For anyone who is caught up with the lore, Genshin Impact Dottore’s name is not a new entry to the story. He’s popped up in the story a few times, both in the manga and now in story quests. He’s mentioned here, there, and everywhere – but just who is this member of the Harbingers? What are his plans, and when will we get to pull on his banner? Read on to see what we know about Il Dottore.
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Buckle up gang, this is gonna be a long and arduous tale of Genshin Impact’s Dottore…
Who is Genshin Impact’s Dottore?
Il Dottore, the Doctor, third of the Fatui Harbingers of Snezhnaya, is a well-known but generally disliked individual across Teyvat. Dottore’s real name is Zandik, and though some may assume he comes from Snezhnaya due to his Harbinger affiliation, he’s actually a Sumeru native.
To start, let’s take a look at the character he is named after – Il Dottore in the Commedia Dell’arte. Traditionally, Il Dottore is a rich and outgoing character who canonically loves the sound of their own voice. According to forest ranger Genshin Impact’s Tighnari, Dottore ‘never came off as malicious, but an utter lack of compassion permeated throughout our conversation’ when they met.
Dottore first appeared in the Genshin Impact manga, which predates the events of the game and gives us a lot of Mondstadt lore. Though Dottore looks rather different with a checkerboard mask, wild blue hair and a white suit, he acts the same as the version we meet in the game. The manga teaches us that Dottore lacks compassion, and is pretty much only interested in his experiments.
We meet him in the game in Sumeru, where he’s working alongside the Akademiya’s sages, causing a ruckus by using the Akasha Terminals and attempting to capture Genshin Impact’s Nahida.
Dottore is obsessed with enhanced humans and performs experiments in hopes of creating individuals with power rivalling or even surpassing the gods. These experiments led to the people of his hometown casting him out and branding him a monster. For some reason, the Sumeru Akademika still decided to let him in, where he likely studied in Amurta, the biology Darshan. He continued his experiments on the Sumeru locals, and the Akademiya thankfully expelled him as a result.
After his expulsion, Pierro, director of the Fatui Harbingers, approached Dottore and invited him to join their ranks, promising him the space and resources he needs to do whatever experiments he desires. It was at this point that Zandik officially took on the title of Il Dottore or The Doctor, which he found humorously ironic due to his lack of care for human life.
Dottore then took some time away from Sumeru and decided to go and mess around in Inazuma for a while. Remember the Tatarasuna Furnace? Yeah, that was him. Pierro sent him to sabotage it as part of their Inazuma plans. This is where Scaramouche came in, actually. A worker called Niwa tried to stop the furnace from going critical thanks to Dottore’s fiddling, but Dottore killed him and stole his heart. He then thoughtfully gifted it to Scaramouche, then known as the kabukimono. Both Pierro and Dottore thought Scaramouche to be a useful addition to the Fatui, and so brought him in.
Next on Il Dottore’s list was to start more experiments, this time focusing on the Eleazar disease found in Sumeru. This brings us to the most recent chapters of the story. To sum up, Dottore uses his wily ways to trap Nahida’s consciousness, though she’s rescued by the Traveler. Nahida then negotiates with Dottore for information, believing that he will tell her the truth if she gives him her gnoses. In exchange for not only the dendro gnosis, but the electro gnosis from Scaramouche, Dottore allegedly destroys all of his clones and tells Nahida that the skies and stars that the people of Teyvat see are lies. Your guess as to what this means is as good as ours.
And that’s where we’re up to with Dottore’s history. So, let’s look at what other information we have on the mysterious menace. The Pale Flame artifact set’s feather piece has a description that features quotes from Dottore, detailing how he was ousted due to his crimes:
In the desert that shone bright like liquid gold, he inquired of the Snezhnayan diplomat: “Will you treat me like the Academia did? Will you call me a monster, a madman?” “Or will you treat me as my hometown did, and chase me away with pitchforks and clubs…?”
What powers does Genshin Impact’s Dottore have?
Il Dottore is second of the Fatui Harbingers, which means his power is comparable to the gods. This doesn’t necessarily mean his combat prowess, and in this case, probably means his scientific abilities. Dottore can also take on other forms, it seems – as we have seen him appear as Escher from Fontaine and others in cutscenes and flashbacks.
Dottore is mainly known for creating segments of his own self at different ages, which are essentially clones or ‘snapshots’ of himself. His copies likely don’t age and are some sort of android, but we don’t have confirmation on this. Dottore uses his ‘other selves’ to accomplish tasks.
He learned how to make copies thanks to Scaramouche, as he began researching him when he joined the Fatui. This meant he unlocked some more of Scaramouche’s powers, but it was mostly for his own gain. The segments of himself are apparently hard and time-consuming to make and require rare materials.
The Dottore we meet in Sumeru is known as the ‘Omega build’, where he is in the prime of his life. Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, so make of that what you will.
Genshin Impact Dottore’s crimes
Let’s blast through this section quickly. Basically, Dottore is not a nice person at all, and is literally a criminal. He’s a sick individual that works without a care for any of his victims – but this all makes him a great villain.
Prior to the events of the game, Dottore used Mondstadt citizens for experiments while staying in the area. We’re not sure what awful things they were subject to.
An in-game record suggests that Dottore murdered a research partner named Sohreh via strangulation, and left her to be eaten by Rishboland Tigers. This was around the time that he decided to experiment on children in Apam Woods, though the Aranara stepped in and thankfully saved them, much to his chagrin. There’s a set of notes found around Sumeru titled ‘Zandik’s Legacy’, which mention someone involved with medical experiments, who took a keen interest in the Aranara.
While in Sumeru, Dottore subjected Genshin Impact’s Collei (yes, that Collei), and other unfortunate Eleazar sufferers to even more horrid experiments, involving gods’ remains and painful procedures. This left the victims traumatised and dealing with other symptoms.
Will Genshin Impact’s Dottore be playable?
It is likely that Dottore will become playable at some point, most likely after some sort of redemption a la Tartaglia and Genshin Impact Wanderer. We may see him in Natlan, but Snezhnaya is more likely in terms of the patch he will come out in.
There is, however, a clue as to his build – during exploration into the files of 3.2’s update, dataminers found that his filename included the word ‘claymore’. This suggests that either a fight will happen against the Doctor we met in the story, or that this version will be playable down the line. His ‘Omega Build’ doesn’t seem to have any weaponry, though. Judging purely by his looks and colour scheme, he may be a Hydro or Cryo unit. Could Dottore be the first hydro claymore in Genshin Impact? We’ll have to wait and see.
Will there be a Genshin Impact Dottore boss fight?
Most likely. All three Fatui Harbingers that we’ve met so far – two of which are playable, being Genshin Impact Tartaglia and Genshin Impact Wanderer – are weekly bosses that drop a stack of materials including talent level-up items. There is every possibility that Dottore (and indeed all the other Harbingers) may get their own boss fight in the future.
Who is Genshin Impact Dottore’s voice actor?
Dottore’s English voice actor is Mick Wingert, and what a fantastic job he does bringing the evil character to life. The Japanese voice actor is Toshihiko Seki and in Chinese, Wu Lei.
Not had your fill of Genshin stuff? Check out the Genshin Impact banner schedule, and our build guides for Genshin Impact Alhaitham and Genshin Impact Yaoyao. Oh, there’s also our Honkai Star Rail tier list and what we know about any Honkai Star Rail codes.