Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
The Sumeru event from v6.1 was practically an extension of the hour-long side quest we undertook in the middle of the Nod-Krai Archon Quest. It further explained Nefer's "deal" with Thoth but even that only served as a backdrop to what this event was really trying to tell us: why is Dottore going to be the true antagonist of this Archon Quest?
And so we were given three questions by Thoth who was ordered to seek out people to answer them if he wanted to regain his freedom. The answer to all three was the same but the official answer was terrible. What the answer should have been was Pride and so let me explain why:
This was the question posed to Goudarz who proposed that conspiracy and betrayal was the answer. His answer was proven wrong and Goudarz met with an unfortunate end due to none other than conspiracy and betrayal. Why? It was his pride. He went on a campaign to defeat what he claimed were rebels carrying the flag of the Khagan and then once he won, he crowned himself king.
In a more general sense, think about let's say the American Revolution. It was pride or rather self-respect that led the colonists to reject the unbalanced taxation imposed on them by Britain thus leading to the nation's rise. As for fall, we do have the phrase "pride cometh before the fall." Pretty self-explanatory.
The answer that doesn't work here is time as time had nothing to do with the fate of Goudarz.
Makhaira was really bitter at the time she met Thoth and so her answer was obviously wrong. Her life story is the phrase "vengeance begets vengeance" and doesn't quite have anything to do with the question she was asked. However in terms of pride, she fell into it when she was made regent to the prince after they plotted to kill his father. After that she wanted to remain in power so she continuously moved from usurper to usurper, betraying each one when their hold over the kingdom waned.
To understand how pride destroys both love and hate we need look no further than the story of Narcissus. The man only cared about himself thus there was likely no hatred in his brain at all. As for love, because he was so in love with himself he ended up scorning an actual love interest and was punished for it as a result. Time plays no part in either Narcissus or Makhaira's stories. Given more or less time they'd still follow the same path which was paved by their pride.
We don't get to hear Nefer's answer to this but given that the power she got from Thoth was the ability to see into the minds of all people and make use of the chess set in the unlikely event she couldn't, I supposed her answer was probably information or perhaps she used the word knowledge to keep in line with the more poetic theme. Knowledge was how Rerir described it when he said to her, "Knowing too much is always a death sentence." After all the man was in intelligence. His job was uncovering intel on his targets while obscuring facts for the public. He is the antithesis to Nefer. In the end, it turned out her answer was a liar's heart. This doesn't fit with anything either.
But in any case, Thoth wasn't freed thus her answer was wrong as well and we can see how pride plays into that too. She lies better than her father did. She played the rival tribes for fools. She's the head of the Curatorium and has so many people in Nod-Krai wrapped around her fingers. But when her past is revealed aka a strike against her pride, it's a moment of weakness to her and she threatens (albeit probably as a half-joke) that she'll be watching her new friends like a hawk. Of course where she succeeded while the previous two had failed is that she was able to swallow her pride. This came into play with Dottore too. We can actually say time played absolutely no role in her life as the finale of this storyline had her totally unchanged from where she'd been when she answered Thoth's question the first time. She was still disgusted with Sumeru and needed convincing to provide her assistance. Assistance mind you that would have saved her own life as well. She was willing to allow herself to be part of the cost in order to continue turning her back on Sumeru for what it had done to her once upon a time. How prideful.
But now how does pride determine truth and falsehood? We can break this up into two sides. Pride in good people translates to integrity which determines that they will be honest or at the very least that they'll demonstrate their obvious guilt for speaking falsehood. On the other hand, pride in villains translates to arrogance so they tend to deny the truth of their vanities while relying on falsehood to present the facade of superiority.
So all three of these people Thoth interacted with suffer from pride. How does that relate to Thoth? Why did Deshret want him to find this answer? Well why was Thoth and Sobek and Heryshaf banished to Aaru? We can see their pride as well.
In the Lay of Al-Ahmar, we're told that after Deshret lost Nabu these three chuckleheads came up with things Deshret could do. Croco came up with the genius idea that eventually led to the Golden Slumber. Thoth meanwhile is the genius that got us that horrifying frozen time area called the Eternal Oasis where you can see birds in mid-flight and water that can be walked on. It is the unchanging eternity that Ei once foolishly sought. This was all a result of pride. Before the end, Deshret realized his folly and went on to sacrifice himself to Apep in a bid to protect Sumeru from all the forbidden knowledge he'd accumulated, finally a humble and truly selfless act. Meanwhile it's clear from Thoth's behavior and how he's recounting his story that neither he nor the other two pillars figured this out. Pride was all of their undoing and not even time could make them see it. Only Deshret figured it out through his timeless love of Nabu, his surviving technologies that we in the present were able to make full use of and his undying truth to the people of the present day that humanity is worth nurturing. (yes I am deliberately showing that time doesn't answer any of the three questions)
If pride is the purpose of this plotline then it should be easy to see where Dottore fits into it as well. As described by the Traveler and Layla when they read his notes in this event, Dottore is very prideful. Interactions with him during the Sumeru Archon Quest also illustrate this and we also saw how his pride led to his fall even back then when Nahida was able to convince him to erase all his segments.
In Nod-Krai, I theorized that he'd try taking Rerir's power and immortality for himself which would both make up for the segments he lost and be a massive upgrade to them. He'd also assume he is more fit to wield those powers than some pawn of the Vinster King. In reality, his pride went even further to the point of madness. He took hold of the full authority of the planet and then went on a craven rampage across Nod-Krai casually abusing his power while claiming he was doing it for the benefit of the world. I don't think time would have done anything for him especially considering he's already lived a considerable amount.
Side Note: Honestly I would have liked to see these three questions come up again when Dottore fell. Something like Thoth's or even Deshret's voice ringing out as it happens and each question reflecting on Dottore's actions. What causes our rise and fall? As Thoth even stated, Dottore is a genius. As a Harbinger he was technically fighting against the fate imposed by the Heavenly Principles. This is a noble mission and reason for Dottore's rise. However he grew conceited by this mission and his own personal desires that superceded it, thus he falls. What obliterates love and hate? Thoth gives this to us too, doesn't he? My example was Narcissus and what did Thoth say about Dottore? Narcissistic. The man only cares about himself and his own ambitions, without a heart to love or hate. What determines truth and falsehood? How many times has he lied? I'm wondering if Scara should be the one shown on screen for this. Maybe at the very end, Dottore could finally speak one word of truth and accept his fate. Unfortunately the devs didn't do any of this. Dottore played no part in these questions and it never came up again after Nefer provided the time answer.
We had a three hour long detour in the middle of Nod-Krai to bring up a Sumeru story about how "pride cometh before the fall." Why was there so much Sumeru in this quest based on the Baltics which has virtually no history with the Middle East? Well ignoring that, we have a dramatic tale about several people succumbing to their pride which led them to disaster. Goudarz became a tyrannical king, Makhaira a conniving queen, Deshret an idealistic fool, Thoth his foolish servant and finally Dottore was the mad scientist too blinded by his superiority complex to notice his flaws and how isolated he's made himself. This should have been the story. Sadly we were given "time."
Topic originally created on November 16th, 2025.
