I made this post because I found out that the analysis format is kinda limiting, and I wasn’t able to discuss too many things that are unrelated to Signora’s resurrection arguments or more speculative in nature. This post was made over the course of many weeks because my ADHD brain couldn’t be assed to finish this in one sitting.

Do keep in mind that this has a more casual tone than usual, as parts of this post are less grounded than the analysis I’ve done lately (though I’ll provide sources for most of them), and some of them are just me having an unhinged rant and completely losing my mind. This is where I drop any semblance of politeness and try to be more blunt. God help me.

Table of contents

Thoughts and opinions

Rant about the lack of Sandrone’s resurrection hints and its implications for Signora

With the release of the Snezhnaya behind-the-scenes and 6.6 Special Program VODs, I’m honestly quite disappointed when Hoyo didn’t give even a single hint of Sandrone’s resurrection in both of them, so it seems likely that they’re just gonna release her drip marketing before her resurrection even takes place, unless if it turns out that the 6.6 AQ gives us a hint for that. We all know that she will be playable in 6.7, so the AQ really is their last chance of shoving in a hint to build up some hype for her return. It may not matter for us who knows she’ll be playable, but it could still give some impact for the unwashed masses who don’t check out the leaks, and the fact that Hoyo’s not doing this is pissing me off.

And if it turns out that not even the AQ has any hints of her resurrection, then this may have some serious implications on how they will deal with Signora’s resurrection and the way they market her. They could potentially spoil her in the Snezhnaya Archon Quest roster drip marketing in 6.7, which could kill some of the hype for the mainstream as they’d know she’ll return before that even happens. Hiding her behind a silhouette would be the logical move, but at this point I’m not confident if they’d be smart enough to do this.

There is a positive to this though, I suppose. If they make it obvious that she’ll return, it will almost certainly dispel most of the hatred towards Signora and her fans. It’s just that I would’ve preferred it if they properly tease the revival arc instead of just outright spoiling it.

Theories on what Hoyo’s plan with Signora was during the game’s early life and their pivot to playability

The massive dumpster fire that is Inazuma’s AQ act 3 is still something interesting to revisit for me, even as literally everyone has moved on from that. I’ve always wondered the chain of events that led to this tone-deaf decision making of killing her too early in the game, their initial doubling down on it, and the eventual course correction we’re seeing now. I’ve actually explained some parts of these theories on my second analysis, but I’d like to expand it even further.

This is an educated guess based on publicly-available information and some datamining. We don’t know what the fuck happened at Hoyo HQ that led them to make this utterly moronic decision. While I would’ve loved to see some official posts or even leaks of their internal documents on what they were originally planning to do with Signora in the early days of the game, this is very unlikely to happen, as companies don’t just give out scrapped details like this, and leakers don’t just publish an entire PDF containing Hoyo’s internal memos or narrative outlines. The following theories have their own flaws, which I’ll explain in more detail.

Theory A: Hoyo had originally never intended Signora to become playable, realized they fucked up way too late, and only started course-correcting in Fontaine (and a huge rant on Hoyo’s mishandling of Signora)

This was my original theory, and it was mostly watertight, if it weren’t for the implications of the recent 6.6 AQ leaks. There’s gonna be a huge rant about how poorly executed this is, but before we get into that, here’s some key details on why I think she was never intended to be a playable character.

There’s the placement argument. Fans often speculate that the number 8 (八, bā) sounds like “to prosper” (发, fā). It’s a number associated with immense luck and good fortune in Chinese culture, Hoyo’s own home country. This cultural lens transformed her rank from a simple plot device into what seemed like a deliberate, positive omen from the developers: a hint that she was destined for a prosperous future (i.e. becoming playable). However, I think the real reason is a more cynical and mundane one. Her placement at #8 makes her powerful enough to be a credible threat but not so high-ranking that her removal destabilizes the entire Fatui organization. She’s not a top-tier player like Capitano or Dottore, which have recently demonstrated their immense powers beyond just “stealing the gnosis and RTB” (Capitano with his deranged but ultimately canceled plan to reconstruct Natlan’s ley lines and creating a paradox for Ronova, Dottore with his False Moon research and soon, Irminsul tampering). This made her a “safe” character to eliminate from a plot perspective.

Her placement also creates an irony. Childe, the lowest-ranked Harbinger, survives and becomes playable. A higher-ranked and seemingly more powerful Harbinger, Signora, is unceremoniously executed. This subverts player expectations about power scaling. It’s a classic storytelling move to show that rank doesn’t guarantee survival and that Teyvat has its own “laws”.

Digging into the game’s internal dev builds prior to release, as far back as November 2019 (CB1.2.0), I discovered that Signora only had a bunch of “monster” assets, while Childe had both “monster” and “avatar” assets, including his unfinished kit. While it’s easy to assume that this might have been due to the developers not being ready to release her as a playable character in the near future, this is refuted by the fact that Yaoyao’s model, which wasn’t released until 2022, was present in the July 2019 CBT1 build, along with many other unfinished character models that were only released in 2021 and 2022, two to three years after CBT1 was compiled, and those are labeled as “avatar” rather than “monster”, implying they were designed for playability from the get-go.

There’s also the moth motifs. While fans speculate that moths (or more accurately, butterflies, which are interchangeable due to one of Signora’s drops being the Hellfire Butterfly, even in CN) symbolize rebirth in some cultures, it’s more likely that the intended symbolism was the “moth to a flame”, which is a classic literary trope for a self-destructive character, hence the reason why she has Pyro powers in her Crimson Witch form.

Rosalyne, consumed by the “flame” of her grief and rage, transforms into the Crimson Witch, a fiery “moth”. Her entire life from that point on is about her being allured by something harmful: the transformation slowly burning herself out, joining the Fatui, trying to steal the archons’ gnoses. Her final act, getting caught in a duel with the Traveler and executed for losing, is the ultimate fulfillment of this metaphor. She flies directly into the flame and is consumed.

While the delivery of that metaphor was poorly executed (no pun intended), with her being forced into a non-consensual duel (the Traveler was the one who asked for it, not her), her story was almost certainly intended as a cautionary tale, that unchecked ambition will lead to ruin. Much like Icarus, she flew too close to the sun, driven by an inability to let go of her burning purpose, which was to avenge her lover while seeking revenge toward the archons who have failed her. Even her boss description implies this:

The crimson dawn was reflected in her pupils, and at last, she unfolded her flaming wings and flew towards the light.
“But that light is not the dawn, dear Rosalyne. That is a sea of flame that will consume everything.”
A voice spoke to her amidst the light.

Yet it mattered not, for she knew in her heart that the flames had devoured her long ago.

This cautionary tale backfired real hard due to the fact that she barely had any screentime before she was executed, and the fact that they didn’t reveal Signora as the CWOF before 2.1 also exacerbated this, as most people would assume that the CWOF was someone else, so if this was intended to be a moral lesson, it never landed properly on virtually anyone because her identity was only revealed in the same version where she died, and most simply never bothered to connect the dots due to her lore being buried under item descriptions instead of being slowly revealed in-game.

Not only that, the game’s narrative has a very effective “empathy engine”. It consistently presents characters with tragic backstories to make them compelling and relatable. Diluc is cynical because of his father’s death. Eula is an outcast because of her family’s dark history, and swears vengeance left and right as a coping mechanism. Xiao is tormented by his karmic debt and refuses to interact with humans for fear that it might negatively affect them. Even Ei has a troubled past in which her twin Makoto died, resulting in her becoming a shut-in.

Hoyo applied this exact formula to Signora by connecting her to the tragic Crimson Witch of Flames lore. They gave her a deeply sympathetic origin story, likely intending to make her fall from grace even more profound. But they miscalculated. Instead of seeing her as a lesson, players did what the game had always taught them to do: they empathized. They saw another broken soul who deserved redemption, not destruction.

The following section is an unhinged rant on Signora’s mishandling in the 2.1 AQ. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

Also, I must emphasize that the following rant isn’t targeted towards Raiden mains or fans of any other character! This is a criticism of the storyline and Signora’s haters. I don’t mind if you’re a fan of any character, including Raiden or Venti, but I absolutely despise anyone who attacks Signora fans just because they like her or want her back, regardless of which character you’re a fan of. Had to put this here just in case anyone misinterprets this as me trashing on Raiden fans. I’m not, and “all Raiden mains hate Signora” is a false dichotomy with a mix of ad hominem (“I hate this person because they’re a Raiden main”), and I don’t endorse that kind of fallacious viewpoint.

Worse still, there’s a ton of unresolved plot holes throughout the AQ as a whole. The Traveler was a wanted fugitive by the time the players reached Act 3 for stopping the attempt to confiscate Thoma’s Vision. However, when they barged into the Tenshukaku, Raiden never objected to them despite the fact they were the fucking fugitive she’s been looking for just an act earlier. Seriously, just take a look at these scenes from Act 2:

The Travel Log description for this cutscene reads (emphasis mine):

The Electro Archon’s might is too great, and it takes but a single slip for her to knock you unconscious. The Raiden Shogun prepares to make an example of you before the crowd, but at that moment, Thoma shakes free of his bonds and hurls a spear at the Shogun, picking you up and fleeing the scene as she splits her attention to block the blow. The Shogun watches coldly as you flee, and chooses not to give chase, instead giving orders for your arrest…

What the hell happened to “seizing the Traveler under the decree” then? Why the fuck didn’t she retaliate and try to arrest them when they wanted a duel with Signora instead? This right here really pisses me off, because it’s clear that they literally dropped whatever they were doing in the previous acts just so that Signora could die. I’m pretty sure they were supposed to explore the story for much longer, but presumably it had to be cut short to fit everything within a three-act chapter, and this includes other things like the conflict between the Tenryou Commission and Watatsumi Army, or how they barely gave Teppei any screentime before he died (just like Signora).

If I had to guess what went wrong, I think the Vision Hunt Decree, the conflict, Teppei’s death, and Signora’s death, are all part of the story outline they’ve planned 1-2 years in advance, and that they were supposed to come up with a way to link them together in a way that makes sense and link everything to Signora, as she was intended to be the villain of the arc, but they failed spectacularly because they were trying to cram so much story beat in such a short content window and we ended up with this disjointed garbage as a result.

They learned their lesson, and this is almost certainly why AQs from Sumeru onwards have at least 5 acts, with Nod-Krai having a whopping 8 acts, the longest they’ve ever made so far.

And yet for some reason the haters still got the balls to say that it’s Signora’s fault for accepting the duel. It’s not, and Raiden should’ve stopped the Traveler right there and then because they’re literally a wanted criminal who’s all but giving themselves up by that point. Approving a duel with a political diplomat and somehow face no repercussions for executing her just makes absolutely no sense and it’s nothing more than an excuse to kill her just for the sake of it, in the dumbest way possible, presumably because it gives the impression that they were raising the stakes, all while giving neither the Traveler nor Raiden any real consequences for what they’ve done. We didn’t see the Fatui retaliate against her for killing one of their high-ranking officials, despite the fact that such actions would’ve had serious implications for geopolitics in real life.

Moreover, they could’ve left out Signora from this chapter entirely and nothing would’ve changed, because her presence in there was completely unnecessary. She only appeared towards the end of the chapter, and the only purpose it served was to put her on the chopping block. She didn’t steal the gnosis (Scara already got it much earlier from Miko), nor was she directly responsible for Teppei’s death because she had already handed over the Delusion Factory to Scara, who distributed the delusions. The chapter’s conclusion would’ve been exactly the same regardless of her presence because she barely had any direct involvement in-game.

I’m not saying Signora is blameless, nor am I trying to hide the fact that she attacked Venti and oversaw the Delusion Factory before she handed it over to Scara by the time the Traveler got there, but blaming everything on her is just pathetic when the game itself couldn’t seem to clearly point out how this is the case, and especially when they’re peddling disinformation like this:

For Venti’s Gnosis… And for the people of Liyue you imperiled…
It’s time for me to put a stop to this.

The Traveler is full of shit. It was Childe who was responsible for unleashing Osial. Signora was only there to retrieve the gnosis for the Tsaritsa with a deal they’ve agreed upon.

Signora: You remember the agreement, Morax. Now, if you would be so kind… The Gnosis, please.
(Agreement?)
(Gnosis?)
Paimon: What in the world are you talking about!?
Zhongli: …
Zhongli: The contract is fulfilled. That which thou seeketh is now bestowed unto thee, for my promise is solid as stone.
Signora: Hmph, how sanctimonious…
(So Zhongli is actually Rex Lapis?)
(I mean, I did have my suspicions…)
Paimon: What! So you’re the Lord of Geo!?
Paimon: No, wait! That’s an exciting twist and all — but why give the Gnosis to the Fatui!?
Zhongli: I do not give it for free. I give it as agreed upon in the contract… for it is a matter solely between the Tsaritsa and I.

They were trying too hard to pin everything on her they ended up creating a misinformation campaign that led to Signora fans receiving constant harassment since then, and that’s unacceptable no matter how you look at it. Signora mains are demonized, their points under constant scrutiny, their allegiances and intentions constantly interrogated for some sort of moral or intellectual weakness, all because Hoyo desperately twisted the narrative to prime the audience to feel anger and hatred when the Traveler started a duel she never consented to. To not immediately agree with the narrative Hoyo’s pushing is to be framed as a “coper”, even when the arguments presented are rational and realistic. That’s why we end up with hypocrisy and double standards such as how it’s acceptable to say that “Capitano should be resurrected”, but not when you say “Signora should be resurrected”, or “both should be resurrected and playable”. You’d end up with a whole bunch of downvotes or hateful comments if you try to do that, and these opinions are being treated as fringe by the mainstream even though they shouldn’t have been.

People have also noticed that despite her being a weekly boss in 2.1, she never received a splash art to promote this, nor did she receive any back in Mondstadt and Liyue (1.0 and 1.1 respectively). Splash art is used to build hype and showcase the “stars” of the version. Even Dottore, who wasn’t playable, got a splash art because he was a major star of the Sumeru plot.

By not giving Signora a splash art in 2.1, they were communicating her role: she wasn’t a star; she was a plot device. She was the “shocking moment” of the patch, but they didn’t want to hype her as a character, only the event of her death. Signora fans find this disrespectful because even Scaramouche (as the Harbinger, not Wanderer) and Dottore were featured in the spash art, and literally every single Harbinger who appeared in the game had them featured in the version splash art, except for her.

Responses among the CN community towards the 2.1 AQ was evidently negative. A now-deleted Reddit post from September 2021 (archive) compiled some of their reactions to it. This post also showed that the global community’s initial reactions were generally positive towards Signora, as it had over 2400 points and 96% upvote percentage, likely due to the fact that the Lazzo hadn’t been released yet at the time, and her resurrection was still considered plausible. This sentiment likely flipped overnight when her death was confirmed in the Lazzo teaser.

While the archived post is broken, I was able to extract the contents by viewing the page source. Here’s what they said:

So recently there have been quite a few popular posts talking about how Raiden is weak and has poor synergy, and while that is not what this post is about, I did see quite a few people claiming that the only way mihoyo would pay attention and buff Raiden is if the CN community caused a ruckus like they did for Zhongli. So I decided to go and translate some of what the CN players are talking about in the 2 days since 2.1 dropped.

I will mainly be focusing on the top comments from two official videos on bilibili (the CN version of youtube), namely the Raiden collected miscellany and the Kujou Sara collected miscellany. I am aware that there are other videos/sources out there, but these two videos are quite recent and contain plenty of reviews/criticisms from the CN players. Keep in mind that many of these replies are extremely long, so I will only be translating the gist of it.

From the Raiden collected miscellany video:

  1. Felt that the 2.1 archon quest plotline was weak and lacked depth, hard to fully understand because of the lack of substance, the only really impactful part was Teppei's arc. Hopes that mihoyo can do better with their storywriting.
  2. Acknowledges that plenty of other playeres have trashed the plot enough, felt that mihoyo doesn't pay attention when writing female characters as they seem quite shallow. Male characters have better quality backstories, such as with Zhongli or Venti having good, emotional character quests, whereas Raiden only got a shopping trip for hers instead of exploring her tragic past. So far all the Inazuman female characters except Yoimiya have had dating simulator-esque backstories, mihoyo had better stop writing steamy romance dramas or OP will quit.
  3. Goes to Snezhnaya, turns out that everything bad they did was done by harbingers, the Tsaritsa is a pure and silly waifu who didn't know that the Fatui were committing crimes /s (in reference to Raiden's characterisation)
  4. Dear genshin, can you promote whoever wrote the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual questline instead, I'm talking about the plot and not Raiden, feel like some change in whoever is in charge of the story is in order
  5. Entire plot felt airy-fairy, kind of feels like a fairytale plot where every problem is solved and everyone lives happily ever after, does Raiden really know her people at all? The harm brought about by the vision hunt decree was real, those who died can't be brought back and those who lost their visions are still suffering, it's not just a simple case of repealing the decree.
  6. I don't want to go shopping with Raiden. I want her to go to Higi village, the Sacred Sakura, and the Mikage Furnace, and understand what she did to all those who died.

From the Kujou Sara collected miscellany:

  1. Kujou Sara: Wow, everyone has talked about so many things, sorry I was out cold, wait what the vision hunt decree has been repealed!?
  2. No issue with the characters, but talks about how Signora was a tragic figure and that her fate was cruel. Replies indicate that they felt that Signora's death was extremely rushed and we should have been able to explore her backstory more.
  3. Plot sucks, is illogical and all over the place, the visuals were great, the character designs were amazing, but literally none of the npcs apart from Teppei were given any importance.
  4. Mihoyo, your 2.1 plot seems to be quite a stretch, Signora just died in such a random manner, the resistance learned how to use teleport waypoints, diplomat literally beats up the shogun's second in command, the entire conflict mysteriously ended altogether. Now that minors can't play that much anymore (in reference to the recent regulations), can we please have a plot with more depth? It's our right as players to give our opinion on the game.

There were some other comments that were analysing the plot, but as you can see, most of the CN community is just complaining about how the plot felt rushed/was poorly executed. In contrast to the Zhongli situation where many players were outright complaining about him being very weak as a playable character, I hardly see anyone complaining about Raiden being weak. While this is not representative of the entire CN playerbase, I hope it gives you some idea of what they are concerned about.

TLDR: CN community is mostly upset about the 2.1 plot being weak and rushed, very few are actually complaining about Raiden being weak.

I suspect that Hoyo made a conscious effort to steer public opinion, upon realizing that a significant portion of the player base was sympathizing with Signora and wanted them to explore her backstory in-depth. This “copium”, as the haters would call it, was undermining the narrative impact of what they had done. They wanted the death to be final and tragic, but the community was treating it like a plot twist in waiting. They then decided to reinfore their intended narrative, that she was an arrogant, irredeemable villain. An NPC can be found talking about rumors of the Traveler turning her to ash in a Sumeru daily, 1001 Cups of Coffee, before the Traveler clarified they won the duel, but it was Raiden who levied the punishment. This was a direct attempt to frame her death as a simple, heroic victory.

Sumeru itself was a dry region for Signora. Despite her backstory mentioning that she studied in the Akademiya, she barely gets mentioned there. The only other time she was mentioned again was during the Sumeru Interlude chapter in Scara’s flashback, and it pretty much only enforced the “Signora is evil” narrative. I believe this is another evidence that Hoyo was trying to sweep her under the rug and erase her narrative presence to prevent players from dwelling on her. You don’t just remain silent when the story was discussing something highly relevant to her, especially when said topic led to her major transformation (studying pyro as an apprentice, then transforming into the CWOF upon returning home and realizing Rostam’s death). Giving us her tragic backstory as a student would have generated a massive wave of sympathy, which is the exact opposite of what they wanted at the time. They were still in the “bragging rights” phase and wanted players to see her as a villain who was dealt with, not a tragic figure to be mourned.

Now let’s talk about the infamous “A Winter Night’s Lazzo”. This is where they doubled down on her death, and this animation solidified her image as cold and disliked even by her colleagues (except for Arlecchino, Columbina, and Sandrone, which we now know as her close friends). Even Capitano had this to say:

Though her methods tarnished her honor, Lohefalter’s sacrifice is a great pity.

How fucking hypocritical! This is the same person who wanted to completely nuke Natlan’s ley lines by the way. Also, why not blame Childe, which was the person responsible for unleashing Osial, who should’ve been blamed for “imperiling the people of Liyue” instead of Signora?

This largely worked in the global community, where sentiment flipped overnight, and this resulted in the r/SignoraMains subreddit becoming private for a while due to the constant harassment. I swear some people really are just complete assholes. You know they are when the post I linked (whose comments are predominantly from outsiders) is mostly supportive towards Signora fans.

I’d close down too if my community was making the same unfunny “ha ha fire lady is ashes now” joke 600 times

All these points combined show a clear and consistent strategy: kill her, frame it as a victory, and then bury her story to ensure she remains a one-dimensional, disposable villain.

However, a deeper observation reveals that Hoyo might have realized this was a mistake. According to data by GenshinLab, Wanderer’s CN iOS banner revenue was the second best-selling debut banner in 3.x, at $27 million, and even the global pull count (via paimon.moe) was the 2nd highest in Sumeru, reaching almost 280.000 pulls, second only to Nahida. While the banner does get beat out by reruns in China, with it only being the 6th best-selling one in 3.x overall, and the most popular being Hu Tao/Yelan reruns at $46.5 million, this could be explained by the fact that the higher-selling banners also feature known meta character or archons being placed so close to Wanderer’s debut (Hu Tao, Yelan, Raiden, Ayaka, Nahida), resulting in people likely getting torn between sticking with existing metas or trying out new ones.

This is evidenced by the fact that even Nahida’s debut was only the 4th best-selling banner, and the chasm between the six best sellers and the rest of the banners in 3.x. Note that GenshinLab only provided combined revenue of the two character banners in each period, instead of individual ones unlike paimon.moe data.

And like I’ve said, the global pull count looked even better, as he was able to really hit the second place, and the reruns were less popular:

Considering how his banner was quite successful, both in China and globally, it would be difficult for companies to resist the urge to pivot to making all Harbingers playable upon seeing this sort of widespread success. I speculate that they might have realized their narrative enforcement campaign was alienating a core part of their audience, the very player base that generates the most revenue. The success of Scara’s banner likely sent a clear message that the narrative they were pushing was not landing well and could have financial consequences. Remember, businesses gotta make business decisions, and even if a sizable portion of the community wants her to stay dead, this would become even more difficult to justify when the data clearly suggests that the demand for playable Harbingers is almost as big as that of the Archons.

I suspect that sometime during later 3.x - 4.x patches, they might have already made some plans to resurrect Signora. By late 4.5, Xiao Luohao had already discussed their plans in a speech at Fudan University to execute the burning of Irminsul (which is now confirmed to be in 6.6), with him mentioning that Dottore and the Tsaritsa will have unexpected actions, and most importantly, the player will be surprised to be reunited with a Harbinger. This is also evidenced by Arlecchino’s pity-baiting line in 4.6, which has a more empathetic tone compared to Wanderer’s and Childe’s dismissiveness, along with its suspicious line placement in the 10th place.

They further double down on this in Nod-Krai with the positive Rosalyne mentions and the constant mentions of her or her adjacent lore (e.g. Rostam, Roland) in-game and in official media. They’re no longer trying to force players to hate her. Instead, they are carefully reintroducing her humanity and positive qualities, laying the narrative foundation for a future revival that would be a massive financial success. Additionally, the resurrection of Zibai in 6.3 and later Sandrone in 6.7 can be taken as evidence of Hoyo priming the audience to get used to dead characters being revived, almost certainly to prepare for Signora’s imminent resurrection.

Recently, however, there is an alternate theory that’s more likely to be the case, if the conditions for it are proven true. Enter Theory B.

Theory B: The realization happened earlier, and the Winter Night’s Lazzo is a teaser for her resurrection, among other things

This is a theory that I’ve started to consider ever since the 6.6 leaks surfaced, and if it’s true, then I’ll pivot to this and update the main analysis post to include this as a reason why Signora will be playable. The core premise is similar to Theory A, in which Hoyo had never intended her to be playable, and everything prior to the pivot to playability is consistent between the two. What’s different is that instead of them realizing their mistake 2 years late, they realized it much sooner likely due to the immense amount of negative feedback they received regarding 2.1’s AQ, especially in CN communities where Hoyo tends to source most of their decision-making from.

The evidence for this stems from a recent 6.6 leak. It mentions that after the burning of Irminsul, all history will revert back into the correct version, including the things that were hidden away by Celestia and Scara. This implies that the Harbingers will remember Scara once again, and that we’ll get some new lines from the playable Harbingers.

This is important, because it ties to my theories about Scara and Signora not being listed according to seat order in the playable harbingers’ voice lines. They’re listed at the bottom (and later, in the case of Signora, the 10th place), which might be Hoyo’s subtle way of telling the audience these two characters will be relevant in a future major story beat. With Scara, my initial theory was that his placement at the bottom of the list foreshadowed him tampering with the Irminsul, as his line on Childe’s profile page disappears after he was Irminsul’d, whereas with Signora, it’s because these are meant to be temporary lines that would eventually be superseded by new ones upon her resurrection.

However, it seems that Scara’s placement at the bottom is now pointing towards something bigger, in which he will reappear in the Harbingers’ memories after the player completes the AQ. Because of this, it’s now likely that his new line will be placed in the correct 6th place instead of at the bottom, as he finally has a “permanent” line that doesn’t disappear unlike Childe’s initial voiceline regarding his disappearance. This is still a speculation, however, as we’ll still need to wait until the preload next week to confirm whether or not the Harbingers have a new line about him in the correct 6th place.

If this is confirmed, then this will have some real implications for Signora’s resurrection. Childe’s voice lines on what he thinks about other Harbingers were only added in 2.8, which was released 2 days after the Lazzo teaser, instead of being available since his debut in 1.1. The Irminsul burning scene was shown in the exact same teaser, and it’s now happening almost 4 years later. Considering these, if Scara’s voice line placement moves from the bottom to the correct 6th place, this could further strengthen the theory that the out-of-order placements of Signora’s and Scara’s lines in his VOs is some kind of foreshadowing that they’ve been planning to do something big with them since at least 4 years ago, instead of this being a decision that was made later on during Sumeru or Fontaine, because those lines were only added on Childe after the Lazzo had already been released.

The AQ itself is named “Truth Amongst the Pages of Purana”, which is the title shown for Chapter 3 in the Travail teaser. For context, many people thought that this was a mistranslation or an earlier concept because what we got was “Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises”, but now that this will be in game, it does feel like they’ve been planning to do this very early on, but are only doing it many years later.

In addition to that, people have pointed out that the lyrics for Elogia Cinerosa in the Lazzo contains the line “Nova Rosa”, which translates to “new rose” (i.e. “new Rosalyne”), potentially further confirming this was planned since around at least the Lazzo’s development.

Theory C: She was meant to be playable since her conception, but was killed to leave the audience on edge

This is a theory that some Signora fans believe, and a more optimistic take of the meaning of her death. However, there’s a whole host of issues with this one that makes me unconvinced of it.

She’s the first Harbinger introduced in the game, which gives the players a lasting impression of the Fatui as a whole. For Hoyo to not release her as a playable character would be an odd decision, especially considering how everyone else who did not give a first impression became playable.

In addition to that, her 8th rank can be interpreted as being “lucky” (i.e. destined for playability), and her moth symbolism implies “rebirth” (i.e. future resurrection), as I’ve mentioned earlier in Theory A, and that her death was meant to be a way to leave players on the edge, forcing them to stay tuned to the AQ in the hopes that they would eventually become playable, while simultaneously being unable to predict when they will, in the hopes that it would maximize player engagement and retention. One Signora fan described this as follows:

Killing off the one character where the writers have reasonable ways to resurrect them is the safest way Hoyo can make fans of characters feel in danger without actually biting the bullet and sacrificing a profitable character. It’s a way to threaten the possibility of unique, important characters with constellations dying/being unplayable for the early half of the story until they’re ready to drop the charade near the conclusion of the story. If anything, her death early on is useful to drive uncertainty over the possible fates of the Fatui and make people who wanted to collect them more invested in the game and every opportunity to pull for a new character. While it’s easy for people who want to collect the Archons to guess that each region will include a playable Archon, there is not that same sense of security for the Harbingers, arguably the second most important “set” of collectible characters in the story.

As the first Harbinger we meet, she was a good choice to temporarily remove to nip the threat of becoming too predictable. Not only is she a unique, non-playable character, but she’s also part of a very sought-after “collection” of characters that may just rival the Archons in adoration. If they threatened a Harbinger too late in the story, people would be pissed to get blindsided by a Fatui death because they would already be used to the pattern of all Harbingers being made playable (just like the Archons). It is especially important to keep these smoke and mirrors up for the Harbingers because, unlike other important characters, they are characters we have known about from the beginning and have been able to plan our pulls for. While threatening to kill off the Archons and leaving a region without a playable Archon may be too risky a move for Hoyo, threatening Harbingers is easier to do because there’s no expectation that each one has to release with a certain region. Unlike other characters who we only meet before/during their upcoming region, Hoyo has incentive to find other ways to make up for the lack of mystery with the Harbinger’s identities.

The problem with this, however, is that the symbolisms could all just be a coincidence, like I’ve mentioned earlier in Theory A. Her being the first Harbinger introduced in the game could’ve simply been a decision to use her as a plot device by showcasing what the Fatui is all about and priming the audience into expecting them as an antagonist, and then discarding her once she has outlived her usefulness in the narrative, rather than as a guarantee for playability. Then there’s several issues that are highly problematic when you start assuming she was designed for playability since her conception, which I’ll further explain below.

The “technical debt” of playable Rosalyne

This section further elaborates on why I don’t think she’s initially meant to be playable, along with the technical debts they have to overcome as a result of this.

Bringing back a character who was turned to ash

After losing her duel with the Traveler, Raiden executed her with the Musou no Hitotachi, reducing her to ash. To leave absolutely no doubt about the finality of her death, the game provides a black transition screen that reads “Signora… is slain.” Months later, A Winter Night’s Lazzo reveals the other Harbingers have encased Signora’s remains in a coffin, confirming her death for good. This was likely a sign Hoyo made to imply that they had no intentions of bringing her back and everyone should move on. The fact that she was completely vaporized means that they didn’t even want to entertain the players the thought that this was somehow a fake-out, as leaving a dead body would leave it open for interpretation.

This is a potential issue, because how do you bring back someone who was reduced to cinders? You can’t just resurrect her like Qiqi because the body was completely destroyed. The answer probably involves a lore element that’s yet to be explored in-depth, and conveniently brought up when the time is right, as was the case with Zibai. To recap, Zibai was an angel who died millennia ago. In order to bring her back, the Traveler was tasked to retrieve the Three Deadly Selves, which are some kind of soul fragments. This was never explained prior to the release of the event quest in 6.3, and the White Horse Adeptus itself wasn’t a thing until it was brought up in 2025 Lantern Rite in 5.3, suggesting that this was simply designed to fill in the yearly Lantern Rite characters. This kind of “asspull resurrection” worked because Zibai was not an established character; she just came out of nowhere and became playable, and therefore, players didn’t have any emotional attachment or lore knowledge that would’ve otherwise led them to nitpick on this story beat.

On the contrary, Signora’s resurrection will have to be dealt with carefully, because players have been waiting for almost 5 years since her death, and the current sentiment is that most have grown fatigued from the lengthy wait and the lack of reassurance for her return, especially when some of these people were originally expecting her death to be a plot twist waiting to happen. If her resurrection isn’t done right or felt rushed in any way, it would very likely upset these people who have been waiting since launch or her death in 2.1.

The easiest and most obvious way to do this would be to resurrect her in Mare Jivari. It’s a region that Hoyo themselves is currently gating, likely in anticipating for a major story beat that takes place there. The region has a poorly-explored lore (Liquid Phlogiston) that may be conveniently connected to the Liquid Fire, and the fact that how she acquired Pyro abilities is currently unknown. This could save the writers the effort of having to construct an unnecessarily complex revival arc that doesn’t sound like an asspull. However, detractors have doubted this, questioning the connection between her and Natlan/Mare Jivari, as so far there hasn’t been any build-up that directly connects her there.

Alternatively, she could be resurrected in Snezhnaya. The Snezhnaya BTS VOD mentioned something suspicious about Cryo powers being used to seal ancient, forbidden power or concept, which is exactly what it’s used for with Signora. Her Crimson Witch power was burning her away, so a Cryo delusion was used to keep her alive by suppressing it. The dev mentioned that the traveler finds a way to use these forces, which is pointless for them if they’re referring to CWOF, and irrelevant to Signora, but this could just be a way to not make the reference too on-the-nose, especially when this was followed by “Wait, I think I’ve said a bit too much”. The same video also mentioned that Cryo preserves memories and becomes a medium for storing and reproducing information, and Signora’s coffin is encased in ice. Something related to preserving her remains and information in the ley lines perhaps, so she doesn’t eventually fade away?

About her VA

Signora’s VA chose to remain anonymous. While some speculate that this is due to the harassment Signora fans get, it’s more likely that the real reason has something to do with her union status.

SAG-AFTRA’s Global Rule One prohibits full union members from working on non-union productions. Genshin Impact is a non-union production, as Hoyo doesn’t operate under SAG-AFTRA agreements. A full union member taking a role in a non-union game risks disciplinary action, fines, and potential suspension of union membership. The anonymity was some kind of legal protection. If she’s not credited, the work is harder to prove, and the union has less to act on.

This arrangement worked for a non-playable weekly boss because the credit requirements for that kind of role are minimal. The game doesn’t formally credit NPC and boss voices the way it credits playable characters. But a playable Rosalyne changes everything. Playable characters are credited in the character profile screen, marketing materials, promotional videos, and they’re even featured in the Special Program VOD. The VA is publicly associated with the role in a way that makes the non-union work completely undeniable and therefore completely indefensible to the union. And while it is possible for VAs of playable characters to remain anonymous, like those that replaced VAs who were fired due to misconduct during the strike (Kayli Mills, Valeria Rodriguez, Corina Boettger, and Shara Kirby), the circumstances in here is different.

Those VAs were easier to be anonymized because the characters they’re voicing have already been playable since long ago, so they wouldn’t have to awkwardly exclude the VA from appearing in the Special Program VOD announcing the character’s availability, or naming them in the VA reveal drip marketing as “Anonymous”. In contrast, Signora isn’t playable yet, and thus, when the time comes for her to be playable, this would cause all sorts of logistical issues, such as how to feature this new 5-star character in the Special Program without having the VA present on the video, or how to do a “VA reveal” when said person wishes to stay anonymous.

There’s a few ways they could take to deal with this, and each has different implications. The cleanest solution is that Genshin Impact signs a SAG-AFTRA agreement before Rosalyne’s release, making the production union, which retroactively legitimizes the VA’s work and allows her to be credited openly. Judging by what happened during the 2024-25 SAG strike though, this is extremely unlikely to happen, as Hoyo decided to simply wait it out until the strike ended, even if it comes at the cost of pissing off their players due to the missing voices.

The second option is that the VA has since left SAG-AFTRA or gone Fi-Core. Financial Core status allows union members to work non-union productions while maintaining some union benefits, at the cost of full membership rights. If she made that transition in the years since 2.1, the problem resolves itself without requiring Hoyo to change their production status.

The third option, and the worst-cast scenario, is recasting. A new VA performing Rosalyne’s voice for the playable version, while the early AQs and weekly boss retains the previous VA’s performance. This would be jarring and almost certainly generate significant negative reaction, given how this was exactly the reaction people had with many of the recasts, but unfortunately, this is very likely to happen, given how Hoyo is willing to do this, and some VAs (Maya Aoki Tuttle, Jennifer Losi) chose to resign due to pressure from SAG.

The decision to use a full SAG union member for a non-union production, under anonymity, only makes sense if the people making that decision were confident the role would never require public credit. You don’t create that problem for yourself if you’re planning to eventually release the character as playable; you either use a non-union/Fi-Core VA or you sign a union agreement from the start.

Someone at Hoyo in 2020 made a casting decision based on the assumption that Signora would never be playable. They found the best possible voice for the character, hired her on terms that only work for uncredited roles, and moved on without considering what would happen if that assumption turned out to be wrong.

This is literally a contractual and legal problem that requires active resolution before anything else can happen. The original casting decision probably took five minutes. Finding the best voice for a boss character, hiring her under terms that protect everyone involved, and then moving on. The downstream consequences of that five-minute decision are now an actual logistical problem that Hoyo has to solve before they can release a character they’ve been building up for return thus far.

The “Funerary Mask”

Upon completion of the Inazuma Archon Quest, the players were given the Funerary Mask item, which is quite literally the mask she wore. This is a 5-star memento item: something that was given as a trophy for completing the AQ chapter of a region. The memento item system is, in essence, a one-way design. You receive these items as permanent markers of narrative completion. They’re souvenirs of closed chapters, not active plot objects. The Inazuma chapter ending with the player holding Signora’s mask works perfectly as a narrative full stop if she was always meant to stay dead. The mask as memento says: “this chapter is over, here is what remains of the antagonist, keep it as a trophy of what was overcome”.

No other memento item has ever been reclaimed because none of them has ever needed to be. The design assumption baked into the system is that these chapters stay closed. Signora’s mask being in that category is probably the clearest possible expression of original authorial intent: the people who designed this item for Inazuma genuinely believed they were closing a chapter permanently. This, in turn, creates a problem where, if they now want her to return, they’ll have to solve this problem of the Traveler getting a hold of one of her belongings, especially when memento items weren’t originally intended to be taken away from the player’s inventory as you’d end up with the Inazuma trophy awkwardly missing.

If Rosalyne returns as a playable character, there are a few ways this could be handled, and none of them are perfectly clean:

The first option is that they simply ignore it. The mask stays in the inventory, Rosalyne appears without it, and the game never addresses the discrepancy. This is the laziest solution and also probably the most likely one given Genshin’s track record with loose threads. Most players probably won’t notice or care.

The second option is that her return quest involves the Traveler returning the mask. This would actually be narratively elegant: the Traveler carrying her mask this entire time, the object that was taken from her in her most humiliating moment, and having to hand it back when she reappears. That’s a loaded interaction. The mask being returned could even be the moment the Traveler fully confronts the Rosalyne/Signora connection, recognizing that this object they’ve been carrying belongs to the same person who has been described warmly to them for multiple versions.

The third option is that the mask’s presence in the inventory becomes part of her story quest. Perhaps she doesn’t want it back, because it represents the identity she’s shedding, or perhaps she does want it back as an assertion that she is still who she was. Either direction has interesting implications for where her character arc is going, though the former is more likely to happen to allow the player to keep their Inazuma memento.

The fourth option is a technical solution. They could so something similar to the Wonderland Cosmosphere where, upon completion of the quest that involves her resurrection, her mask gets renamed to something else, and the description changes. It may even involve the mask icon itself changing. The Cosmosphere was originally known as “Dazzling, Mysterious Gift”, but was renamed when UGC came out in 6.1.

The funerary mask detail is actually rich with narrative potential if they choose to engage with it rather than ignore it. Signora’s mask in the game is presented as her face. It’s the barrier between her public persona and whatever is underneath. The Traveler holding it is, metaphorically, holding the face of the Crimson Witch as a trophy of having defeated her.

If Rosalyne returns without the mask (as herself, under her real name, rather than as Signora), it remaining with the Traveler could be read as the narrative literally acknowledging the Rosalyne/Signora split I’ve predicted. The mask, the Signora identity, stays with the Traveler as a closed chapter. What returns is Rosalyne, who never needed the mask.

That would actually resolve the inventory problem thematically without requiring any mechanical removal. The mask stays where it is because it represents something that isn’t coming back. What returns is what was underneath.

This detail, more than almost anything else, confirms that the original design never accounted for her return. Memento items are one of those systems where the assumptions embedded in the design reveal authorial intent more clearly than any explicit statement could. You don’t design a permanent trophy item around a character’s death if you’re planning to bring that character back.

Each of these problems represents a short-term decision that made perfect sense within the assumption of permanent death and creates a specific obstacle within the assumption of eventual playability. Taken individually, each is solvable. Taken together, they look like a series of decisions made by people who seriously believed they were closing a chapter permanently, none of which anticipated having to reopen it.

The fact that the current team appears to be doing exactly that, systematically addressing each obstacle while simultaneously building the narrative groundwork for the return, suggests that the decision to bring her back was made seriously and with full awareness of the cleanup required. Given all the complications they have to deal with, this is a major production commitment that someone greenlit knowing exactly how much work it would entail.

That level of commitment, more than any individual piece of narrative evidence, is probably the strongest signal that the return is genuinely coming rather than being indefinitely deferred.

The end goal, as I see it

With all the “technical debt” I’ve explained above, you might be wondering: What exactly is Hoyo trying to achieve by bringing her back and releasing her banner?

My guess is that they wanted to hype up Snezhnaya and its Archon Quest. Think about it: this is where shit actually gets real, and people have been wanting to know what exactly the Tsaritsa is planning. They’ve been releasing several major characters, such as Durin, Columbina, Varka, and soon, Nicole and Sandrone. They’ve been showing the tension between (ex-)Harbingers by having the first Dottore boss fight in 6.3 and soon a second one in 6.6. But all of that pales in comparison to literally having a character who has been dead for 5 years be resurrected and playable, something many people thought was unlikely to happen.

Marketing cycles work best when you build up hype that something big is about to come up, but not stretch it too long that the audience gets burned out. Signora’s resurrection is perfect for this, and here’s what I think is happening and will happen next. First, you get people to pay attention by constantly mentioning Rosalyne positively, while contrasting it with the negative Signora mentions to imply that she’ll be playable as the former. This gets people to stay because they crave for more of her mentions in the next versions. Then you actually bring her back in early 7.x, right before Snezhnaya drops, doing the “impossible”, so that people wow at both this massive resurrection arc and Snezhnaya as a whole. Finally, you release her banner during that 7.x time window, likely before the final act drops, so people go apeshit over it, actually pay attention to the AQ story, and portray Rosalyne as a good person, neutralizing the negative image she had over the last 5 years for good.

Technical debt in software development refers to the accumulated cost of taking shortcuts. These shortcuts are cheap in the short term but create mounting complexity that has to be paid off later. Hoyo’s narrative equivalent is that ignoring Rosalyne for almost five years after 2.1 created a situation where an enormous amount of lore and character development has to be delivered simultaneously rather than being built up gradually. They can’t give her two years of gradual development the way characters like Wanderer got, they have to compress everything into whatever content window she gets, which means that content has to be exceptionally good to do justice to everything that’s been left unresolved.

The pressure that creates on the writing team is real, and the risk that they don’t fully meet the accumulated expectations is also real. But the alternative choice of leaving the debt unpaid indefinitely is clearly worse, as the last four years have demonstrated. At some point the debt has to be paid, and the evidence suggests that payment is being structured carefully rather than rushed, given how they’ve been setting up for a situation where “the bus came back” throughout the majority of 6.x so far.

People who ignore her are missing the point

Detractors often argue that Signora mains are overreacting, that this is “just a game” where someone has to die and that we should move on, instead of “choosing their delusions” and waiting for a resurrection that may never happen. However, they’re seriously missing an important point here, because Signora’s resurrection would not only make her playable, but also give her the perks that only playable characters receive.

One of the reasons why I want her playable is the fact that playable characters get birthday mail and more prominent official art. This might seem like fuck-all for most people, but the community always appreciates these things and celebrate them, giving them a “slice of life” of their personality from their mail and the tweets on the birthday art. It lets players feel a little personal connection to a character, and gives them a “voice” that’s more natural, more human, compared to their presence in archon quests. For some, it’s proof that their favorite character still exists, still remembered, that they’re part of the living world of the game. It’s small, but it’s intimate.

Even if their “birthday” is really just a marketing strategy to promote them every year, it’s still a good way to bond the community together just by saying “happy birthday” on the official post or even making their own birthday artworks which some people do. From a business perspective, it’s free visibility that keeps the emotional attachment alive. Playable characters become cultural fixtures because they never truly “disappear”.

No playability means none of these would happen, and Signora fans have been suffering from this for at least 5 years now. Despite being one of the most visually stunning Harbingers, she doesn’t get that privilege of being celebrated. She has no “day” where the fandom unites around her, no officially recognized moment for people to create or share. It’s like being a ghost in the franchise that once defined you.

Signora’s absence from those traditions really feels like a lack of acknowledgment, as if she were excluded from the world she helped shape. And that shit really stings for Signora fans. Sure, they could invent their own birthday like what some detractors might argue when this is pointed out, but it just doesn’t feel the same compared to the official birthdays from Hoyo themselves. Fanmade “Signora birthday” posts, as sweet as they are, can’t fill that void, because they don’t carry the same canonical weight.

On top of that, there are other things that are exclusively given to playable characters that makes them stand out. A character’s specialty dish contains descriptions that reveal parts of their personality when they make their food. Profile page has character stories that offer in-depth backstory about them and how they acquired their elemental powers, a detail that desperately needs to be explained with Signora as we still don’t know how she acquired her CWOF powers, while the voiceline section presents the character’s thoughts in a more personal way. In the case of playable Harbingers, this also reveals their thoughts of other Harbingers, and by excluding her from this, it’s impossible to know what she thinks about her colleagues. Imaginarium Theater allows you to talk to your invited characters. Last but not least, they could be invited as a companion in the teapot and interacted with. All of these combined would give a complete look at a playable character’s personality that NPCs and background characters could only dream of having.

Actually, let’s do a breakdown on why playable characters’ voice lines are so important in spite of them seemingly being irrelevant at first glance, because some people are so toxic towards Signora fans they get blinded by their hatred and miss out on what I’m trying to imply entirely, which necessitates explanation in the most obvious way possible. This may not even matter because their reading comprehension is probably so low they’d just close this tab the moment they see this and either downvote me on Reddit or block me on Twitter.

Having her playable is almost certainly gonna be a net positive to expand her severely fragmented lore it’s pretty much a no-brainer for anyone who genuinely cares about the game’s lore. So why the fuck are the haters actively refusing to entertain this idea? This exposes a serious flaw in their logic: they’re actively willing to leave the lore incomplete, and for what? Because of their arrogance of just wanting to harass Signora mains?

When people say “we want Signora playable”, what they want is for Hoyo to give her presence. Playable characters are alive, not just in-game, but outside the game too. They have birthdays, dedicated artworks, teasers, events, etc.; all the perks that playable characters enjoy. Hell, in fact, whenever a banner gets rerun, they always give out new infographics even if no one actually bothers reading them. And that means a lot. Hoyo is literally only giving characters more attention if they’re part of the playable roster, even if you barely have any in-game presence like Emilie. In contrast, narratively significant but non-playable characters like Signora are hardly ever brought up in public, despite having legendary status in lore. Playability immortalizes a character. It gives them a voice, a space in the present tense, and a day every year to remind the world they mattered.

Then there’s also the incompleteness of the Harbingers’ complex stories by leaving her dead. Every region has at least a Harbinger that hails from there, aside from Natlan, which was most likely Columbina, but retconned to make room for her Nod-Krai story instead. Each region’s Harbinger representative carries that region’s particular tragedy into the Fatui, which sometimes can look like a twisted, darker side of the more hopeful stories of the archons. Dottore carries the answer to what happens if Sumeru’s pursuit of science is pushed too far with ethics thrown out the window. Scaramouche carries Inazuma’s betrayal and the horror of being a discarded creation. Arlecchino carries Khaenriah’s Crimson Moon blood and the brutality of the House of the Hearth system. Sandrone carries Fontaine’s relationship with artifice and creation.

Signora carries Mondstadt’s specific tragedy: the Cataclysm’s cost to ordinary people, the grief of losing someone to an incomprehensible catastrophe, the way that grief can hollow a person out and fill the space with something that burns. She’s the story of what the Cataclysm did to Mondstadt at the human level, as opposed to the divine level that Venti’s arc covers.

Leaving her story unexplored not only creates a gap in her character, but also in Mondstadt’s story. It’s the region that the Traveler visited first, the region that introduced the world of Teyvat, but its representative in the Fatui has the least explored backstory of any Harbinger we’ve met so far. That asymmetry is increasingly difficult to justify as every other region gets its representative’s story told in depth.

The “About [Character]” voice lines are where the game builds out the social fabric of the Harbinger group: who respects whom, who finds whom annoying, who has complicated feelings about whom. These lines map out each Harbinger’s relationships that makes them feel like a real organization rather than a collection of separate characters.

We know what Arlecchino thinks of Tartaglia. We know what Columbina thinks of Sandrone. And soon, we might even get to know what other Harbingers think of Scara, thanks to the upcoming 6.6 AQ. We’re starting to build a picture of how these people relate to each other as colleagues, and, in some cases, something approaching family, like the female Harbingers.

Signora is conspicuously the only one absent from this network as a speaking participant. We know what others think of her, but we have no idea what she thinks of any of them. Given what we’ve seen of her personality in the Wanderer flashback, her dynamic with Scara alone would be extraordinary voiced content. Then there’s her perspective on Arlecchino, whom she apparently visited at the House of the Hearth and had a complicated relationship with. Her feelings about Columbina, whom she taught to express gratitude. And her view of Pierro, who was the first Harbinger she knew.

An entire dimension of the Harbinger social world is missing because the one character who could speak to all of those relationships from her own perspective has never been given the opportunity to do so. If there’s anyone who claims they care about the lore, but simultaneously want her to stay dead, that means they don’t give a shit about the lore, because this kind information gap should be unacceptable in any way, shape or form, when she’s part of a notable character set and literally everyone else can give their thoughts on the other characters of the set.

My current wishlist

This will be a lengthy tangent, so feel free to skip ahead if you don’t wanna see me rambling about my wishlist decisions.

At first, I decided to abandon my old wishlist when the NK character drip marketing came out in 5.8 and just consider getting all the major characters of 6.x: Durin, Columbina, Varka, Nicole, and Sandrone. However, Varka is mediocre outside of Hexerei teams, and with Columbina (a character I’ve always wanted to run as a DPS long before NK’s release) being primarily a supp unit and useless as a DPS without Lauma, Ineffa, and C6 Aino, that threw a spanner on the works and I had to readjust my plans. Thus my adjusted withlist was:

This wasn’t set in stone, though. I pulled for the Elegy bow simply because it has Signora’s lore on it, and out of nowhere, it was rerunning in 6.4’s chronicled banner. Because the Mondstadt chronicled probably won’t be rerunning again until around 2 years from now (it debuted in 2024), and Venti’s weapon banner was replaced by the new DPS bow tailored for him, I might as well get it so I could make a meme build featuring Signora and Venti with the bow just for some irony.

C1 Lauma was a requirement, as I’ve committed to building Columbina as a main DPS, out of frustration that Hoyo decided to make her more of a sub-DPS and supp. I’ve gotten C6 Aino at the cost of wasting my 50/50 wins on C3R1 Neuvillette and C1 Zibai, when I only needed C1R1 and C0 respectively. Lauma’s C1 provides healing capabilities, something her BiS DPS team otherwise lacks.

I wanna get C6R1 Signora just because I wanted to prove a point that I stand with Signora mains. I’ll assume that playable Signora will be Rosalyne, as per my analysis on how Hoyo seems to be trying to separate the two identities and how the latter is portrayed positively unlike the former, likely to make way for a “redeemed Signora”, so she’ll be mentioned as such in this wishlist.

Sandrone is optional as I’m not sure if I’m willing to spend so much money to get her AND Rosalyne on their debut. Sure, I don’t buy all top-ups at once, and I have just enough disposable income to spend on these, but it’s still a tough pill to swallow and it really just shows how predatory this shit is. You get a bit too interested in some characters and suddenly you’d end up having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars just to give you a better chance at guaranteeing them, and in the long term, it may fuck you up financially. Moderation is key, and you should never spend more than what you can earn each month, after factoring in your living costs.

As an aside, Hoyo’s monetization model is set up to make you be like a drug addict. They first hook you up with something affordable (welkin), where you could get 3000 primos (a whopping 18.75 pulls!) each month for just $5. When you compare it to the crystal top-ups or even BP, this is seemingly far more affordable and pretty much a no-brainer, but that’s exactly how they get you hooked up into spending more. Then you’ll start to find that the BP, despite not giving all that much primos, is actually quite compelling, as if gives you a decent CR-substat 4* weapon, elixir, reroll item, AND on top of that, access to the UGC BP for no extra cost, so after some thinking, you’d be tempted to subscribe to this as well. Eventually, you find out that you wanted a constellation or signature for a specific character, but you wouldn’t make it in time even with welkin and BP, so you start to actually buy the far more expensive crystals to make up for it, especially considering how they dangle that initial top-up bonus in your face, and that’s how your spending balloons from a mere $5 a month to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars.

But I digress. Here’s the table of probabilities. You can try it yourself here.

Assumption: All double crystal top-ups bought ($201)
VersionNameProbability
6.5C1 Lauma100%
7.2C6 Rosalyne~93%
7.2C6R1 Rosalyne~79%

This doesn’t look very hot. I’d love to get her signature weapon because if I’m willing to spend this much money to get her C6, might as well get the signature too for the best experience.

Buying additional $50 + $15 top-ups in early 7.x seems to address this issue:

All double crystal top-ups bought
Another $50 + $15 after top-up reset ($266)
VersionNameProbability
6.5C1 Lauma100%
7.2C6 Rosalyne~98%
7.2C6R1 Rosalyne~90%

This leaves us with Sandrone, though, and the results aren’t looking so good either without burning through even more cash:

All double crystal top-ups bought
Another $50 + $15 after top-up reset ($266)
VersionNameProbability
6.5C1 Lauma100%
6.7C0 Sandrone100%
7.2C6 Rosalyne~87%
7.2C6R1 Rosalyne~71%

C6R1 is non-negotiable, so in order to get there, I’d need to get another $100 and $5 top-up after the double crystal reset:

All double crystal top-ups bought
Another $100 + $50 + $15 + $5 after top-up reset ($371)
VersionNameProbability
6.5C1 Lauma100%
6.7C0 Sandrone100%
7.2C6 Rosalyne~97%
7.2C6R1 Rosalyne~90%

This is getting quite expensive for what’s essentially “proving a point”, and I’m not even whaling yet. Don’t do gacha, kids.

Just for fun, here’s how much money it takes to go all-in and get C6R5 Rosalyne.

All double crystal top-ups bought in 6.x and 7.x
6x $100 top-ups + 1x $50 top up without bonus ($1050)
VersionNameProbability
6.5C1 Lauma100%
6.7C0 Sandrone100%
7.2C6 Rosalyne100%
7.2C6R5 Rosalyne~90%

However, the Snezhnaya preview VOD dropped and the leakers were finally right about something for once: there will be no 6.8, and 7.0 will release on August 12, as evidenced by the redemption code. Truth be told, I wasn’t prepared for this, as I had assumed that there’d be at least 6.8 which would buy me some more time, and an earlier leak from the textmap hinting at a potential 6.9 made me hopeful about this. Not to mention that I assumed that the UGC Manekins wouldn’t count towards the “17 character per region” rule as they aren’t usable in endgame anyway.

I was absolutely cooked and I was like “fuck it, let’s just scrap this dumbass plan to grab C1 Lauma and Sandrone because it’s not gonna work and I don’t wanna burn so much money on this shit.”

On top of that, I now want a 512GB MacBook Neo to replace my ThinkPad T480 because I wasn’t really satisfied by its performance despite its durability, and I’d like a laptop with good battery life but still has some decent performance for use at work and to run games like Genshin. The plan is to use YAAGL and run the PC version, and use compatibility layers like CrossOver for other games, and performance is expected to be on par with the much older M1 MacBook Air (they have similar CPU performance), but with far longer software support due to it using the much newer A18 Pro found on the iPhone 16 Pro. So despite the initially optimistic $266 - $371 plans, I might have to scrap them because I really would love to get my hands on the Neo sooner than later.

I’ve already gotten C0 Lauma because I was still too tempted to try out the DPS Bina playstyle that Hoyo doesn’t advertise. The current plan is, like I’ve said, to watch for either a playable ID leak or Snezhnaya character drip marketing in 6.7 and see if they put Rosalyne in there. Even a silhouette would be incredibly suspicious as the only reason why they’d do that would be to hide something that’s a massive spoiler, and the only logical option so far is her, given all her constant mentions throughout the majority of Nod-Krai so far.

So here’s the new plan for Snezhnaya, adjusted for the lack of 6.8. Hopefully I won’t have to make any further “adjustments” because I’ve done that shit way too many times already I keep deviating from my plans. We’re assuming 7.1 here because that’s the earliest possible time frame for her to show up (see my current predictions of her resurrection and below for details)

Assumption: All double crystal top-ups bought, no further top-ups in 7.x ($201)
VersionNameProbability
7.1C6 Rosalyne~86%
7.1C6R1 Rosalyne~65%

Assuming she returns in 7.1 (which is where 7.0 would’ve been had 6.8 existed), this is definitely not looking good at all, and I might have to either explore all of Sumeru and Fontaine (the two regions I haven’t maxed out yet), or give up and buy some more crystals. This assumption stems from the notion that a playable Signora will have to be narratively significant for Snezhnaya, but at the same time, revealing her in 7.0 would be too early, so she’d have to be resurrected by 7.1 at the earliest, or 7.3 at the latest.

For a more optimistic assumption, it’s possible that Hoyo resurrects her in 7.1 but not have her immediately playable until several patches later, and this is where the distinction between resurrection and playability matters, and why I think this could bring more hype compared to both resurrecting and making her playable in the same patch. If she gets resurrected in 7.1, but only made her playable in 7.2, they could release her drip marketing after the players have finished the AQ and found out about her return. This isn’t possible if they were to release her banner in the same version, as drip marketing is always released a version before the character’s launch, and it would spoil her resurrection in 7.0 before it even happens, much like what’s likely gonna happen with Sandrone.

Releasing her in 7.2 would allow me to get her C6R1 with only a 1 in 10 chance of losing, which would give me a peace of mind.

Assumption: All double crystal top-ups bought, no further top-ups in 7.x ($201)
VersionNameProbability
7.2C6 Rosalyne~98%
7.2C6R1 Rosalyne~90%

Again, we’ll have to wait until we get leaks of the 7.x playable IDs and/or official drip marketing that reveals the characters that will be relevant in the main AQ. If it turns out that she’s not in early 7.x, then I might as well get Sandrone because it’s likely the playable ID leaks will be available when her banner is live. However, if there’s a missing ID in around this time frame, then I will skip her as Signora could be in there.

Crackpot theories

Lunar reactions don’t have Cryo and Pyro reactions because that will be Signora’s key reactions in Snezhnaya (“Stellar reactions”)

It only makes sense that they’re saving up these reactions so they could release bundled characters for Signora in Snezhnaya, likely the Tsaritsa, in a similar vein to how Columbina mainly buffs lunar DPS like Flins or Zibai, but performs worse for non-lunar DPS that you might as well use her as a standalone DPS unit instead.

After all, why would they name the only surviving moon the Frostmoon if it doesn’t even give you Lunar-Freeze, despite the reaction involving Hydro just like other supported elements?

A new leak for 6.6 artifact set has surfaced where it confirms that Snezhnaya will have a new “Team Bonus” mechanic: “Blessings of Qosmos”. Presumably, this will be where we could finally get buffed reactions for Superconduct, Melt, Freeze, and perhaps even Swirl. Stellar-conduct was confirmed via a Diona kit leak in 6.6 beta that was removed in a beta update, while Stellar-melt is still speculative.

My theory is that, because she has a Cryo Delusion and Pyro innate element, she’d fulfill the niche of forward melt, which is typically ignored by players due to reverse melt usually being more consistent as it consumes less of the pyro aura. It could be that her Q would allow her to simultaneously unleash Cryo and Pyro and alternate between applying Cryo and then triggering forward melt, much like how Columbina is able to use Dendro with her special CA despite being a Hydro character in order to make her a viable DPS when paired with Lauma, Ineffa, and C6 Aino. Alternatively, “Stellar-Melt” could be a more agnostic reaction where it relies less on the Elemental Gauge Theory and thus the aura consumption from the forward/reverse direction matters less.

Additionally, this should give the much-needed Pyro DPS refresh if Nicole turns out to also be a support just like Durin, even if that element is oversaturated with DPS.

Reverse melt is rather ignored these days anyway, with Skirk focusing on freeze and Wriothesley performing poorly. Having Signora fulfill an even rarer niche (forward melt) would be interesting, as it’s similar to how taser, bloom, and crystallize were hardly ever used (aside from Nilou bloom), but the lunar characters finally encouraged players to use them.

If 6.x doesn’t contain any Pyro and/or Cryo DPS, then it might strengthen this theory

It seems that Hoyo occasionally puts certain elements into irrelevance by killing the popular meta at the time, or induce “element drought” by not releasing any DPS of a specific element, until they’re ready to shill a new one much later, with a kit that’s far more powerful than their predecessors, causing a resurgence in that element. Take Cryo for example. They killed freeze meta sometime around 3.x with the introduction of Dendro (which doesn’t react when Cryo is applied), and throughout the region, we didn’t get any new Cryo DPS. Then we finally got some in 4.x with Wriothesley and Freminet, but both were rather underwhelming and most people opted for Neuvillette or Arlecchino instead, not to mention that around this time, Eula, Shenhe, and Ganyu, had not been rerun for over 500 days. It wasn’t until 5.7 that Skirk finally made Cryo somewhat relevant again as she deals insane DPS on top of being easy to use.

However, now that we’re in Nod-Krai, it’s clear that they’re currently pivoting to Lunar reactions and Hexerei buffs, with Cryo taking a backseat and the only confirmed new Cryo character being Lohen, and even then, his damage scaling is so poor, many people (myself included) thought he’d be part of the standard banner, so it’s unlikely that he’ll be a game-changer. Sandrone is rumored to be a superconduct DPS due to a leak of a new artifact set in 6.6 that buffs superconduct reactions. However, since her kit isn’t live yet, we still need to take it with a grain of salt. If it turns out that she’s a sub-DPS or support, then we might be getting a new, powerful Cryo DPS in Snezhnaya instead, which might be Rosalyne.

Editor’s note: I incorrectly mentioned that Lohen was part of the standard banner. This has turned out not to be the case. However, his atrocious damage scaling may suggest that he’s meant to be paired with an off-field unit in the future.

More importantly, in Nod-Krai, we’re currently having a Pyro DPS drought because both Durin and Nicole are sub-DPS and support. Granted, Varka is able to use Pyro when he has Pyro teammates, and pairing him with these two is the key for his BiS team, but he’s still an Anemo DPS. As of now, it’s very likely that Rosalyne could be the Pyro DPS that would finally end the drought in Snezhnaya, introducing a new Pyro meta after almost 2 years, and I’m even willing to bet that her being Pyro is more likely than Cryo, as this could exploit her backstory of being the Crimson Witch, not to mention that there’s no Pyro DPS or driver in this region, unlike Cryo, which has Lohen.

Current prediction of her resurrection and banner

You might be wondering, with this amount of prediction and receipt-keeping, why not give an exact timeline for when to expect her resurrection and banner? Well, usually, I only give estimates based on extrapolation of official statements and hints, such as how the Rosalyne mentions only started in 6.0, with Aquaria stating that major content gets planned 17-20 months in advance, which could imply her banner could be in around 7.3 - 7.5 (previously 7.2 - 7.4, if not for the lack of 6.8). I admit I’m hesitant to make any direct timelines, because so many predictions that are too exact have been wrong way too many times already, and even as the evidence is now piling up, there’s always some degree of uncertainty, unless maybe if her playable ID gets leaked, and it’s the reason why I don’t dive into too many details on this in my more grounded analysis posts because people would think I’m fucking delusional. I don’t have insider info, so I had to work with whatever resources available publicly and figure out what they might be doing behind the scenes.

However, if you really insist on wanting to know my thoughts on these, then here’s my prediction (that’s likely gonna be off in one way or another).

Like I’ve said, it’s best to just wait for a playable ID leak sometime during 7.0 beta in 6.7 or official drip marketing released around that time, as that might reveal the lineup and allow us to more accurately predict her release.

Q&A

You’ve been saving up for C6R1 Signora. What if it turns out she’s not in 7.2 or earlier?

Then I’ll just save up further for C6R5. That, or I just pull whichever character I’m interested in. It’s that simple.

Why not commit to C6R5 in the first place?

Because the improvements of going from R1 to R5 are usually kinda ass compared to going from C0 to C6 that it’s just not worth it. I’m not a whale, and I’m only willing to spend so much to get all the initial top-up bonuses. It’s simply unreasonable for me to commit to C6R5 when it’s likely there’s gonna be a whole bunch of characters I might be interested in in 7.x. However, if I luck out and ended up getting C6R1 in far fewer pulls than expected, I might actually go for it.

You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment if it turns out she’s staying dead…

Being disappointed is my passion.

What role do you want her to be?

Main DPS, of course. Given how she’s got a weekly boss domain, and every other harbinger who had that became a main DPS, it only makes sense if she’s also a main DPS so she’s at the front and center of your builds. Also, the weekly boss looks an awful lot like a showcase of the harbinger’s powers, with them 1v1ing the Traveler without any external help, so it simply wouldn’t make sense if Signora were to suddenly become a sub-DPS or support unit that relies on someone else doing the bulk of the damage.

Do you think she will use her own boss mats?

I don’t think so. While the other playable harbingers who have a weekly boss domain do use their own mats, you have to remember that they were all released within the same region, so the mats were still relevant at the time of release. We’re operating on a wildly different time scale here. Signora will be released around 5 years late, and thus her boss mats from 2.1 would no longer be relevant, and it’s likely that she’ll use newer ones instead, like Dottore’s or the ones from the chess boss.

Do you think Hoyo will keep her original VA?

I’ve already said this above, but in case you’ve missed it, unfortunately, after seeing how Hoyo recast some VAs in 6.x, in the aftermath of the SAG-AFTRA strike, even if they didn’t participate in the Kinich VA harassment campaign (as was the case with Nicole’s VA), with some resigning on their own volition (Charlotte’s and Ganyu’s VA), I have a feeling that Signora’s VA might be one of those people who choose to voluntarily resign and be recast. This is because she’s a full union member, and thus was never supposed to voice a non-union project like Genshin in the first place, unless if she chose to be Fi-Core. This could explain why she’s the only Harbinger VA who chose to stay anonymous. If she were to become playable, then she probably would be forced to reveal her identity, as it would be required for the credits in the character profile screen and promotional videos featuring her voice, which could put her in hot water.

We can only hope that the new VA is as good as the original one. Personally, there are recasts that are just as good or even better in their performance. Paimon’s new VA (Penelope Rawlins) is a good example. She’s less squeaky than Corina and doesn’t make my ears bleed. Nicole’s new VA (Sophie Shad) is even better than the original (Amber Connor), as the new voice direction makes her sound really adorable and somewhat shy, in contrast to the original lines that sounded more monotonous and serious.