#“we want more irredeemable villains in genshin!!!” HE'S RIGHT THERE.

[hexesandroses]

It never occurred to me how misunderstood Dottore is until I started analyzing him myself. Discovering that people hate Dottore because of some severe misunderstandings was actually just sad. Though it's even worse because the Sumeru archon quests told us pretty much everything we need to know about him and yet people can't look past the "he experimented on people!!" part.

[quijabored]

I always see those "They could never make me hate you, [Insert character whos problematic]" and I was trying to figure out which character I related that to.

YEAH SO I HAVE NONE OF THOSE

Kokichi Ouma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony?? He's INCREADIBLY problematic in his own fandom and for good reason. He's an ass, he's responsible for 4 deaths, he's a liar, he's a manipulator, HES NOT DEFENDABLE. AND YET HES MY FAVORITE CHARACTER??? HELLO??? I might post more Ouma art tbh, love drawing the stupid idiot. ISTG I HATE HIM JUST AS MUCH AS THE NEXT PERSON, BUT HES SO... STUPIDLY WELL WRITTEN AND IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY???

Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus. Not AS problematic as Ouma, but still relatively dislikes throughout the fandom. Jax is a jerk and while I'm hoping we get to see why or more of his character, he's still a jerk. AND YET AGAIN, HES MY FAVORITE???? WHY. WHY. WHY. I HAVE LIKE 5 OTHER CHARACTERS I COULDVE LIKED, WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM????

Fyodor Dostoyevsky from Bungo Stray Dogs. HATE THAT MAN WITH A BURNING PASSION. HES A MANIPULATIVE BASTARD, HES AWFUL TO ATSUSHI, HES PROBABLY GONNA KILL NIKOLAI, AND HES SO.... SO STUPID??? I HATE HIM???? WHY IS HE IN MY TOP 5 AGAIN??? WHY DO I WANT TO BASH HIM AGAINST THE SIDEWALK IN A LOVING WAY???

Wanderer from Genshin Impact. STUPID IDIOT CRINGE 2020 SOUNDING ASS, I HATE HIM. He's so??? GOD EVERYTHING IN MY BEING WANTS TO KILL HIM. I love Wanderer so much hes such a well written character but GOD he's annoying. HES ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE CHARACTERS BUT AAAGHHHHH HE MAKES ME WANT TO RIP MY LUNGS OUT which is honestly a good thing cuz that means they're doing his character right BUT AAGHHHH

Mahito from Jujitsu Kaisen. OKAY I HAVENT FINISHED JJK YET IM STILL ON SEASON 1 (Mostly bc Ive seen hella spoilers and its just taking me a while to actually watch it since I already know what happens) BUT AAGHHHHHH MAHITO SUCKS I HATE HIM. HES SO CHILDISH AND HE KILLED JUNPEI, MY SON, MY BABY, MY ADORATION??? SO WHY THE HELL IS HE MY SECOND FAVORITE??? First place goes to my GOAT MEGUMI but yk ✌️ HES SUCH AN ASSHOLE AND HES SUCH A BRAT BUT JESUS CHRIST I LOVE HIM SO MUCH 😭😭😭

Kyuubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. He's not my favorite character since he could never replace Homura and Sayaka, but I also really really like how his characters made?? BUT THE THINGS HE DOES ARE IRREDEEMABLE AND I HATE HIM??? AAAAAAAAA???

chat I'm trying so hard to think of more examples

Okay weird example, but Rascal from Glitter Force. HES A MAJOR VILLAIN, HE LIKE ALMOST CAUSED THE END OF THE WORLD??? AAAAA??? BUT HES SO FUN TO WATCH ON SCREEN OH MY GOD I LOVE HIM

Sunday from Honkai Star Rail. FAVORITE CHARACTER, HES MY GOAT, HES SO AWESOME BUT OH MY GOD HE MAKES ME WANT TO TORTURE MYSELF AND NOT IN A HOT WAY. I HATE HIM SO MUCH HES SO AAAGHHHH HES SO PATHETIC AND HES SUCH AN ASSHOLE BUT THATS ALSO A GOOD THING CUZ THAT MEANS THEURE DOING HIS CHARACTER RIGHT BUT AAAGHHHHHHH

Yuri from Spy x Family. Hes WEIIRDDD and I hate the incest trope guys please please please please WHYYYY. Still, he's my favorite character and I like watching him but he can get hella annoying fr 😔

Dare I say the plantain chips my mom buys? Dude I HATE plantains but oh my GODDD is that seasoning yummy 🤤🤤

Love Aku, but if anyone hates him I'm personally getting into a fistfight with them. /j

[boundinparchment]

TL;DR: Thank you for saying it and plenty of people in the fandom wholeheartedly agree with you.

Some of this is a byproduct of only having the Pale Flame lore and the manga for the longest time. So there’s a lot of resistance when people have already built up this idea of his character.

The other half is that there’s a mentality about tying character preferences to one’s morality but that’s a different problem not inherent to just Genshin.

There are plenty of Reddit threads from back when he first officially appeared that lay out his character in a way that feels accurate. I always come back to this one.

There are canon dialogue lines that tell the audience about his approach to knowledge and the world. And while we don’t know 100% that he’s Zandik, because the game never comes out and says it, that’s kind of the point.

He’s a character that’s so important to lore than you need to speculate and consider and lay these blocks in order to get the audience where they need to be to understand him.

Alhaitham’s story quest laid out the other half to Dottore’s inner struggles very, very clearly.

Everyone can have their own headcanon and if people agree, great! Have fun! Fandom is for fun.

But you can’t neglect the canon because those are the rules of the universe for the character. If you wanna break the rules, you have to know how to break them.

And for me, Dottore loses all of his intrigue and charm if you ignore the canon established. HYV loves their scientist characters and Dottore is absolutely no different.

It never occurred to me how misunderstood Dottore is until I started analyzing him myself. Discovering that people hate Dottore because of some severe misunderstandings was actually just sad. Though it's even worse because the Sumeru archon quests told us pretty much everything we need to know about him and yet people can't look past the "he experimented on people!!" part.