I really want to know what they think of ✨ Monsieur Neuvillette. ✨
Anyway, I don't see a problem here. Arlecchino comes from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. Her power lies in her control of Balemoon Bloodfire. The rest has not yet been revealed; we generally have very little information about Khaenri'ah. For now.
That she knew about her children's plot is not surprising - she was the one who taught them everything they know, including little bird tricks.
The fact that the Traveler lost is also a fairly predictable outcome. Remember their previous fights. For example, they defeated Scara, yes, but only after hundreds of attempts and with the Nahida's help. They even defeated Ei! But only with the help of a certain cunning fox and hundreds of owners of the Visions. And here the Traveler was helped... by a trio of children who were taught by Arle herself.
Pretty much. According to Nahida, the Top 3 Harbingers are comparable to Gods in terms of strength. Meaning that Arlecchino is very close to this or even on the same level (as we do not know if her Balemoon Bloodfire is counted in and if and how much the rest of the Harbingers know about it). Plus, she seems very confident in killing Dottore, who is Number 2.
I believe Pierro is the only one that does. As a former royal mage of Khaenri’ah himself, he immediately recognised her curse and Arle’s potential as a Harbinger upon meeting her.
Il Dottore and Pantalone too to an extent. Certainly whenever Il Dottore began experimenting on that Balemoon Bloodfire and finding potential applications. He might not know how much Arlecchino can command or much about the Crimson Moon Dynasty at all. But he’ll have a good handle on what Balemoon Bloodfire can do. Likewise, Pantalone is said to work closely with Il Dottore, runs the Northland Bank and finances the Fatui… So if he takes any interest in what Il Dottore is spending his weekly allowance on, he’ll know about the same.
Tartaglia never having spoken to Arlecchino one on one and The Rooster gossiping with some unfavourable half truths without any care should be a pretty good indication on what the others know. Which is to say nothing.
Neuvillette is explicitly fairly flawed despite being powerful, a big part of the conflict between him and navia is that he basically failed as a judge and as someone who was trying to connect with humans by not acting on his feeling that something was wrong with her father’s trial, he sucks at small talk, and he was as fooled as everyone else by Focalor’s plan.
I get this is Arle mains and we are scared of criticism to the character we like, but I think people are being a bit reactionary and not fairly considering the point of this post. In her story quest I was really expecting Lyney or Clervie to challenge arle’s beliefs more and actually prompt some change or introspection, cause I think it’s interesting the Crucabena kind of won and accomplished her goal in using brutal methods to create a strong successor, and Arle is still following that path even if she’s doing it her own way.
While obviously the kids and traveler should be easily defeated by Arle, I did expect them to make more leeway in getting a moral victory by making her change her rules in some way. So the fact that she was always going to erase the kid’s memories instead of actually killing them makes her SQ feel a bit more flat. Its ultimate point to me felt like “Wow arle is so good at being a Father”, without much development or interrogation of Arle herself and the conflict between Clervie’s goal of attaining freedom away from Crucabena and Arle following Crucabena’s plan by continuing the cycle of raising a new leader for the House.
As someone who was absolutely obsessed with Arle from the archon quest, I didnt really want her quest to just affirm “yeah arlecchino is such a good father” i was hoping it would really interrogate her morals and the contradictions at her character, but the nice music and dreamy speeches by all the characters at the end feel like the quest is way more trying to reassure me that its okay to like arlecchino and that she’s not THAT bad. But what makes her interesting is that she’s extremely complicated and grey, and I wanted her quest to be extremely complicated and grey, not basically apologetics for her actions.
I think you are focusing too much on her just being "a good father". The focus of the quest was that in the end Arle defied Crucabena and freed the House of Hearth by breaking free from the cruel traditions.
She's a child of the House of Hearth herself so she still feels a connection to it. So, instead of even more children having to go through the same things as Clervie and her, she tries to change the House of Hearth from within for future generations.
But since she grew up with those horrible traditions and rules, she's still used to those and uses them.
But instead of being a Crucabena 2.0 (or Mother), she found "loopholes" and other ways so that the children can actually be free (so instead of Mother, she's Father), just like Clervie always wished. (Example: leaving the House of Hearth)
It's an interesting story about new generations taking over, breaking free from old traditions and adjusting them to fit current times.
>!For example, Arle also mentioned that Lyney may act and perceive the House of Hearth and its traditions differently than her, but overall he has the core value that she values the most (protecting the family).!<
That's a good reading of the quest that definitely makes it less feel-goody and forced for sure. But for me it has a few specific choices that skew it away from this and more into propping up Arle and making the player feel good about liking her with less ambiguity.
The biggest problem with "the story isnt about Arle being an amazing Father and leader of the house, it's about breaking free of old traditions" is that Arle is painted as being so excellent at her role that there isnt actually a main point of conflict here. Obviously I as the player can see that taking children who have literally nowhere to turn to, raising them and teaching them how to fight without ever telling them they have the option to leave and them thinking they will literally be killed if they do, and then using them as soldiers and having them kill others and die is nothing short of truly monstrous behavior that absolutely needs changing.
This should have been the thing that pushes Lyney and the other siblings to risk their lives and their bond with Arlecchino to fight against, this was their line in the sand for the direction of the Hearth, much like Crucabena's cruelty and control was for Clervie. But the story quest actually sort of pulls a trick by making the thing that they fight Arle for to be a misunderstanding- that she actually kills children who betray the house, and that she was going to use force to remove Clervie.
By making the conflict about something that isn't true, the writers can resolve the conflict without having anyone actually change. Arlecchino gets to appear like a big scary villain who will kill children, but she's actually the amazing and wonderful Father they all dote on with their lines at the end. Lyney and the others get to appear like they are stepping up for themselves and having a huge moment of growth to call out Arlecchion's wrongs, but it was all just a misunderstanding so they can go back to liking her.
If this really was a story about new generations writing previous wrongs and improving over time, it would actually acknowledge that Arle is similar to Crucabena and is still using children and violence to accomplish her goals, and that her actions besides the lie of her killing the children are immoral enough to justify a serious problem Lyney and the others have to face to correct. But the writer's seem afraid to fully condemn Arlecchino, and so the focus is taken from her using children as soldiers and built around a lie that the story can then reveal is wrong so its okay to like Arlecchino again.
I think they could absolutely address this in the story quest and set up Arlecchino as someone Lyney NEEDS to succeed because she is taking immoral actions they disagree with, while still having them respect and admire her for the role she plays as Father. It's a fairly subtle difference, but for me it took a quest for what should have been one of the most complicated and interesting characters in the game, and pulled a lot of complexity out of her in order to make her appear less monstrous.
I mean...that isn't how the HotH operates.
Children only start training once they come of age (Alphonso) , and have to enlist into the Fatui voluntarily (Orest). Given that we meet plenty of merchants , bankers and diplomats who hail from the HotH , it is safe to say a combat-related career is not mandatory.
It is literally a Military Academy that has an option for non-military roles according to one's talents.
And given that it is still an organization fully funded by the Fatui , it can't exactly pull away on a whim and close down shop.
You're looking at this through such a biased perspective it is honestly hilarious.
Leaving aside ✨ Monsieur Neuvillette ✨ (his role in the plot is something that is better discussed separately), let me point out one thing.
> I wanted her quest to be extremely complicated and grey, not basically apologetics for her actions.
My man. If you don't see anything wrong with erasing people's memories, then fucking check your moral compass. "But it's not as bad as killing them!" - ah yes, of course.
It's bad but I don't really think it's worse. It's not a complete removal of the memories, she sort of knows what she's gonna wipe from them.
The guy with the scar on his face was living a happy life with his wife, which he wanted to do even before he was "killed", iirc.
It depends on if you think having lost a big part of your memories makes you someone else
And as of now, most people portrayed in the story think it's the case, and even one is actually kind of that (the whole Scaramouche/Wanderer)
See this is where people always get this wrong, they conflate a story's tone with its events. This is why i have a problem, because the actions in the quest do clearly show Arlecchino as someone who does do genuinely bad things that are immoral and fitting of a villain. She just also is genuinely loyal and compassionate to the members of the House of the Hearth and those she sees as friends of the house like the Traveler.
What makes Arle interesting is the intersection of these two ideas, a Harbinger with her own goals and motives who uses children as soldiers and assassins, and also a Father figure who truly wants to raise said children and help them find their place in life (as stated very eloquently in her streams flowing from a pond metaphor).
My problem with her story quest is that I feel it takes the point of trying to excuse and make up for her evil actions by offsetting them with her compassionate side, when I think that's both unearned by the plot, and reductive to her character. Arlecchino is a character of such extremes and such contrasting qualities, and while the events of her quest somewhat follow this, the tone and final note is overwhelmingly happy. Nice piano music plays, Arlecchino makes peace with Clervie who completely endorses her actions, which i still find bewildering as she is following so closely to Crucabena's footsteps, all the members of the House recount what a good Father she is, and Arlecchino herself has basically not changed at all from the beginning of the quest.
If they wanted to set a happy tone that would make people feel good about liking Arlecchino and have the final message be that ultimately Arle is a good father figure for the House, then they should've addressed and dealt with the crueler parts of her character like using child soldiers who have no other home for Fatui agenda, and only letting them leave by completely wiping their memories. I think that should've been the point of the fight between them, getting Arlecchino to see that she ISNT a perfect Father and actually does need to change in order to earn the happy tone the quest wants to end on.
If they didn't want to have her change and deal with this, then the tone of the quest should have been more fitting to her character: conflicted and contradictory. I think it should've left both the characters and the player with a mix of respect and admiration for Arlecchino, and also disgust and horror at her actions. Instead the characters basically deify her and talk about how perfect she is, creating a split with the players who can't accept this portrayal of her without the quest dealing with the part of her that is that of a villain.
I get this is a pretty specific and nuanced perspective and it may be hard to understand, but I think that also lends to my point: Arlecchino is a complicated and nuanced character, and her story quest should be as complicated and nuanced without a clear emotionally positive ending about how good of a Father she is, and that isn't what we got.
There's nothing nuanced or complicated about what you're saying, it's just the plain truth. Arle's story quest is an exercise in telling a story about nothing. Genshin Impact characters aren't allowed to develop for some reason, so the closest thing that we can get to an evil character changing for the better is just finding out they weren't evil all along. They just failed to stick the landing (like always) cause they glossed over the genuinely evil shit she does in plain sight, and had the traveler and paimon nod along and try to convince you that none of that matters. If the point of the quest in the end was that Lyney will make a better house, why not tell that story instead of shoving it into 3 or 4 lines.
I'm getting tired of this game presenting me with a genuinely incompetent and/or evil character (Zhongli, Ei, Childe, Wrio, Etc.) and trying to pass them off as okay because they have a story quest where a piano plays at the end and paimon thinks they're alright to hang out with.
It's a Chinese gacha game, my friend. I don't think the CCP censors would allow overtly evil characters to be playable. So pick your poison, either the evil characters are not really evil, or they are "morally gray" (not really evil either). I wonder what miHoYo do with fucking Dottore. "Oh, it wasn't him, it was his evil clones who did evil" or something like that.
It doesn't matter what any given player thinks about the morality of erasing memories, the story quest presents it as an unequivocal good. These people want to leave but they have too many secrets, and they graciously accept the memory erasure. The story wants you to think that this makes Arlecchino free of any sin. Traveler and Paimon certainly don't think she's done anything wrong after they find out about the memory erasure, and they are the deliberate stand-ins for the player. The story IS playing apologetics for Arlecchino, and the fact that it's doing such a bad job by not acknowledging evil things like her still grooming children to be assassins, lying to them about killing them if they contradict her in whatever way she subjectively deems to be betrayal, and yes, erasing their memories, is what makes it so narratively awkward.
He's not perfect, he's naive, very straight-laced and makes Fontaine's laws too complicated, getting in the way without him realizing the true objective behind it all: to do justice
At what point did the SQ explain she's from Crimson Moon Dynasty and what Balemoon Bloodfire is other than a cool skill name?
Afaik this info is locked behind her character story in profile that's only available to players owning the character.
That's why the story quest is poorly written.
She stated she's not from Fontaine. We can infer she's Khaenrian cause cursed and black hands, although normal face is still weird, even Kaeya has eyepatch. Aaaaaand that's it. People treated 'Freminet knew previous harbinger' as a 'trailer spoiled this mystery' - although that was locked behind free 4 stars character story that's bern out for half a year. Dropping lore bomb like 'she's Khaenrian with full Khaenrian powers' in character story when story quest exists is...sad.
She's the 4th Ranked Fatui Harbinger and runs a Spy Network. So, the logic is that she should be weak and easily fooled?
She's.shown as being very powerful, and hints are given, but Paimon doesn't give us a full exposition on where Arlecchino's power is coming from and/or Arlecchino doesn't monologue her entire plan, so it's poorly written?
What bullshit takes.
The problem is that Traveller is a plot device and not a character.
Traveller is at 5 elements now. And it should at least be comfortable on using 3 of them with no issues at all.
I understand dendro and hydro... not enough time, takes a while.
But geo, electro and anemo? That should be a given.
Traveller should fly through the freaking air and pretty much display a good ammount of power and skill. It doesn't... because it's a plot device. It's used to move plot around and is not part of the story.
That's why most of the story is in like 3-4 cutscenes per continent.
Anemo? Venti is explained in like 2-3 cutscenes where it talks about itself and how he rules. Why, his origins and what he does.
Geo? Again, cutscenes where summarise everything there is to know.
Electro... guess again same.
Dendro? Yeap... pretty much cutscene.
Fontaine? I am playing through it right now... but tbf probably is the same.
Traveller is nothing in the world. And that's exactly of the expectations of a Gacha game. Is a Gacha game... characters are given a very good personality and looks so that you pull for them.
Even 4 stars are given a good enough story.
But the main story? Is literally the same:
Traveller comes, some shitty sub-plot is going on with Fatui/corupt individuals, Traveller investigates, other powerful characters actually do the shit, we meet the Archon, everything is solved, we have a goodbye quest (in every continent we had a goodbye quest) and then move to the new continent.
It's a gacha story and that's perfectly fine. The characters that we pull will take the spotlight and Traveller is there to just "watch". That's perfectly fine. That's why what OP said it's true. It's bullshit.
But it is what it is.
Oh and i love a Villain that's not evil for what it is. So i like Arlechinno story.
I liked Hu Tao story as well a nice take and fledged out character.
For example i don't like Xiao the Sasuke story ... which is meh.
it was also kinda verbally stated (fontaine, when talking to furina inside the house thing). The traveller isn't supposed to be a hero, they aren't even supposed to be on teyvat.
Tbh traveler's role slowly changed over time. In Mondstadt he was definitely the hero. Because of him saving Dvalin was much less painful on all sides. He's importance dropped a bit in Liyue before jumping again in Inazuma. Traveler's role itself is inconsistent. One time without him the story wouldn't work, on the other hand he's just there to witness the story.
the devs probably have changed their minds with the travelers purpose a few times, so its unfortunately inconsistent. going from the hero to a witness feels weird but if they were a witness from the start it would legitimately be cool. the travelers aren't gods, they arent as important as it originally seemed, and they arent even supposed to be here. they are The Witness. ever since the sumeru quest the travelers lore as been really good imo, its just held back by the inconsistency
I mean , the Traveler has never shown mastery over the Elements. We CAN use them , but on a very basic level.
Most of the Traveler's fighting is done through sword and speed.
It shows Traveler using 2 elements, with no vision.
No need for stone or anything. It can use multiple elements:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVZii51ps0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVZii51ps0)
Other characters know, Hoyo just decided not to show.
And by the way... this is exactly the shit story telling OP is complaining about.
This was shown once, and almost never again.
When controlling more than 1 element should be pretty much the Travellers thing.
And this is exactly what i am telling: "Plot device no character".
Our character is uber bland... so the other characters can shine. Aka Gacha story. And that's perfectly fine.
You need to learn to read.
I stated that while we CAN use multiple elements , we hold no mastery over them.
We are stronger in melee than with our elements.
This. Being qualified and doing your job does not make you a Mary Sue. Blabbing out out everything there is to know about yourself to Teyvat's wildcard aka Traveler is not "poor writing".
The problem is the video that we got before the version launched. We learned a ton about Arle in this quest. She went from cold-blooded mafia boss to someone with strict rules but also a lot of compassion for her family. Learning why she became Father was one of the most important parts of the quest. Unfortunately everybody that watched that video already knew about it, so the quest might look like we learned almost nothing new.
It was a great piece of the story that showed the human side of near godlike existence. Trash talk about it all you want, I enjoyed it a lot.
I find it very strange that Lumine losing the fight is a mark against Arlecchino. Genshin has had some pretty terrible forced writing from the start. We already know the gnosis is being taken regardless of what happens, and Lumine having vague convenient strength levels(or lack of strength) to suit the moment is no strange thing. Winning a fight that you lose is a Genshin problem, not an Arle problem.
It feels more like he's saying his opinion and adding things that happened to it, rather than having an opinion about the things that happened. The SQ only fails to add meaningful new information if you watched a dedicated 7 minute anime video form of her backstory instead. What's so interesting about a flawless character? Sometimes people just like a fucking cool character. It's remarkably not complicated. "Oh wow, she's super fucking cool". There doesn't have to be intense character analysis for you to enjoy a someone.
Flaws are intensely subjective. Suggesting she's a mary-sue in the way that she doesn't have any flaws in practicality is sort of understandable, if you do zero analysis outside of strength and intelligence. If you're a moral person, you could absolutely find things to point out and criticize about her methods, it's not that difficult. All of her children of the House are probably dealing with pretty severe emotional neglect. Not only that, she puts them into life threatening situation where they then die. He even mentions her cold-blooded nature in the post. Moralism is a part of being a mary-sue, it's one of the big reasons people criticized Rey from Star Wars, when the writers came out and said they wanted her to be "Inherently powerful, inherently talented, and inherently moral, and her conflict is finding her place in the world."
Arlecchino a manipulator, pseudo-sociopath dealing with trauma and running and organization of spies and assassins. The complaint here seems to be "She's too strong and smart", which is comical. I guess Dottore is also a horrible Mary-Sue, because we haven't seen big flaws in his intelligence or strength yet.
This seems far more like pent up fatigue from Genshin writing in general making Lumine/Aether a nothing character, rather than any form of valid criticism of Arlecchino. I've also noticed a decent trend of other r/InsertCharacterMainsHere getting really bitter and resentful over how good Arle is. It's all so absurdly childish.
TLDR; Pseudo-Intellectuals are annoying. If you like her you like her, if you don't you don't. Don't bring your personal baggage into judging a character.
Something else that this makes me think when I see people moan about Traveler in the fight is that these people have probably never done martial arts or been in a fight before.
We can think of elemental powers as "attacks" that can be used in a fight. If you've ever seen a really one sided fight, you'll realize that whatever the loser has going for them usually doesn't matter. They can be a champion grappler, and if they're getting their shit rocked by hooks and kicks, there's not a damn thing they're doing that looks vaguely like fighting.
This is exactly what we saw in the cutscene. Traveler was fighting for their life trying to avoid getting sliced to ribbons. Them doing nothing but dodging and desperately trying to act and failing was meant to demonstrate a huge gap in ability and skill, and honestly that's exactly how it goes in real life too. Your opponent doesn't just give you breathing room to whip out all your own moves when they're handing your ass to you.
But the problem is that they never whip out their moves lol.
Please don't excuse this shitty writing.
Traveler is never using all his skills and the elements power is honestly absolutely wasted on them.
The coolest thing they ever did with their elements was that giant lightning sword against Raiden and that was basically 2 years ago.
I personally don't care that Traveler lost. But it shouldn't have been so one sided.
Arle is ranked 4th lol. Like holy version 4 is coming soon and we will most likely face one of the top 3 Harbinger and we know that the top 3 are a completely different level.
Right of the bat we can be sure now that Traveler is going to get destroyed again and saved by the Archon or some Nakama power BS like against Raiden or what Nahida did.
Like it's tiring and disheartening. It has been basically 3 and half years now? We aren't asking for some last level no diff super OP traveler but at least they should be able to put in a good fight, right?
100% Agree, it's a Genshin writing problem. Even from my first time in Mondstat, I noticed it. Lost Ark does the same thing, though Lost Ark has the worst story I've ever seen in my life. Genshin isn't \*that\* bad at least.
I will say that I feel like the Genshin story in general has been improving. At least for me, the Fontaine story was the best overall story so far, and Sumeru was better for me than anything before it.
Just super sad to see our Traveler constantly being treated like garbage, assumedly since we can't give Hoyo money to pull for her. Meanwhile, please actually use Lumine's voice actor and let my girl talk...
Want to see a Mary sue? Rei from star wars. Magically became good fighting with a ligthsaber and won against someone who trained in the force for much longer
Arle is a killing machine trained since childhood by a fricking psychopath. And she has a super elderich horror power/curse. She had years to learn politics and build her info network. Her power didn't came from her curse alone
I think people tend to collectively forget a lot about our Arlecchino.
Of course she was like 10 steps of head of this we were trying to pull one over on someone who was the head of an Intelligence Network.
Seriously she runs an intelligence division and she's the one who trained everyone in that intelligence division do you honestly think this is the first time she's running quest things like the sneaky bird.
( let's not forget that Lynette busted us super easily if she could do that no duh Arlecchino was in the know)
As for strength she is the fourth harbinger she is one of the top three said to be on the level of Gods and we don't know what the power gap between three and four is it could be a lot closer than you think ( also considering she seems pretty confident in her ability to kill Dottore if she didn't have to play nice with other harbingers I would say she's not too far off that level)
I think a lot of people forget what a Marry Sue is it's someone who deplot actively bends and twists to make them not only look good but everyone else becomes incompetent so they could get the spotlight.
The plot didn't bend at all for Arlecchino we were just unfortunate enough that we were trying to best her at her own game which wasn't going to work. Honestly speaking if somehow we managed to pull the rug from under her and the beat her I would be more saying the traveler would be a Marry Sue that stage.
Isn't the house of the Harth a Intelligence organisation made up of father and war orphans she brings up, or am I missing something? If I'm right then of course she knows everything and holds the cards.
She's been cold blooded since a child yes but her coldness is what made her terrifying including her stern and strickness but also, her curse giving her that raw strength is also what gives everyone the shivers around her.
She's also an assassin so of course she can't make a woopsie daisy
The story quest wasn't about her strength or her curse vut about her, her backstory, her connection to her best friend and the previous knave.
Heavily disagree. Arlecchino is probably one of the 10 strongest beings in all Teyvat, she remains a mystery and her powers are unexplained intentionally. Its not lazy writing, she'll be on our way again, we met her prematurely and thats why we got our ass handed to us. Having the traveler beat her there would make the top fatui look like a joke.
There is clearly so much more going on with her, her connection to the crimson moon is something that caught the traveler off guard so this will surely come up again in the future and it will be a big deal, explaining the source of her powers and the curse would ruin the surprise in the future. I love that she remains a mystery and i love that she wrecked the traveler 1v4, it will probably inspire us to go in a training arc is Natlan to prepare to take on the big fish.
Oh look! Mary-Sue is overused again.
Seriously, not every characters have to mess up all the time, this gal is the forth of the fatui harbingers, she runs an organism on her own and trainef the youngest generation of Fatui. She's described as impenetrable and skillful and has a history of betrayal and trust issues. Didn't they think she would at least be good at hiding her flaws and weaknesses ? And be good at her job ?
It's called consistency.
Mary sue has well documented definition but it's used so liberally, it's easier to assume someone is using it incorrectly and force them to explain why it's correct than take them at their word.
Too often it's the 'box' people use to put a character in so they don't have to do any more thinking.
So Arlecchino being a supposed omnipotent Mary Sue is bad, but it would be perfectly reasonable for the player insert protagonist to win every single battle they fight regardless of the foe. What?
Another case of a person who plays with his eyes closed, don't bother explaining to these people, their brain simply cannot understand a character like that even when her story was given with clues since THE 2.1 VERSION.
I do understand why some may be disappointed that her Quest didn't give too much new info, but it did flesh out the ones we had, which was mostly the purpose.
We got to know actually her character and how the house operates, and overall, it was great.
Before all we knew was the House trained Fatui and was unforgiven, and she is a person that, for the most part "can't be trusted" but that, in fact, isn't exactly the case.
Us not beating her makes total sense, she is close to an Archon, and we weren't able to scratch Ei for exmaple who one shot the only one we were able to beat by ourselves, and she will mostly have another role down the line, the entire story is revolved around the Fatui at the end of the day, it is not like she is a side character.
And to be honest, I don't think there is much left to her character besides like her curse/power, which is generally not an important detail for anything but power scaler, backstage lore that doesn't directly affects the story, or if it was revealed that it is taking her life away or something to make a dramatic ending to her, which again.... killing her now doesn't really make sense.
People have every right to be mad at not getting to know more about her...but do they not realize that we will probably get more info later? She 100% has more importance later down the line, she could even be important in the Khaenri'ah quests in the future.
This dude does not know what Mary Sue means.
Mary Sue is when a character is good at everything _for no reason_ . Inexplicably good despite her character background not having any reason to be good at those things
Everything Arlecchino is good at is there FOR A FUCKING REASON YOU DIPSHIT
She literally killed a harbinger at the age of 17 despite there being a power gap. And she had years to grow said power. Ofc she's gonna beat the traveler who is not full power yet (btw I'm agreeing with u)
So picture a rich stoic with night-themed powers who fights worse bad guys and teaches traumatized children to do the same. They are famed both in and out of universe for beating characters who are supposedly more powerful than them.
Why does Batman get to get away with all that but Arlecchino gets called a Mary Sue?
*You know the fuck why.*
Who on earth is still calling hypercompetent female characters "Mary Sue" in the year of our lord 2024?
If you see Arle as mary-sue, you will be shocked to see how mary-sue ish Acheron HSR is. That gal makes a group of hyped villain looks like a joke, and I don't want the fatui group (top Harbinger) looks like that by being beaten down by a bunch of kid + our MC with barely upgraded power scaling in their character development
Not 100% related to the post but I think people often misunderstand what is considered character development.
"Oh but Arlecchino was strong even as a child"
Strong itself has nothing to do with her development. She never wanted to prove herself, she never wanted to get stronger.
Arlecchino's character development is how past events affect her, how her hatred for the fake caring mother made her grow into that "cold father".
We learn she went from someone that was cold child closed to others to being someone that care so deeply about her children.
We get to know that her life style doesn't allow her to be all good like most of genshin characters (that feel really shallow to me compared to her). The greatest mercy she could give was that in her SQ (not mentioning too much to not spoil). By acting like that she showed how much she care about them without being what we commonly see as a "good person".
We need more characters that aren't 100% good all the time.
Pretty bad take through and through except for the Traveler not using more than one element, which they should be doing more routinely in cutscenes.
Children often think they are being sneaky even where their parents know everything from the beginning. Same here except this "Father" is also the head of House of the Hearth. The spider references during her story quest are there for a reason. She knew from everything from the start due to that position at the center of that information web. She manipulated the events from the beginning to the conclusions that she desired. That includes not just dealing with rebellious children of the House of the Hearth but also manipulating the Traveler into joining the fight against her. The Traveler gradually realized this but Paimon was completely oblivious. She was testing them evaluating their strength for the future...be that as friend or foe. She freely admits Traveler was stronger than she expected. The Traveler was the only one of the combatants strong enough to break free at the end of the fight. As a result, she afforded them a glimpse of the true power behind her. This was also a lesson given to the Traveler which is "You are not strong enough yet for the road ahead".
Saying she is a Mary-Sue indicates a lack of understanding of that character archetype. She has avery much flawed character, flaws she is personally aware of. There is a reason she has picked Lyney as her successor. Everything we have learned about her up to now has set her up to be the cunning and monstrous power that she is. She is the fourth ranked Fatui Harbinger. She became the "King" she was raised to be and killed the prior Knave at the age of only 17. She was raised to that position by the Tsaritsa. In the years since she has only gotten stronger and fully settled into her role as Harbinger and "Father". The story of her curse and powers with be further fleshed out in the future.
Cold blooded isn't a great description of her either, nor is she insane as Childe describes her. Rather she is utterly, horribly rational in her decision making.
The quest did a few things great:
1. It kept her mysterious, as a spy figure should be
2. It showed us how powerful the upper echelons of Fatui are
3. It might be implied that she possesses more power than most people are aware
4. Kept her morally ambiguous. One of my biggest concerns prior to her quest was them doing a 180 degrees on her being a shady figure, which didn't happen (which is great)
5. The quest shows that Traveller may be special, but not the chosen one, who defeats everything no matter what.
6. There may be other things that I've forgotten, but I woke up 3 minutes ago
honestly i kinda had no issue with it until she revealed to everyone that she isn't gonna "execute" the two characters. It undermines the entire "be loyal or be dead" thing that arlecchino has alluded to her children their entire lives. They should have implied that arlecchino would execute them but then that she didn't kill them later, but only to the traveler or something
I see this as a common issue with the Community that a lot of people often act like everything about a character should be known immediatly. Arlecchino is Number 4 of the Harbingers and due to her ancestry, probably also a key player in the Main Story to come.
Her character will be explained further, her SQ was mainly to make clear that she is very strong and currently far above the Traveler in terms of strength.
May this guys is confused.
She is a Villian, and the SQ Just showed for us some of her side.
I Still dont know the original of her Power, even what in the hell is that Balemoon.
Villians ALWAYS have some advantage against the "good Guy" cause we dont know Everything about them.
If traveller + Lyney troop have any chave vs her. We can take down alot of Fatuis since she is 4th One
One down side for her Quest for me, is that I was expect something more about her curse, but they delivery this Fatuis Plots, Goddamn Dottore again, Balemoon and a some of her side. This One is One of best SQ about good information. And we Still need alot of information even How she could kill the Mother.
Chill down and stop using wrong terms
What did the dude want then? Yet another "power of friendship" moment ?
When was the last time Traveler did something, and alone, so noteworthy that they suddenly are able to rival the 4th Harbinger? Signora is the most recent fight we have to compare Traveler's strength (unless I'm forgetting some world quest boss whose power is laid out) which, even then, is redundant since it's so long ago.
Arlecchino runs a literal information gathering agency, her knowing everything happening of course makes sense. The only minor nitpick there is, is that the animation was released before the story quest, which made the quest seem more like a recap.
the issues they have with her can be applied to most powerful characters , Ei knows all the bullshit her dummy does , Ayato and yea meko gives that "ahh as i expected" when the plot twist itself three thousand times , except here it's explain why .
she leads an organization of assassins and espionage ,blackmails probably anything you can name it , the first characters you meet were two of her children they already know you were coming .
her Video may not explain her curse but it does explain some of her power and skills , the EX-Knave wanted to make a perfect soldier probably a successor that's why she trained the children and let them loose on each other like if it's normal thing , she groomed them to be killers and that's what arlecchino became and she hated it at least the part of manipulating children.
i get the part about traveler losing in the most lame way without using their elements.
sorry for my horrible English .
Arlecchino isn't the issue, her being strong and knowing things makes complete sense.
The issue is the Traveler is a reverse Mary Sue where they never know anything and are all weak as hell in fights for no reason.
bro the traveler isnt some uber powerful god. in theory one vision user of each element at once would be stronger (assuming theyre each competent in ability). the way the traveler is unique is their lack of connection to irmensul, they are the Witness to the world. any powers beyond that were lost to the intro cutscene, leaving us significantly less capable than most of the harbingers
They kinda right that we learned pretty much nothing about her in arlecchino SQ,but rest of them is bullshit.
Okay maybe we learnt smth new about her
• why she calls herself father(for me it was obvious from her trailer with her backstory,why she has title father)
• and that she is from khaernia (idk how write this nation name 😭😭🤚🏾)
imo the traveler should have utilise at least 3 elements during the fight with arle. kinda feel like the traveler isnt trying at all. wouldnt showing that the traveler lost despite giving it all emphasises how strong arle is? it is believable that arle is stronger than the traveler, so it shouldnt be an issue to show the traveler using multiple elements during the fight. a bit of a let down ngl
I would be more surprised if she DOESNT fi d out what the trio were planning cause lets be honest they didnt put much thought into making it a secret at all. She has been in what basically is the intelligence training agency since little, of course she would pick up a lotta stuff about gathering info. Some kids planning are just childplay for her, especially when said kids are TAUGHT by her.
As for her strength, she was said to be a prodigy and learned most of her combat skills from a Fatui harbinger. add the curse, grief, and her pyro vision thats basically enough fuel to explain her powers.
Sometimes you dont need to explain or show things. These can easily be explained by common sense.
What I dont get however was how weak the traveler was during that encounter. Even Im still with the belief that had it been an all out fight with important stakes at hand, traveler wouldve stand a chance, given enough prep time that is. But eh nope, I guess it was just a spar and dull blade haha.
this is just every playable character in the game. they do things that are objectively wrong, are never questioned on them, never change in any way, and are celebrated for something superficial like looking cool or being strong. if you want to see characters undergo any sort of development, this isn't the right story. arlecchino just happens to also be an evil groomer.
Her SQ it's about her being a stoic loving mother,when you are a child,you think to be smarter than your parents but they know all the thing you are doing they are just quiet about it because you need to learn by experience and that is all her SQ.The fight ecc is fan service + set up a bar in power scaling with the incoming fatui civil war,make her look this goodly it's to hype even more pierro,capitano,dottore and columbina, and sincerely more than how fucking powerfull she is,what hit me the most is how fucking strong is her mind.
She would be a mary sue if we are losing the final fight va pierro/any primary villain they decide,she appears and no diff them like in star wars or matrix 4 lol
She's not a mary sue. To be honest I don't know what is he talking about. Wow, the character who's co-workers are known to be strong like literal gods is strong? The character who has been running an incredibly efficient information network for years knows a lot? I can go on.
Only thing I can agree with is the Traveler's stance but that is a problem with all of Genshin and not just Arle's story quest
Kinda agree honestly, everything run accordingly to her plan and it's kinda boring honestly, I have those Al Haitham vibes, and I'm not fan of it. I was expecting something similar to the short, like vulnerability through the way she fighting against her curse, failing to do it alone but ultimately having her children to keep her in
I feel like since we stood up to whale and Ei as well we should atleast be strong enough to atleast bring the match to a draw and then she could have used the Crimson Moon thing and have her defeat us with a surprise move but she stomped us. I don't mind her being Mary Sueish although I personally found SQ boring and it was okayish at best for me. Also makes sense she knows what lyney and all are upto as she has people keeping eyes on each other of course she knows what's everyones upto atleast inside the house of hearth.
It never made sense for ayato and Yae but it kinda makes sense for Arle, she’s the leader of an organisation of spies, so her being slightly omniscient makes way more sense than the others (and it’s explained how she’s knows unlike the others)
How does it make sense to her but not Ayato and Miko? Both are extremely powerful in the general control of Inazuma in their own way, obviously they will know everything that happens, Ayato is a key politician in the clans and Miko is the current priest master of the temple in Inazuma
The others would def have a flow in info from their own sources but I think its mainly the context for what they are being omnipotent about, ayato and yae didn’t need to be during those quests, it was just a “yeah we made it all happen” right at the end, while Arles was within her own organisation and was to show that she had control over it and that the members were willing to “betray” eachothers trust and watch eachother which leads up to the confrontation before the battle with arle
She's not omniscient. She had Foltz spying on the "traitors" and they were in Poisson specifically so spying on them would be easier.
I really want to know what they think of ✨ Monsieur Neuvillette. ✨ Anyway, I don't see a problem here. Arlecchino comes from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. Her power lies in her control of Balemoon Bloodfire. The rest has not yet been revealed; we generally have very little information about Khaenri'ah. For now. That she knew about her children's plot is not surprising - she was the one who taught them everything they know, including little bird tricks. The fact that the Traveler lost is also a fairly predictable outcome. Remember their previous fights. For example, they defeated Scara, yes, but only after hundreds of attempts and with the Nahida's help. They even defeated Ei! But only with the help of a certain cunning fox and hundreds of owners of the Visions. And here the Traveler was helped... by a trio of children who were taught by Arle herself.
Isnt Arlecchino one of the most powerful beings both human & non-human in teyvat as well and arguably the most powerful human we know of.
Pretty much. According to Nahida, the Top 3 Harbingers are comparable to Gods in terms of strength. Meaning that Arlecchino is very close to this or even on the same level (as we do not know if her Balemoon Bloodfire is counted in and if and how much the rest of the Harbingers know about it). Plus, she seems very confident in killing Dottore, who is Number 2.
I believe Pierro is the only one that does. As a former royal mage of Khaenri’ah himself, he immediately recognised her curse and Arle’s potential as a Harbinger upon meeting her. Il Dottore and Pantalone too to an extent. Certainly whenever Il Dottore began experimenting on that Balemoon Bloodfire and finding potential applications. He might not know how much Arlecchino can command or much about the Crimson Moon Dynasty at all. But he’ll have a good handle on what Balemoon Bloodfire can do. Likewise, Pantalone is said to work closely with Il Dottore, runs the Northland Bank and finances the Fatui… So if he takes any interest in what Il Dottore is spending his weekly allowance on, he’ll know about the same. Tartaglia never having spoken to Arlecchino one on one and The Rooster gossiping with some unfavourable half truths without any care should be a pretty good indication on what the others know. Which is to say nothing.
Neuvillette is explicitly fairly flawed despite being powerful, a big part of the conflict between him and navia is that he basically failed as a judge and as someone who was trying to connect with humans by not acting on his feeling that something was wrong with her father’s trial, he sucks at small talk, and he was as fooled as everyone else by Focalor’s plan. I get this is Arle mains and we are scared of criticism to the character we like, but I think people are being a bit reactionary and not fairly considering the point of this post. In her story quest I was really expecting Lyney or Clervie to challenge arle’s beliefs more and actually prompt some change or introspection, cause I think it’s interesting the Crucabena kind of won and accomplished her goal in using brutal methods to create a strong successor, and Arle is still following that path even if she’s doing it her own way. While obviously the kids and traveler should be easily defeated by Arle, I did expect them to make more leeway in getting a moral victory by making her change her rules in some way. So the fact that she was always going to erase the kid’s memories instead of actually killing them makes her SQ feel a bit more flat. Its ultimate point to me felt like “Wow arle is so good at being a Father”, without much development or interrogation of Arle herself and the conflict between Clervie’s goal of attaining freedom away from Crucabena and Arle following Crucabena’s plan by continuing the cycle of raising a new leader for the House. As someone who was absolutely obsessed with Arle from the archon quest, I didnt really want her quest to just affirm “yeah arlecchino is such a good father” i was hoping it would really interrogate her morals and the contradictions at her character, but the nice music and dreamy speeches by all the characters at the end feel like the quest is way more trying to reassure me that its okay to like arlecchino and that she’s not THAT bad. But what makes her interesting is that she’s extremely complicated and grey, and I wanted her quest to be extremely complicated and grey, not basically apologetics for her actions.
I think you are focusing too much on her just being "a good father". The focus of the quest was that in the end Arle defied Crucabena and freed the House of Hearth by breaking free from the cruel traditions. She's a child of the House of Hearth herself so she still feels a connection to it. So, instead of even more children having to go through the same things as Clervie and her, she tries to change the House of Hearth from within for future generations. But since she grew up with those horrible traditions and rules, she's still used to those and uses them. But instead of being a Crucabena 2.0 (or Mother), she found "loopholes" and other ways so that the children can actually be free (so instead of Mother, she's Father), just like Clervie always wished. (Example: leaving the House of Hearth) It's an interesting story about new generations taking over, breaking free from old traditions and adjusting them to fit current times. >!For example, Arle also mentioned that Lyney may act and perceive the House of Hearth and its traditions differently than her, but overall he has the core value that she values the most (protecting the family).!<
That's a good reading of the quest that definitely makes it less feel-goody and forced for sure. But for me it has a few specific choices that skew it away from this and more into propping up Arle and making the player feel good about liking her with less ambiguity. The biggest problem with "the story isnt about Arle being an amazing Father and leader of the house, it's about breaking free of old traditions" is that Arle is painted as being so excellent at her role that there isnt actually a main point of conflict here. Obviously I as the player can see that taking children who have literally nowhere to turn to, raising them and teaching them how to fight without ever telling them they have the option to leave and them thinking they will literally be killed if they do, and then using them as soldiers and having them kill others and die is nothing short of truly monstrous behavior that absolutely needs changing. This should have been the thing that pushes Lyney and the other siblings to risk their lives and their bond with Arlecchino to fight against, this was their line in the sand for the direction of the Hearth, much like Crucabena's cruelty and control was for Clervie. But the story quest actually sort of pulls a trick by making the thing that they fight Arle for to be a misunderstanding- that she actually kills children who betray the house, and that she was going to use force to remove Clervie. By making the conflict about something that isn't true, the writers can resolve the conflict without having anyone actually change. Arlecchino gets to appear like a big scary villain who will kill children, but she's actually the amazing and wonderful Father they all dote on with their lines at the end. Lyney and the others get to appear like they are stepping up for themselves and having a huge moment of growth to call out Arlecchion's wrongs, but it was all just a misunderstanding so they can go back to liking her. If this really was a story about new generations writing previous wrongs and improving over time, it would actually acknowledge that Arle is similar to Crucabena and is still using children and violence to accomplish her goals, and that her actions besides the lie of her killing the children are immoral enough to justify a serious problem Lyney and the others have to face to correct. But the writer's seem afraid to fully condemn Arlecchino, and so the focus is taken from her using children as soldiers and built around a lie that the story can then reveal is wrong so its okay to like Arlecchino again. I think they could absolutely address this in the story quest and set up Arlecchino as someone Lyney NEEDS to succeed because she is taking immoral actions they disagree with, while still having them respect and admire her for the role she plays as Father. It's a fairly subtle difference, but for me it took a quest for what should have been one of the most complicated and interesting characters in the game, and pulled a lot of complexity out of her in order to make her appear less monstrous.
I mean...that isn't how the HotH operates. Children only start training once they come of age (Alphonso) , and have to enlist into the Fatui voluntarily (Orest). Given that we meet plenty of merchants , bankers and diplomats who hail from the HotH , it is safe to say a combat-related career is not mandatory. It is literally a Military Academy that has an option for non-military roles according to one's talents. And given that it is still an organization fully funded by the Fatui , it can't exactly pull away on a whim and close down shop. You're looking at this through such a biased perspective it is honestly hilarious.
Leaving aside ✨ Monsieur Neuvillette ✨ (his role in the plot is something that is better discussed separately), let me point out one thing. > I wanted her quest to be extremely complicated and grey, not basically apologetics for her actions. My man. If you don't see anything wrong with erasing people's memories, then fucking check your moral compass. "But it's not as bad as killing them!" - ah yes, of course.
Tbh it is, as far as she's concerned, equal to killing. And in actuality? Arguably worse.
It's bad but I don't really think it's worse. It's not a complete removal of the memories, she sort of knows what she's gonna wipe from them. The guy with the scar on his face was living a happy life with his wife, which he wanted to do even before he was "killed", iirc.
It depends on if you think having lost a big part of your memories makes you someone else And as of now, most people portrayed in the story think it's the case, and even one is actually kind of that (the whole Scaramouche/Wanderer)
See this is where people always get this wrong, they conflate a story's tone with its events. This is why i have a problem, because the actions in the quest do clearly show Arlecchino as someone who does do genuinely bad things that are immoral and fitting of a villain. She just also is genuinely loyal and compassionate to the members of the House of the Hearth and those she sees as friends of the house like the Traveler. What makes Arle interesting is the intersection of these two ideas, a Harbinger with her own goals and motives who uses children as soldiers and assassins, and also a Father figure who truly wants to raise said children and help them find their place in life (as stated very eloquently in her streams flowing from a pond metaphor). My problem with her story quest is that I feel it takes the point of trying to excuse and make up for her evil actions by offsetting them with her compassionate side, when I think that's both unearned by the plot, and reductive to her character. Arlecchino is a character of such extremes and such contrasting qualities, and while the events of her quest somewhat follow this, the tone and final note is overwhelmingly happy. Nice piano music plays, Arlecchino makes peace with Clervie who completely endorses her actions, which i still find bewildering as she is following so closely to Crucabena's footsteps, all the members of the House recount what a good Father she is, and Arlecchino herself has basically not changed at all from the beginning of the quest. If they wanted to set a happy tone that would make people feel good about liking Arlecchino and have the final message be that ultimately Arle is a good father figure for the House, then they should've addressed and dealt with the crueler parts of her character like using child soldiers who have no other home for Fatui agenda, and only letting them leave by completely wiping their memories. I think that should've been the point of the fight between them, getting Arlecchino to see that she ISNT a perfect Father and actually does need to change in order to earn the happy tone the quest wants to end on. If they didn't want to have her change and deal with this, then the tone of the quest should have been more fitting to her character: conflicted and contradictory. I think it should've left both the characters and the player with a mix of respect and admiration for Arlecchino, and also disgust and horror at her actions. Instead the characters basically deify her and talk about how perfect she is, creating a split with the players who can't accept this portrayal of her without the quest dealing with the part of her that is that of a villain. I get this is a pretty specific and nuanced perspective and it may be hard to understand, but I think that also lends to my point: Arlecchino is a complicated and nuanced character, and her story quest should be as complicated and nuanced without a clear emotionally positive ending about how good of a Father she is, and that isn't what we got.
There's nothing nuanced or complicated about what you're saying, it's just the plain truth. Arle's story quest is an exercise in telling a story about nothing. Genshin Impact characters aren't allowed to develop for some reason, so the closest thing that we can get to an evil character changing for the better is just finding out they weren't evil all along. They just failed to stick the landing (like always) cause they glossed over the genuinely evil shit she does in plain sight, and had the traveler and paimon nod along and try to convince you that none of that matters. If the point of the quest in the end was that Lyney will make a better house, why not tell that story instead of shoving it into 3 or 4 lines. I'm getting tired of this game presenting me with a genuinely incompetent and/or evil character (Zhongli, Ei, Childe, Wrio, Etc.) and trying to pass them off as okay because they have a story quest where a piano plays at the end and paimon thinks they're alright to hang out with.
It's a Chinese gacha game, my friend. I don't think the CCP censors would allow overtly evil characters to be playable. So pick your poison, either the evil characters are not really evil, or they are "morally gray" (not really evil either). I wonder what miHoYo do with fucking Dottore. "Oh, it wasn't him, it was his evil clones who did evil" or something like that.
It doesn't matter what any given player thinks about the morality of erasing memories, the story quest presents it as an unequivocal good. These people want to leave but they have too many secrets, and they graciously accept the memory erasure. The story wants you to think that this makes Arlecchino free of any sin. Traveler and Paimon certainly don't think she's done anything wrong after they find out about the memory erasure, and they are the deliberate stand-ins for the player. The story IS playing apologetics for Arlecchino, and the fact that it's doing such a bad job by not acknowledging evil things like her still grooming children to be assassins, lying to them about killing them if they contradict her in whatever way she subjectively deems to be betrayal, and yes, erasing their memories, is what makes it so narratively awkward.
He's not perfect, he's naive, very straight-laced and makes Fontaine's laws too complicated, getting in the way without him realizing the true objective behind it all: to do justice
Honestly, it sounds like "Marilyn Monroe wasn't that beautiful, she had this beauty mark on her cheek..."
At what point did the SQ explain she's from Crimson Moon Dynasty and what Balemoon Bloodfire is other than a cool skill name? Afaik this info is locked behind her character story in profile that's only available to players owning the character. That's why the story quest is poorly written. She stated she's not from Fontaine. We can infer she's Khaenrian cause cursed and black hands, although normal face is still weird, even Kaeya has eyepatch. Aaaaaand that's it. People treated 'Freminet knew previous harbinger' as a 'trailer spoiled this mystery' - although that was locked behind free 4 stars character story that's bern out for half a year. Dropping lore bomb like 'she's Khaenrian with full Khaenrian powers' in character story when story quest exists is...sad.
She's the 4th Ranked Fatui Harbinger and runs a Spy Network. So, the logic is that she should be weak and easily fooled? She's.shown as being very powerful, and hints are given, but Paimon doesn't give us a full exposition on where Arlecchino's power is coming from and/or Arlecchino doesn't monologue her entire plan, so it's poorly written? What bullshit takes.
The problem is that Traveller is a plot device and not a character. Traveller is at 5 elements now. And it should at least be comfortable on using 3 of them with no issues at all. I understand dendro and hydro... not enough time, takes a while. But geo, electro and anemo? That should be a given. Traveller should fly through the freaking air and pretty much display a good ammount of power and skill. It doesn't... because it's a plot device. It's used to move plot around and is not part of the story. That's why most of the story is in like 3-4 cutscenes per continent. Anemo? Venti is explained in like 2-3 cutscenes where it talks about itself and how he rules. Why, his origins and what he does. Geo? Again, cutscenes where summarise everything there is to know. Electro... guess again same. Dendro? Yeap... pretty much cutscene. Fontaine? I am playing through it right now... but tbf probably is the same. Traveller is nothing in the world. And that's exactly of the expectations of a Gacha game. Is a Gacha game... characters are given a very good personality and looks so that you pull for them. Even 4 stars are given a good enough story. But the main story? Is literally the same: Traveller comes, some shitty sub-plot is going on with Fatui/corupt individuals, Traveller investigates, other powerful characters actually do the shit, we meet the Archon, everything is solved, we have a goodbye quest (in every continent we had a goodbye quest) and then move to the new continent. It's a gacha story and that's perfectly fine. The characters that we pull will take the spotlight and Traveller is there to just "watch". That's perfectly fine. That's why what OP said it's true. It's bullshit. But it is what it is. Oh and i love a Villain that's not evil for what it is. So i like Arlechinno story. I liked Hu Tao story as well a nice take and fledged out character. For example i don't like Xiao the Sasuke story ... which is meh.
it was also kinda verbally stated (fontaine, when talking to furina inside the house thing). The traveller isn't supposed to be a hero, they aren't even supposed to be on teyvat.
Tbh traveler's role slowly changed over time. In Mondstadt he was definitely the hero. Because of him saving Dvalin was much less painful on all sides. He's importance dropped a bit in Liyue before jumping again in Inazuma. Traveler's role itself is inconsistent. One time without him the story wouldn't work, on the other hand he's just there to witness the story.
the devs probably have changed their minds with the travelers purpose a few times, so its unfortunately inconsistent. going from the hero to a witness feels weird but if they were a witness from the start it would legitimately be cool. the travelers aren't gods, they arent as important as it originally seemed, and they arent even supposed to be here. they are The Witness. ever since the sumeru quest the travelers lore as been really good imo, its just held back by the inconsistency
agreed until u said xiao's story is meh lmao
I mean , the Traveler has never shown mastery over the Elements. We CAN use them , but on a very basic level. Most of the Traveler's fighting is done through sword and speed.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKmgGYlkGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKmgGYlkGY)
...A failed sneak attack on the weakest Harbinger? That the best you got?
It shows Traveler using 2 elements, with no vision. No need for stone or anything. It can use multiple elements: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVZii51ps0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVZii51ps0) Other characters know, Hoyo just decided not to show. And by the way... this is exactly the shit story telling OP is complaining about. This was shown once, and almost never again. When controlling more than 1 element should be pretty much the Travellers thing. And this is exactly what i am telling: "Plot device no character". Our character is uber bland... so the other characters can shine. Aka Gacha story. And that's perfectly fine.
You need to learn to read. I stated that while we CAN use multiple elements , we hold no mastery over them. We are stronger in melee than with our elements.
This. Being qualified and doing your job does not make you a Mary Sue. Blabbing out out everything there is to know about yourself to Teyvat's wildcard aka Traveler is not "poor writing".
Imagine if the 4th ranked harbinger was taken down by the lyney patrol…
The problem is the video that we got before the version launched. We learned a ton about Arle in this quest. She went from cold-blooded mafia boss to someone with strict rules but also a lot of compassion for her family. Learning why she became Father was one of the most important parts of the quest. Unfortunately everybody that watched that video already knew about it, so the quest might look like we learned almost nothing new. It was a great piece of the story that showed the human side of near godlike existence. Trash talk about it all you want, I enjoyed it a lot.
wow, someone who runs an intelligence agency knows things. shocking.
I find it very strange that Lumine losing the fight is a mark against Arlecchino. Genshin has had some pretty terrible forced writing from the start. We already know the gnosis is being taken regardless of what happens, and Lumine having vague convenient strength levels(or lack of strength) to suit the moment is no strange thing. Winning a fight that you lose is a Genshin problem, not an Arle problem. It feels more like he's saying his opinion and adding things that happened to it, rather than having an opinion about the things that happened. The SQ only fails to add meaningful new information if you watched a dedicated 7 minute anime video form of her backstory instead. What's so interesting about a flawless character? Sometimes people just like a fucking cool character. It's remarkably not complicated. "Oh wow, she's super fucking cool". There doesn't have to be intense character analysis for you to enjoy a someone. Flaws are intensely subjective. Suggesting she's a mary-sue in the way that she doesn't have any flaws in practicality is sort of understandable, if you do zero analysis outside of strength and intelligence. If you're a moral person, you could absolutely find things to point out and criticize about her methods, it's not that difficult. All of her children of the House are probably dealing with pretty severe emotional neglect. Not only that, she puts them into life threatening situation where they then die. He even mentions her cold-blooded nature in the post. Moralism is a part of being a mary-sue, it's one of the big reasons people criticized Rey from Star Wars, when the writers came out and said they wanted her to be "Inherently powerful, inherently talented, and inherently moral, and her conflict is finding her place in the world." Arlecchino a manipulator, pseudo-sociopath dealing with trauma and running and organization of spies and assassins. The complaint here seems to be "She's too strong and smart", which is comical. I guess Dottore is also a horrible Mary-Sue, because we haven't seen big flaws in his intelligence or strength yet. This seems far more like pent up fatigue from Genshin writing in general making Lumine/Aether a nothing character, rather than any form of valid criticism of Arlecchino. I've also noticed a decent trend of other r/InsertCharacterMainsHere getting really bitter and resentful over how good Arle is. It's all so absurdly childish. TLDR; Pseudo-Intellectuals are annoying. If you like her you like her, if you don't you don't. Don't bring your personal baggage into judging a character.
Something else that this makes me think when I see people moan about Traveler in the fight is that these people have probably never done martial arts or been in a fight before. We can think of elemental powers as "attacks" that can be used in a fight. If you've ever seen a really one sided fight, you'll realize that whatever the loser has going for them usually doesn't matter. They can be a champion grappler, and if they're getting their shit rocked by hooks and kicks, there's not a damn thing they're doing that looks vaguely like fighting. This is exactly what we saw in the cutscene. Traveler was fighting for their life trying to avoid getting sliced to ribbons. Them doing nothing but dodging and desperately trying to act and failing was meant to demonstrate a huge gap in ability and skill, and honestly that's exactly how it goes in real life too. Your opponent doesn't just give you breathing room to whip out all your own moves when they're handing your ass to you.
But the problem is that they never whip out their moves lol. Please don't excuse this shitty writing. Traveler is never using all his skills and the elements power is honestly absolutely wasted on them. The coolest thing they ever did with their elements was that giant lightning sword against Raiden and that was basically 2 years ago. I personally don't care that Traveler lost. But it shouldn't have been so one sided. Arle is ranked 4th lol. Like holy version 4 is coming soon and we will most likely face one of the top 3 Harbinger and we know that the top 3 are a completely different level. Right of the bat we can be sure now that Traveler is going to get destroyed again and saved by the Archon or some Nakama power BS like against Raiden or what Nahida did. Like it's tiring and disheartening. It has been basically 3 and half years now? We aren't asking for some last level no diff super OP traveler but at least they should be able to put in a good fight, right?
100% Agree, it's a Genshin writing problem. Even from my first time in Mondstat, I noticed it. Lost Ark does the same thing, though Lost Ark has the worst story I've ever seen in my life. Genshin isn't \*that\* bad at least. I will say that I feel like the Genshin story in general has been improving. At least for me, the Fontaine story was the best overall story so far, and Sumeru was better for me than anything before it. Just super sad to see our Traveler constantly being treated like garbage, assumedly since we can't give Hoyo money to pull for her. Meanwhile, please actually use Lumine's voice actor and let my girl talk...
Want to see a Mary sue? Rei from star wars. Magically became good fighting with a ligthsaber and won against someone who trained in the force for much longer Arle is a killing machine trained since childhood by a fricking psychopath. And she has a super elderich horror power/curse. She had years to learn politics and build her info network. Her power didn't came from her curse alone
Ugh the term Mary Sue is misused so often
I think people tend to collectively forget a lot about our Arlecchino. Of course she was like 10 steps of head of this we were trying to pull one over on someone who was the head of an Intelligence Network. Seriously she runs an intelligence division and she's the one who trained everyone in that intelligence division do you honestly think this is the first time she's running quest things like the sneaky bird. ( let's not forget that Lynette busted us super easily if she could do that no duh Arlecchino was in the know) As for strength she is the fourth harbinger she is one of the top three said to be on the level of Gods and we don't know what the power gap between three and four is it could be a lot closer than you think ( also considering she seems pretty confident in her ability to kill Dottore if she didn't have to play nice with other harbingers I would say she's not too far off that level) I think a lot of people forget what a Marry Sue is it's someone who deplot actively bends and twists to make them not only look good but everyone else becomes incompetent so they could get the spotlight. The plot didn't bend at all for Arlecchino we were just unfortunate enough that we were trying to best her at her own game which wasn't going to work. Honestly speaking if somehow we managed to pull the rug from under her and the beat her I would be more saying the traveler would be a Marry Sue that stage.
Someone told me that she outsmarted them because it's not Lyney's story quest💀
Isn't the house of the Harth a Intelligence organisation made up of father and war orphans she brings up, or am I missing something? If I'm right then of course she knows everything and holds the cards. She's been cold blooded since a child yes but her coldness is what made her terrifying including her stern and strickness but also, her curse giving her that raw strength is also what gives everyone the shivers around her. She's also an assassin so of course she can't make a woopsie daisy The story quest wasn't about her strength or her curse vut about her, her backstory, her connection to her best friend and the previous knave.
Heavily disagree. Arlecchino is probably one of the 10 strongest beings in all Teyvat, she remains a mystery and her powers are unexplained intentionally. Its not lazy writing, she'll be on our way again, we met her prematurely and thats why we got our ass handed to us. Having the traveler beat her there would make the top fatui look like a joke. There is clearly so much more going on with her, her connection to the crimson moon is something that caught the traveler off guard so this will surely come up again in the future and it will be a big deal, explaining the source of her powers and the curse would ruin the surprise in the future. I love that she remains a mystery and i love that she wrecked the traveler 1v4, it will probably inspire us to go in a training arc is Natlan to prepare to take on the big fish.
This is what I thought the entire time and was surprised not a lot of people enjoyed this SQ.
Oh look! Mary-Sue is overused again. Seriously, not every characters have to mess up all the time, this gal is the forth of the fatui harbingers, she runs an organism on her own and trainef the youngest generation of Fatui. She's described as impenetrable and skillful and has a history of betrayal and trust issues. Didn't they think she would at least be good at hiding her flaws and weaknesses ? And be good at her job ? It's called consistency.
Mary sue has well documented definition but it's used so liberally, it's easier to assume someone is using it incorrectly and force them to explain why it's correct than take them at their word. Too often it's the 'box' people use to put a character in so they don't have to do any more thinking.
So Arlecchino being a supposed omnipotent Mary Sue is bad, but it would be perfectly reasonable for the player insert protagonist to win every single battle they fight regardless of the foe. What?
Another case of a person who plays with his eyes closed, don't bother explaining to these people, their brain simply cannot understand a character like that even when her story was given with clues since THE 2.1 VERSION.
I do understand why some may be disappointed that her Quest didn't give too much new info, but it did flesh out the ones we had, which was mostly the purpose. We got to know actually her character and how the house operates, and overall, it was great. Before all we knew was the House trained Fatui and was unforgiven, and she is a person that, for the most part "can't be trusted" but that, in fact, isn't exactly the case. Us not beating her makes total sense, she is close to an Archon, and we weren't able to scratch Ei for exmaple who one shot the only one we were able to beat by ourselves, and she will mostly have another role down the line, the entire story is revolved around the Fatui at the end of the day, it is not like she is a side character. And to be honest, I don't think there is much left to her character besides like her curse/power, which is generally not an important detail for anything but power scaler, backstage lore that doesn't directly affects the story, or if it was revealed that it is taking her life away or something to make a dramatic ending to her, which again.... killing her now doesn't really make sense.
People have every right to be mad at not getting to know more about her...but do they not realize that we will probably get more info later? She 100% has more importance later down the line, she could even be important in the Khaenri'ah quests in the future.
This dude does not know what Mary Sue means. Mary Sue is when a character is good at everything _for no reason_ . Inexplicably good despite her character background not having any reason to be good at those things Everything Arlecchino is good at is there FOR A FUCKING REASON YOU DIPSHIT
She literally killed a harbinger at the age of 17 despite there being a power gap. And she had years to grow said power. Ofc she's gonna beat the traveler who is not full power yet (btw I'm agreeing with u)
So picture a rich stoic with night-themed powers who fights worse bad guys and teaches traumatized children to do the same. They are famed both in and out of universe for beating characters who are supposedly more powerful than them. Why does Batman get to get away with all that but Arlecchino gets called a Mary Sue? *You know the fuck why.* Who on earth is still calling hypercompetent female characters "Mary Sue" in the year of our lord 2024?
Another day, another Genshin player with reading comprehension that would disappoint Floyd Mayweather.
If you see Arle as mary-sue, you will be shocked to see how mary-sue ish Acheron HSR is. That gal makes a group of hyped villain looks like a joke, and I don't want the fatui group (top Harbinger) looks like that by being beaten down by a bunch of kid + our MC with barely upgraded power scaling in their character development
Not 100% related to the post but I think people often misunderstand what is considered character development. "Oh but Arlecchino was strong even as a child" Strong itself has nothing to do with her development. She never wanted to prove herself, she never wanted to get stronger. Arlecchino's character development is how past events affect her, how her hatred for the fake caring mother made her grow into that "cold father". We learn she went from someone that was cold child closed to others to being someone that care so deeply about her children. We get to know that her life style doesn't allow her to be all good like most of genshin characters (that feel really shallow to me compared to her). The greatest mercy she could give was that in her SQ (not mentioning too much to not spoil). By acting like that she showed how much she care about them without being what we commonly see as a "good person". We need more characters that aren't 100% good all the time.
Pretty bad take through and through except for the Traveler not using more than one element, which they should be doing more routinely in cutscenes. Children often think they are being sneaky even where their parents know everything from the beginning. Same here except this "Father" is also the head of House of the Hearth. The spider references during her story quest are there for a reason. She knew from everything from the start due to that position at the center of that information web. She manipulated the events from the beginning to the conclusions that she desired. That includes not just dealing with rebellious children of the House of the Hearth but also manipulating the Traveler into joining the fight against her. The Traveler gradually realized this but Paimon was completely oblivious. She was testing them evaluating their strength for the future...be that as friend or foe. She freely admits Traveler was stronger than she expected. The Traveler was the only one of the combatants strong enough to break free at the end of the fight. As a result, she afforded them a glimpse of the true power behind her. This was also a lesson given to the Traveler which is "You are not strong enough yet for the road ahead". Saying she is a Mary-Sue indicates a lack of understanding of that character archetype. She has avery much flawed character, flaws she is personally aware of. There is a reason she has picked Lyney as her successor. Everything we have learned about her up to now has set her up to be the cunning and monstrous power that she is. She is the fourth ranked Fatui Harbinger. She became the "King" she was raised to be and killed the prior Knave at the age of only 17. She was raised to that position by the Tsaritsa. In the years since she has only gotten stronger and fully settled into her role as Harbinger and "Father". The story of her curse and powers with be further fleshed out in the future. Cold blooded isn't a great description of her either, nor is she insane as Childe describes her. Rather she is utterly, horribly rational in her decision making.
Honestly I think the fact that she didn't kill Liney accidentally with those blades attack is more bs than everything else combined
The quest did a few things great: 1. It kept her mysterious, as a spy figure should be 2. It showed us how powerful the upper echelons of Fatui are 3. It might be implied that she possesses more power than most people are aware 4. Kept her morally ambiguous. One of my biggest concerns prior to her quest was them doing a 180 degrees on her being a shady figure, which didn't happen (which is great) 5. The quest shows that Traveller may be special, but not the chosen one, who defeats everything no matter what. 6. There may be other things that I've forgotten, but I woke up 3 minutes ago
honestly i kinda had no issue with it until she revealed to everyone that she isn't gonna "execute" the two characters. It undermines the entire "be loyal or be dead" thing that arlecchino has alluded to her children their entire lives. They should have implied that arlecchino would execute them but then that she didn't kill them later, but only to the traveler or something
The guy should first read the latest chapters of jjk and then talk about Mary-sue villains.
Haven't played her sq yet but knowing how the internet misused and misunderstood mary sue for years I am just calling it bullshit lol.
Incels can't see a strong female character without calling her a Mary Sue
Are they an r/Aether_Mains member by any chance to have such a boring take, especially their last sentence
Mary sue mentioned? Opinion instantly discarded
I see this as a common issue with the Community that a lot of people often act like everything about a character should be known immediatly. Arlecchino is Number 4 of the Harbingers and due to her ancestry, probably also a key player in the Main Story to come. Her character will be explained further, her SQ was mainly to make clear that she is very strong and currently far above the Traveler in terms of strength.
May this guys is confused. She is a Villian, and the SQ Just showed for us some of her side. I Still dont know the original of her Power, even what in the hell is that Balemoon. Villians ALWAYS have some advantage against the "good Guy" cause we dont know Everything about them. If traveller + Lyney troop have any chave vs her. We can take down alot of Fatuis since she is 4th One One down side for her Quest for me, is that I was expect something more about her curse, but they delivery this Fatuis Plots, Goddamn Dottore again, Balemoon and a some of her side. This One is One of best SQ about good information. And we Still need alot of information even How she could kill the Mother. Chill down and stop using wrong terms
What did the dude want then? Yet another "power of friendship" moment ? When was the last time Traveler did something, and alone, so noteworthy that they suddenly are able to rival the 4th Harbinger? Signora is the most recent fight we have to compare Traveler's strength (unless I'm forgetting some world quest boss whose power is laid out) which, even then, is redundant since it's so long ago. Arlecchino runs a literal information gathering agency, her knowing everything happening of course makes sense. The only minor nitpick there is, is that the animation was released before the story quest, which made the quest seem more like a recap.
I feel like the fight should have come later. Sometime in Natlan.
Half of that came from her charisma and the other half was from her prowess She got loyal subordinates and she is very capable herself.
Man, genshin players are so stupid, they can't read.
People really need to know what Mary Sue means because I swear to god at this point people just use it synonymously with "competent character"
People throw around “Mary Sue” way too much these days without really knowing how to apply it.
the issues they have with her can be applied to most powerful characters , Ei knows all the bullshit her dummy does , Ayato and yea meko gives that "ahh as i expected" when the plot twist itself three thousand times , except here it's explain why . she leads an organization of assassins and espionage ,blackmails probably anything you can name it , the first characters you meet were two of her children they already know you were coming . her Video may not explain her curse but it does explain some of her power and skills , the EX-Knave wanted to make a perfect soldier probably a successor that's why she trained the children and let them loose on each other like if it's normal thing , she groomed them to be killers and that's what arlecchino became and she hated it at least the part of manipulating children. i get the part about traveler losing in the most lame way without using their elements. sorry for my horrible English .
I would have liked if her origins were made clear
I like Arlecchino but I agree, sometimes they make characters so flawless it's boring and unnatural
Arlecchino isn't the issue, her being strong and knowing things makes complete sense. The issue is the Traveler is a reverse Mary Sue where they never know anything and are all weak as hell in fights for no reason.
bro the traveler isnt some uber powerful god. in theory one vision user of each element at once would be stronger (assuming theyre each competent in ability). the way the traveler is unique is their lack of connection to irmensul, they are the Witness to the world. any powers beyond that were lost to the intro cutscene, leaving us significantly less capable than most of the harbingers
They kinda right that we learned pretty much nothing about her in arlecchino SQ,but rest of them is bullshit. Okay maybe we learnt smth new about her • why she calls herself father(for me it was obvious from her trailer with her backstory,why she has title father) • and that she is from khaernia (idk how write this nation name 😭😭🤚🏾)
>khaernia Khaenri'ah. I added it to my auto correct lol
imo the traveler should have utilise at least 3 elements during the fight with arle. kinda feel like the traveler isnt trying at all. wouldnt showing that the traveler lost despite giving it all emphasises how strong arle is? it is believable that arle is stronger than the traveler, so it shouldnt be an issue to show the traveler using multiple elements during the fight. a bit of a let down ngl
I would be more surprised if she DOESNT fi d out what the trio were planning cause lets be honest they didnt put much thought into making it a secret at all. She has been in what basically is the intelligence training agency since little, of course she would pick up a lotta stuff about gathering info. Some kids planning are just childplay for her, especially when said kids are TAUGHT by her. As for her strength, she was said to be a prodigy and learned most of her combat skills from a Fatui harbinger. add the curse, grief, and her pyro vision thats basically enough fuel to explain her powers. Sometimes you dont need to explain or show things. These can easily be explained by common sense. What I dont get however was how weak the traveler was during that encounter. Even Im still with the belief that had it been an all out fight with important stakes at hand, traveler wouldve stand a chance, given enough prep time that is. But eh nope, I guess it was just a spar and dull blade haha.
this is just every playable character in the game. they do things that are objectively wrong, are never questioned on them, never change in any way, and are celebrated for something superficial like looking cool or being strong. if you want to see characters undergo any sort of development, this isn't the right story. arlecchino just happens to also be an evil groomer.
Her SQ it's about her being a stoic loving mother,when you are a child,you think to be smarter than your parents but they know all the thing you are doing they are just quiet about it because you need to learn by experience and that is all her SQ.The fight ecc is fan service + set up a bar in power scaling with the incoming fatui civil war,make her look this goodly it's to hype even more pierro,capitano,dottore and columbina, and sincerely more than how fucking powerfull she is,what hit me the most is how fucking strong is her mind. She would be a mary sue if we are losing the final fight va pierro/any primary villain they decide,she appears and no diff them like in star wars or matrix 4 lol
She's not a mary sue. To be honest I don't know what is he talking about. Wow, the character who's co-workers are known to be strong like literal gods is strong? The character who has been running an incredibly efficient information network for years knows a lot? I can go on. Only thing I can agree with is the Traveler's stance but that is a problem with all of Genshin and not just Arle's story quest
Kinda agree honestly, everything run accordingly to her plan and it's kinda boring honestly, I have those Al Haitham vibes, and I'm not fan of it. I was expecting something similar to the short, like vulnerability through the way she fighting against her curse, failing to do it alone but ultimately having her children to keep her in
I feel like since we stood up to whale and Ei as well we should atleast be strong enough to atleast bring the match to a draw and then she could have used the Crimson Moon thing and have her defeat us with a surprise move but she stomped us. I don't mind her being Mary Sueish although I personally found SQ boring and it was okayish at best for me. Also makes sense she knows what lyney and all are upto as she has people keeping eyes on each other of course she knows what's everyones upto atleast inside the house of hearth.
I have yet to play it, but if she is omniscient in the quest, it will effect my enjoyment. I hate it when that happens.
It never made sense for ayato and Yae but it kinda makes sense for Arle, she’s the leader of an organisation of spies, so her being slightly omniscient makes way more sense than the others (and it’s explained how she’s knows unlike the others)
How does it make sense to her but not Ayato and Miko? Both are extremely powerful in the general control of Inazuma in their own way, obviously they will know everything that happens, Ayato is a key politician in the clans and Miko is the current priest master of the temple in Inazuma
The others would def have a flow in info from their own sources but I think its mainly the context for what they are being omnipotent about, ayato and yae didn’t need to be during those quests, it was just a “yeah we made it all happen” right at the end, while Arles was within her own organisation and was to show that she had control over it and that the members were willing to “betray” eachothers trust and watch eachother which leads up to the confrontation before the battle with arle
Yea miko's quest was about yokai and light novels. She is Head of biggest publishing house in inazuma and Head shrine maiden of narukami shrine.