in both Zandik's Legacy and the Eleazar Hospital Notes. We also see Zandik's 25 year old self working at a scene from the Eleazar Hospital during Dottore's 2D cutscene in 6.6.

To add a little more weight to the idea, we also have this scene from Nahida's fairy tale:

https://preview.redd.it/ll4ohccafd4h1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=1bb1613644ef5300b0b74a5be0a7ea68e5b09e29

Zandik would've been 35 at the time of the Tatarasuna Incident, and there are three segments younger than 35, those being 25, 18, and 8. Nahida also hints that there was underlying emotional distress that Zandik was living with at that time.

>Nahida: There once was a lone monster draped in fox fur. The monster found a family of foxes, joined them, and they became friends. The monster lived with the family, day and night, and everyone treated it as one of their own.
Nahida: Once in a while, the monster would take off its fox fur at night, and lament to itself as it gazed at its reflection in the water: "I am a monstrosity, yet they are too foolish to see it... I pity them."

He was treated kindly by the group he was infiltrating, but only because he was in disguise(so he assumed, anyway). People accept and welcome the mask he wears(Escher, but perhaps the same could be said for his Harbinger mask as well) but never his true self. And these feelings then played into him lashing out at Kabukimono as he did, for the "crime" of being accepted when Zandik would not have been. It's possible that the lashing out in and of itself worsened his own self-hatred because he lost control and played into that role as the monster yet again.

45, though, may be different from the others. The only event of significance that find around age 45 is Feofan becoming a Harbinger(given an assumed 15-year age gap between the two). It may have actually been a very high point in his life, watching the man he helped elevate take a seat at the same table as him. Interesting that he is not seen in the final lineup of Dottore's 2D cutscene, I wonder if there's some sort of connection there.

I'm not sure what could have created 65. Perhaps the fear of death was really making itself apparent by then. He's the oldest and last segment, so it would be reasonable to assume that Zandik was 65-71 years old when he made the lot of them(Pantalone is 56 when 25 treats his vision problems, so they would've been created inside that 6-year span of time).

With the idea that at least four of Zandik's segments are manifestations of a traumatic event in his life, 35's willingness to die in 6.6 makes even more sense. Not only was he frozen in a single mindset for centuries, it was a mindset that was heavily effected or shaped by some sort of trauma that he was never allowed to process, by nature of his very being as a segment. Even achieving godhood did not allow him to escape that fundamental limitation.

Is it any wonder that he hated his other selves and himself? What kind of life is that? By creating his segments in a way that prevented them from ever truly surpassing him, Zandik left 35 with a life of hidden, festering misery. An act that was careless at best and the utmost selfishness at worst.

And it was this foundational grievance that led me to wonder if 35 is actually done yet. He has done great wrongs in his life, yes, but he has also been greatly wronged himself, and that harm not only played a part in his actions but also prevented him from ever becoming a better person. Even with that separation between the actions of Zandik and his segments, Zandik still bears responsibility for what his creations did in his absence. 35's situation still demands some form of "justice".

So why should 35 lay down his life so Zandik can return? Why should he have any faith that the man who so selfishly created him will be any better, or will grow any more than 35 would have been able to, had he been allowed? And with that line of questioning in mind, we're presented with a new possibility: that 35 was not submitting himself to reintegration with the rest of Zandik, he is trying to reforge Zandik with himself as the dominant personality, the dominant "self". 35 wants to become the new Zandik, to replace him, just as he did in the Harbinger role after Zandik died.

(I was still in the process of writing this post when Hoyo released Dottore's Story Teaser on YouTube and THIS was the description:

>Cast off this cumbersome life, and remain in that eternal instant of evil.
Forsake these ancient shackles, and descend into a funeral forged by true flame.
Leave me the fire of sin, or I shall be left with nothing.
If my hour of death has come, then let my fate be sealed here!

And now I'm even more convinced that 35 is gonna pull some shenanigans and try to replace the original Zandik with himself.)

>Cast off this cumbersome life, and remain in that eternal instant of evil.
Forsake these ancient shackles, and descend into a funeral forged by true flame.
Leave me the fire of sin, or I shall be left with nothing.
If my hour of death has come, then let my fate be sealed here!

We've been interacting with the ghosts of Zandik's past selves, in a way? 🤔 Like, after-images frozen in time, haunting a place, animated but not fully living due to their inability to change. Like walking gravestones for what he used to be?

Just a line of thought that's been rattling around in my head this past week. It's such a neat narrative angle for a character. We still don't really know him as a whole person. We only know the ghost of what he once was.

https://preview.redd.it/bir9jewosb3h1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5895bee38f59e0ded7312bf735f668ddd248af28

Even when I first played through the AQ, it felt like Pantalone was gesturing at that. It's so interesting that the man who believed in progress no matter the cost would himself give rise to entities that were antithetical to that very belief, due to their inability to change. There's a special kind of tragedy to that.

https://preview.redd.it/o64525b9ub3h1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ae79f27111bda62683a0849f9713f0e9a66196e

And 35 agrees with Pantalone's assessment, and the fact that he calls fire a "form of treatment" here is quite telling, imo. The whole is sick, and has been for centuries. Treatment has been delayed long enough. In nature as well, fire is necessary for renewal, for keeping the ecosystem healthy and thriving. A few trees may be lost, whole swaths of forest may burn down if fire has been held back for too long, but the whole survives and grows back.

I just find it really interesting. What do you guys think?