Yeah, a little controversial huh? On the 11th of July, 2022, a teaser for Genshin Impact’s Teyvat Chapter was released titled “A Winter Night’s Lazzo”. It showed all the remaining Fatui harbingers not yet shown in-game (excluding Tartaglia), including the fourth of them, named Arlecchino. On the 27th of September, 2023, she was officially added to the game. Today I’m criticizing her writing and general usage within the story of Fontaine. Let’s get straight into it, because I wanna share my hot take. Spoilers ahead, and this is MY opinion, keep in mind.
(ignore) This video covers Anemo, Geo, Electro, Dendro, Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, Abyss, Light, Aether, Lumine, Traveler, Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan, Snezhnaya, Khaenr’iah, Venti, Barbatos, Zhongli, Hu Tao, Morax, Baal, Raiden Shogun, Raiden Ei, Raiden Makoto, Lesser Lord Kusanali, Nahida, Greater Lord Rukkhedevata, Furina, Focalors, Neuvillette, Genshin, Impact, Genshin Impact, Teyvat, Primogems, Freemogems, Archons, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, Yae Miko, Childe, Wanderer, Ajax, La Signora, Paimon
Chapters:
Intro 0:00
Before Fontaine 00:42
Arlecchino’s Introductions 05:34
Why Arlecchino is Pointless 08:23
How to Fix It 11:42
Conclusion 14:41
Footage from
1.0 Cutscenes
1.1 Cutscenes
1.2 Cutscenes
2.0 Cutscenes
2.1 Cutscenes
2.2 Cutscenes
3.0 Cutscenes
3.1 Cutscenes
3.2 Cutscenes
3.3 Cutscenes
4.0 Cutscenes
4.1 Cutscenes
4.2 Cutscenes
La Vaguelette
Zhongli Story Teaser
Zhongli Demo
Venti Story Teaser
Venti Character Teaser
Raiden Story Teaser
Nahida Demo
Nahida Character Teaser
The “Divine” Will
Lantern Rite Short
Raiden Demo
“The Final Feast” Teaser Trailer
Music from
Fountain of Belleau
Unreleased
The Shimmering Voyage
The Stellar Moments Vol. 2
Epic SAC: ImJustACode
Follow my ig! @its.big.tt
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She was set up to be the most insane crazy and brutal harbinger. I don’t know she didn’t hit it. Sure she’s kind of creepy but not scary. She was even an ally than a villain. This is most like because she will be playable unlike someone like the captain. Who can go all out without needing to be redeemed like Scara or Arle. And she’s super carrying for kids. Do you think she’s evil after knowing that?
Honestly it feels like the only reason Arlecchino is there is to give the Traveler reason to suspect that Furina isn’t a god
First of all, this is the first time we're meeting her. That's why there's no real action from her. That will show how villainous she really can be.
Secondly, when we see her the next time, when she actually becomes a playable character like Childe we'll probably end up fighting her. I honestly think you're just jumping way too far ahead in the story. And you're going to see exactly what everybody else was saying about her later on. So please be patient and let my girl do what she do.
Wolf in the sheeps clothing is not just a saying
We will see in 4.6 main quest
Hope to see her menacing side
I’ve heard rumors of a arlechino boss fight from in furinas 2nd story quest. If they’re true that’s probably when they will make her go wolf.
Edit : I’d also like to note that arlechino is based off of raven from hi3. Raven to other people may seem like a ruthless killer due to her work and actions but deep down she cares for people. Arkechino could be in the same boat, she can be frickin crazy killer crazy but similar to raven her actions aren’t actually dictating her true nature. I’d argue it could be a mental condition for all we know. I just feel like her act is because she’s based on raven, raven is basically a killer, but she also cares for others.
Personally, I think they could have fixed this issue by making arlecchino the one to scare furina into admitting that she isnt the archon. I mean, she was the first person to suspect furina of not being the archon. She could have doubled down into physically threatening furina and messed with her mind more until furina eventually breaks character
I saw it as serving a relatively minor role to give added pressure to Furina, Didn't really expect any more since the main focus of fontaines story wasn't her anyways, We havent even seen the information from Childe and Scaramouche's voicelines put into action yet.
And if we're taking in leaks into this now theres some sus leaks about 4.6.
I was really looking forward to her after seeing the story teasers. But when she appeared in game, she felt like……… another random NPC. She did absolutely nothing except talking politely, and not even menacingly. Even the part where she threatened Furina, which seemed really important in the trailer, was done via visual novel style exposition. She can be totally removed from the plot and won't change anything in the story. So yes, she is pointless. Which is kinda sad because it made me feel like i don't really want to pull for her anymore (which happened to all the characters from Fontaine patch for me).
I will be kinda sad if the Fontaine AQ is the biggest role Arle will have, I hope we will see more of her in the future.
I think Arlecchino’s minimal impact (hah) so far is a small symptom of the greater problem with the Fatui and the Harbingers. There’s a pretty clear foreshadowing that in the future the Traveler may be “teaming up” with the Fatui to fight a greater foe, and that’s supposed to be a gut-wrenching, difficult decision. However, with Hoyoverse backing off of making many of the playable Harbingers very “villainous”, it means that the “difficulty” behind that choice for the Traveler is going to fall flat. Childe is very polarizing; Wanderer is fundamentally a different character than Scaramouche. If they go the same way with Arlecchino or any other Harbingers, it will hurt the themes of their story.
Gourds.
I think this is more of a Fontaine story problem in general. There are two lead characters: Furina and Neuvilette, there is a Traveler who serves for a focal point and… that's it. Everyone else is just along for the ride, their stories and themes are either left completely out of the picture (Chlorinde, Arlecchino) or not relevant to the main plot (Wrio, Navia).
As a certain unrelated character uses to say: rules are made to be broken.
I think you are jumping to conclusion based on the repeated formula used as of now by genshin, not considering that formulas are a guidelines not law.
Now I'm gonna be upfront, as yours are opinions so are mine. As of now we had fatuis that start off bad with a sort of redemption arc to justify their playability: in the case of Scaramouch we quite literally have a redemption arc, while Tartaglia was just never really "evil" and has been helpful since the liyue events (I don't think we should be talking about Dottore and Signora since their stories are not concluded, and yes I am saying that la Signora's story is not concluded yet). On the other hand we know that Arlecchino is a two-faced manipulator that scare off even her comrades from the voicelines, but as we meet her she is a loving father that cares for her children and her nation, helps out in the background without asking for rewards, if not alliances profitable for both parties, and doesn't kill if she doesn't need to.
To me they clearly want to flip the formula around and start her off with the "redemption arc", being all buddy buddy, become allies, helping eachother to than backstab at opportune moment, not only us travelers but even her own children and maybe even the other fatui harbingers. She is a strategist that don't need battles to win the bigger war, because she knows how and when to use her chess pieces. The reason she appears for the first time in the region of opera and justice where the archon is just an actress that plays the part of a goddess is because Arlecchino herself is an actress, concealing her true intentions behind a mask and puppeteering your emotions to feel like she isn't such a cruel bigshot, while in reality she is a monster playing the part of a human.
Overall no harbinger as of now has completely outed themselves in just 1 region, they all had arcs revolving around multiple regions. Saying that the most secretive of them is useless in the one region we saw her doing something in is a bit of a leap without knowing the bigger picture. (we actually don't even really SEE her do anything; all her dealings are just reported to us by her or by others that gained something frone said dealings)
Tl;dr: I think she is flipping the fatui harbinger formula and there is much more to come in the future for her.
I think the main problem is that Mihoyo realized the CN-community HATES evil characters. They only want super nice and friendly waifus, the things they did because they didn't like Scaramouche as a character…are quite frankly disgusting. So I think Arlecchino was originally intended to be a lot more conniving and unhinged, but Mihoyo had to scale back drastically when they realized their CN base can't handle such characters, and now she is just another generic nice girl, like all the rest.
1. fatui are not straight out villans in the story but are diplomats from sneznaya and the tsaritsa
2. childe and signora works are not a lot appricated by the fatui as they the opposite things diplomats do
3. childe and signorma used non diplomatic ways in mons and liyue places where the archons were ready to give the gnosis willingly and they painted fatui in a wrong way
4. knave on the other hand took the gnosis by painting the fatui as fontaine’s well wishers (if signora was in her place she would use the oppurtunity to stir up even further)
further we should not forget that fontaine is main mass media place in tevyat thanks to steambird and theatre culture
5. knave being head of fatui intelligence would already know that neuvilette is hydro soverign and fighting againist him is pointless
6. on one world quest we hear sondrone (7th fatui) saying sorry to taveller for loss of his clockwork friend and mercilessly killing the person who was caused it (he was also hired by her only)
7. there were a lot of things in the chessboard on fatui trailer i will drop it if anyone wants
there are a lot of things more to say but lets keep it short, all i can say is that more we will reach the end of the game more the people will be on fatui side
the game has dropped positve things about everyone, khanriah the abyss fatui and even the heveanly principles (there is a confusion that who actually is wrong)but info is all scaterred across tevyat and not included in the archon quest (they atleast should have hinted them in the archon quest)
Well that's just you-
She grew up in fountaine hearing a prophecy Abt it flooding and everyone dying….you expect her to come back to her homeland acting ruthless and terrifying when her home is gonna be destroyed? Knowing full that ruthlessness wouldn't help one bit? Yeah no she even went as far as to attack the literal "hydro archon", and we know that she didn't save fontaine for no reason….if fontaine were to be destroyed, less children for the house of the hearth….so say wtv u want but her personality and demeanor would not be useful towards the plot of fontaine
dottore lost composure once with diluc right?
Of all the harbingers we know, none of their real personalities have been explored in a main quest
they were explored in story quests(Tartaglia), interludes(Scaramouche) or even never had the chance like Signora, who never had her past explored, even though anyone who digs into the game's lore already knows
so Arlecchino will have further development when she receives a story quest or an interlude
There is no such thing as only being necessary if you have to fight them
Dottore has had a reputation since the beginning of the game through the web manga
Arlecchino has a reputation since the Fatui Teaser
Even so, we still haven't seen what they can really do, but that doesn't mean they're useless.
Above all, the Fatui are diplomats, if they don't try to resolve things through dialogue, what's the point?
Arlecchino is the only harbinger who has her own private army and she used this in Fontaine's story. There will come a point where she will do things herself
You are literally worshiping Signora who took 3 nations and 2 years to reach a resolution and even then her story didn't really go into depth
but you're calling Arlecchino useless even though she only had a maximum of 30 minutes of screen time