This is an anti-tamper mechanism I’ve never seen before. Usually, people would simply password-protect a ZIP file so you could see the file’s contents but having to type in the correct password to extract it, but never like this. My guess is that this is some kind of anti-forensics measure to prevent people from knowing how the datapacks work, and to stop the average kid from just stealing his resource packs and datapacks. This is especially because one of his maps, the Ultimate Survival World, contains some janky DRM that will trigger if the datapack has been tampered with (which could be triggered by simply updating the map to work with newer Minecraft versions, thus locking out legitimate customers), if the datapack is missing, or if it has exceeded 10 or 25 unique joins, depending on which version you downloaded (25 joins world download requires a higher-tier subscription).

My findings

It’s highly recommended to read the Wikipedia article on ZIP to understand what this means, specifically, the “File headers” section.

These unzip-protected files always start with the magic number 50 4B 05 06, which implies EOCD, instead of the usual 50 4B 03 04 structure a normal ZIP file would expect, but this is an invalid structure as it’s immediately followed by 50 4B 03 04 which is the local file header for the actual files.

The EOCD that’s expected to be at the end of the file uses 50 4B 05 06 FF FF 00 00 instead of 50 4B 05 06 00 00 00 00.

Attempting to remove the fake EOCD magic number at the beginning of the file and changing FF FF 00 00 with 00 00 00 00 for the EOCD at the end of file doesn’t do much; WinRAR thinks the archive is corrupt. Without fixing those, it instead thinks that it’s both corrupt AND is missing a second zip file.

Some file names are weirdly in ALL CAPS when using a hex editor to view it, but the CDFH towards the end uses the correct capitalizations. WinRAR, however, sees them as all lowercase.

There might be other tricks up his sleeves that I haven’t discovered yet to further tighten the protection, and I’m not really sure what tool he used to achieve this, but it doesn’t really matter for the scope of this post, as this protection is easily removable anyway. I tried searching online for “fake zip eocd” or “fake multi-archive zip file” but I couldn’t really find any resources for this, so suffice to say it’s probably a proprietary tool he made that’s never distributed anywhere.

How to extract the files

TL;DR: use jar xvf file.zip and compress the extracted files into a fresh ZIP file.

I tried a couple of tools under WSL (because I don’t have a Linux installation on this machine), but none of them worked.

zip -FF file.zip --out out.zip thinks it’s an empty ZIP file when you try to extract the archive, with or without modifying the ZIP to try and match the correct expectations, with errors could not open input archive: file.zip, followed by could not find: file.z01. Attempting to end the archive results in a warning zip file empty.

7z e file.zip -tzip tries to extract the first file found but throws an error and refuses to extract anything else.

binwalk --dd=".*" -e file.zip sees the rest of the files, shows the correct file sizes, but only extracts several files.

After using verbose logging on binwalk, however, I discovered something: it tried to execute jar xvf file.zip but was met with permission denied errors.

Then the realization dawned on me. These are resource packs and datapacks for Minecraft maps. And because Minecraft JE uses… well, Java, I thought I should try jar xvf file.zip on the datapack because I’d assume that the game would simply use the built-in zip parser provided by Java. So I used that command directly in the terminal and BOOM, it extracted all the files without issues.

All I had to do next was to repack the files into a new ZIP file, and voila, no more unzip-protected ZIP files.

Will TrixyBlox use a different method in the future?

I don’t think so. The thing is, these protections rely on the fact that Java’s ZipInputStream (used by jar) doesn’t follow ZIP’s specification.

Most extractors (e.g. WinRAR, 7-Zip) are end-first readers. They jump to the EOCD at the tail, read the CDFH, and use that as the authoritative source of truth. They largely ignore or only cross-reference the local headers. This is by design, as it’s what makes ZIP splitting/spanning work.

One of the protection’s schemes is that the EOCD fields that are set to FF FF are the disk number fields in the EOCD.

50 4B 05 06 = EOCD signature
FF FF       = disk number of this EOCD (should be 00 00)
00 00       = disk where Central Directory starts (should be 00 00)

FF FF is literally disk 65535. Any tool that respects the ZIP spec reads this and concludes the archive is a 65536-part split archive, then immediately goes looking for file.z01. Since that doesn’t exist, it bails. WinRAR and 7-Zip are too spec-compliant to proceed.

Similarly, the fake EOCD at byte 0 is meant to trick tools that read the contents from the start of the file. It would find it first, or gets confused by the two EOCDs, and thinks the archive is a corrupt/empty split volume.

On the other hand, ZipInputStream is a sequential, forward-only stream reader, and reads from byte 0 to EOF, following local headers (50 4B 03 04) one by one, and completely ignores the Central Directory and EOCD. It never looks backwards.

The protection essentially weaponized spec compliance against the extractors. The more faithfully a tool implements the ZIP specification, the more thoroughly it gets fooled. Java’s ZipInputStream works precisely because it’s a naïve, streaming implementation that never trusted the index in the first place. It just reads the raw data sequentially, the same way Minecraft itself would read the resource pack or datapack. So any means of protection must be made in a way so that jar (and by extension, Minecraft) could always read it fine, and only external tools trying to unpack it were blocked, which means they can’t stop people from using this method to extract the contents no matter what they try.

TrixyBlox, this is really shady

Honestly, the fact that he even did this is shady as hell. This is a similar method that’s frequently used by Android malware developers to hide malicious APKs (since APKs are just ZIP files) from antivirus scanners and decompilers. And all of this just to prevent people from stealing his content? If anything, this only hurts legitimate patrons who actually support him. The fact that this is used as a DRM for his USW map, which might literally break if a new Minecraft update drops, all while giving an ominous error saying “It’s unlikely that the world is recoverable” if the datapack has been tampered with, could potentially harm players who actually played his map as a serious survival world, wiping out their progress just because some functions are broken in the latest version.

Like GabeN said, “Piracy is almost always a service problem”. Legit players can get locked out of the map because the author has added some command blocks and a datapack that acts as a shoddy DRM, preventing them from exceeding 10 or 25 players and potentially breaking when a new update gets released, all while the resource and data packs are protected from being modified, preventing players from trying to fix it themselves and leaving them at the mercy of the map author. Meanwhile, the pirates can enjoy the map for free with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever just like any other Minecraft map, with no arbitrary player caps and no killswitches when the datapack is broken by a new update. I’d honestly suggest he should stop doing this for his future projects because this is just wrong on so many levels; not only is this a similar method used by malware developers for obfuscation, it’s simply ineffective because even someone with no experience in coding could easily defeat this protection if they know what to look for, and you can’t make the protection any stricter because the packs would otherwise refuse to work as Minecraft wouldn’t be able to read it.

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
  • Theories on what Hoyo’s plan with Signora was during the game’s early life and their pivot to playability
    • 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)
    • Theory B: The realization happened earlier, and the Winter Night’s Lazzo is a teaser for her resurrection, among other things
    • Theory C: She was meant to be playable since her conception, but was killed to leave the audience on edge
  • The “technical debt” of playable Rosalyne
    • Bringing back a character who was turned to ash
    • About her VA
    • The “Funerary Mask”
  • The end goal, as I see it
  • People who ignore her are missing the point
  • My current wishlist
• Crackpot theories
  • Lunar reactions don’t have Cryo and Pyro reactions because that will be Signora’s key reactions in Snezhnaya (“Stellar reactions”)
  • If 6.x doesn’t contain any Pyro and/or Cryo DPS, then it might strengthen this theory
  • Current prediction of her resurrection and banner
• Q&A
  • You’ve been saving up for C6R1 Signora. What if it turns out she’s not in 7.2 or earlier?
  • Why not commit to C6R5 in the first place?
  • You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment if it turns out she’s staying dead…
  • What role do you want her to be?
  • Do you think she will use her own boss mats?
  • Do you think Hoyo will keep her original VA?

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.

• “About [Character]” gives at least one voice line that gets unlocked immediately that reveals basic details about their background, followed by one or more lines that’s unlocked at friendship level 4 which reveals a more personal side.
• Similarly, “About Us” shows how they interact with the Traveler, and the rest is unlocked at friendship level 6, which reveals what they think of the Traveler once they’ve trusted them enough. Rosalyne could be less haughty and reveal her kinder side in this case, much like how she told Columbina to express gratitude and gave her advice on gift-giving.
• “More About [Character]” is a series of five voice lines that get progressively more intimate as you increase your friendship level (up to level 6). This usually reveals something they’d only open up to people who are close to them, like their vulnerable side or burdens. In Rosalyne’s case, this could be used to reveal even more of her times as the CWOF or the loneliness that plagued her.
• “About [Other Characters]” reveals the social dynamics between them and the people they know. I’ll explain this further for Rosalyne’s case below.
• About the Vision (or in Rosalyne’s case, “About the Liquid Fire Powers” or something similar) could further elaborate on how she gained her powers and what she thinks of it.
• Even the less notable lines, such as the weather voice lines, hobbies, troubles, favorite/least favorite food, receiving a gift, and ascension lines, can reveal a lot about the character’s personality that the item lore can’t.

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:

• 6.5 - C1 Lauma
• 6.7 - C0 Sandrone (optional)
• 7.2 - C6R1 Rosalyne

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.

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:

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

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:

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.

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)

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.

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).

• We will assume that a playable Signora will have to play a huge role in Snezhnaya, as otherwise it would be somewhat pointless to resurrect a character who’s been dead for 5 years only to put her as a filler character for mid-region patches (7.4 - 7.5). Interlude chapters won’t cut it either; while they can carry a lot of weight like Inversion of Genesis or the upcoming Irminsul burning arc, they only last for a single patch, as opposed to the AQ that could span across 3-4 consecutive patches.
• Snezhnaya will probably have at least 8 chapters, spanning from 7.0 - 7.3, given how Nod-Krai has a similarly lengthy arc. and given how Snezhnaya is a bigger region with an even more important chapter, it’s likely that the Archon Quest will be just as long as, if not longer than Nod-Krai.
• It’s likely too early for her resurrection to take place in 7.0, as major story beat usually don’t occur until midway into the AQ (Fontaine flood prophecy, full-scale abyssal invasion in Natlan, Dottore attacking Columbina). On the other hand, putting her towards the end of the arc (7.3, acts 7-8) would be too late for her to be deeply involved in the AQ, or have any meaningful character development.
• This effectively narrows down her resurrection to 7.1 - 7.2.
• Keep in mind that this is just her resurrection, which is different from her playability, the latter of which is more difficult to predict as character release schedules other than the region’s archons are inconsistent. Childe was released fairly early in 1.1; Wanderer was in 3.3, right after the end of the AQ; Arle and Sandrone were/will be in 4.6 and 6.7 respectively, toward the end of the region. Because of this, her banner could be released anywhere between 7.1 and late 7.x.

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.

Now I’m by no means a cartographer, but I do have some experience with GIS software such as QGIS, and I did learn how to use it in my college for use in spatial analysis in public health, so I’m dropping my 2 cents in here just so that people who don’t know about GIS and cartography can understand why AuthaGraph is an overhyped projection that’s actually nothing new and severely crippled by the inventor’s unwillingness to publish its equations in a peer-reviewed cartographic journal.

Let’s take a look at their “About AuthaGraph World Map” page. This contains their handwavy explanations of how they construct their map projection along with some other tidbits. To me, the whole thing just screams marketing lingo designed to sell their products, as I’ll explain below.

Debunking the “About AuthaGraph World Map” page

Slide 1: “AuthaGraph World Map”

Antarctica was found in 1820 and the first man reaches the North Pole in 1909. In the 20th century the world tended to be framed by the East-West relations and the North-South problem. Our interest has been mainly on land since it has been our living environment. Meanwhile from the late 20th century the resources and environment problems have spread our interests over the polar regions and oceans such as,

1. Sea ice around the North pole representing the global warming,
2. Territorial sea claims for marine resources,
3. An ozone hole above the South Pole,
4. Melting glaciers in Greenland, a cause that may submerge Tuvalu,
5. El Nino in the ocean, a cause of an unusual weather that eventually influence to the economy on land.

The AuthaGraphic world map aims to provide a new view point to perceive the world by equally showing these interests spread over the globe.

The east-west and north-south viewpoints are commonly used on regular world maps because it’s convenient to do so. In a normal aspect, the graticule lines show up as familiar lines spanning from north-south and east-west. This makes it easier to figure out the location of a geographic feature on a globe or another map projection. Unless if you’re doing large or regional-scale mapping, there’s no reason why you should change the aspect to a transverse or oblique one.

Tetrahedral projections—the same class of projections that AuthaGraph belongs to—have existed since 1965, with the first one being the Lee tetrahedral conformal projection, so their claim of “providing a new viewpoint” like that is nothing short of a marketing hype.

In fact, there’s an even older projection named the Peirce quincuncial projection invented in 1879, which is a conformal projection that also tessellates just like AuthaGraph and Lee tetrahedral.

Also, it is possible to modify regular cylindrical, pseudocylindrical, or other regular map projections so that they could fit all landmasses, including Antarctica and the Arctic Circle, into the lower-distortion regions, which just so happens to also break those east-west and north-south relations, if that’s what you’re into.

Judging from this line, you can tell that their marketing claim is to show the world’s issues equally, such as the effects of global warming. The thing is, you don’t normally use general world maps for that purpose. If you want to display melting sea ice on the North Pole, glaciers in Greenland, or an ozone hole in Antarctica, you normally use a polar azimuthal projection instead, such as the azimuthal equal-area projection. This class of projections does a better job at displaying the polar regions and minimizing distortions around the poles compared to a regular world map such as Winkel tripel or even AuthaGraph. Territorial waters? Use a cylindrical, conic, or azimuthal projection depending on the latitude and the extent of the region. El Niño? A standard world map like equirectangular (plate carree), Miller, or Gall stereographic projection should do. The latter case uses world maps indeed, but given the extent of the Pacific ocean, a world map would do a better job there. You don’t need to invent an entirely new projection just to address those issues, because existing ones are already up to the task.

And if you really want an equal-area projection, which AuthaGraph claims to be good at (but is actually not equal-area, as I’ll explain later), you could just use existing projections like Mollweide or Equal Earth. This kind of wording really reminds me of the infamous Gall-Peters projection, which is marketed as “the solution to Mercator and Eurocentrism”, when projections like the aforementioned Mollweide and Equal Earth already exist (and do a far better job at minimizing distortions). In fact, it wasn’t even a new projection, as it was first proposed by James Gall in the 19th century, but unfortunately, many people actually took the bait anyway, simply because marketing is so much more powerful than boring, hard facts.

Slide 2: “AuthaGraphic Projection”

An original method for maintaining areas proportions is called “iso-area-mapping.” And an original mapping process by combining different projection methods via intermediate objects is called “multilayer-mapping.” These ideas for mapping aims [sic] to reduce errors during projecting a sphere to a tetrahedron because a simple optical projection from a sphere to a tetrahedron causes huge distortions therefore useless.

Well, this sounds like a handwavy way to “explain” how you minimize areal distortions without giving too much information so that no one can copy your projection, doesn’t it? None of those terms are officially recognized in the cartographic community, and it shows very little about how the globe is actually transformed into a tetrahedron (*cough* no equations? *cough*).

Slide 3: “Comparison/Rectangle or Accuracy”

AuthaGraph map is able to transform an entire sphere to a rectangle as Mercator projection does while it substantially keeps sizes and shapes of continents as Dymaxion map does.

As I’ve said before, this isn’t unique to AuthaGraph. The Lee tetrahedral projection allows you to do exactly the same thing, as it’s also a tetrahedral projection, and the good thing about it is that because it’s a conformal projection, it fully preserves shapes, except at the points of singularity where conformality fails (which is also present in most conformal projections like Mercator, Lambert conformal conic, or even Peirce quincuncial where they either head towards infinity or suddenly change directions). This makes the Lee tetrahedral projection look more appealing while also offsetting its disadvantage of a slightly higher areal distortion compared to AuthaGraph, and unlike most conformal projections, the distortion is far more manageable due to how tetrahedral projections reduce overall distortions far better than many other projection types, at the cost of directionality.

In terms of areal inflation, the Lee tetrahedral is superior compared to other conformal projections such as Mercator, Lambert conformal conic, azimuthal stereographic, Eisenlohr, Lagrange, or even the Peirce quincuncial projection, at least when used as a world map rather than for large-scale maps. Arranging the world in a similar way to the AuthaGraph projection yields even lower distortions on the continents, as it limits the most distorted areas to the oceans, something that I admit is pretty clever in AuthaGraph’s construction.

There’s also the Peirce quincuncial projection which also tessellates just like these tetrahedral projections. And although it has higher areal distortions, it’s still not too bad either. When centered to -20°, it produces a map with a low areal distortion on the continents and centered on the North Pole, similar to a polar azimuthal projection. The only downside is that Antarctica is split into four parts unlike AuthaGraph, which may not be as desirable if you just wanted a map that doesn’t loop but also neatly fills a rectangle.

There’s also this image and quote that’s shown in there:

Mercator projection: There is no perfect resolution in representing a spherical image on a rectangular piece of paper. In its long history Mercator Projection is one of a few prior arts which fits in a rectangle and has been familiar for 440 years since it guided explorers to the new world. However the shortest distance between two points is described as a curve and it can not describe the polar regions properly. When Mercator made his map in the 16th century, Antarctica has not found yet.

• It shows an air route from Tokyo to Brasilia via Houston as if were a big detour. Mercator Projection often omit describing polar regions. Straight lines drawn on a Mercator projection divided colonies n Africa. Colonies in the 16th century were aligned along equator. Width of the map on the equator represents 40000km. It shows Antarctica much larger and longer than it is in reality. Width of the map at latitude 89.98 degrees represents only 1km.

Dymaxion map: Dymaxion map invented by Buckminster Fuller in 1946 properly represents shapes of continents and a confrontation between US and USSR around the Arctic Ocean not between east and west. However it gives a priority to keep the shape of continents. The outlines of oceans are interrupted.

• A shape of Dymaxion map does not fit in rectangular format without gaps and overlaps. The map is hardly able to describe ocean currents.

AuthaGraph: Thus existing maps either contain distortion when tranforming an entire sphere to a rectangle, or when correcting distortions, they are unable to fit the outlines in a rectangle without gaps, so called mechanical vignetting. The proposed world map was developed by multi-layers of projections (mapping) via a tetrahedron. By the method it is able to transform an entire sphere to a rectangle as Mercator projection does while it substantially keeps sizes and sizes of continents as Dymaxion map does.

This is just absolute BS. Let me explain

Mercator projection: Ah yes, the usual strawman that is Mercator. Honestly, I feel like people really should stop bashing the Mercator projection, because it’s never intended to be a general-purpose world map, but rather for navigation. The only reason why map services such as Google Maps or OpenStreetMap uses it (particularly a variant known as the Web Mercator, which isn’t truly conformal unlike the real Mercator), is simply because it’s far more useful for GPS-based navigation, as angles are preserved so you can make turns in the right direction while driving, plus the fact that it preserves shapes means that buildings don’t get squished when you zoom all the way in.

Dymaxion projection: You don’t use the Dymaxion projection for things like great circle paths. It was clearly designed as a projection to minimize areal distortiona on landmasses, and trying to use that for anything else is an inappropriate use of this projection. Again, just stop using the wrong tool for the job, and you’ll be fine. There’s really no need to invent an entirely new projection just for this.

The Mercator projection shows a flight path from Tokyo to Brasilia via Houston as curves, whereas on the AuthaGraph projection it shows up as a straight line.

Wrong. Using Justin Kunimune’s reverse-engineered AuthaGraph lookalike (which is also a compromise tetrahedral projection), the flight path shows up as irregular curves because it lacks the required property to preserve great circle paths. The only projection that can show all great circle paths as straight lines is the gnomonic projection, and that introduces severe distortions and can’t even show a hemisphere. Azimuthal equidistant can be used , but only the great circles that pass through the center of the projection are displayed as straight lines. The way they present the flight path as straight lines is incredibly misleading, and this could be the reason why they’re unwilling to publish their equations, as it would reveal the unpleasant truths of this map projection towards the public once the scientific community dissects this projection.

The flight paths in Mercator projection

Kunimune's IMAGO projection

Gnomonic projection

Azimuthal equidistant projection centered on Houston

The AuthaGraph projection properly describes an ozone hole.

So does the azimuthal equal-area projection. Once again, you really shouldn’t use world maps for specific topics like ozone holes as you’d be introducing unnecessary distortions, especially when the central focus of ozone holes is the poles, and thus there’s no need to display the rest of the world. Not to mention that this projection *cannot* display the North Pole in full as it gets stretched out due to its arrangement.

Slide 4: “the World without Ends”

“It is able to tile the AuthaGraphic world map without gaps and overlaps. The way of tessellation has seamless connections between maps as if it is an Escher’s tiling. Same as fishes and birds in his painting, six continents are not fragmented and seven oceans keep their continuous networks. It had been thought the world is on an infinite plane since geometries of a sphere and of an infinite plane are similar. Walking on both surfaces, we do not meet an end. A geographical network in the map is able to expand to any directions on the tessellated maps. Thus the world map reproduces the spherical world without dead end on a plane.”

This is nothing more than a gimmick. There is very little practical reason why you’d want to rearrange these maps in a different way, and it’s clear that they only presented this just to look cool. The image presented even reveals that the example rearrangements don’t make sense, such as how an arrangement splits Brazil in half and the other splits Indonesia in half, with no explanation as to why you’d choose these arrangements over the default one. And even if you really need to rearrange a map projection, it’s possible to do this with GIS and map projection utilities by applying an oblique aspect to the projection you’d want to use, though this is more common with azimuthal maps of larger-scale regions to minimize errors, coupled with the appropriate coordinate systems (WGS84, NAD83, etc. depending on what you’re trying to present).

Slide 5: “World map Re-arrangements”

On the tessellated maps it is able to frame a view field covering a full set of a world. The frame functions as a viewer which enables user to slide and rotate and then to frame a new world map with a preferable region at its center. They provide a new angle of perspective to equally view the world so as to be free from existing perceptions defined by usual phrases such as “far east”, “go up north”, “Western”.

• Map 1: A vision of world from Antarctica. It shows Antarctica’s coastlines face to all three oceans, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.
• Map 2: A vision from the North Pole and the 1st meridian. It shows a layout which divides the world into new world below and old world above.
• Map 3: A vision of world from Brazil. It shows geographical relation with Brazil, half globe away from Japan.
• Map 4: A vision of world from South Africa. It shows geographical location of South Africa where an economy development, diamond, and World Cup attracted a public attention.

This slide finally explains the alternate arrangements of the map from slide 4. This explanation seems more like a gimmick than actually being useful. Like, what even is the point of showing the world from the North Pole perspective, or from Brazil? I fail to grasp the point of these rearrangements because the maps they showed don’t really make any practical sense, and in the case of the 4th map, it’s literally just the original layout but with the map centered on the more conventional Atlantic Ocean rather than the Pacific Ocean.

Once again, if you really need to rearrange a map projection, in this case, showing the world map centered on different parts of the world, you could’ve just used an azimuthal projection with an oblique aspect, especially for the first scenario of centering the map on Antarctica. And in the second scenario, something like a transverse Mercator projection should suffice, especially when the use-case is as nonsensical as “dividing the world into the New World below and the Old World above”.

Slide 6: ISS Long-term Tracking

An orange line on tessellation-world composed by 49 maps tracks a journey of International Space Station (ISS) for eight hours. Its coordinates are provided by ‘Cerestrak’, a website distributing ISS’s orbital data. NASA and the US department of defense issue the original data. The coordinates are defined by calculating the data to reflect corrections of the orbit. It has past 140 years since ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ (Verne) was published. Satellites fly across the world in hours while they play leading roles of telecommunication and remote sensing such as observing weather, environmental pollutions and natural resources. The tessellationworld map [sic] shows such rapid movement of a satellite in one line.

Again, a gimmicky application, and an inappropriate use of this map projection. This image, unlike the previous “flight path” example, actually shows the great circle paths as irregular curves, which makes it unsuitable for this application. Using the Mercator projection that’s tiled horizontally would’ve been *ironically* better than this projection as at least that projection shows great circle paths as sine waves which make more sense.

All in all, none of the slides show a good application of this projection, and the wording really sounds like it’s trying to get you emotionally hooked by showing “real-world” scenarios that could’ve been solved with existing projections, and in other cases, and in other cases, present you with something that looks like it has substance (“you can view what the world looks like from Brazil!”) when in fact it has very little, if any, practical use, and even in those scenarios, existing projections could be used that’s more suitable for that kind of application.

The Good Design Grand Award page: AuthaGraph’s admission to ditching true area equivalence?

What interesting is that Narukawa might have actually considered a truly equal-area projection (presumably something like the van Leeuwen projection), but decided against it because it would introduce too much distortion (which that projection does suffer from due to the nature of equal-area projections), as evidenced by this description on the Good Design Award page:

Map projection has four measures, or four “correct” things: area, shape, direction, and distance. It has been mathematically proven that there is no solution that satisfies all of them, and if the area is correct, the distortion of the shape increases. In the early stages of development, we specialized in area and sought a map with a perfect area. This is because the logic was clear and it was easy to gain the understanding of map experts. On the other hand, we received harsh comments such as “the shape feels strange.” This is my wife. Based on the criticism that “even if the area is correct, if the shape is distorted, women and children will not look at it,” we devised a combination of projection methods that trade off the four distortions, make the area as correct as possible, reduce the distortion of the shape, and draw it on a flat surface in a way that does not look out of place with the way the land and sea look on a globe. The ingenuity is in the combination of the projection methods that make it possible to make a tradeoff between the four distortions, while making the area as correct as possible and reducing the distortion of the shape, and to draw it on a flat surface in a way that does not look out of place with the way the land and sea look on a globe. I would like to convey the ingenuity that went into the problem of not having a perfect solution that satisfies everything, and the ingenuity that went into the solution through trial and error, even though it is modest.

During the production, my wife (representing the general public) commented that “No matter how new a world map you come up with, if it is far removed from previous maps, ordinary people will not look at it.” So we decided on the projection method and projection axis settings to create a world map that fits completely into a rectangle without breaking the layout of the existing map, with Japan in the middle, Russia on the left, and America on the right, and that does not break the land. Ordinary people’s criticism is harsher than that of experts, and sometimes it is on point.

Notice how he admitted that this is a compromise projection by saying “the combination of the projection methods that make it possible to make a tradeoff between the four distortions, while making the area as correct as possible and reducing the distortion of the shape”. That’s basically what a compromise projection is: a jack-of-all-trades projection that neither truly preserves area nor shape.

However, he literally tried to handwave this, by saying:

“A world map projection using a polyhedral projection method. By combining gnomonic and orthographic projections, the area is accurate and the distortion of the shape is reduced. (The accuracy needs to be improved by using the same method to be officially called an equal-area projection)…”

Perhaps this might be the reason why Narukawa is so unwilling to publish his equations, because it would reveal that it is possible to create a truly equal-area tetrahedral projection similar to the van Leeuwen projection published in 2008 by Diederik van Leeuwen and Daniel Strebe, but he decided not to as the initial feedback was fairly negative due to the heavily distorted shapes.

Conclusion: An overhyped, proprietary novelty

Ultimately, the AuthaGraph world map is a fascinating case study not in cartographic innovation, but in the power of slick marketing and emotional appeal. After cutting through the buzzwords and dismantling the misleading claims, it’s clear that the projection offers very little that is genuinely new or uniquely useful. Its supposed solutions to global perspective issues are better handled by a host of existing projections, from azimuthal maps for viewing the poles to the gnomonic projection for plotting great circle routes.

The features touted as revolutionary, such as its ability to tessellate or frame the world from different perspectives, are little more than gimmicks that have limited practical application and can be replicated with standard GIS software. The constant use of the Mercator projection as a strawman, a common tactic for promoting “new” maps, further underscores a strategy focused on public appeal rather than scientific contribution.

However, the most significant issue remains to be the profound lack of transparency. Narukawa’s refusal to publish the projection’s mathematical equations prevents it from being peer-reviewed, verified, or implemented by the cartographic community. As admitted by the creator himself, the final design was a compromise, sacrificing true area equivalence for aesthetics that would be more palatable to the general public. This decision moves AuthaGraph out of the realm of scientific advancement and firmly into the world of proprietary product design.

In the end, AuthaGraph isn’t a groundbreaking tool for science or education, but rather a commercial product sold with a compelling but hollow narrative. It serves as a potent reminder that without transparency and a willingness to engage with the scientific community, even a “Grand Award”-winning design can be little more than a beautifully packaged, mathematically ambiguous curiosity.

Please see the commit history to see what changed. This will be updated over time as new information surfaces. Additionally, you can now check out the table of contents to find out what’s new and updated.

Okay, so 6.0 is out, and I admit I was wrong about Signora being playable in 5.8. However, there have been some MASSIVE developments lately, and all of them suggests that she will be playable soon. In fact, I’m glad I didn’t post this earlier in 5.8 as I was planning to do that as some kind of “postmortem analysis” of the lack of her return in that version, but pushing this back ended up giving me more arguments in favor of her resurrection.

If you haven’t seen the last two posts yet, then you should check part 1 and part 2, as they both give some context for this one. This post simply expands on part 1 as it was becoming too long, and some of the arguments in there are no longer valid. Also check out my unhinged rant and crackpot theories here where I just vent my frustrations and spit out everything I could think of into one single post.

Table of contents

• Why I’m still certain that Signora will be playable
  • (UPDATED) She finally received a bunch of official merchandise after 4 years
  • She was mentioned many times in a row throughout 6.x
    • Version 6.0
    • Version 6.1
    • Version 6.2
    • Version 6.3
    • Version 6.4
  • They’re separating Rosalyne’s identity from Signora
  • Arlecchino’s and Columbina’s lines about her dropped the quest unlock requirements
  • Varka’s story quest reopens the chapter on Signora’s backstory through adjacent lore
  • We only got a glimpse of Mare Jivari in 5.8
  • (UPDATED) The Pyro gnosis still hasn’t been stolen yet
  • She was featured unusually frequently in Hoyofair 2025
  • Signora being irrelevant to the story means nothing
  • Arlecchino’s rerun in 5.3 was quite popular, even outperforming Mavuika’s rerun
  • Columbina’s and Sandrone’s release might be intended to test the waters before releasing Signora
  • She received her first ever official artwork, and it proves there’s a real demand for her playability
  • Character design, kits, and playability are not set in stone
  • The “surprising reunion with a Harbinger”
  • Her resurrection arc might have already been in development
  • Zibai and Sandrone’s resurrections are proofs of concept for Signora’s resurrection
  • Varka’s model is “too tall”, and yet he’s playable anyway
  • (NEW) The Irminsul burning scene has been confirmed to be part of the 6.6 Archon Quest
  • (NEW) The Snezhnaya preview teaser is suspiciously nondescript
• Speculations that may or may not be related to Signora
  • The connection between moths and angels’ feathers
  • The similarities between the symbol in her boss fight and the Eroded Sunfire
  • “Ruzicka” being mentioned in a 3.6 event
• (NEW) Disproven speculations
  • 6.x Unknown IDs
  • The possible existence of version 6.9
• (NEW) What to do now?
• Analogies to help people understand the reality of business strategies
  • The BMW M1 analogy
  • The enthusiast trap
  • The compact phone analogy
• Cautious confidence: Some caveats with every resurrection theory
• Vote with your wallet
• Conclusion: They’re (probably) setting the stage for her playability

Why I’m still certain that Signora will be playable

She finally received a bunch of official merchandise after 4 years

This is probably the biggest argument for her imminent playability. Recently, Hoyo released a Harbinger chibi figure blind box in China, which includes her as part of the collectable set, so this means that this is her first official merch that’s released a whopping 4 years after she was executed in Inazuma, and what’s interesting is the details for this specific merch. Here’s the product info, along with machine translations from Google Translate and ChatGPT:

All the possible chibi figures from the blind box

Original product description

Google translated product description

The Google translated image is still somewhat nonsensical, so here’s one from ChatGPT:

盒蛋规则 (Blind Box Rules):

• 单个盒蛋 (Single Box): Contains 1 random Harbinger figure.
• 整盒盒蛋 (Full Box): Contains 9 random Harbinger figures.

隐藏 (Hidden Figures / Secret Rares):

• 小隐藏 = “散兵” (Scaramouche) – Small Hidden
• 大隐藏 = “女士” (La Signora) – Big Hidden

抽取概率 (Draw Rates):

• Regular versions: ~1/9
• Small Hidden (Scaramouche): 1/36
• Big Hidden (Signora): 1/108 (!!)

This is HUGE because not only is Signora included in this blind box unlike Crucabena (which implies the latter won’t be playable), she’s being marketed as the rarest figure. Normally, merch blind boxes make the “hidden” characters fan-favorites or hype characters, to ensure the rarest item generates the most demand. It’s easy to guess why Scaramouche is one of the hidden figures, because he’s wildly popular in CN, and his fans are willing to donate insane amounts of money to spread the word out of passion, like this. However, Signora’s is less obvious, as she doesn’t get discussed as frequently anymore, and I suspect this is a hint from Hoyo that she’ll be relevant again soon.

If they really wanted her to “stay irrelevant”, they would’ve just left her out. Instead, they’ve made her the ultimate chase figure. This artificially drives up secondary market prices and creates demand for her. Also, this feels like a signal from Hoyo that they still remember her.

Aww, look how adorable she is

If Hoyo just wanted “generic hype”, they would’ve made Capitano, Dottore, or Columbina the rarest ones, since they’re top-ranking and “mysterious”, and that would’ve been the obvious move. Alternatively, they could’ve chosen Sandrone and Columbina as the “small hidden” and “big hidden” figures respectively, which are the playable Harbingers in 6.x, perhaps as an effort to promote them outside the game. But instead they chose Scaramouche and Signora, which are ranked far lower, and in the latter’s case, wasn’t even involved in Nod-Krai’s quests.

From a business standpoint, making them the rarest achieves two things. They could use this as some sort of market testing, as their rarity creates artificial scarcity, driving up demand. If resale prices spike and collectors obsess over them, Hoyo can measure how much “pulling power” these characters still have. Also, this allows them to generate free publicity and spark up conversations about her once again. Signora mains who’ve been silent for years now suddenly have a reason to reenter the conversation: “Why make her the rarest if she’s irrelevant?” That’s exactly the kind of buzz a company wants.

Update 2026-05-17: In addition to this, it’s possible that the chibi merch rarity is a foreshadowing for something big that will happen to Scaramouche and Signora. I speculate that Scara is in the “small hidden” category because it’s more predictable: the different reflection, showing his past Balladeer appearance instead of the Wanderer in the Nod-Krai teaser, foreshadows the 6.6 AQ’s conclusion of people remembering him again (i.e. his past catching up to him). Meanwhile, Signora is in the “big hidden” category because having a dead character be resurrected and playable after 5 years is gonna be a huge deal and something not many players would anticipate, especially for the detractors who have always questioned it.

I’ve been suspecting this since September, when the chibi merch was first announced, and this has been pretty much implied in this section, but I didn’t add it at first as this was too speculative. However, now that we know that Scara will be remembered by the other harbingers once again, it strengthened this theory that I could now explicitly state it here. I did mention this in a tweet last month, but this post wasn’t updated until much later.

This was me before the 6.6 AQ leaks dropped

I’ve seen some comments that “she won’t be playable because she and Scara are the rare figures and neither of them really became playable (Scara became Wanderer and switched to a different model)”, or “Hoyo hates Signora because they made her the rarest one”. Well, that’s not how marketing psychology works, and this shows a clear lack of understanding of how big businesses usually operate. Scarcity = value. They made her rare because she’s valuable, not because Hoyo hates her and wants people to forget her. This is especially considering how this merch will be available in CN, the market people have argued to carry the most weight for Hoyo’s decision-making. If Signora wasn’t popular among CN players, she wouldn’t be anywhere in this merch lineup, let alone as the rarest.

For four years she was treated almost like a taboo character, with no official artwork, no merch, and barely any narrative presence except her death. If Hoyo truly wanted her to stay discarded, the path of least resistance would’ve been to just keep ignoring her. But instead, they chose to do the exact opposite by giving her a merch debut after 4 years, and not just any merch, but in a premium slot (the rarest figure).

This, to me, looks like an attempt at corporate course correction. Companies don’t openly admit “we screwed up”, but they signal it through moves like this. For years detractors used the “no merch = she’s irrelevant” argument, and now that shield is gone. The CN market getting this first is no accident either; if CN fans have indeed been consistently pushing for her, this is Hoyo’s way of showing: “We’re listening. We’re giving her value again”. If anything, this makes her future playability more plausible than ever. They don’t throw marketing weight at someone they’ve written off. They only do this when they see untapped demand worth capitalizing on.

And not only that, she also received other official merchandise in the form of cards and standees, further solidifying her relevance, especially when compared to Crucabena who isn’t featured in any of them. This just shows that unlike Crucabena, which only served as a backstory element for Arlecchino whose rank wasn’t even elaborated on, Signora is a notable character as she’s part of that “set of 11 characters”, and thus it’s far more likely for her lore to be expanded upon.

As an aside, I decided to purchase the acrylic stand from an AliExpress listing that lets you choose which character you want, and it does look great in person. Might be worth checking it out.

Her mask looks elegant

She was mentioned many times in a row throughout 6.x

This is the second-biggest argument in favor of her return, and supports the pity-baiting theory I’ve mentioned in part 1.

Version 6.0

In one of the Selenic Chronicles, which is fully voiced, Columbina says this towards the end:

Traveler: Looks like you’re in a good mood today… / You spoke quite a bit about your past…

The Damselette: Yes. Even though I’ve “run away from home,” I do have some fond memories of it all the same.

The Damselette: Arlecchino and Sandrone treated me quite well, along with…

The Damselette: …

Traveler: (That expression… I wonder who she’s thinking about…)

The Damselette: Give me your hand.

Traveler: …Huh? / …Why?

The Damselette: Rosalyne taught me… It’s important to always express gratitude to others.

The Damselette: So, thank you for listening to me.

Traveler: Don’t mention it…

This is important, because unlike the other two Harbingers she mentioned (Arlecchino and Sandrone), she mentioned Signora by her real name, Rosalyne. You see, the Harbingers are usually introduced and referred to by their codenames, because that’s what reinforces their role as the Harbingers, not as vulnerable human beings. Using her true name like this is a deliberate way to reframe her in a more positive way, as it strips away the intimidating Harbinger persona and instead humanizes her as the woman behind the mask. Also, notice how she still seems to be shaken by her death, as evidenced by her pausing and telling the MC to give her their hand before mentioning Rosalyne. That’s a clear sign of pity-baiting, and it’s essentially Hoyo nudging the audience to empathize with her on a personal level, not just as a villain archetype.

After the huge blunder they did with Signora, Hoyo seems to have developed a formula on how to turn “morally grey” characters into sympathetic, playable ones:

1. Antagonistic introduction. Each of these characters is first positioned as a threat or obstacle to the Traveler or their allies. At first, the player is meant to view them with suspicion or fear.
   • Wanderer: Manipulative, arrogant, and dangerous.
   • Arlecchino: Cold and ruthless, intimidating towards Furina.
   • Skirk: Tied to the abyss and enigmatic.
2. Tragic backstory reveal. We then dive into why they became this way, and the player begins to empathize. Each story is devastating:
   • Wanderer: “Betrayed” by everyone he tried to love, manipulated by the Fatui.
   • Arlecchino: Raised under cruel conditions, forced to suppress her emotions due to her cursed bloodline.
   • Skirk: Survivor of a genocide, haunted by trauma, and forced to bury her past.
3. Re-contextualization. Now that we know the pain, the cold exterior is reframed as a defense mechanism. They’re not necessarily “evil”, just morally grey, and they only appear to be villains because it’s their coping mechanism after everything they’ve been through. Their flaws are humanized, and Hoyo builds them up not as antagonists, but as people.
4. Path to playability. They finally go through a redemption path and be on good terms with the Traveler. Then the banner hits. This creates emotional investment, which translates directly into sales.

Columbina explicitly ties Rosalyne to a positive value: “It’s important to always express gratitude to others”. That is not something you write about a villain you intend to keep buried, and it’s exactly what “Step 3” of the pity-bait formula looks like: re-contextualizing negative traits by highlighting a sympathetic core. This also means that Arlecchino’s voice line wasn’t a fluke, but rather foreshadowing, and now we’ve got another Harbinger reinforcing the same narrative shift. You don’t just pity-bait her like this and then double down on it years after the fact unless if you’re setting up a payoff.

Version 6.1

In 6.1, Hoyo once again name-dropped Signora by her real name, this time directly in the AQ.

The Damselette: Have you held any tea parties lately?

Marionette: Tea parties? Uh, yeah, obviously. You don’t seriously think we’d pack it all in just because you aren’t here?

Marionette: If anything, they’ve been more eventful than ever. Just me, Arlecchino, and a bunch of insolent, insensitive “guests” who won’t stop asking where you’ve gone. Oh, they’ve been a real joy.

The Damselette: I bet you served them the worst tea you have. Just like you used to do to me when I upset you.

Marionette: Hmph… Who cares about how good the tea is when there’s no one around to drink it? I keep losing people…

Marionette: First Rosalyne, now you… I’m running out of people who can make me laugh. Honestly, what could be more ridiculous than a multi-centenarian goddess who’s only ever had the plain herbal tea she received as offerings? Heh…

The Damselette: You’d always brew a different type of tea for me each time. Was it really just to see how I’d react?

Marionette: I, uh— Well, duh! Why else? Watching you squirm was practically my only form of entertainment.

(Traveler): (Or was she genuinely trying to introduce Columbina to new flavors? Maybe all that coldness is just an act… and they actually get along?)

Marionette: Oh, yeah… and Capitano sometimes used to bring Tartaglia around too, but I guess we won’t be seeing him again.

[…]

Marionette: Hmph… I figured you’d leave eventually. You didn’t have as much of a reason to stay as I do.

Marionette: The Tsaritsa gave you shelter and protection, but that was it — nothing more, nothing less. Meanwhile, the Fatui demanded everything from you in return, until it was more than you could bear.

Marionette: I get why you left. And frankly, I have no interest in dragging you back just because the higher-ups told me to.

Marionette: But if you keep hanging around with this riffraff, the next time we cross paths, we might be enemies for real.

(The Traveler and Paimon smile knowingly)

(Traveler): (She says that, but she’s the one who just caved in and agreed to help Columbina…)

Notice how Sandrone views both Columbina and Signora positively, as she was just acting cold and pretending to make fun of them as a coping mechanism. In this context, they’re the people who could make her happy and help with her loneliness. She still treats Columbina as her friend even after leaving the Fatui, so it looks like she genuinely cares about her and presumably Signora too.

Version 6.2

In 6.2, Columbina once again name-dropped Signora by her real name, also in the AQ, which is impossible to miss unlike her Selenic Chronicle quest. This is further indication that Hoyo really wants the players to pay attention to this. When you consider that all of these dialogues could’ve easily excluded this conversation, but they decided to put it anyway while doing it continuously, then there’s a good chance that this is an attempt at foreshadowing.

Columbina: Of all my days with the Fatui… The times I spent with you, Arlecchino, and Rosalyne… They were my favorite.

Columbina: I will not forget them, just as I shall not forget this moment.

Marionette: …

Columbina: We’ll always be friends, no matter where we are, right?

Marionette: Who’d want to be your…

Columbina: I’ll miss you, Sandrone.

Marionette: …

Columbina: …Goodbye, Sandrone.

Marionette: I’ll… miss you too… Columbina…

Also, notice how in all instances, they mentioned Rosalyne, not Signora, but refer to other Harbingers by their commedia dell’arte names (Columbina mentioned Arle and Sandrone, while Sandrone mentioned Childe and Capitano). This could be something the developers did to nudge the players into figuring out who “Rosalyne” is, so they’d realize that she’s Signora and get them to read her tragic backstory, likely in an attempt to get the players to understand her past instead of just treating her as “this lady who got turned to ash”.

On the contrary, the 6.1 event also featured Dottore, and he’s viewed more negatively in there. The Traveler and Paimon mentioned him as sounding cold, and he appeared to completely neglect his companion. It’s evident that he’s currently still on “Stage 1”, as he hasn’t been shown to have any tragic backstory, let alone a re-contextualization and redemption path.

Layla: I was just thinking, and this might sound rude, but the way this person speaks is just so…

(Dialogue option): Cold?

Layla: You noticed too!

Layla: I mean, it’s good that he helped treat his companion’s wound, but it didn’t seem like it was out of kindness. More like, he was looking out for his own self-interest… or thought he could get something out of it.

Layla: I don’t know… Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

(Dialogue options): No, you’re right… / He didn’t even mention this companion on the previous page.

Paimon: Yeah…

Paimon: If you’re both in this dangerous situation together, wouldn’t you mention them at least once?

and

Thoth: I still remember the look in his eyes… Nothing stood out, per se, and still… I could sense contempt and disdain radiating from his gaze.

Thoth: I could not give an exact reason, but on instinct, I just knew… It would not end well to get close to a man like that.

Thoth: So, I tricked him.

Thoth: Stick close to your companion, I said. “Only the descendants of Tulaytullah can come and go as they please. Leave him behind, and there is no escape for you.”

Layla: So, does that mean his companion wasn’t a descendant of Tulaytullah?

Thoth: Oh no, that part was true. The lie was in the other half. Anyone can enter or exit this place — there are no restrictions.

Thoth: I saw that his companion was exhausted, and was concerned Zandik might leave him behind.. Or worse, that some other “accident” might befall him… So I made up an excuse to prevent Zandik from going a step too far.

Thoth: Oh, and speaking of, Zandik’s companion had the same blue hair and pointed ears as you.

Layla: !

Paimon: Wait, does that mean… Layla’s also a descendant of Tulaytullah?

Thoth: Indeed.

There’s also the fact that he’s missing from the character introduction cards and version splash arts (at least up until 6.3 where he was finally prominently featured in there), despite being shown in the Nod-Krai teaser, unlike Columbina and Sandrone who were prominently featured in them, even going as far as to put them in 6.1 and 6.2 splash arts. It turns out, Columbina became playable, while Dottore didn’t (although the ending of Act 8 suggests that he may still have an active segment somewhere). Sandrone died, but we all know she’ll be playable in 6.x due to her having a playable character ID.

An alternate interpretation of why these Harbingers refer to her as Rosalyne is that it’s probably similar to why they referred to Dottore as “Zandik” in the 6.1 event. In this state, the Traveler isn’t aware that “Rosalyne” is Signora just yet, and that they will probably be surprised once this is revealed to them, the same way that the ending of AQ Act 6 revealed that “Zandik” is Dottore and that the characters were mildly surprised of this revelation.

(Wanderer): Mmm. Mind you, the only reason I came here is because there’s someone I want to look into.

Paimon: Who’s that?

(Wanderer): The Doctor, also known as Dottore. Second of the Fatui Harbingers.

(Traveler): (Just as I thought…)

Lauma: From the tone of your voice… it sounds like there is bad blood between you.

(Wanderer): …I was reviewing our archives and noticed that a lot of information about him was missing. Left a bad taste in my mouth. That’s all there is to it.

(Wanderer): Dottore… or Zandik as he was then known, once studied at the Akademiya. But he got kicked out before he could graduate.

(Traveler): (Zandik? I’ve heard that name before… Back in the ruins, when the Ibis King mentioned that student — that was The Doctor?)

Varka: Hahahaha! So the harbingers’ number two man is a college dropout? How embarrassing for them.

Paimon: Last we heard, he was planning something… We actually heard that a few times before even coming to Nod-Krai. But we haven’t seen a trace of him since we got here.

(Wanderer): He only appears when something interests him. For all we know, he might have left already.

(Wanderer): But the fact that he did something here at all is worth noting… It’ll fill a couple extra lines in his file.

Version 6.3

Now this is HUGE. It finally confirmed my theory that Signora’s placement between Pantalone and Childe wasn’t a fluke, as it happened again with Columbina’s lines about her:

The fact that this happened the second time in row means that this was a deliberate decision. Why would they put her line in the 10th place instead of at the bottom, and why don’t they just put it in the correct 8th spot instead? This is starting to look like a very subtle hint that only the most dedicated Signora fans would notice, which minimizes suspicions as most players would simply chalk it off to minor inconsistencies, while giving Signora mains some form of reassurance that it’s not what it seems.

Also notice how it says “About Rosalyne” instead of “About The Fair Lady”. She’s literally the only Harbinger who was mentioned by her real name in the VOs section, while others either use their codenames (The Doctor, Childe) or their commedia dell’arte names (Arlecchino and Sandrone, the other female harbingers). This is further evidence that nothing is as it seems, and they might be giving us subtle hints that she’s returning in the near future. While the line itself doesn’t explicitly hint towards her future revival, the fact that there are subtle oddities like these that outside observers would overlook, strongly implies that they want us to read between the lines instead of taking things at face value.

Not only that, she was mentioned multiple times throughout the AQ and in this item called Marionette’s Notebook, and they really are insistent on referring to her as Rosalyne instead of Signora.

■ / ■ - Overcast

Arlecchino and Columbina came over for tea and picked Rosalyne up on the way.
It was a good day.
I should keep some cookies on hand for next time.

■ / ■ - Snowy

Rosalyne is dead.

IDK why but this is kinda hilarious. Gives me Crab Rave vibes.

My reaction to this

Jokes aside, there were several additional mentions directly in the AQ itself, which means that it’s impossible to miss unless if you actively try to avoid playing the AQ. This is an unusual number of Rosalyne mentions in a single patch (we would’ve been lucky to even have a SINGLE mention of her back then) and it seems that they REALLY want everyone to pay attention to her. My guess is that this is meant to get everyone on board and hype her up for a potential revival arc, along with clearing up any misinformation about her, such as the myth of her being a one-dimensional villain whose death was deserved.

SO MANY ROSALYNE MENTIONS

The fact that she was mentioned by her real name so many times in such a short period of time, when they had all but forgotten her after the Inazuma AQ, is incredibly suspicious. If Signora was truly meant to stay dead, they wouldn’t reopen wounds with lines like these because it would just frustrate players. The fact that they’re deliberately putting this back in players’ minds during the Nod-Krai arc (where many Harbingers converge), and just a region before we get to Snezhnaya, suggests that they’re setting the stage for her return. Pity-baiting is the prelude to playability, and every other “morally grey” character who got this treatment eventually became a hugely popular banner.

Version 6.4

Here’s where things get interesting, because it confirmed that the Traveler isn’t aware of the “Rosalyne = Signora” connection. In this version’s flagship event, “Homeward, He Who Caught the Wind”, Venti, Varka, and the Traveler made some negative remarks about Signora:

Venti: The Tsaritsa’s plans have continued to advance. Now, only the Pyro Gnosis remains free from her grasp.

Varka: But if even The Captain couldn’t take Mavuika’s Gnosis by force, I guess we don’t need to be concerned about its safety for now. So that’s good news, at least.

Venti: Heh, you wouldn’t be taking a dig at someone else’s ability to hold onto their Gnosis, now would you, Grand Master?

Varka: Haha, of course not. I’m not one to rub salt in old wounds.

Venti: Heh, her Harbingers do often tend to take a rather extreme approach. Just look at Childe or Signora.

Venti: But we would be mistaken to ignore the fact that Signora did not win the Geo Gnosis using force.

Varka: Right, you told me about the contract Morax signed with her before his death… You’re saying she didn’t need to resort to violence in Mondstadt either?

Venti: That’s right. If she was able to provide a reason convincing enough to persuade Morax, she could have persuaded me no problem.

Venti: I suppose she just… didn’t think there was a reason to negotiate. I had just woken up, so I must not have seemed like much of a threat.

Venti: Honestly, the Gnosis was of no use to me. I didn’t care who it belonged to, or what means were used to take it…

Venti: I just knew if I fought her in that moment, the Cathedral… Perhaps even the entire city might have become collateral damage.

Varka: True. I wouldn’t put it past Signora to take civilians as hostages, either.

Icon Dialogue Talk White So that’s the full story…

Venti: In the end, though, it was those same methods that led to her end. After all, her third target — the Raiden Shogun — wasn’t a big negotiator back then.

Venti: Perhaps Signora’s success in Mondstadt and Liyue convinced her that she was a match for the Archon of any nation.

(Traveler): I had to stop her.

Venti: You did the right thing. It pained me to see Inazuma as it was back then. I’m glad things have changed since.

Venti: Of course, now the elite force of Harbingers has quite a few missing from its ranks, so I suspect the Tsaritsa no longer has the means to meddle in other nations like she used to.

Venti: Who knows? Perhaps a chance to formally meet her in Snezhnaya might come sooner than we think.

Varka: Some of our knights remain stationed in Nod-Krai. If you need help, just say the word, and we’ll be there.

(Traveler): Thank you both…

(Traveler): White I’m getting closer to the truth. I can feel it.

Venti: Heh, the look in your eyes… It’s changed a lot since you first set off from Mondstadt.

Venti: But, my advice remains unchanged. Never forget that the journey itself has meaning, (‍Traveler‍).

Venti: The birds of Teyvat, the songs and the cities, the Tsaritsa, her Fatui and the monsters… they are all part of that journey.

Venti: Perhaps earth-shaking truths and indescribable trials await you at the end… Just remember, there is more to life than that.

(Traveler): I will. Thank you.

Venti: Alright, that’s more than enough acting like a real Archon for one night…

Venti: And still, not a sip of drink for dear old Venti at a time like this…? You’re no fun, Varka!

At first glance, this sounded like a massive mood whiplash after everything they’ve built up so far about Rosalyne being this warm and caring woman behind the mask, and that they might be backpedaling on that framing. However, I doubt Hoyo would be stupid enough to throw away all the pity-baiting effort they’ve made so far, and given how Hoyo likes to bring up things that could only be inferred by reading between the lines, this brings us to the next point, which is…

They’re separating Rosalyne’s identity from Signora

With the release of 6.4’s flagship event, some Signora mains were concerned about the inconsistent portrayal of her personality, as Venti, Varka, and the Traveler viewed her in a negative light, all while the latter failed to make the connection that Rosalyne is Signora.

Here’s my take on this: the Rosalyne/Signora split is intentional narrative design.

The positive “Rosalyne” mentions vs. negative “Signora” mentions isn’t a contradiction or mood whiplash. I think they’re deliberately constructing two separate identities in the player’s mind. Rosalyne is the woman: warm, gift-giving, tells others to express gratitude, brings tea sets, and has friends who miss her. Signora is the role: the arrogant Harbinger who strong-armed Archons and paid for it. Venti’s dialogue is him talking about Signora the Harbinger, a figure he personally experienced as a threat. He never knew Rosalyne. Similarly, Varka is making assumptions based on incomplete secondhand information, told by someone who’s clearly biased against her. because he didn’t even get to encounter her before she was executed. Couple that with the fact that he’s seen how Harbingers can sometimes be hostile, as was the case with Dottore, it’s reasonable that Varka believes it, even if it doesn’t tell the true story.

This isn’t backpedaling on the positive framing, and it’s actually a really sophisticated setup if you think about it. When she eventually returns, the narrative already has the groundwork for a character who has shed the “Signora” identity, because Rosalyne and Signora are being treated as almost different people by the writing.

Similarly, the Traveler not connecting Rosalyne being the same person as Signora is also deliberate. This one seems immersion-breaking on the surface, but I think it’s a controlled information gap. The Traveler has heard “Signora” constantly but “Rosalyne” is only being mentioned now by the Harbingers, through voice lines between Harbingers, and Sandrone’s notebook. Remember that the “Crimson Witch of Embers - Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter” introduction card during the 2nd phase of her boss fight is non-diegetic and only seen by the player, not the Traveler, unlike the ones presented by the Hexenzirkel members.

There’s a reasonable in-universe case that the Traveler simply hasn’t made the connection yet, and that the moment of recognition is being saved. If the writers wanted to close that loop naturally, they’d have Venti say something like “you know, Rosalyne was her other name, and she became the Crimson Witch…” but they’re conspicuously not doing that. When the connection is finally made (and it will happen, because the writers are too deliberate about this for it not to), the Traveler is going to have to completely reassess someone they indirectly killed. That’s a really powerful story beat, and it only works if the gap has been maintained long enough.

I guess the reason they’re doing it with her specifically, and not other Harbingers, is because she’s the only one where the gap between the title and the real name carries emotional weight. Nobody needs to distinguish “Arlecchino” from “Peruere” because Arlecchino hasn’t died, hasn’t been rehabbed, and there’s no dramatic payoff waiting in that distinction. Similarly, “Zandik” and “Dottore” are both portrayed as an insufferable genius in which Hoyo has yet to start a reframing campaign for him to make him redeemable, so they didn’t have to keep the Traveler unaware of “Zandik = Dottore” for far too long, with them immediately making the connection in the 6.2 AQ, just a patch after the flagship event in 6.1 that mentioned his real name. With Rosalyne, the two names represent two completely different things: one is someone the Traveler resented and helped kill, the other is someone the Traveler has been hearing about warmly for several patches and has zero negative association with.

Also, the fact that in Columbina’s character story, her early days with Arlecchino and Sandrone are described, but Rosalyne is conspicuously absent despite clearly being close to that trio, is telling. Sandrone’s notebook shows the four of them regularly having tea together. That’s an established relationship. Leaving her out of Columbina’s written story feels less like an oversight and more like they’re reserving her role in that dynamic for something that needs to be shown, not told in a character story that’s already been released, perhaps to minimize inconsistencies when they finally decide to make her playable. They’re probably treading lightly on the Rosalyne portrayal because they might be aware that the community is actively scrutinizing every little detail, and any inconsistency might lead to a less satisfying delivery of her story.

Overall, I think they’re running a slow rehabilitation campaign that spans across multiple versions with a specific structure:

First, establish Rosalyne as a beloved person through the people who knew her: Sandrone’s raw grief (“Rosalyne is dead.” as a single line after pages of mundane diary entries is genuinely devastating), Columbina’s voiceline attributing gift-giving wisdom and expression of gratitude to her, Arlecchino’s pity-baiting lines about her being lonely. Make the player feel the loss before the return.

Second, keep “Signora” as the villain in the mouths of characters who only knew her that way: Venti, Varka, and the Traveler. This prevents the rehabilitation from feeling like a retcon, because those characters’ perspectives are valid within their experience.

Third, the Traveler not connecting the two names is the dramatic payoff that’s currently being withheld. The moment that connection is made on-screen will likely be the emotional centerpiece of her return arc.

With this recent development, we now need to consider the possibility that playable Signora may actually be Rosalyne. I’ve always had a feeling that this might be the case, but previously there was no evidence that could strengthen this case, and thus I simply never mentioned it here. The picture that’s currently emerging is that they’re constructing a situation where “Signora” dies narratively so “Rosalyne” can return.

This is definitely a plausible theory, as one of the reasons why they might do this is to avoid naming conflicts in GITCG. La Signora is already an existing card in there, and having Signora’s playable form under the same name would cause some confusion, so the only to avoid this would be to refer to the alternate playable card as Rosalyne instead.

The one thing this framework doesn’t fully explain yet is when and how the “Rosalyne = Signora” connection gets made. There’s a few possibilities though. The Traveler could encounter something in Snezhnaya, like her coffin or a Harbinger who slips up and uses both names, that forces the realization. Or Rosalyne herself makes it, if she returns (say, in Mare Jivari) and the Traveler has to confront who she actually was. The most dramatically satisfying version would be Rosalyne being the one to bridge it, essentially forcing the Traveler to reconcile the two images themselves rather than being told by a third party.

Arlecchino’s and Columbina’s lines about her dropped the quest unlock requirements

I’ve noticed a very subtle thing about Signora’s lines in newer characters. In Childe’s and Wanderer’s lines about her, they require you to complete the quest “Omnipresence Over Mortals” (Chapter 2 Act 3, exactly when she was executed) before you can unlock the lines. However, for some reason, this requirement is absent with Arlecchino’s and Columbina’s lines about her. While some might chalk this up to the quests being old enough by this point that spoiling the ending probably has little consequences, this gets disproven by the fact that there are other characters that were released within the 4.x - 6.x time frame that still has this quest completion unlock requirement with older quests.

Xianyun was released in 4.4, two versions before Arlecchino’s, and her lines about Shenhe and Ningguang require you to complete “The Crane Returns on the Wind” and “A New Star Approaches” (Chapter 1 Act 1 and Interlude Act 1) respectively, while Mizuki, released in version 5.4, has lines about Miko and herself that require the completion of “Stillness, the Sublimation of Shadow”, which is Chapter 2 Act 2, the act before Signora was executed. This demonstrates that Hoyo doesn’t have a blanket policy of dropping quest unlock requirements once content ages past a certain threshold. The Mizuki example is particularly important because Chapter 2 Act 2 is literally the act immediately before Omnipresence Over Mortals, the quest where Signora dies. If quest age were the determining factor, Mizuki’s lines about Miko should’ve had their requirements dropped by the same logic, but they weren’t. The unlock requirement for content adjacent to Signora’s death is still being applied to a character released in version 5.4, while Arlecchino and Columbina’s lines about Signora specifically have had that requirement removed.

There are two possible explanations, and they’re not mutually exclusive. The first is that the quest completion requirement exists to prevent spoiling the narrative event (in this case, Signora’s death). If that death were to be superseded by a resurrection that becomes the bigger narrative event, then the death itself is no longer the spoiler worth protecting. Removing the requirement quietly signals that the death is no longer the definitive endpoint of her story.

The second explanation is slightly more mundane but still suggestive: Arlecchino and Columbina’s lines about Signora are part of the recontextualization campaign, and someone made the deliberate decision to make them as accessible as possible (no quest gate, available to any player regardless of story progress) because they want players to encounter this content. The positive Rosalyne framing in these VOs is doing narrative work, and putting it behind a quest completion wall reduces the number of players who see it. This is similar to how the recent lines that mention her positively are part of the AQ, which are impossible to miss, instead of being buried under artifact and weapon lore like what they’ve done with her backstory in the past.

Both explanations point in the same direction. The death is being treated as less final than it was, and the content that humanizes her is being made conveniently accessible. On a brighter note, 6.4 also brought us Varka’s SQ, which prominently features a character that’s deeply connected to Rosalyne’s lover: Rostam.

Varka’s story quest reopens the chapter on Signora’s backstory through adjacent lore

Version 6.4 also brought us Lupus Majoris Chapter, the story quest for Varka. It turns out this is actually a deep dive into the Bloodstained Chivalry artifact set masquerading as a SQ. This was previously teased in a hidden exploration objective in Nod-Krai, which unlocks “The Lone Wolf’s Memory” achievement where the Bloodstained Knight is mentioned.

Neither Rosalyne nor Signora were mentioned in this quest. However, because it prominently mentions Rostam, which is Signora’s lover, this is still rather suspicious. It seems that Hoyo is now willing to reopen this chapter by constantly bringing up things adjacent to her. The quest even mentions his death during the Cataclysm, which is exactly the reason why Rosalyne transformed into the Crimson Witch, and the consequence it had on his student, Roland.

Rostam isn’t just name-dropped here. He has voice lines, which finally revealed what his voice sounded like. He manifests as a presence with agency: his longing shields Varka, he speaks, and he asks to be taken to Roland. The specific line “Lonely warrior… take me… to see him…” is devastating in context. Rostam died 500 years ago, and he’s still reaching toward his disciple.

This quest also seems to have parallels between Roland and Rosalyne, and I don’t think this is just a coincidence. Look at what this quest is actually about at its thematic core: a person from Mondstadt who lost someone dear to them during the Cataclysm, was consumed by grief and a sense of injustice, and was transformed into something destructive by that loss, to the point where they abandoned who they were and threw themselves into a path of destruction.

That’s exactly Rosalyne’s story told through a different character. Roland lost Rostam, was transformed by grief, left everything behind, and became something defined by that loss. Rosalyne lost Rostam, was transformed by grief, left Mondstadt behind, and became the Crimson Witch and eventually Signora.

The parallel is so precise it can’t be accidental. The writers are using Roland’s arc to restate and emotionally prime the audience for Rosalyne’s arc, in a quest that prominently features Rostam, released in the same version as the Venti dialogue that mentions Signora.

The framing around Roland is particularly significant for how it repositions grief-driven transformation. Rosaria’s line, “It’s hard to say whether the loss of an important figure in his life is what drove him to the point of obsession, or whether he was already too far gone to save”, applies directly to Rosalyne. And crucially, the quest’s resolution isn’t condemnation. Varka doesn’t judge Roland. He delivers Rostam’s letter. He says “Rostam and Arundolyn never forgot you”. The emotional register is one of compassion for someone consumed by loss, not contempt for someone who chose evil.

That compassionate framing of grief-driven transformation, applied to a character directly parallel to Rosalyne, in a quest that features Rostam prominently, in the same major version where Rosalyne is being mentioned more than ever… I think this is the writers establishing the emotional and moral framework through which the audience should understand her.

I’d also like to point out a neat detail with the unsent letter in the quest. Arundolyn tried to deliver Rostam’s letter to Roland but never found him. The letter sat at the Knights of Favonius headquarters for 500 years, unsent. Varka finally delivers it, not to Roland himself, but to a shadow of Roland, in the hope that the real Roland will somehow receive it.

There’s something here that resonates with the broader Rosalyne situation. For 500 years, Rostam’s feelings for Roland went undelivered. For four years, the audience’s understanding of Rosalyne went unaddressed by Hoyo. The act of finally delivering what was always meant to be delivered (Varka with the letter, Hoyo with the rehabilitation) carries a similar emotional logic. It’s never too late to send what was always meant to be sent.

Then there’s the “crimson” parallel. Roland went from the White Knight to the Bloodstained Knight, his armor stained crimson by endless battle following Rostam’s death. Rosalyne went from a Mondstadt girl to the Crimson Witch of Flames following Rostam’s death. Both turned crimson in their grief. Both were defined by what they became after losing him. The color is not accidental.

Another interesting thing about this quest is that Roland seemingly has an opposing parallel to Rosalyne.

In that quest, Roland said:
“Even if I am stained black with blood, my conscience will remain as white as snow.”

Meanwhile, in the Stainless Bloom artifact from the Pale Flame set, Rosalyne said:
“For even if I dress in pure white from head to toe, the ashes of the dead that have long left their stain on every inch of my being can never be cleansed.”

Both characters are using the same “white” imagery against staining (blood, ash) to express the same fundamental idea: that external corruption and internal identity can be separated. But they arrive at opposite conclusions from that premise, and that opposition is the key to understanding what makes them structural mirrors rather than simple parallels.

Roland’s statement is a declaration of moral self-preservation through external corruption. He’s saying: I will do terrible things, serve the Abyss, become something monstrous, but my conscience, my inner self, remains untouched. The corruption is on the outside. He’s still white within.

Rosalyne’s statement is the exact inverse. She dressed in pure white, she joined the Tsaritsa’s cause, she became an instrument of something she believed was righteous, but the stain is on the inside, permanent, internal. The ashes of the dead are part of her being regardless of what she wears. The corruption is on the inside. She cannot be white within no matter what she presents externally.

Roland believes internal purity survives external corruption. Rosalyne believes internal corruption survives external purity. They’re the same tragedy expressed through opposite directions of the same metaphor.

This reveals something about Rosalyne’s self-awareness. When she joined the Fatui, she wasn’t under any illusion that she was cleansing herself. She explicitly acknowledged that the ashes of the dead (Rostam, everyone lost in the Cataclysm) were a permanent stain she couldn’t remove. She didn’t join the Tsaritsa’s cause because she thought it would save her. She joined because she shared the goal, and because she had already accepted that she was beyond saving.

That’s not the psychology of an arrogant villain, and instead, it’s the psychology of someone who has fully internalized their own tragedy and chosen to act anyway. The arrogance we see in her Harbinger persona is downstream of this. If you’ve already accepted you can never be clean, you stop worrying about how you appear and start performing instead.

On the flip side, Roland’s story serves as the road not taken. The structural opposition between Roland and Rosalyne suggests the writers are using Roland to show what happens when the same grief-logic inverts. Both lost someone to the Cataclysm. Both were transformed. But Roland maintained the illusion of internal purity while serving darkness, while Rosalyne abandoned the illusion of external purity while acknowledging internal damage.

In a perverse way, Rosalyne’s self-awareness is more honest than Roland’s self-deception. Roland tells himself his conscience is white while serving the Abyss. Rosalyne never pretended the ashes could be cleaned. She just chose a direction and committed.

The quest’s resolution, Varka reaching Roland through compassion rather than condemnation, delivering Rostam’s letter, implies that the answer to this kind of grief-transformation isn’t judgment but recognition. Being seen. Being told that those who loved you never forgot you.

Which is, notably, exactly what the 6.x rehabilitation is doing for Rosalyne through the female Harbingers. Sandrone, Arlecchino, Columbina are collectively saying: we saw you, we remember you, we never forgot the person under the Crimson Witch. The emotional logic of Roland’s resolution is being applied to Rosalyne’s situation in real time, across multiple patches.

As for the fact that neither Rosalyne nor Signora are mentioned despite the quest’s obvious relevance, I think this is intentional restraint rather than oversight. Mentioning her here would have been too on-the-nose. It would have collapsed the parallel into an explicit statement rather than letting it resonate as an allusion. The writers are probably trusting the audience to make the connection, which is a mark of confidence in how much groundwork has already been laid.

It’s also possible that the explicit connection between Rostam and Rosalyne is being saved for her own SQ, if and when she becomes playable. The Crimson Witch artifact lore, Rostam’s now-established character, the Roland parallel… all of this is material that a Story Quest could draw on directly. Keeping the connection implicit here preserves the impact of making it explicit later.

We only got a glimpse of Mare Jivari in 5.8

The 5.8 special program VOD revealed that the majority of Mare Jivari is not yet accessible, suggesting a future major plot unraveling. Why else would they keep us from exploring most of the region if they’re not planning anything big with it?

This sounds like they’re planning to release a character that’s tied to the region, but they’re not ready to reveal it just yet, probably because we’ll only get some more context once we get to Nod-Krai. Also, doing a staggered release like this is a good business opportunity for them to build up hype for the grand reveal of a notable character. Some speculate it could be the Lavawalker, which is almost certainly Enjou as he gives the flower from that artifact set to the MC, but there’s nothing stopping them from connecting it to Signora and doing something like confirming that the liquid fire is indeed liquid phlogiston.

Hoyo would have absolutely no reason to gate the rest of Mare Jivari behind future content if they don’t plan on using it to market something. And because we all know that they sell characters, not stories or games, it stands to reason that an upcoming character is underway, and they will be revealed once the full Mare Jivari is released. To me, the only possibility would be Signora as Enjou himself has stated at the end of the WQ that it’s unlikely for him to cross paths with the MC ever again. Couple that with speculations about the descriptions of “crimson dawn” and “sea of flame” in her description in the archive, and you get a pretty strong candidate for which character might show up with the expansion.

The Pyro gnosis still hasn’t been stolen yet

This ties to the previous point and is something that some detractors hilariously overlook when they argue Signora can’t return: who’s gonna steal the gnosis after Capitano failed to do exactly that? As of 6.0, the gnosis is still in Mavuika’s hands, and the fact that they’re currently setting the gnosis heist lore aside means that they’ll have to explore it later and maybe surprise the audience.

The entirety of the Harbingers were all focused on dealing with Columbina’s problems, and now they have to deal with Dottore after he literally attacked her, so none of them seem to be interested in retrieving the final gnosis as of now. Having her return in Mare Jivari and steal the gnosis while everyone else is distracted would be a good way to reestablish her relevance and reinstate her position as the 8th Harbinger, which could satisfy the part of the community who wants her back as a Harbinger and with her original design.

We currently don’t know how they’re gonna do this, given how Nod-Krai is already filled with so many major plot points, but given how the developers themselves said that Nod-Krai was meant to tie up the story’s loose ends, one possible theory is that this will be similar to HSR’s Amphoreus where they push the main storyline throughout tne entirety of 6.x versions, and one of them may involve us returning to Natlan where the gnosis heist can finally take place.

There has been some leaks that the Pyro gnosis will appear in 6.6, and that Mavuika is among the characters who show up in there. However, because the dialogues for the quest won’t be available until the preload, as of now, we don’t know for sure if Dottore will steal the pyro gnosis in 6.6 instead of having Signora steal it instead after she reemerges in Mare Jivari, so until this is confirmed one way or the other, this theory stays for now.

She was featured unusually frequently in Hoyofair 2025

Hoyofair features “fanarts” from various artists and they’ve been doing this annually since 2021. One interesting thing about 2025’s Hoyofair is that, unlike the previous years, Signora (or her moth) were prominently featured in this one. This is curious, because prior to this, she was only featured once, and that was in 2023 in a very brief section, but in this one, she literally appeared on multiple scenes.

Now, you might think that because these are “unofficial”, they don’t really mean much other than the fact that it’s meant to showcase the various Harbingers. However, I have a suspicion that this is actually a semi-official showcase instead, like some kind of controlled marketing. These are not random community submissions, because they’re actually commissioned (see below), and thus, they’re brand-safe. And there’s evidence that points to this.

Hoyo has made an official statement with their first Hoyofair in 2021, and the accompanying comment event, that says

For this HoYoFair event, we have invited talented creators and prepared many interesting programs~

This comment event also has the following rule:

Comments of the following nature will be regarded as invalid: […] comments that contain any form of advertising, and those which seek to spread malicious rumors or discredit the game and its characters.

Judging by these, it’s very likely that these artworks must align with their marketing and/or in-game narrative. This implies that Hoyo directly sponsors, supervises, or preapproves the content. The creators probably have to work under guidelines, which means they have restrictions on how they can portray the characters. Notice how, in all instances, Signora’s right eye is always obscured by something (her mask, a butterfly). This, in my opinion, is a good example of how Hoyo controls these “fanarts” to prevent misrepresentation of what her full face might look like, because we haven’t gotten to that point in the story just yet.

One of the scenes that feature Signora. I love how she freaks out like that when Bina cheerfully splashed some water on her

Then there’s also this official statement from Hoyofair Spring 2023, which confirms that they’re indeed commissioned (sponsored):

HoYoFair presents a collation of fan works derived from HoYoverse IPs. You can find a rich variety of fan art here as well as creators and players from all over the world who engage in multilingual creations and interactions. Here, everyone can express their love for games.

All content in the program is produced by creators sponsored by HoYoFair, which are derivative works of Genshin Impact, and is not related to the content of Genshin Impact itself.

Notice how they put a disclaimer saying that it’s “not related to the game’s content”. I think this is just a legal shield to protect their asses, not a creative truth. It gives them a plausible deniability in case fans overanalyze something that’s actually intentional foreshadowing. And this is why I think these fanarts are the perfect cover for teasing things like Signora’s return without directly hinting at it as they could easily say something like that to neither confirm nor deny hints for future content.

If fans start speculating that her return is coming, Hoyo can just shrug it off with something like “Oh, that’s just community creativity. This isn’t canon”. But internally, it lets them test audience response (if fans react positively, they know the timing is right for a revival arc), and rebuild emotional connections around her without having to confirm anything officially. This is basically marketing disguised as community engagement. After all, why would multiple different artists feature a character that was deemed “irrelevant”, when they could’ve absolutely featured someone else instead? Given what we know, a plausible explanation for this is that Hoyo has control over which characters are featured, and that just implies they’re probably planning to do something with her in-game.

Signora being irrelevant to the story means nothing

This ties to my previous point about Mare Jivari. Some argue that Signora’s return would be pointless as she’s no longer relevant to the story, which makes her playability very unlikely. Well, guess what? Bennett has been pretty much irrelevant in the main story for a while, and yet he got an entire lore dump in 5.8 anyway, with Hoyo exploring his Natlan background and his constellation showing up in the fake Mare Jivari.

Then there’s also the fact that Skirk literally just came outta nowhere in Liyue on 5.7, after not hearing back from her since she last showed up in 4.2’s AQ, and without any story relevance in Natlan. They even made a whole-ass backstory about how she was the sole survivor of her planet and gave us a sob story of someone who was forced to shut out her emotions after all she’s been through. All of this without any prior build-ups in 5.x or even later versions of 4.x.

What’s stopping them from doing the same thing with Signora and reveal the fact that her liquid fire turns out to be liquid phlogiston, or simply her busting that coffin open in Snezhnaya once we get there?

Arlecchino’s rerun in 5.3 was quite popular, even outperforming Mavuika’s rerun

While we didn’t get any new playable Harbingers in 5.x, we’re still able to look at the pull count for Arlecchino (the only Harbinger who was rerun in 5.x outside chronicled banner), and compare it against other banners.

When including debut banners, it might seem as if her pull count wasn’t really all that great, only sitting at the 9th place, and trailing behind Furina’s rerun. However, do note that those two banners were the only rerun banners that made it to the top 10, so that’s still quite an impressive feat.

However, if we filter this to only include reruns, then Arlecchino sits at an impressively high 2nd place, leaving the rest of the top 10 behind except for Neuvillette, and was far more frequently pulled than even Mavuika’s rerun. This is surprising, considering how Archon reruns are typically highly anticipated, as evidenced by how many people are still pulling for Furina on her 2nd rerun, and it shows that Mavuika might have flopped after her debut.

This is another evidence that the Harbingers are highly desirable among the community, and by leaving Signora unplayable, they’re likely to miss out on potentially massive banner revenues, both in the short-term (her debut), and long-term (her subsequent reruns).

Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 5.0 - 5.8, including reruns

Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 5.0 - 5.8, reruns only

Columbina’s and Sandrone’s release might be intended to test the waters before releasing Signora

With Columbina and Sandrone being finally confirmed to be playable by reputable leakers, this means that they’ve released all the female Harbingers except Signora. If we assume that Mare Jivari or Signora isn’t in Nod-Krai, I can’t help but think that this could be a litmus test to gauge the potential success of Signora’s banner. While they probably have internal projections, nothing speaks louder than the final revenue numbers from their banners, and they might use those to figure out things like what people want or don’t want in a Harbinger kit or which story elements would make the most impact for the audience and entice them to pull the banner.

Also, by making it seem like they’re releasing all the female Harbingers but Signora, they’re creating a powerful effect where her absence sticks out like a sore thumb, which keeps her relevant in community discussions and builds anticipation for a potential future reveal. And Hoyo seems to know this, given how they seem to make the female Harbingers friendly towards each other, and they even made this tweet that makes the absence of Signora feel all the more powerful. They’re basically teasing us, the audience, by implying “Look how much more complete this would’ve been if she had been here”.

She received her first ever official artwork, and it proves there’s a real demand for her playability

With Columbina’s release being right around the corner, Hoyo has released a promo content called “Columbina’s Anecdotes - Her Memories”. Interestingly, unlike the Christmas commissioned fanart, this features Signora, and was made by Hoyo’s own artists in-house, making it her first ever official appearance in image-based artwork (aside from Arle’s teaser, which is a video). Remember that she wasn’t even featured in 2.1’s splash art, so it pretty much took them over 5 years to feature her outside the game.

Aww, she brought the tea

Places like Reddit, Twitter, and even Hoyolab were flooded with comments about her appearance, and this shows that their marketing strategy of emphasizing on Signora’s absence is working. The sudden presence of Signora after a long absence sparked up discussions once more. Even better, the CN community wants her back in the comments section of the same official post on Weibo, which further confirms that the demand for a playable Signora exists in their home country.

An example of some comments from the official Hoyolab post

Another example of some comments from the official Hoyolab post

An example of some comments from the official Weibo

Another example of some comments from the official Weibo

Another example of some comments from the official Weibo

Hell, even the entire comments section about this on the official subreddit was filled with Signora comments, which is a rare sight given how these would normally result in mass downvotes instead. This is even more proof that people DO actually want her, and when Hoyo starts giving them some tangible content like this, discussions about her become more open-minded.

Character design, kits, and playability are not set in stone

One of the arguments that are frequently thrown by Signora detractors is that Hoyo is unlikely to change their mind when it comes to kits and playability. However, I’d like to once again emphasize that business plans are usually not set in stone, and if they feel like they could make some changes to improve their product or profits, they would absolutely do that. There’s evidence that proves this:

• Xianyun didn’t have a playable model at first, only as a crane NPC, but she became playable anyway (explained in part 1)
• Clipping is not an issue, and even if it was, they could just alter the model slightly to fix such problems, as evidenced by Baizhu’s and Skirk’s playable models having slight adjustments, and even some characters that were leaked in the game’s prerelease closed betas (CBTs) and dev builds were different from the final version.
• The weapons and kits used by some characters were changed between the closed beta tests (CBTs) and final release:
  • Albedo was originally a bow character.
  • Yanfei was originally a sword character named Feiyan.
  • Yaoyao was originally a catalyst character.
  • Xingqiu was originally a Cryo character.
  • Ganyu was originally a 4* character.
  • And in a more recent case, Chasca was originally a Cryo character according to one of the promo images before they changed her to Anemo.

  For more information, check out TCRF’s Genshin prototype pages.

The “surprising reunion with a Harbinger”

I’ve mentioned in the previous post that Xiao Luohao, the game’s editor-in-chief, allegedly made a statement that there will be a surprising reunion with a Harbinger. Given what we know so far:

• Dottore is likely not the surprising reunion he’s talking about, as we’ve already gotten hints that he will show up in NK as early as Natlan’s epilogue, and there’s also the entire 6.1 flagship event that mentioned him, so when he attacked Columbina, we knew it would happen at one point. Also, the fact that the end screen of Act 8 glitches out after we’ve supposedly killed him makes it obvious that he’ll return at some point, so it’s not really a surprise anymore.
• Columbina is the archon substitute for the region and is the flagship character, so no surprise there. Also, not a reunion as this is the first time we met her.
• Sandrone’s been teased as early as 6.0 special program VOD and NK character splash arts. Not a reunion because this is our first real encounter with her, even if she gave us that letter in Fontaine. Also, the fact that they’re spoiling her resurrection by putting that missing silhouette with a ground reflection makes it unsurprising.
• Arlecchino is related to the topic of Crimson Moon dynasty/Rerir’s backstory, so not a surprise.
• We expected Scara to accompany Durin, so that, too, is unsurprising.
• Tartaglia finally showed up in Nod-Krai, and he’s only there to evacuate Nod-Krai citizens to Snezhnaya. Given how he frequently shows up in various quests (Labyrinth Warrior, Fontaine AQ), and the fact that he’s probably in Snezhnaya after the escort mission, his future appearance won’t be surprising.
• Capitano is currently dormant, and it’s unlikely that we’ll revisit him anytime soon as it’s probably too early to do something like that.
• Pierro, Pulcinella and Pantalone do not qualify as reunions, as we’ve yet to encounter them.
• This leaves us with Signora. Multiple mentions back-to-back. Varka’s story quest about the Bloodstained Knight that has some strikingly similar parallels to her. The constant teasing, both in-game and outside the game. All of this is just way too suspicious for them to just be a coincidence.

The whole thing just feels like a teasing and marketing hype cycle to me. After all, if you wanted to do a “surprising reunion”, you gotta prep the audience by building up hype before you reveal the big surprise. This ensures that the audience is well-informed that something major is about to happen, but at the same time, they can’t stretch this for too long or else they’ll get burnt out from all the blueballing. Releasing merch drops, character mentions, and artworks that evoke the feeling of her absence is the perfect way to do this in a controlled manner.

Her resurrection arc might have already been in development

We’ve finally received an official confirmation on how long it takes to finish a major game content, such as AQs, in Genshin Fes 2025. I’ve speculated in my previous post that it could take up to 22 months to complete an AQ plot, given how that’s how long it took between Signora’s first appearance in the game files (CB1.2 in November 2019) and her death in September 2021. Turns out, I was virtually right on the money.

According to this interview, shorter versions take around 6 months, while longer ones can take 17-20 months to finish. They move back and forth with the concept design and revision pipeline, which means that things are subject to change.

There’s actual in-game evidence of this too. “The Little Witch and the Undying Fire”, which is a book about Simulanka Durin, was first seen in 4.7 beta (during 4.6). That was from April 2024. Durin himself became a playable character in 6.2, which was in December 2025. That’s almost a 20-month gap between the foreshadowing of his playability and him becoming playable. We use the betas as our reference for starting dates, since we can assume that was when they first began the development of the content, not when the final version is out.

If we assume that the first instance of Signora’s pity-baiting under her real name and the merch drops in 6.0 beta are a foreshadowing for her return, then we can expect her being playable, depending on whether or not version 6.9 exists, as early as 7.1/7.2 in December 2026 (almost 17 months later), and as late as 7.3/7.4 in March 2027 (20 months later, just like Durin’s release). Do keep in mind that these are just estimates, as we could only make educated guesses on when the development started based on in-game and marketing hints, so her actual banner may come out earlier or later than these.

In addition to this,

Zibai and Sandrone’s resurrections are proofs of concept for Signora’s resurrection

With the release of Zibai in 6.3 and the accompanying permanent event quest that brings her back after she had died thousands of years ago, along with Sandrone’s supposed death in spite of her having a playable ID, Hoyo has now demonstrated, within a single version, that resurrection is a narrative tool they’re actively willing to use and a commercial tool they’re willing to market around. Sandrone’s situation is particularly significant because they’re not even hiding it. A missing silhouette with a visible ground reflection in an official teaser is about as explicit as you can get without a direct announcement. They want people to know she’s coming back. That’s a deliberate marketing choice.

This completely neutralizes the “Hoyo never resurrects dead characters” argument at its foundation. It was always a weak argument by extrapolation from other games, but now it’s not even extrapolation… it’s just factually wrong within Genshin itself.

The “turned to ash” counterargument dying alongside it is also significant. Zibai materializing from the Three Deadly Selves (basically collected souls) is a much more complicated resurrection than anything Signora would require, where Hoyo could easily pivot to Mare Jivari + liquid fire or her busting that coffin open in Snezhnaya, compared to Zibai which involves some convoluted Istaroth lore we hadn’t even heard of previously. If that’s acceptable to the writers, physical destruction of a body is clearly not a hard barrier. The game has now established that the manner of death doesn’t necessarily determine the possibility of return. Remember that her liquid fire lore was never elaborated on, and thus, it’s an easy entry point for them to bring her back, while not contradicting any existing lore.

Varka’s model is “too tall”, and yet he’s playable anyway

One of the arguments frequently thrown around when detractors argue why Signora wouldn’t be playable is that she’s “too tall” compared to the regular tall lady models, to the point where she’s approaching the height of standard tall male characters. This had always been a pretty weak excuse, considering how Hoyo could’ve simply added a new nonstandard model type for her, just like what they’ve been doing since Natlan. However, despite there being custom models for tall female characters, there hadn’t been a single model whose height is so tall like her (which is within the same ballpark as tall male characters) that it necessitates a change in camera angle. Even Lauma still retains the same camera position despite being the new tallest playable lady character, because she’s still shorter than Signora when compared side-by-side.

That changed with the release of 6.4, as we finally have a playable character whose model is so tall that the camera literally has to shift to account for his height, which shows they could absolutely accommodate characters that are “too tall”.

Too tall?

Also, they could absolutely make more than one custom models. Both Skirk and Varesa have them, but they’re unique in different ways. Skirk is noticeably taller, while Varesa is curvier.

Character height has been growing rapidly since 5.x, as these pictures show (click to expand):

Lisa (1.0 character) for comparison

Lauma (current tallest playable lady) for comparison

The Irminsul burning scene has been confirmed to be part of the 6.6 Archon Quest

Related to “the surprising reunion with a Harbinger” point, Xiao Luohao also said in the same statement that the Irminsul burning scene will happen later, and that both Dottore and the Tsaritsa will do something unexpected in the future. The former has now been officially confirmed to be the case, which means that the OP who originally posted this on NGA is indeed telling the truth, and that the “surprising reunion” could genuinely refer to Signora’s return.

This statement also implies that Dottore never really dies, both in 6.3 and the upcoming 6.6, and given the way it’s worded, one theory is that this might be part of the Tsaritsa’s plan all along.

For more info on this, check out my “unhinged rant and crack theories” post here, where I describe these new findings in more detail. I haven’t put it on here because some of the details might turn out to be untrue, and we still have to wait until the preload to confirm some of my theories.

The Snezhnaya preview teaser is suspiciously nondescript

Hoyo has released the Snezhnaya preview teaser during the 6.6 Special Program VOD. However, unlike the preview teasers of past regions, this looks incredibly bland by comparison. It only focused on the Traveler with a gun taking out some enemies, and we don’t even get a good look of other characters as they were too distant to make out any clear details of.

This is a stark contrast to the past preview teasers, where they were willing to showcase the other characters in detail. Natlan had Mualani, Kachina, and Kinich. Nod-Krai showcased some of the major factions’ characters, including Dottore, Varka, and Alice.

Hoyo’s sudden refusal to elaborate any further than “Traveler with a gun” is incredibly suspicious, and the only logical explanation is that they’re hiding something big from us. Why else would you not showcase any of the upcoming characters that would show up in the Archon Quest otherwise, especially given how Snezhnaya was supposed to be a very important region, more so than the previous ones? They could’ve shown some Harbingers like Pulcinella or Pantalone, but they chose not to.

It’s likely that they did this in order to leave the audience speculating about what will happen and which characters will appear in the AQ, generating hype and engagement and maintaining it until they’re ready to reveal it. I’m willing to bet that they’re withholding any important details because it’s likely that this region will feature multiple playable Harbingers, as they’re way behind the schedule when it comes to releasing them, with there only being 5 Harbingers that are or will be playable so far. This leaves us with 6 left, and it’s likely they’ll have to resort to releasing three or more harbingers in Snezhnaya, especially given how the Fatui is headquartered in there. Given how Rosalyne has been constantly mentioned in Nod-Krai, it’s extremely likely that she will be among the playable units, and given how that’s a huge spoiler that cannot be avoided, it makes sense that they remain awkwardly silent like this.

Speculations that may or may not be related to Signora

The connection between moths and angels’ feathers

A datamined 6.5 local specialty item has the Etherwing Moth, which looks suspiciously similar to the pyro moths that Signora has. What’s even more interesting is that it connects these moths to angels’ feathers.

A peculiar lifeform, shimmering with sacred golden light, that drifts like a moth through the equally mysterious interstice.

Legend has it that Etherwing Moths were born from the feathers of angels who fell to the mortal world after rebelling against the lord of the heavens. However, this does not explain their presence here in the domain of eternal stasis.

Perhaps, in the eyes of a certain deity, they are worth preserving, so that they may continue to bear witness to the punishment of certain sinners.

What significance this means for Signora is unknown. However, we could speculate that she might have borrowed an angel’s powers and it came at a great cost, much like how Mavuika borrowed Ronova’s powers (a Shade, another powerful entity) which resulted in her having to die once the abyss has been dealt with, until Capitano saved her at the last minute and proceeded to sit on the throne in her stead. This could be one of the ways Hoyo could explain how she acquired the liquid fire, which, to this day, remains unknown.

The similarities between the symbol in her boss fight and the Eroded Sunfire

Some people have noticed that the symbol that shows up when you try to one-shot Signora in the first phase looks fairly similar to the weapon held by the Lord of Eroded Primal Fire, and by extension, the Eroded Sunfire item. This symbol is unique to this boss fight, and it’s currently unknown if this is related to anything. It also looks different from the Harbinger logo. However, its shape does bear some similarities to the aforementioned Eroded Sunfire, albeit not completely (the circle in the middle is missing).

Left: the symbol on the ground if you try to one-shot Signora in her boss fight. Right: Eroded Sunfire icon

“Ruzicka” being mentioned in a 3.6 event

This is an older theory that’s worth mentioning simply because most people have forgotten about it. In “A Parade of Providence”, specifically, during the quest “Sachin’s Article”, an NPC named Huvishka said:

Many people say that the Spantamad Darshan produces many talented people, such as Cyrus, Ruzicka, Lisa, Cyno…

Cyrus refers to an NPC in Sumeru which is a retired Akademiya professor. Lisa and Cyno are obviously the playable characters, but who is Ruzicka? She doesn’t appear to correspond to any NPCs in the game, and was only mentioned in this event dialogue and never again. This is suspicious, because Růžička means “little rose” in Czech. And guess what Rosalyne means? That’s right, “beautiful rose”. Ruzicka also sounds a bit like an abbreviated form of Rosalyne-Kruzchka. Then there’s also the fact that Signora studied at the Akademiya prior to her Crimson Witch transformation, so this may or may not be a subtle hint of Signora under a different name.

If this really refers to Signora, then they can’t just name-drop Rosalyne because that would’ve been way too obvious, so they settled with Ruzicka as a nod to her, in order to minimize suspicion and get people to shrug it off and not to think too hard about it.

Disproven speculations

Here we have the “hall of shame” of theories I made in this post that were disproven, for the sake of transparency.

6.x Unknown IDs

HomDGCat, a reliable Genshin leaker with a good track record, published a playable character ID list for Nod-Krai, and initially, I made some educated guesses as to how they could possibly release Signora in 6.x.

• Alice “Crimson Chronicle”: Non-playable NPC ID only
• Was suspected to be possible unknown IDs 134 - 135 (6.7 - 6.9?)
• 133 Marionette - 6.7
• 132 Prune - 6.6
• 131 Nicole - 6.6
• 130 Linnea - 6.5
• 129 Lohen - 6.6, likely meant to go with Varka but was delayed
• 128 Varka - 6.4
• 127 Illuga “Burning Heart Amidst the Nightmare” - 6.3
• 126 Zibai “White Horse’s Fleeting Spring” - 6.3
• 125 Columbina “Welkin Moon’s Homecoming” - 6.3
• 124 Jahoda “Windthreading Shadow” - 6.2
• 123 Durin “The Undying Fire” - 6.2
• 122 Nefer “Secret Beneath the Sands” - 6.1
• 121 Aino “Clinky-Clank Gadgets-A-Gogo” - 6.0
• 120 Flins “Shadowy Lights, Stranger Wights” - 6.0
• 119 Lauma “Evermoon’s Sacrament Song” - 6.0
• 118 Manekina (UGC)
• 117 Manekin (UGC)

Hoyo has always consistently released 17 characters for each major version, and the UGC characters were initially assumed to not count towards this as while they are usable in free roam, they can’t be used in endgame modes, which is the whole point of pulling for characters, and thus there was the possibility that she could be in late 6.x. However, Hoyo has all but disproved this with the release of Snezhnaya BTS VOD, as it confirmed that Snezhnaya’s release will be on August 12, which is where 6.8 would’ve been.

The possible existence of version 6.9

There was a discovery on the textmap that mentions “6.9”, which might hint of a potential existence of said version. This came up as a surprise, because releasing version 6.9 would mean that Genshin’s anniversary would land on that version instead of 7.0. But just like the above theory of playable IDs, this too was disproven by the Snezhnaya BTS implying there will be no 6.8, and that 7.0 will release in August instead of September had the version existed.

Funnily enough, the placeholder text translates to “Plants vs. Zombies Level 5”. You see, I’ve been in the PvZ community for over a decade now, so seeing this in the textmap is just kinda hilarious. FYI, level 5 is the “roof” stage. It’s currently unknown what this means, or whether this even means anything. I don’t think we’re literally gonna be doing a battle on the roof of a house. and with the version not really existing, I wonder if this was meant as an inside joke or something.

What to do now?

Given how Nod-Krai’s final patch will be in 6.7, this means that Hoyo will drip market the characters that will appear in the Snezhnaya AQ, and there will be a playable ID leak in the same version, which coincides with Sandrone’s banner. For those of you who have been waiting for both Sandrone and Signora, I’d suggest you should wait until the leakers get a hold of 7.0’s playable IDs, as it would determine whether you should pull Sandrone or skip her and wait for Signora instead to get her constellations or signature weapon. Watch for any missing playable IDs in the leak, because it means that a character will appear in a future quest, but has yet to appear in the next version. Signora will almost certainly fall into this category, as I doubt her resurrection would take place that early in 7.0, so any missing playable IDs should be treated as a Signora-shaped hole we should pay attention to.

Also, because 7.0 will have the first batch of playable characters, and said characters are placed very early in the playable ID list, if there’s any missing IDs that immediately follow 7.0’s playable characters, then it can be said with absolute certainty that she’ll be playable in 7.1.

Similarly, the drip marketing may also confirm her return. If there’s a suspicious silhouette in the midst of the drip marketed roster, then suffice to say it will be her, as there would be no reason to hide other characters, even the Harbingers or Tsaritsa, unless if said character is a walking spoiler, which she does qualify as such. Alternatively, Hoyo could be stupid and just outright reveal her in the drip marketing, which would completely spoil her resurrection. That might be a but disappointing as it kills the hype a little, but hey, at least that would be the most obvious confirmation of her return.

Analogies to help people understand the reality of business strategies

Everything after this whole point is just an extra, and you can stop here if you don’t wanna hear me rambling about why Signora’s resurrection makes sense from a business perspective, and the caveats with the analysis I’ve presented. However, I’d like to put this here because I feel like the detractors who argue against Signora’s return don’t get how marketing actually works. I’m not expecting them to change or anything, but it’s evident that they only rely on the low-hanging fruits like “she’s turned into ashes” or “her death was deserved because she kicked Venti” rather than looking at how businesses work and the workplace politics surrounding them. Companies spend millions or even billions of dollars on marketing to ensure their product sells, and Hoyo is no exception. If they deem a past strategy to be a failure or unsustainable, they will pivot and change course to one that’s more likely to be successful. Expecting Hoyo to stay true to their original plans is unrealistic from a financial perspective, and their marketing department is unlikely to keep this decision forever when there’s an overwhelming amount of data that suggests this is a bad business move.

The BMW M1 analogy

I saw a video about the BMW M1 and how it was a commercial failure despite being widely praised by critics, and I think this is a great analogy for the biggest flaw with the detractors’ argument of “Signora should stay dead and people should move on”.

At 12:57, the host said “the M1 was, despite its good looks, its supercar provenance, its spectacular performance, good build quality, and universal praise, a failure”, and that “people don’t actually want to drive a race car on the road. What the people want is cars with a hint of Motorsport, and all it takes is some extra power here, a spoiler over there, and a couple M-badges… and then people open their wallets and pay through the nose for nothing more than a glorified sport package”. “BMW isn’t in business to make cars. BMW is in business to make money”.

Think of it like this: the M1 was a masterpiece of engineering. It was a true “race car for the road”. From a purist, engineering-first perspective, it was a perfect product, and the car equivalent of a tragic, narratively consistent story where dead characters stay dead; a piece of art created for the purists.

But in the end, “people don’t actually want to drive a race car on the road”. They wanted the fantasy of racing packaged in a comfortable car that’s practical and viable as a daily driver. As a result, the M1 was a commercial disaster. BMW struggled to sell them, eventually having to offer massive discounts, and they only sold a fraction of their initial goal. However, the idea of the M1, the “glorified sport package”, went on to become the foundation of their wildly successful M-Division, a multi-billion-dollar business that sells everyday cars with performance tweaks, aggressive styling, and M-badges. Suddenly, people lined up to buy them. The “spirit” of the M1 became the foundation of a highly profitable business.

This is pretty much analogous to the Signora situation. A writing team, operating like the engineers at BMW, might create what they see as a perfect, “narratively consistent world where dead characters stay dead”. They might even get praised by Signora detractors for their commitment to these tragic stakes. This is their “BMW M1”, a well-crafted (in the detractors’ and writers’ eyes) but ultimately niche product.

However, just like car buyers didn’t want a literal race car, most Genshin players don’t want permanently dead, unplayable villains. They want the fantasy of a powerful Harbinger in their party: badass and lore-rich but redeemable. They’re opening their wallets and paying through the nose for the experience of these characters, not for the abstract purity of a story where they die and don’t have their banners released.

If Hoyo continues to defend their controversial “plot device” for no other reason than a commitment to a 4-year-old narrative decision (which isn’t even explicitly stated or legally binding to begin with), they risk repeating BMW’s mistake. They’re offering a product (a tragic, finished story) to a market that is loudly and clearly demanding a different one (a playable, redeemed character). By releasing filler or side characters instead of established, lore-significant ones, they’re choosing to make less desirable products while their major characters gather dust.

A company composed solely of writers, like a company of engineers, risks creating a product that is technically sound but commercially unviable. The success of a live-service game, just like the success of a car company, depends on finding the perfect balance between the vision of the writers/engineers and the desires of the consumers. Just like BMW, Hoyo isn’t in business to make narratively consistent stories where dead characters stay dead. Hoyo is in business to make money by selling characters.

The enthusiast trap

There’s a video by TechAltar that explains the “enthusiast trap”. It argues that it’s nearly impossible for a tech company built for enthusiasts to remain successful in the long run. This occurs when a company focuses too narrowly on its early, highly opinionated users (the people who demand purity, difficulty, or uncompromising ideals) and then struggles to pivot to the broader, more profitable mainstream audience. In Genshin’s context, replace “enthusiasts” with a small but loud subset of lore purists and “mainstream” with the wider fanbase that favors the character collection aspect of gacha games.

The general idea is this:

1. The lure: Smaller companies tend to cater to “enthusiasts” because they actively seek out cool new products and promote them in an act of evangelism. This sounds great at first, because word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t cost the company anything, and the community organically promotes the product for free.
2. The trap: In reality, this is actually unsustainable, because enthusiasts are a small, niche market, with strict standards where they want NO compromises, and expect the company to stay committed to this. This makes it impossible for companies to scale, and cutting corners isn’t an option either, as the enthusiast community actively scrutinizes the company, so any perceived compromise can lead to rejection.
3. The pivot: Eventually, in order to survive, companies are faced with difficult choices. They have to choose between staying with the enthusiast audience (which might bankrupt them or at least slow their growth), pivoting to the mainstream, “betraying” the enthusiasts in the process (but more likely to succeed), or trying to please both but more likely to fail as they get involved in a lose-lose situation.

Pebble, Cyanogen, OnePlus, Oppo, and now Nothing have been dealing with this.

Pebble and Cyanogen are examples of trying to take the third option and ended up failing. Both companies tried to cater to their original audience while also branching out. Pebble tried fashion and fitness, and Cyanogen split into commercial and enthusiast platforms (Cyanogen OS and CyanogenMod respectively). In both cases, they failed to attract the new audience while alienating their core community, resulting in a “lose-lose situation”.

OnePlus pivoted hard to a non-tech “lifestyle” audience with the OnePlus X after their OnePlus 2 flopped, which apparently sold terribly. They returned to their roots with the OnePlus 3 but are simultaneously spending millions on traditional ads with models, trying to appeal to a non-techy audience. A follow-up video by MKBHD in 2021 showed that they have successfully pivoted to the mainstream, with their flagship phones now costing just as much as any other company’s offerings, and their lineup evolving from a single phone every year to releasing refreshes and more affordable models with reduced specs (the Nord) to expand their reach while staying profitable by increasing their profit margins.

Oppo is another example of a successful pivot. It was once an enthusiast brand but made a “complete 180° turn”. They focused on mid-range phones with locked bootloaders and a heavy emphasis on selfies. The enthusiasts left, but Oppo became “incredibly successful” and one of the world’s largest smartphone vendors.

Nothing is a latest example of an attempt at pivoting. They initially bragged about how their phones had “no bloatware”, only for them to add bloatware and lock screen ads on their non-flagship phones starting from the 3a. This, unsurprisingly, resulted in the enthusiast community complaining about them, pointing out the hypocrisy like the “no bloatware” tweet in response to someone tweeting “[they] missed to add Instagram” only to do that exact same thing in their official announcement, and making hashtags like #RollItBack. Nothing itself admitted that it’s operating on razor-thin margins, and that this is necessary to ensure their business model is sustainable.

Hoyo is in the same situation with Signora. Based on my analysis, it seems that the reason why they killed Signora is that they’re simply following the HI3 playbook back when Hoyo was a smaller company that catered towards niche gacha gamers who are lore purists (the “enthusiasts”), and they’re likely just trying to do the same thing as Wendy where she died early on and didn’t become playable. When they killed Signora, they were still writing under this HI3 “enthusiast-first” assumption, that tragedy equals depth and that people would respect the moral “lesson” of her fall.

However, Genshin was their first smash-hit title, and presumably, they didn’t know that the mainstream now dominates their playerbase as a result of it. The game’s explosive popularity brought with them a different group of audience which had a completely different cultural and emotional baseline from the HI3 crowd. They favor collecting major characters and reject the notion that these characters can die and become unplayable.

They didn’t realize that this strategy is fundamentally incompatible with this new breed of audience that are playing the game, because back then, they were still trying to appeal to these purists, which runs counter to what the mainstream wants (playable Harbingers). In other words, Hoyo applied a niche storytelling formula to a mass-market gacha economy.

This is pretty much the same unsustainable business model. The “let her stay dead” crowd represents a vocal but tiny portion of the community. Catering to them means sacrificing potential banner revenue and engagement from millions who grew attached to her lore or simply wish to collect the Harbingers they like, not to mention that a single story payoff (Signora’s death) gives diminishing returns after the event passes, much like early enthusiast hardware that can’t scale.

They doubled down on her death (Winter Night’s Lazzo, MC’s brag lines in a Sumeru daily, lack of splash art, etc.), likely as an attempt to assert narrative authority, the same way enthusiast brands often double down on “integrity” when criticized for ignoring the wider market.

This is where they realized too late that they weren’t the same kind of company anymore. Hoyo was no longer an “enthusiast brand”. It was a multimillion dollar company competing with other major studios.

After finally realizing this, they now have three options, none of which is easy:

1. Stick with the purists and keep her dead (potentially missing out on easy revenue and engagement).
2. Pivot to mainstream, resurrect her, and make her playable (pissing off these purists, but the most sustainable option for banner revenue, engagement and community goodwill).
3. Try to please both by somehow keeping her dead but playable after 4 years (doesn’t make much sense lorewise, pisses off both sides due to neither of them truly getting what they wanted).

Option 2 is the Oppo move: betray the old guard, but win over the majority.

Hoyo, like any multimillion dollar game company, ultimately optimizes for engagement-driven monetization rather than narrative purity. Reviving her allows them to reactivate dormant spenders, like players who quit after Inazuma because their favorite character was discarded. This also generates free marketing, as content creators will flood the social media over this (imagine the clickbait titles, like “THEY’VE DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE - SIGNORA IS BACK!?”, “THE COPERS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!”). She can then be involved in future events or AQs, which maintains engagement. Last but not least, this fixes a legacy PR issue, as reviving her can be framed as “listening to fans”, repairing the perception of tone-deaf writing decisions.

Compare that to keeping her dead, a choice with zero monetization upside, no hype, and no sustained engagement. From a product lifecycle standpoint, resurrecting Signora is the renewal phase that prevents the game from declining in popularity.

The compact phone analogy

This is something I’ve personally seen as a phone enthusiast, and is related to the previous point about the enthusiast trap. For years, people have wanted compact flagships because proponents argue that bigger phones are more difficult to use and require a ton of finger gymnastics, and that most compact phones on the market are either low-end or midrange phones, with mediocre or even poor hardware and software support. But every single time a company tries to do that, they’re hit with the realization that the market is too niche to justify their existence.

Major companies like Apple (with their iPhone mini), Asus (Zenfone 8/9/10), Samsung (Galaxy S3 - S5 mini, Galaxy Alpha, and later, Galaxy S10e), and Sony (Xperia Compact series) listened to this feedback and invested heavily in creating these niche products. They gave the vocal minority exactly what they asked for.

But then the sales data came in, and the truth was undeniable. While a small group loved them, the vast majority of consumers, when it came time to actually spend their money, chose the bigger phones. They prioritized larger screens for media consumption and the bigger batteries that came with a larger chassis, and they just didn’t think the improved ergonomics of smaller phones was a good enough reason to choose smaller phones over the bigger ones.

Because these things sell so poorly, every single one of these companies came to the same conclusion: the “small phone” market, despite being loud, was too niche to justify the investment. They all pivoted back to the more profitable big phones.

Now, how is this similar to the Signora detractors? Well, those who want her to stay dead (analogous to the “small phones”) argue that people should move on and just pull for any of the new characters, including filler or less significant characters such as Navia, Mualani or Flins, instead of clinging on to hopes for her return. These are characters with less narrative weight or those who appear in the story for a shorter time. While they may have their own dedicated fanbases (just like the small phone enthusiasts), their overall market performance can be less predictable and often lower than the major, established characters. They are, in a business sense, a higher-risk, lower-reward product.

By comparison, there’s the Archons and Harbingers, which are analogous to the “big phones”, and they’re the lore powerhouses. They are the characters at the very center of the game’s multi-year narrative and generate a ton of hype whenever they’re announced to be playable or even simply showing up in the AQ. Not only that, they have deep lore significance and a proven track record of generating massive banner revenue. Basically, they’re the safe, reliable, blockbuster products.

Just as Apple, Asus, Samsung and Sony’s marketing and finance teams looked at the sales data and concluded that continuing to invest in a niche product was illogical, Hoyo’s teams are probably gonna look at their data and realize that the massive success of Wanderer and Arlecchino gave them irrefutable proof of what the broader market wants: playable Harbingers.

The marketing and product management teams can just go to the writing team and say, “We understand the narrative choice you made with Signora. However, the market data is conclusive. Our audience overwhelmingly prefers and spends more money on the major (‘big phone’) characters; the lore-heavy, narratively significant Harbingers. Continuing to release less popular filler / side (‘small phone’) characters while ignoring a proven major character like Signora is not a viable long-term strategy”.

And this is how a business decision overrides a creative one. The reluctance of a writer to revisit a past plot point is gonna be less powerful than the company’s need to create products that the majority of its customers actually want to buy. This, once again, proves that in the end, the market always decides.

In fact, this could actually be the reason why they’ve been introducing five major characters who are likely to be playable in Nod-Krai: Columbina, Sandrone, Nicole, Varka and Durin. They probably realized that releasing too many filler or side characters like Varesa or Lauma isn’t going to be sustainable as their sales tend to be mediocre or poor even when compared to reruns of Archons or Harbingers, and the story is so far along that Hoyo doesn’t have room for another filler every patch without players feeling cheated. People have been sitting on years of unanswered teasers (Varka, Harbingers, Hexenzirkel), and if they didn’t start cashing in those promises now, they’d risk alienating players who’ve been waiting since the game’s launch.

Cautious confidence: Some caveats with every resurrection theory

I gotta admit, even with all the evidence we have so far, I can still be wrong, and there’s always the chance that we might simply be overanalyzing. I recently watched these videos by Veritasium on why most experts aren’t actually “experts” and the dangers of overconfidence, and these actually give a very good insight on why predicting Signora’s resurrection is so difficult.

The first video explains the 4 things that makes experts have real expertise: pattern recognition, high-validity environment, timely feedback, and not being too comfortable.

In the case of Signora’s resurrection analysis, the pattern recognition exists: Harbinger banners usually perform well, and quests and lore crumbs often hint toward which character will appear in the future. However, the environment is a mix between high- and low-validity. People do gravitate towards collectible groups of characters like Archons and Harbingers, which is backed by data, and this is a high-validity environment, but a low-validity environment also exists in that lore crumbs don’t necessarily guarantee playability.

A good example of this is how Neuvillette was mentioned by Nahida in the epilogue of the Sumeru AQ Act 5, and he did become playable by 4.1, but on the contrary, Capitano and Dottore were mentioned by Neuvillette and Mavuika respectively, but neither of them became playable yet, with Capitano “dying” and Dottore becoming a weekly boss with no playable ID. Hoyo is actively breaking patterns to prevent players from accurately guessing what they’re trying to do next.

Additionally, Signora’s situation itself is a low-validity environment: it is a one-off. So far, there has never been a playable character who died in-game and was then resurrected. Qiqi doesn’t count as she had already been playable since launch. Similarly, Capitano has yet to be resurrected, so making predictions of how they will perform this by extrapolating from his resurrection arc is also impossible. And even if he did get resurrected before Signora, it’s still not an exact 1:1 situation, as Capitano has an intact body to return to, and we’re using the term “death” loosely here, since pure-blood Khaenriahns cannot die due to the curse. On the contrary, Signora was completely vaporized, and it would require a more elaborate arc to bring her back. This is similar to how presidential elections have a slightly different environment each time, and that predicting who wins the election is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Another factor is that the feedback is delayed. It’s not immediately apparent which character will become playable. At best, we only get hints through the promo arts of the upcoming region, and we usually only get confirmation for the upcoming version from leakers (silhouette teaser by Hoyo themselves has only been done once until 6.2), so we can only predict with what we found so far that may support her revival.

Every single “when Signora will be playable” prediction always ended up being wrong, and we have a disastrous track record of incorrectly predicting that since 2.1. That’s not necessarily the person’s fault, but rather, the nature of the system itself. Point 4 of the video (“don’t be too comfortable”) is irrelevant here, as we already failed at point 3 and partially point 2.

The second video explains the dangers of overconfidence and the factors that influence it, while also elaborating on portions of the first video.

Most people tend to be overconfident, and those who claim to have very high confidence is only correct about half the time. One of the factors at play is the complexity and unpredictability of a situation, an issue of feedback. In a controlled environment, where the rules are clear and the results are consistent, there is clear feedback. In a noisy environment where consistency or timeliness are nonexistent, however, this feedback becomes unreliable.

In the case of Signora’s revival theories, there’s a ton of inconsistencies on what we thought as “patterns”. The order of characters on the Harbinger wheel doesn’t necessarily imply which one of them would come up next (Capitano appeared before Columbina). Character mentions at the end of AQs don’t necessarily mean playability. Symbolism is unreliable (does Signora’s moth symbolism represent “moth to a flame” or rebirth?). Harbingers aren’t guaranteed to be playable in the same region they’re introduced in, unlike archons. So on and so forth.

There are things we can do to mitigate these. One of them is to not make statements that sound too confident, being aware of our confidence calibration (e.g. instead of “she will return in 6.x”, make it “there’s a 60% chance she’ll return in 6.x”). Also, listen to those who disagree with you and try to figure out their best arguments against yours. Fill in the blind spots in your decision-making process with those. “True wisdom lies not in being certain, but in knowing the limits of your own certainty”.

The unusual Rosalyne name-drops might still not be indicative of her return. One of the arguments I’ve seen is that this doesn’t guarantee that she might necessarily be resurrected, and that perhaps this was merely meant to evoke the player’s feelings that she had a softer side, but they still have no intentions of bringing her back if they feel like they could move on from the execution incident back in 2.1, especially when there’s still other banners that could sell just as well. And that’s valid. There’s a chance that because they learned the lesson, they don’t need to fix the mistake. They can just ensure they never do it again with future characters. And maybe the name-drops are just there because they want us to feel the tragedy of her death more deeply, essentially “twisting the knife” rather than healing the wound.

However, my confidence lies in the fact that there are real financial incentives to bring her back. To me, it simply would be too weird for Hoyo to tease her, but then not bring her back simply because “it’s just a coincidence, this is the only time when we get to interact with the Harbingers more frequently”.

Vote with your wallet

I’ve seen the drama revolving around Harbingers on r/FatuiHQ, which is honestly quite stupid and should’ve never happened to begin with, and those who were involved in this are no different than Signora’s haters. All I can say is this: if you want your Harbingers to become playable, then vote with your wallet and pull Columbina, Sandrone and all future playable Harbingers. Remember, all Harbingers are grouped into the same category, so the success of one of the banners can encourage them to rethink their strategies when it comes to releasing others, and perhaps even launch them sooner.

I’m personally willing to get Columbina and Sandrone’s constellations/signature weapons if it turns out Signora isn’t in Nod-Krai. I believe in this principle and I think if those two Harbingers become really successful, then they might prioritize Signora’s return because like I’ve said, the fact that they’ve released all female Harbingers except Signora implies that they’re testing the waters to estimate how successful her banner will be, and if they both turn out to be a huge hit, then they might even expedite her release as a playable character.

Conclusion: They’re (probably) setting the stage for her playability

With all the new evidence that has surfaced so far, Signora’s release is no longer a matter of if, but when. My prediction? I’m 60% confident that she will be playable as early as 6.x, maybe with the release of Mare Jivari, and 80% confident that she will be in at least 7.x with Snezhnaya, maybe with her literally busting that coffin open and making a huge reveal. I’m saying 60% in 6.x mainly because Nod-Krai’s arc is already packed with a ton of major story beats and characters, so I feel like it’s more likely she’ll be in 7.x instead to prevent her return from being overshadowed by literally everything else in 6.x. The fact that they’re making her the most sought-after item in the Harbinger blind box, along with further evidence of pity-baiting, means that they’re slowly bringing her back into relevance and trying to get people to talk about her more often, in order to build up hype and anticipation for her launch.

Given how she’s not in the silhouette teaser, both outcomes are definitely possible, although I’m still leaning more towards 7.x banner given how Sandrone is looking to be the hype character as she was missing from the silhouettes and only her reflection is visible, and we know this because she has a playable ID, so what else could that reflection be other than her?

Still though, the fact that the number of Signora mentions under her real name is increasing dramatically, along with her being prominently featured in official media, merch, and Hoyofair’s semi-official fanarts, is way too suspicious to ignore. They’ve never done something like this prior to 6.x, and the tone was also shifting dramatically from portraying her as an “evil, irredeemable villain” to a “lost soul who was tragically misunderstood”. I think she’s very likely return, but this time under Rosalyne, instead of Signora, given their insistence on using her real name, and that everything we’ve seen so far is a slow build-up towards her return.

It’s honestly quite amazing to finally start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I really hope her eventual resurrection would be insanely peak, finally silencing all the detractors for good, and maybe even get some of them to apologize for harassing us Signora mains. All I have to say is, after over 4 years of wait since her death, she’s coming, folks. This is very possibly the build-up to the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Recently, I had the idea of digging through Genshin’s old closed beta testing (CBT) builds because I wanted to know whether Signora’s death had been planned since the beginning or if this was a last-minute addition when 2.x was already in development, and use the information I’ve got from those CBT builds to create a hypothesis on Hoyo’s original intent on what to do with her at the time.

I’ve seen some speculations out there that the reason why her death was so rushed is because Hoyo might have added it at the very last minute, and that she might have originally not been involved in the Inazuma arc given how she only showed up towards the end of act 3. Others say that she was really only there to promote Raiden at the expense of people wanting to collect Harbingers.

Given how she’s a character that was introduced since launch, then it would make sense to look at the prerelease builds to see when she first showed up and whether there are any assets that might point to one or the other. Obviously, this involves some educated guesses because we can’t really know for sure what happened behind the scenes, but it should give us an idea on whether this was indeed a last-minute decision or a preplanned death.

The three closed beta tests

Genshin’s betas were divided into three phases: CBT1 (aka CB1.0.0), CBT2 (0.7.1), and CBT3 (0.9.9). These betas were invite-only and randomly given to people who signed up for the waitlist. The naming was inconsistent, going from 1.0.0 down to 0.7.1 and back up to 0.9.9, so it might get confusing at first.

• CBT1 was released on June 21, 2019, but compiled 4 days earlier on June 17. It looked very different from the final release, with an entirely different font, and a less polished UI, lighting, and overall look.
• CBT2 was released on March 18, 2020, but also compiled 4 days earlier on March 14. As this was released much closer towards the game’s launch, predating it by six months, the game is starting to look much more like the final release, but a lot of things like the Paimon menu or Barbara’s voice are still different.
  • Interestingly enough, Barbara’s voice in this version is much closer to her combat lines during 1.0 - 1.2, until they changed it in 1.3, which was a source of controversy as some preferred the more energetic voice. This suggests that the developers might have either overlooked the combat lines, or initially kept the old lines but ultimately decided that making them in line with how she speaks in the final release would make her personality more consistent.
• CBT3 was released on July 2, 2020, but was compiled 9 days earlier on June 23, three months before the game’s launch. Most of the basic things, such as the UI and Barbara’s voice, have been finalized, but some EN VOs are missing, and there are minor differences.

There are some private betas and dev builds that were never intende for public viewing, however, and these would be the version I’d datamine.

TCRF already did most of the datamining job

Like many other popular games, the TCRF community has already put the effort to dig up the differences between the prerelease builds and final releases. However, I decided to download a few of the builds myself anyway, to try and narrow down the time frame of when she was first introduced.

The information is quite detailed, and reveals that many of the playable characters had undergone a weapon type change, element change, and/or kit change throughout development. The community also notes that the dev builds usually contain more unused assets in the game files that are absent in the CBTs (presumably to prevent people from discovering unreleased assets), which further convinced me to look into these versions.

Nonetheless, Signora was never mentioned anywhere on the wiki, which suggests that she either had no noteworthy changes (unlike the playable characters), or no one had ever thought of checking her assets. With the absense of her info in there, I had to turn to gameplay videos to try and narrow it down.

Tracking down gameplay and cutscene videos from the CBTs

TCRF mentioned a YouTube channel that contains playthroughs of CBT1 and 2. This was a good place to start because the videos in there are several hours long, which means that they must have played through everything the betas had to offer.

The point of interest would be the end of Prologue Act 3, specifically, the cutscene where the MC returns the lyre, as this is followed by Signora’s gnosis heist cutscene.

The first video I checked was this:

This is the last video of the CBT1 playthrough, which means that they must have been approaching the end of the story. The embedded video skips straight to the cutscene, and not only is it very primitive and unfinished, the gnosis heist scene is also not there yet.

As for CBT2, while the channel does have playthroughs of them, unfortunately it appears that they might have not recorded the lyre return cutscene, as the quests skip straight to “meet Katheryne in Liyue”. Therefore, I decided to search for other sources.

This cutscene is closer to the final release, but it’s still somewhat unfinished. Barbara’s voice is notably raspier and deeper, which doesn’t sound appropriate for her youthful build (her scream is hilarious though), and the final part of the cutscene where Venti leaves the church is still a static cutscene (where the player has to manually go to the next line of dialogue) rather than the dynamic one in the final (where it plays out like an FMV, but uses the game engine in real-time). And just like CBT1, the Signora gnosis heist cutscene isn’t there yet.

Finally, there’s the CBT3 cutscene. This one is very close to final, with it being mostly finished, but has missing VOs for the latter half of the lyre cutscene (which is now dynamic), presumably because this was a new addition and no one had thought of moving the appropriate voice lines from CBT2 into this new cutscene. Signora’s gnosis heist scene is finally added in this version, but with the VOs being completely missing, and the Cicin Mages and Pyro Agents having a different, less detailed model than the final release. Additionally, the subtitle “The Fair Lady” underneath “La Signora” is missing from the title card, and some differences in the dialogue’s subtitles can be seen.

For comparison, here’s the cutscene in the final release:

Datamining the prerelease builds

With the information I’ve gathered, this narrows down the time frame of Signora’s conception to April 14, 2020 (after CBT2 ended) and June 23, 2020 (when CBT3 was compiled). I decided to download some of the earlier versions to pinpoint a more exact time frame, namely:

• 0.9.0 (a CN-only pre-CBT3 / 0.9.9 build provided for an even more limited number of players under NDA)
• 0.7.0 (another NDA’d build, but pre-CBT2 / 0.7.1)
• CB1.3.0_a61ca9b661 (a dev build compiled between CBT1.0.0 and CBT2 / 0.7.1)
• CB1.2.0_29221440b3 merged with assets from CB1.2.0_4e105df375. The former is a dev build that was compiled earlier, but with missing assets that had to be transplanted from a later build in the rel (RC) branch.
• CB1.0.0 (CBT1, the very first publicly available preview)

I can’t really tell you where to download these as Hoyo seems to be strict even when it comes to old prerelease versions and took down the original GitHub repo that listed the download links (I had to use a more up-to-date fork), but a quick DuckDuckGo search should point you in the right direction (Google doesn’t seem to index the repo’s contents for some reason). CB1.1.0 builds do exist, but lack any assets, making them useless. There’s a CB1.1.0 build that contains the assets, but some of them are corrupted, which renders it unplayable. It isn’t in the repo though, and while I’ve reached out to the user who leaked it, they have yet to provide me the download link at the time of writing.

I started by looking into the 0.9.0 assets. This was compiled on May 15, 2020, which predates the public CBT3 (and therefore, Signora’s first public appearance) by over a month.

Surprise surprise, she’s present in there. And it’s a “monster” model. Ouch.

This narrows down the dates to April 14 - May 15, 2020. This sounded odd because this could imply that she was hastily added into the game within the span of a month. Or was she?

To confirm this, I looked into 0.7.0’s assets, which was compiled 5 days before the final 0.7.1 CBT2 on March 9, 2020.

No signs of Signora in here. However, I wasn’t convinced that they developed her character model within the span of just a month. Also, remember how TCRF mentioned that the dev builds contain more unused assets than the CBTs? That was exactly why our next target would be CB1.3.0.

This version was compiled on December 13, 2019, over nine months before the final release, and 20 months before Signora’s death in 2.1.

*cinematic, low boom sound* Well, lookie here. She’s absent in CBT2, but present in CB1.3. There’s fewer files in here too compared to CBT3. Again a monster model. This is looking bleak.

So that pretty much confirms that they omitted some of the unfinished assets in the CBTs and NDA betas.

I dug even deeper, this time with CB1.2.0. This is a merge of two different builds: 29221440b3 (256355_256355) and 4e105df375 (265394_265694). The former was a dev build compiled on November 8, 2019, while the latter was a rel build compiled three days later on November 11, 2019 with fewer debug features. The reason why the two build had to be merged is because the former build lacks the assets required to properly run the game, and merging them effectively makes it a debug version of the latter.

Build 265394_265694 predates the game’s release and version 2.1 by 10 and 21 months respectively. It’s the first version to feature a playable but unfinished version of Childe. If Signora is also present in here, then that would mean both characters were developed at around the same time.

*cinematic boom* Turns out she’s also present in here. Still a monster model. This definitely does not bode well for us Signora mains.

In contrast, Childe has the “avatar”, “monster”, and “NPC” models all at once, which suggests that not only was he planned to be playable since the beginning, but his boss had already been in development at least exactly a year prior to version 1.1, when he made his first appearance as both a weekly boss and a playable character.

At this point, I was getting desperate. Were there ANY signs that she was originally meant to be a playable character? I wasn’t gonna wait to get CB1.1.0 assets, so I just go for broke and datamined the version that started it all, CBT1. After all, this version has a ton of unfinished assets, including characters that wouldn’t be playable until many years after it was first compiled in June 2019, specifically, Shenhe (2.5 years) and Yaoyao (3.5 years).

There’s no signs of her assets in here, which unfortunately means that there’s also no signs of her originally being planned for playability, at least not in the versions that were leaked.

I also looked for Childe’s assets and I couldn’t find them in this version either, so neither of them had been conceived yet at the time.

It’s possible that they might have already made some of their concepts outside the game at the time, but we can’t know for sure. That means the earliest possible time frame is actually between June 27, 2019 - November 11, 2019, which was when CBT1 ended and CB1.2.0_265394_265694 was compiled respectively.

Let’s look at Signora’s models and textures from CB1.2 though, because there might be some changes there, compared to the final version (click on the images to expand).

She looks mostly the same as the final version, but her face is glitched as it uses this weird, mostly transparent texture. Let’s have a closer look.

This is caused by the fact that her face has two parts: face and eyes. I don’t know much about Genshin character models, but presumably she originally would’ve worn a mask as the cutouts seem to fit a mask of sorts before they changed it with the crown-and-right eye mask design.

Signora’s textures only underwent some slight changes, unlike some characters. The textures from CB1.2 are on the left while the final textures are on the right:

The million-dollar question: Was Signora originally never meant to be playable since her conception?

Given the “monster” designation throughout all the builds, it’s pretty clear right? This is a strong indicator that, from a development standpoint, she was never intended to be on a player’s team. Conversely, characters intended to be playable have the “avatar” model type, character icons, and in some cases, kit placeholders. Childe had these early on, and in the same version as Signora’s first appearance in the game’s assets no less.

I think Signora was created solely to serve as a powerful “hook”. She needed to be shocking and establish the Fatui as a credible threat right out of the gate. Xiao Luohao, the game’s editor-in-chief, allegedly stated in an interview at Fudan University that the story’s outline is written 1-2 years in advance. Her model being created in late 2019 is well within the timeline for the Inazuma AQ Act 3’s release in September 2021. The plan was likely always “Create this tragic, intimidating character in 2019 to serve as a major plot death in 2021”.

As the developers planned the game’s first year, they mapped out the major story beats. Inazuma needed a powerful, high-stakes antagonist. Signora, having already been established as a ruthless Harbinger who has managed to steal two of the gnoses, was the logical choice to become the region’s main Fatui boss. The team of animators and artists was assigned to start work on her boss fight in around December 2020 or January 2021 during version 1.2, eight months prior to the fateful 2.1 release, according to this VOD. This is significant because it means the decision to make her a major combat antagonist in Inazuma was made relatively early in the game’s live service history.

There’s also the rose bun foreshadowing. The fact that her hairstyle (and the white roses on her outfit) hinted at her real name, “Rosalyne”, from her very first appearance in CB1.2.0 all the way back in November 2019 means her tragic backstory wasn’t an afterthought. The writers knew who “Rosalyne” was and what her fate would be from the moment they designed her model.

All signs point to a deliberate, pre-planned arc: introduce a mysterious Harbinger, foreshadow her hidden tragic identity, and then kill her off to reveal that identity and create a major, shocking story beat.

So, if it was planned all along, why did it backfire so spectacularly? In my opinion, Signora’s execution flopped for two main reasons:

The first one would be the poor narrative execution. The Inazuma AQ is widely criticized for being rushed. Signora’s character received almost no on-screen development. She shows up, acts arrogant, challenges the MC, and then dies. Because the story didn’t give players a reason to be invested in her journey, her death felt abrupt and unearned, creating shock value but no emotional weight.

The development of the Inazuma AQ, especially the final act, was likely affected by the pandemic and plagued by the same remote work challenges that affected many industries. While the decision to have her be defeated by the Traveler and executed by Raiden was made early on, the writing and execution of that plot point were likely rushed and suffered from a lack of polish.

This would explain why it felt so abrupt. The narrative buildup wasn’t there because the focus was on building the complex boss mechanics, not on fleshing out her character in the AQ. As for why no one seemed to question if killing off a major character this early on would make sense? Well, from a high-level planning perspective, it “made sense” to have a major Harbinger defeated to raise the stakes. The devs likely didn’t anticipate the massive emotional connection players would form with her or the backlash that would result from killing her off before she was properly developed in-game. They saw her as a “villain of the arc”, essentially a plot device, not as a future playable character.

The second one is that they set the wrong precedent with Childe, and this is their fatal mistake. By releasing Childe as a playable character in Version 1.1, Hoyo immediately established a powerful pattern in players’ minds, that “the Harbingers are cool villains, and we get to play as them”. This created an expectation among the players where every humanoid character, including the villains, will become playable as long as they have unique and detailed designs. When they broke that expectation with Signora just a year later, it felt like a betrayal. It didn’t matter that she was only the second Harbinger boss; the precedent had been set, and breaking it felt unfair and inconsistent.

Additionally, Hoyo probably didn’t anticipate how popular their game would be, and they presumably thought they could get away with killing a major character early on because not much people really ever complained about it when HI3 was their latest installment. This could explain why Wendy and Himeko in HI3 had a similar fate as Signora where they died early on, but the reception wasn’t as negative as Signora’s. They simply didn’t have as big of a playerbase who would complain about their decision to kill uniquely-designed humanoid characters like them at the time.

Essentially, they tried to have it both ways. They wanted to sell one Harbinger as a playable character while using another as a disposable plot device, and people immediately called them out on the inconsistency. This created the perfect storm of disappointment: a death that felt narratively empty combined with the betrayal of a pattern players thought they could rely on.

Honestly, if Childe simply ran away or died after doing the boss battle without becoming playable, it likely would’ve softened the blow (even if it would probably still lead to a poorly-executed plot nonetheless), as it wouldn’t have led to people becoming too attached to the Harbingers and expect them all to become playable.

Conclusion: She really deserves better

Honestly, the fact that Signora was never intended to be playable, as evidenced by her not having an avatar at any given point in time, really paints a grim picture that they very likely underestimated the potential for her popularity and profitability. This whole incident serves as a reminder that, in gacha games, companies should commit to releasing all uniquely-designed humanoid characters as playable to satisfy everyone without making anyone feel like they’re being left behind.

Alternatively, they should take the Kuro Games approach and make them playable, regardless of whether they died or not, like Phorolova in WuWa who recently died but became playable anyway. At this point, if they wanted to make Signora playable, they would have to put the effort to bring her back in a way that makes sense, which, once again, likely restricts their options to either Mare Jivari or Snezhnaya because of all this mess of vaporizing her in Inazuma.

Updated in June to include new information from 5.6, the Nod-Krai stream, and 5.7 livestream.

After over 3 months in the making, I finally decided to post this article. I originally wanted to post this back in January during version 5.3, but work has taken most of my time, so this was eventually postponed all the way to 5.5, and just a day before the 5.6 livestream arrives. I will update this once we get further information, be it from the stream, the preload, or the upcoming 5.7 leaks.

Genshin is a game I’ve been playing for over a year now, not because I fell for the marketing and paid promotion by content creators, but because this is the type of game you can play when you have a lot going on IRL. Ever since I have a job, I just barely have time to play anything that either requires extensive playthroughs or lengthy multiplayer sessions, so the games I used to play like Overwatch or Apex simply don’t cut it anymore.

One of the things that really bug me with this game however is the fact that they killed one of the more prominent characters in the game without making them playable. I’m talking about Signora, the 8th of the Harbingers and the first one you meet in the game.

She’s been dead for over 3 years, and people criticized how pointless her death was and how it’s only done for the shock value to sell Raiden, which was already very hyped, at the expense of Signora mains. We didn’t even have a deep dive into her personality aside from background artifact lore and mentions from other Harbingers. With the release of version 5.3, some people are disappointed when they figure out that they STILL haven’t brought her back. They teased Natlan’s archon quest chapter in the “Travail” teaser as “Incandescent Ode of Resurrection”, with pyro being the main element in this region, and many were expecting that they would bring her back in there, due to the potential connection between the liquid fire described in her lore and the pyro element or phlogiston in Natlan.

But alas, that never happened, and even worse is that we’ve got another Harbinger dying in this region: Capitano. Well, he didn’t really “die” per se, but he was basically put into a coma after transferring his consciousness to the Lord of the Night to stop Mavuika from sacrificing herself, and to release the souls he had carried during the last 500 years. Those who have been waiting for him to become playable are immediately let down by this, as he’s likely to be out of commission for a while before he returns as a playable character.

The thing about him though, is that at least he still has a body to return to, so the chances of him coming back is still quite high. Signora on the other hand was completely vaporized, which means that people are doubting her return, and that makes me really upset due to how unfair this is.

I decided to write this entire article on why Signora is very likely to be resurrected, against all odds, because it seems that the majority of the Genshin community have pretty much lost all hopes in her return, which is a bad thing because players should keep the conversation going to let Hoyo know that there’s still people out there who wanted her back and playable. Never settle for less. Signora mains don’t need to reach the point of acceptance; it’s Hoyo that needs to do so.

Table of contents

• Changelog
• A little background on why I want Signora to be playable
• Disclaimer
• Important countdowns and count-ups
• Recommended reading
• General reasons why Signora will be resurrected
  • Harbingers are among the most popular characters
  • Hoyo is likely to capitalize on completing this set of characters to lure the Harbinger collectors into spending more money
  • Reusing an existing character like Signora is more cost-effective than designing an entirely new character
  • Harbingers are predominantly male, in a game with a predominantly female playable cast
  • Her nonstandard model is no longer an issue
  • The playability of a character does not necessarily require any foreshadowing beforehand
  • The lack of a playable model does not necessarily imply non-playability
  • Dual-element characters are definitely possible
  • Her unmasked face has never been revealed
  • Xiao Luohao’s alleged statement of a “surprising reunion with a Harbinger”
  • The addition of Nod-Krai as a mid-lifecycle region might be their way of releasing the rest of the Harbingers without lumping them all in Snezhnaya or Khaenriah
  • The placement of “About the Fair Lady” voice lines in the playable Harbingers’ voice lines and Arlecchino’s “pity-baiting”
  • Elemental powers normally require a vision to use, which Signora doesn’t have (plot hole)
• Why Signora may be resurrected in Natlan
  • The undisclosed 17th playable character and the existence of version 5.8
  • They have been teasing us about resurrection several times, but the resurrection has yet to happen, the gnosis is still in Mavuika’s possession, and Mare Jivari hasn’t been released yet
    • How Signora may be resurrected
    • Other evidences
    • The change in the domain name for her artifact set and its potential connection to this year’s Lantern Rite story
  • Previous regions have always had two Harbingers involved in the region’s Archon Quests
  • Nod-Krai could pave the way to bring back Signora’s relevance in the story
  • Resurrecting Capitano too early would undermine his very own sacrifice
  • Both Skirk and Capitano are likely to be cryo sword characters, and releasing both in 5.x would cannibalize the former’s sales
  • Releasing the lower-ranking Harbingers like her makes more sense than releasing the cream of the crop like Capitano early
  • “Waifu Impact” is in full force
  • Natlan might very well be a giant red herring to distract Signora mains
  • Little One’s arc is pretty much over
  • The red sky in Mare Jivari
• Why we may NOT want Signora to be resurrected in Natlan (yet): The SAG-AFTRA strike VA’s “collective work refusal”
• My theory on why Natlan’s AQ feels so unfinished
• Miscellaneous things
• Answers to your questions about the new leaks
  • Version 5.8 will allegedly feature an electro support from Nod-Krai, NOT Signora. Do you think this kills this theory for good or do you have other explanations?
  • There’s a leak by Shiroha showing Nod-Krai’s potential roster, and it does not include Signora anywhere on the list. Why do you still believe that she’s coming back soon?
  • Have you ever considered that the Pyro gnosis might be stolen in 6.x instead?
• Bonus: Numerology
• Conclusion: Signora may become playable in 5.8 or 6.x

Changelog

2025-06-13: Updated to include new information from official media and 5.7 leaks. Corrected some information.

2025-06-15: Clarified some more information.

2025-06-17: Last-minute addition including the confirmation of characters requiring a vision, which Signora suspiciously doesn’t need.

You can view the changes in the commit history of this Github Pages.

A little background on why I want Signora to be playable

When I first played the game, My first impression of Signora was that she’s just your average villainy-type character, and she was simply meant to introduce you to one of the game’s antagonistic factions. I didn’t think about her much back then. When she reappeared in Liyue, this thought still didn’t change. I’d expect to meet her again considering how it seemed that they’re in pursuit of the gnoses, but we were also introduced to Childe, another member of the Harbingers.

It wasn’t until Inazuma and its final act that I started to pay more attention to her. When Raiden killed her, I was initially confused as to why it happened so abruptly. One moment she was a smug antagonist. The next, she’s on her knees, hysterically begging to be spared, and was then killed, all without a sense of buildup or resolution.

What I did afterwards changed my life entirely.

I started looking through Reddit posts if anyone has a similar opinion about this because holy fuck, that ending was very unsatisfying and confusing, and it turns out that yes, it’s not just me who thought this is bad. Everyone who has played through this unanimously considered this to be the lowest point of Genshin’s storytelling, and everything about it just felt rushed.

And then things took a turn for the worse. Upon reading through so many posts, I was exposed to the dark side of the Genshin community: the harassment towards Signora mains. At first, I thought the memes were mildly amusing. “Haha, Signora’s banner was revealed, and it turned out to be a pile of ash”, “her banner is a coffin”, or “maybe she shouldn’t have been so smug in that quest”.

But then I dug deeper and found out that they actually harassed an entire subreddit over the Winter Night’s Lazzo video to the point where the subreddit went private for a while, and I was like “What the fuck? That’s actually fucked up. Why are these people so petty?”, and that’s how I fell into this rabbit hole of defending Signora mains and hoping that she gets playable so the intense toxicity and hatred towards them could stop, because frankly, they too wanted to enjoy the game and play as the character they wanted, and I think it’s Hoyo’s responsibility to address this, especially when their storytelling decisions have led to a marginalized group of fans being mocked or harassed long-term like this.

I was a lurker at first, because I find it disturbing that Signora mains are being actively harassed almost every day, even in their own subreddit, which just shows how petty some of these people can be. But I decided to finally speak up by posting this, because looking through posts over the last few months regarding her, there’s a clear trend that the expectations for her return is at an all-time low, even on subreddits like r/FatuiHQ where there’s a strong bias towards people wanting all Harbingers to be playable.

Disclaimer

The content of this post is for entertainment and informational purposes only. While I strive to check for factual accuracy whenever possible, the content in this post is an opinion piece that is mostly speculations and educated guesses, with evidences backing them. Do not harass any specific character mains or members of the community over this resurrection debacle. I do not tolerate those who make fun of anyone who just wanted to enjoy the game and play as the characters they want, and this includes some Signora fans who harass other communities. Keep it civil, because even a single bad apple ruins the bunch.

Important countdowns and count-ups

Here’s a selection of milestone countdowns and count-ups for Signora, just to let you know how much time has passed, and how much time is left to expect for any news regarding her potential return in the near future.

Days since Signora's death:

Days since A Winter Night's Lazzo was released:

Days since Signora's last appearance (in official media):

Time until 18 June 2025 (version 5.7) - the earliest we'll probably hear about Signora's leaks:

Time until 30 July 2025 (version 5.8) - Signora's possible launch:

Keep reading to find out how I came up with these dates.

Recommended reading

Before we take a deep dive into why she may be resurrected in Natlan, I highly recommend reading this document by u/terrible-punmaster69 on the r/SignoraMains subreddit. It gives a good insight of some of the arguments I’ll be bringing up in here, while my post is meant to reinforce them, especially now that we’ve gotten more relevant information regarding Natlan and future content.

This was written before the 5.0 livestream came out, and now that we’ve gotten more information in-game, we can finally piece together new arguments on why she may eventually be playable in Natlan

General reasons why Signora will be resurrected

Let’s start with the marketing and business standpoint first, because I think this is the most important rationale for releasing new characters. After all, Hoyo is a company, and the sole purpose of a company is to make as much money as possible. Then we will proceed with the more speculative theories.

Harbingers are among the most popular characters

The Harbingers are some of the most notable characters in the game due to their status as one of the major antagonists, along with their strong presence in the lore and within the fandom, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they are incredibly popular, second only to the archons which are even more prominent. Just look at the hype surrounding Dottore, Scaramouche, Arlecchino, and Capitano, when they’re involved in the archon quests. People always have high expectations that they become playable in the same region the AQ is taking place in, and when they don’t, they keep coming up with theories and speculations as to when they should expect them to return and/or become playable.

Because of this, the Harbingers tend to be an outlier in terms of pull count and banner revenue, usually outperforming most of the other characters Hoyo has released in the same region and only trailing behind the archons. This makes them extremely profitable, and Hoyo is very likely incentivized to prioritize the launches of these characters alongside the archons. Additionally, the Harbingers serve as a counterpart to the archons in terms of gameplay, with them offering powerful DPS kits as opposed to the archons’ support-oriented kits, and for some people, that itself is a selling point as main DPS characters usually have more screen time in the Abyss or Theater than with sub-DPS and supports.

Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 4.0 - 4.8, including reruns

Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 3.0 - 3.8, including reruns

Top 20 most pulled characters in versions 3.0 - 4.8, including reruns

Overall banner revenue in versions 1.0 - 1.6 (CN iOS). Note that this uses data from genshinlab instead of paimon.moe as the latter is unable to track pull data earlier than Hu Tao's initial run in 1.3, and even then, the pull count is unusually low

Update: I’ve done some more data analysis regarding this, and the results are promising.

Here’s a graph showing the global pull count vs. CN iOS banner revenue. Do note that data from 4.5 and above are unavailable as Genshin Lab has stopped keeping track of banner revenue since then. You can tell that they closely follow each other, indicating that both CN and global communities seem to agree on which character they deem worthy of pulling (click to expand).

Applying the Pearson correlation to this data shows a correlation coefficient of 0.561 (p < 0.001), which means that this is a fairly strong correlation that is statistically significant. In other words, an increase of decrease in values of global pull count is followed by a similar pattern in CN banner revenue, and vice versa.

Extrapolating these data to estimate the revenue for each individual character, and we find out that Wanderer sits in the 5th place, trailing behind the archons, and for some reason, Yelan rerun. We chose versions 3.0 to 4.4 as the time range as we believe the fluctuation in player count between older and newer versions would skew the banner revenue data to favor those older versions (i.e. 1.0 to 2.8) instead, which wouldn’t be representative of today’s conditions.

A possible theory on why Yelan’s (and further down, Hu Tao’s) banner revenues were so high in 3.4 despite them being reruns is that this was a Lantern Rite version. With people in China receiving bonuses from their jobs, it would make sense to assume that some players would spend it on crystal top-ups, thus increasing the revenue at around that time. Not to mention that they were, and still are, some of the most desirable 5-star units at the time. This is also reflected on Xianyun and Nahida’s bannners in 4.4.

This data also reveals that Neuvillette’s banner revenue in his debut was far lower than expected in China, despite being one of the best meta DPS characters in the game, which contradicts his banner being the 3rd most popular one worldwide. Unfortunately, we don’t have data for Arlecchino’s banner revenue, but given how the Wanderer singlehandedly beat out most other characters aside from archons and Yelan’s rerun, I’d say it’s undeniable that Hoyo’s marketing team would use this to present the fact that the Harbingers are easy money, and leverage the opportunity to make Signora playable.

This is important because many people have claimed that Hoyo only cares about the CN playerbase, and it turns out, even with these results, it’s evident that even they prefer Archons and Harbingers more than any other group of characters.

While Hoyo has never publicly disclosed the game’s banner revenue or number of pulls, third party data from sites like paimon.moe or genshinlab.com as shown above mostly backs this up, with Wanderer and Arlecchino being some of the most pulled characters in their debut. There is a discrepancy with Tartaglia in that he’s the only Harbinger that didn’t outperform most other characters in his debut, but this is likely caused by the fact that the meta was still not very well-established in 1.x, which led to people pulling on characters that wouldn’t be as meta today, such as Klee or Venti. In addition, the banner revenues for version 1.0 is likely an outlier due to the fact that this took place during the game’s initial release, and the first few weeks of a game’s launch is usually its most profitable time period.

Do note that the data may not be representative, especially with paimon.moe, as these are just from the people who were willing to submit their pull history in there. However, as a general approximation of how popular a character is, I think this is still a reasonable metric to use due to the sheer sample size alone.

This brings us to the next point, which is…

Hoyo is likely to capitalize on completing this set of characters to lure the Harbinger collectors into spending more money

Hoyo has every reason to complete this set of characters because it makes them a lot of money. Gacha games thrive on collection incentives, and there is no denying the psychological draw of “completing a group”. By emphasizing the phrase “Eleven Fatui Harbingers” instead of simply referring to them as “The Fatui Harbingers”, the developers have established a clear, finite group that players can latch onto. This wasn’t accidental; it’s a carefully crafted setup to stoke desire among completionist players and Harbinger enthusiasts alike. As more of the Harbingers become playable, the pressure increases for fans to collect all of them, especially those who have already invested in characters like Wanderer, Childe, or Arlecchino.

In this context, Signora’s return is not just possible; it’s highly probable. She’s already established in the lore, had a boss fight with a unique dual-elemental mechanic, and possesses a fanbase that has only grown more vocal and determined over time. Ignoring her entirely would leave a glaring gap in what many fans now see as an inevitable lineup of all eleven Harbingers becoming playable. If Hoyo wants to keep capitalizing on the immense popularity of this group, and encourage players to spend their pulls in pursuit of the full Harbinger collection, then bringing back Signora isn’t just giving their mains a good service. It’s smart business.

Reusing an existing character like Signora is more cost-effective than designing an entirely new character

From a business standpoint, it’s better for a company to strive for efficiency and take advantage of existing resources rather than trying to put the effort to make something new whenever possible. Sure, you could argue that Hoyo could just design a new character and sell them, and people would gobble it up anyway. However, one thing that this argument overlooks is the cost of designing a new character. Hiring a design team is expensive, and companies would rather save money than wasting them on something that may not yield them above-average returns.

Because Signora is a Harbinger who already has an existing model and story to boot, the return on investment is likely to be better compared to releasing new characters or even new Harbingers as it would take far less effort to reuse her model for a playable one, design a kit based on her abilities during her appearance in Mondstadt and Inazuma, and flesh out her character story, in contrast to making everything from scratch.

And before you argue that people who want Signora have been collecting free primos for years, so Signora won’t bring much money just like Baizhu, here’s a counterargument: how many of them are actually saving for her? Realistically, most people wouldn’t bother doing so because her playability is still uncertain, and with character banners often being incredibly tempting, they’d rather pull for characters now and deal with Signora later than having to miss out on potentially powerful characters and constellations, myself included.

This is especially the case now with the Abyss floor 12 having buffs that constantly shill specific elements and/or attack types (e.g. Hydro skill DMG) along with an increasingly aggressive HP inflation, which could make players feel left behind if they don’t get the latest characters or constellations for their existing characters.

Most people simply do not have the impulse control to hold off of pulling other characters while they wait for her resurrection, let alone saving up for C6. Anyone who assumes that most players who want Signora have a strong impulse control have no idea that psychological tactics and FOMO are very effective to get people to spend their pulls.

Harbingers are predominantly male, in a game with a predominantly female playable cast

Hoyo has a history of releasing female characters more frequently than male ones. They clearly know their target demographic and figured out that female characters usually sell better than male ones unless if a male character has a kit that is meta-defining (e.g. Alhaitham, Neuvillette) or is an Archon or Harbinger (e.g. Zhongli, Wanderer). With HI3, the playable cast is almost exclusively female, aside from Adam (which was very poorly received and only playable in specific areas), which further corroborates this.

Harbingers are an outlier in that the female characters are in the minority. To me, it would be incredibly stupid if Hoyo decided to squander this opportunity by not releasing any of the female Harbingers as a playable character (including Signora), given how they are very likely to perform well in banner revenue with the target demographic the game is mainly aimed towards. The fact that they killed Signora despite the female Harbingers being few and far between should’ve been enough to raise some eyebrows among the marketing department, because they literally got rid of a quarter of their female Harbinger representation in the game, and it should be their top priority to bring her back as a playable character.

The gender distribution of groups of characters in Genshin. Notice how the Harbingers are the only group of characters that have more male characters than female ones.

Her nonstandard model is no longer an issue

An argument against Signora’s resurrection is how she has a nonstandard model which is taller than the normal tall female model, reaching a height that matches the tall male model instead. However, Mavuika uses a nonstandard tall female model that doesn’t line up with the rest of tall female characters, and Capitano also uses a nonstandard model that’s taller than the usual tall male model, and yet he’s labeled as “Avatar_Sword” anyway, which implies future playability. Additionally, Varesa notably uses a nonstandard medium female model in which she appears to be pudgier than all medium female characters that have been released so far, and she was released in 5.5.

This means that any argument which claims that her model would be too difficult to use for a playable rig simply because she’s too big or her model would clip is invalid, as Hoyo has clearly shown that they are now willing to step out of the comfort zone and make playable characters with nonstandard models. And besides, the community has gone out of their way to make playable Signora mods while preventing clipping issues. If these modders can do it with absolutely zero budget, then I’m sure that Hoyo, a giant corporation, can too.

The playability of a character does not necessarily require any foreshadowing beforehand

This is something that some people don’t seem to be aware of. People keep arguing that she will not be playable because we’ve yet to see any concrete hints of her resurrection, which is a valid but flawed argument. Even if there’s hardly any hints of her resurrection, Hoyo can still release her anyway because at the end of the day, they can choose whichever path they want to market a character. Not to mention that they’re better at closely guarding information for major characters now than ever before, after they suffered from a massive Fontaine leak a few years ago, so it’s definitely possible that information pertaining to highly anticipated characters are more closely guarded than others.

A recent example of this is how Hoyo took many people by surprise when they teased us Skirk’s silhouette in the 5.3 livestream, when most people at the time were anticipating her to become playable in Snezhnaya or Khaenriah. She was never hinted to be playable this early, even in the final act of the AQ. By this logic of “foreshadowing is required”, then there’s no way she would’ve become playable in Natlan like this, but Hoyo proved this wrong with them teasing her upcoming playability anyway.

The lack of a playable model does not necessarily imply non-playability

A common argument raised against Signora’s potential return as a playable character revolves around the absence of a designated “avatar” model in the game files. In Genshin, playable characters typically have a specific model classification, commonly referred to as “avatar” models, distinct from the ones used for NPCs or boss enemies. Signora only has entries for NPC and “monster” models, similar to how she appears in her boss fight in Inazuma. This is often cited as supposed “proof” that she was never intended to be playable, unlike characters like Wanderer or Baizhu, who had their avatar models present long before their official release.

However, this line of reasoning overlooks an important and often underestimated reality: business strategies and creative plans in live service games are constantly evolving. Even if the original development trajectory didn’t include making Signora playable, that doesn’t mean those plans are set in stone. In fact, Hoyo has already demonstrated their willingness to pivot in response to player demand or changing internal goals, such as how they reverted Neuvillette’s rotation speed nerf in 4.8 just a few hours after it took effect, while giving all players 1600 primos as a compensation, or how they released Nod-Krai before Snezhnaya when it was never originally teased in the Travail trailer. As the overwhelming popularity of the Harbingers continues to grow, it’s entirely plausible that Hoyo has re-evaluated Signora’s status and recognized the massive revenue opportunity in reviving her as a playable character.

Update: Hoyo themselves have confirmed that they are evolving the game in a recent Nod-Krai livestream on 30 April, so this theory is officially confirmed.

Moreover, the absence of an avatar model in current public builds doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Hoyo has always been extremely cautious when it comes to spoiling major narrative reveals or character introductions, especially for characters that would have a significant story impact. Including a fully functional playable model for Signora in the game files would be a massive spoiler, potentially ruining what could be one of the most shocking and emotional moments in the game’s future. To avoid leaks, it’s entirely within reason that they would keep such data under strict internal wraps until the reveal is ready (see: Wanderer’s launch, Skirk’s teaser in 5.3).

There is already precedent for this kind of character transition. Xianyun/Cloud Retainer is a prime example. Initially, she existed solely as a non-playable crane NPC with no playable human model in sight. Yet, in 4.4, she made the leap to a full-fledged playable character with a newly designed human form, something no one could have anticipated from just looking at the early files. This transformation proves that Hoyo has the resources and creative flexibility to develop new models and reimagine existing characters as needed.

With this in mind, dismissing Signora’s potential solely based on current file classifications is shortsighted. If anything, her absence from the game data may be intentional, a sign that something big is being kept under wraps for future narrative and marketing impact.

Dual-element characters are definitely possible

Another argument against Signora’s resurrection is that she has two different elements: cryo and pyro. This makes her kit difficult as she would either only be allowed to use her cryo form (either via delusion or a newly-acquired Vision), or have her use only her pyro (Crimson Witch) form, which lorewise would eventually cause her to burn herself out. However, as of 5.1, there is finally a character who is able to use multiple elements, which is Chasca. Since Hoyo is willing to explore the possibilities of multi-element kits, the argument that she can’t be playable because of that is also no longer valid.

Her unmasked face has never been revealed

The Harbingers often have masks or other items that obscure parts of their face. Once they become playable, they’re always shown unmasked, allowing the player to see their whole face.

• Childe wears a mask that he puts aside in his playable model
• Arlecchino didn’t wear a mask in A Winter Night’s Lazzo, but was shown to wear one while attempting to steal Furina’s gnosis, and in her playable form, she is shown without her mask.
• Wanderer is never shown with a mask even in his playable form.
• Pulcinella, Sandrone and Pantalone don’t wear a mask in the Lazzo, so by the time they become playable, they’re also likely to show their full faces.

When Signora died, we never get to see her full face, and when she was shown in the Arlecchino animatic, her bangs cover the side of her face that was originally covered by her mask. Why the insistence in not revealing her face? Well, the only possibility is that they wanted to reveal her full face later on, likely when she gets resurrected, because remember that we got her mask as some kind of trophy for completing Inazuma AQ, and her resurrection would certainly reveal the rest of her face.

Xiao Luohao’s alleged statement of a “surprising reunion with a Harbinger”

I stumbled upon a Reddit post a while ago that allegedly describes a speech by Xiao Luohao, the game’s editor-in-chief, at Fudan University, back when 4.5 or 4.6 was the latest version of the game. Unfortunately, the original post itself (hosted on NGA and in Chinese) no longer exists and leads to a 404 page that says the post has expired, but the OP was able to take a screenshot of the post before it vanished. I had a native Chinese speaker translate it for me in case the OP’s translation wasn’t accurate enough, and it reads (emphasis mine):

I’ll add more to their answers, and provide some news I know.

The resources of Genshin Impact are more than enough to make Genshin Impact 2. Yes, you read that right, there will be Genshin Impact 2. Now the lore of Fontaine is only a third of the entire Genshin Impact lore. Xiaoluohao has admitted, in a roundabout way, that Genshin Impact has had changes of personnel, also, the team finishes the story’s outline in a year or two beforehand.

There are very few lore spoilers. He said that the tree-burning plot of A Winter Night’s Lazzo will come up later. Both Dottore and Tsaritsa will have unexpected actions later on, and that you will be very surprised to be reunited with a Harbinger. Have a guess, however you like! I won’t say it anyway.

Xiaoluohao isn’t any new employee. He’s been in Mihoyo for quite a few years, and is considered to be just below the old guys like Dawei. He also admitted that he’s partial to characters with medium and short female models.

I heard the final piece of info from somewhere else. The banner revenue for version 4.4 was quite a blow to them, they really thought a lot of people would be pulling for Xianyun. However, the internal statistics shows that she isn’t as popular as expected (the data from Feixiaoqiu and paimon.moe are still insufficient).

Oh, I have to elaborate, regarding the section about lore spoilers. I paraphrased Xiaoluohao.

Taking the context of when this speech took place, we can narrow down the possibilities of who this Harbinger is.

• By definition, a reunion only applies to characters the player has met before in-game.
• Dottore is unlikely to be the undisclosed Harbinger, as he was willing to name-drop him earlier on in that paragraph.
• Tartaglia is unlikely to count, as he has showed up quite frequently in archon quests, including his appearance in Fontaine, and events.
• Scaramouche/Wanderer is no longer a Harbinger, so he doesn’t fit these criteria.
• Arlecchino was only recently introduced and drip marketed at the time, so she’s also unlikely to be this undisclosed Harbinger.
• Capitano doesn’t count as he wasn’t introduced in-game until 5.0.
• Other Harbingers who haven’t been introduced at this point in time also don’t count as a reunion.
• Signora on the other hand ticks all the boxes. She’s a Harbinger we’ve met before and died in Inazuma’s archon quest, which means people won’t anticipate her returning again, so for her to get resurrected and show up again would indeed be a surprising reunion.

Some of you might speculate that this could be the 10th Harbinger we’ve yet to know instead, under the assumption that Pierro doesn’t count as a Harbinger similar to Diamond not counting as one of the Ten Stonehearts in HSR, but this is not the case. Arlecchino’s voice line about Pierro officially confirms that he counts as a Harbinger, which further strengthens the theory that Xiao Luohao really is referring to Signora in that statement.

As the original Harbinger, much about him remains a mystery. Upon our first meeting, he recognized my background with ease, yet to this day, I know little about him.

Tartaglia’s voice line also confirms this:

He was the first ever Fatui Harbinger, and today he is our leader. He only appears on important occasions. As for his accomplishments… To be honest, I don’t really care. I owe my loyalty and devotion to the Tsaritsa, no one else.

The addition of Nod-Krai as a mid-lifecycle region might be their way of releasing the rest of the Harbingers without lumping them all in Snezhnaya or Khaenriah

As I’ve said previously, Harbingers are massively popular, and it would be a wasted opportunity if Hoyo does not take advantage of this. I suspect that the reason why they added Nod-Krai midway through the game when it was never teased anywhere in the Travail teaser is because they only realized how profitable the Harbingers are after the successful launches of Wanderer and Arlecchino, and they might have regretted their decision to not make more of them playable sooner.

This speculation might hold some grounds especially considering how there’s still 8 more unreleased Harbingers and yet we’re closer to approaching the end of story. While they could launch 1 Harbinger in Natlan, then 4 in Snezhnaya, and 3 in Khaenriah, this would result in too many Harbingers being released at a time leaving people overwhelmed on which Harbinger to choose. In contrast, by releasing Nod-Krai before Snezhnaya, they could for example release 1 Harbinger in Natlan, 2 in Nod-Krai, 3 in Snezhnaya, and 2 in Khaenriah, which is more manageable and would prevent potential buyers from getting overwhelmed with too many choices at once.

This also helps with the “wow” factor of the Harbingers. If they were to release 4 in Snezhnaya and 3 in Khaenriah, people would quickly get tired of the constant release cycle of Harbingers, and Hoyo might earn less money from each banner as players are less likely to be interested in pulling all of them and they’ll save up for the major characters instead. The initial launch of a banner is what matters the most as this is when players are most likely to pull for a character, compared to reruns where the number of people pulling will have significantly dropped, so it’s crucial that player interest remains high throughout each banner release.

As an aside, a potentially effective strategy to do this would be to release Signora in Natlan, Dottore in Nod-Krai (because he was mentioned by Mavuika in the epilogue), Columbina in Snezhnaya (a widely anticipated Harbinger), and Capitano and Pierro in Khaenriah (which fits the former’s constellation of “three nails”, in which he gets resurrected after 3 regions, plus the fact they both hail from Khaenriah). This ensures that the sought-after Harbingers are distributed evenly across regions while also not introducing any new Harbingers in Natlan long after the main AQ had ended. This also aligns with the order of popularity in the unofficial Harbingers poll asking which Harbinger the players would like to be playable next, with Dottore being the 3rd, Columbina being the 2nd, and Capitano being the most popular choice, allowing them to save the best for last.

Update: The devs have confirmed that Nod-Krai was designed to be a region intended to tie up loose ends, and the Fatui is strongly implied to be heavily involved in there, due to their prominence in marketing materials, including the stream itself.

The placement of “About the Fair Lady” voice lines in the playable Harbingers’ voice lines and Arlecchino’s “pity-baiting”

There’s something off about the placement of “About the Fair Lady” voice lines in each of the playable Harbingers when compared to other Harbingers. Those Harbingers are sorted by their ranking, except for Signora. In the case of Childe and Wanderer, the voice lines are placed at the bottom. Childe does have a line about Scaramouche, but it was also suspiciously placed below Signora’s (which is already at the bottom), and disappears after you’ve completed the Irminsul interlude, which strongly suggests this type of odd placement could be a foreshadowing for Signora’s future role.

These two characters are the characters who are either dismissive or outright scornful, viewing her as an afterthought as she was removed from the ranks of the Harbingers.

Childe:

I never got along with her, you know that. I guess there’s not much more worth saying about her at this point. When you’re a harbinger, you have to accept that death could come at any time… But don’t worry about me. No matter what happens, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep myself alive.

Wanderer:

Nothing remained in her ashes. I have no interest in those who have lost their future.

However, when it comes to Arlecchino, her voice line placement is still out of order, but she’s no longer at the bottom, instead sitting between Pantalone (9th) and Childe (11th), and she’s the only playable Harbinger who expressed empathy for her:

She and Pierro were the first Harbingers I became acquainted with. Her prideful attitude when she first visited the House of the Hearth failed to earn her many friends among the children. Subsequent visits were accompanied by gifts and the stately claim that ‘those who dislike me shall receive none.’ The children quickly learned how to play pretend, and she in turn basked in their attention, superficial though it may have been. I imagine she quite enjoyed being surrounded by children, perhaps due to the persistent loneliness that plagued her… I found her sacrifice to be a great shame. May she be reunited with her lover in death.

This level of empathy is quite suspicious, considering Arlecchino’s ruthless personality. She’s willing to attack the Tsaritsa if their paths diverged, and she expresses hatred for Dottore for experimenting on her “children”. Out of all her “About character” voice lines with her fellow Harbingers and the Tsaritsa, Capitano and Columbina are viewed in a neutral manner, and Signora is the only one she viewed in a more positive, empathetic light.

Signora mains have noticed this, and argues that you don’t just “pity-bait” a character like this years after the fact, especially when the character who pity-baits her is known to be pragmatic and ruthless. A tonal shift like this just screams “The villain you thought you knew was more complex and tragic than you were shown.” Hoyo seems to have changed their sentiment with Signora to prepare for her future playability, in order to get players to realize that she’s more of a tragic figure who appears to be arrogant from the outside as a coping mechanism for her loneliness.

The way that she’s placed in the 10th place between Pantalone and Childe instad of at the bottom unlike other playable Harbingers is also suspicious, because the 10th seat just happens to be empty, and this might be a very subtle hint that she was moved from an “irrelevant” character (at the bottom) to a “potentially playable” character (placed between the active Harbingers). And remember, this placement is only found in Arlecchino, a character who views Signora in a more positive light compared to her fellow Harbingers, unlike Childe and Wanderer who just pretty much ignored her.

Like I’ve said, Scaramouche being placed below Signora’s line in Childe’s VOs appears to be a foreshadowing for his future playability in 3.3, because those lines were added in 2.8, so Hoyo might be implying that her Harbinger status will be reinstated in the future as she was revived and became playable, albeit sitting in the 10th place rather than the 8th, possibly to acknowledge her “death” and changed status while allowing for her return. However, we still need to wait until more Harbingers become playable to confirm this isn’t just a fluke.

Elemental powers normally require a vision to use, which Signora doesn’t have (plot hole)

One weird thing about Signora is that unlike most characters in Teyvat, she doesn’t require a vision to unleash her pyro powers, akin to the Traveler or Skirk, both of which are from another world. Nonetheless, how she managed to accomplish it isn’t elaborated on. This creates a plot hole where we only know that she didn’t appear to have any elemental powers pre-cataclysm but suddenly managed to gain it and transformed into the CWOF post-cataclysm.

Albedo, in his SQ, explicitly says that using the elements requires a vision:

The subject of my first research was the elements. In this world, manipulating the elements requires a Vision, though I can’t see anything resembling one on your person.

One of Skirk’s voice lines in the preload reinforces this:

Master taught me how to wield the power of the Abyss, and from surviving Khaenri’ahn research, I learned how to channel that power and make it mimic the elemental energy of Teyvat. The fact that you and I don’t need a Vision to use the elements implies that our aspirations do not require the approval of the gods.

This strongly implies that Signora is either not a normal human being or managed to use knowledge that was lost to time, presumably something from Khaenriah or maybe even the moon powers, if Nod-Krai gives us any indication. The fact that this isn’t elaborated on simply leaves a gaping hole in the plot that desperately needs to be addressed at some point in the future.

Why Signora may be resurrected in Natlan

Here comes the juicy part, the one you’re probably looking for. I’ve made some observations and found some interesting things that may hint towards her revival in Natlan.

The undisclosed 17th playable character and the existence of version 5.8

Since version 2.x, Hoyo has consistently released 17 playable characters in the game. This is corroborated by a Hoyo employee who mentioned this in a GDC presentation, where he claimed that they “add about 17 characters per year”. However, if you keep track of the number of playable characters in 5.x, including the upcoming ones they teased in the 5.3 livestream silhouette teaser, you’ll notice that 5.x currently only has 16 characters in total. For Hoyo to suddenly not release a 17th character in 5.x is very suspicious, especially when they were willing to tease the upcoming characters.

In the next six months, the Traveler will get to know them one by one, and intertwine with their fates...#GenshinImpact pic.twitter.com/VHwdHbiTHQ

— Genshin Impact (@GenshinImpact) December 20, 2024

Hoyo has confirmed in the above tweet that all the upcoming characters will be released no later than June, which will coincide with 5.7’s release on 18 June, as it was posted in December while explicitly mentioning “in the next 6 months”, which narrows the time frame for their releases. Because Escoffier and Ifa will be released in 5.6, this suggests that the last two unreleased characters, Skirk and Dahlia, will be available in 5.7. Additionally, an official post on Hoyolab confirms that 5.x will span all the way through 5.8, which further corroborates this missing 17th character theory.

Q: How can I access the event quickly?

A: From Version 5.0 to 5.8, you can quickly access the event page by clicking the “Raise Saurians and Get Primogems” icon in the toolbar~

Here’s a table showing all the characters that have been released or teased since 2.x:

To me, this suggests that Hoyo is trying to hide the 17th character from the silhouette teaser. Given how they’ve excluded them from there, it’s probably someone we’ve previously encountered in-game who already has a character model. It’s unlikely that this is a character whose model is yet to be seen in-game such as Durin, Xbalanque, or Xiuhcoatl as it wouldn’t make sense to hide them if the players don’t even know what they really look like (Xbalanque possessed Mausau’s body for a day, which was only an NPC model).

On the other hand, if this is a character we’ve already met before, such as Signora or Capitano, then this theory is definitely plausible as their tall model and distinct features would’ve been way too obvious that it would spoil future storylines. You could argue that Skirk being teased in there is also a spoiler as her silhouette is immediately obvious when you compare it to a picture of her. However, the main difference is that Skirk is a living character, while both Signora and Capitano are deceased characters, so it would ruin the impact of their surprise resurrection if they were to tease them.

There’s always the possibility that the unannounced character is someone with no involvement in the story, or perhaps they might not even release a 17th character in Natlan, but given how the resurrection plot has yet to take place, which I’ll explain below, I can’t help but feel that they’re trying to hide this character due to them being a walking spoiler.

They have been teasing us about resurrection several times, but the resurrection has yet to happen, the gnosis is still in Mavuika’s possession, and Mare Jivari hasn’t been released yet

Here’s the biggest part of my theory. Hoyo has teased us several times about a resurrection plot in Natlan. Obviously, the AQ title itself, “Incandescent Ode of Resurrection” strongly suggests this, but there are several other instances where they imply a resurrection will take place.

In the 5.0 livestream, one of the hosts said that “could it be that a deceased character in Genshin Impact will come back to life?”. Then come 5.3 and the so-called “Incandescent Ode of Resurrection” of act 5 did not involve anyone getting resurrected. When they tried to use the “Ode of Resurrection” in Act 2 to bring back Kachina, it failed, and she didn’t come back to life, which necessitated a dangerous rescue mission as a last resort.

Instead, we ended up with another Harbinger “dying”. Given how this was mentioned directly in the preview livestream, which is one that is viewed by a large number of people, it’s unlikely that they said this on stream only for them to scrap this plot, as this would only raise questions. Instead, it’s likely that this is a plot that hasn’t happened yet, and there’s the possibility that this could be part of a future interlude chapter similar to the Inversion of Genesis (the Wanderer’s Irminsul arc).

Corroborating this, the Agnidus Agate Gemstone’s description, which describes the general outline of the AQ, is as follows:

“A pilgrimage for a wish; a battle to earn a name…
Burnt to cinders for a dream.
If the intention yet remains, achieved ▉▉’s truth he has.”

The first line has come true: The Pilgrimage for the Night Warden Wars did take place in act 1, while “a battle to earn a name” refers to how the MC received the ancient name “Tumaini” in act 5, along with how the Natlanese characters earn their ancient names. However, the other lines have yet to happen as of 5.5, and we still don’t know what the blacked out part is meant to be. This suggests that there’s more to come, and that defeating the Abyss wasn’t the end of Natlan’s arc.

Additionally, the Pyro gnosis has yet to be stolen, as Capitano abandoned this objective after failing to beat Mavuika in a fight. Mavuika explicitly stated this in a post-quest dialogue after completing act 5. Given how important the gnoses are for the Tsaritsa, it’s very likely that another Harbinger will tie up this loose end and steal the gnosis in the future, something which Mavuika has anticipated. This once again suggests that the Natlan’s main plot isn’t over yet.

Update: I also noticed Mavuika said that Capitano won’t try to get her gnosis anymore because he respected the outcome of the match. This pretty much excludes him from the possible candidates for characters who will take the gnosis, further strengthening this theory.

The Captain’s subordinates sent us a letter he left behind. After our duel at the Stadium, he asked the Tsaritsa to remove him from the responsibility of obtaining the Gnosis, and his request was granted.

The Captain respected the outcome of that match and refused to violate his principles. But, since this is the final Gnosis, I doubt the Tsaritsa will let the situation stand.

Perhaps a replacement Harbinger will be sent here soon. I’ll make sure to be prepared.

How Signora may be resurrected

Some of the content below is no longer true or relevant at the time this update was posted (marked with a red font or struck through). The content below is preserved for the sake of transparency.

One of the possibilities that Hoyo will do to further the plot is to introduce a new Harbinger we’ve yet to see in-game and have them steal the gnosis. However, I doubt they’ll do this as we’ve gone past the end of the main AQ storyline and introducing a new Harbinger this late would create an awkward pacing. I think the more plausible scenario is that they’ll have an existing Harbinger steal it as they don’t require any introduction and we’re already familiar with them, and therefore, prevent the potential issue of having to extend an interlude chapter for too long.

My theory is that Signora will be resurrected in the Mare Jivari interlude chapter, and she will be the one who gets the gnosis. When the Collective of Plenty was released in 5.5, you still can’t complete the Pyro Statue or the Tablet of Toma, which strongly implies that Mare Jivari will be released sometime in late 5.x to finish this.

Update: We have all but received a confirmation that Mare Jivari will be in 5.8, given how we still won’t have it in 5.7, according to the Special Program stream.

Additionally, leaks regarding 5.6’s new AQ have surfaced in which it will be the act 4 of the Mondstadt prelude, presumably continuing from the prologue, which ended on act 3. Considering how Mondstadt and Natlan are separate from each other, it’s unlikely that the prelude will contain plot elements related to how Mavuika’s gnosis will be stolen. Instead, I’m expecting an interlude chapter in Mare Jivari in either 5.7 or 5.8, sometime after either the Mondstadt prelude or Dainsleif’s act in Natlan.

It’s possible that Signora will become playable in 5.8, which will be on 30 July, with the resurrection possibly taking place earlier in 5.7 (Update: The resurrection will probably take place in 5.8, when Mare Jivari is out, perhaps followed by her banner in the second half or in Nod-Krai). This is because character drip marketing is always released a patch prior to their release and it would be a massive spoiler to release that before she even gets resurrected, so they might have to figure out a way to postpone the drip marketing before they finally release the revival arc. Releasing her in 5.8 also addresses a potential issue of the characters showing up in the silhouette teaser being released later than 5.7, as we still have 2 more characters who were teased but not yet announced (Skirk and Dahlia have been confirmed to be in 5.7 at the time of this update).

To piece things together, let’s start with the Simulanka event in 4.8. This event explicitly mentioned that the fates of Teyvat and Simulanka are interconnected, and the community has found some parallels between this event’s and Natlan’s plot like this one (Wayback link, original post was deleted), and in the event, we learned that Durin will come back to life, which left players speculating about who exactly will be resurrected in Natlan.

One might assume that it would be Durin that would be resurrected instead. However, I’m not sure how exactly he’ll return because it’s not like they could just get rid of his skeleton in Dragonspine without requiring a complete terrain overhaul, which is unlikely because some collectables such as Crimson Agates are found on the skeleton, which would make it difficult to rework the terrain without making them inaccessible. Also, how would Durin’s resurrection be relevant to the Harbingers stealing the gnosis, and why would they execute a plot element from Mondstadt in Natlan?

Recent 5.6 leaks (archive) suggest that the Mondstadt prelude will only feature Mini Durin and Alice, but not Durin and Wanderer. There’s also the upcoming 5.6 weekly boss, which had a placeholder title of “Eighth of the Fatui Harbingers”, and is now named “Game before the Gate”. The chessboard itself seems to belong to Alice or the Hexenzirkel as there is a cover art featuring Alice’s hat and a chessboard in a red-white checkerboard pattern. The chessboard in A Winter Night’s Lazzo might or might not have been a foreshadowing to this event. However, until Hoyo reveals additional details on the 5.6 livestream or leakers take a closer look at the preload, the connections between them are still uncertain.

Information from HomDGCat suggests that dealing Cryo damage grants the progress to stop the ult, while Pyro undoes the progress. This may be related to Signora in that Cryo suppresses her flames, while Pyro would cause her to burn out. The boss also has Pyro RES for both pieces in first phase and the king piece in second phase, and Hydro/Electro RES for the queen piece in second phase. Nonetheless, this could be explained away by the fact that they’re currently shilling Cryo (Escoffier, Skirk) while discouraging the use of Pyro (Arlecchino, Mavuika), Hydro (Neuvillette, Furina), and Electro (Raiden, Fischl) to encourage freeze comps.

This ironically requires Hydro, an element that the boss is resistant to, although this could be their way of shilling Escoffier with her 55% Cryo/Hydro RES shred and Citlali with her 20% Hydro/Pyro RES shred, allowing the players to continue using Neuvillette/Furina while also being able to stop the ult from killing them.

Details regarding this is still scarce, so we’ll still have to wait until either the livestream or the preload before I can speculate on what this really means for Signora.

The chessboard and Signora's moth in A Winter Night's Lazzo

This leaves room for speculation, and I feel like this may be something that Hoyo wants you to read between the lines in order to be able to reach a conclusion, because I don’t think the resurrected character would be that obvious, and it’s a good writing strategy to subvert the audience’s expectations and do something that people have anticipated the least.

Here’s a few scenarios on how they may execute this:

Scenario 1: Wanderer represents Capitano while Mini Durin represents Signora

This was my original theory before 5.6 leaks came out, and it has a major flaw that I’ll get to later.

Capitano seems to be analogous to Wanderer because the former is a Harbinger who helped save Natlan and prevented Mavuika from dying, while Scara helped to take care of Mini Durin. But what about Mini Durin himself?

In Simulanka, Durin is portrayed as a character who was misunderstood by the Simulankan residents/toys. He just wanted to be friends but everyone avoided him because he looked frightening and turned everything he came into contact with into toy blocks, which destroyed them in the process. At the end of the day, he was defeated by the MC, and then he was brought back as Mini Durin after being blessed by the main characters (Wanderer, Navia, MC, Kirara, and Nilou).

Does this sound familiar to you? That’s because it sounds a lot like Signora. Her backstory is that she’s the Crimson Witch of Flames. She never had the intention of killing innocent people and only wanted to purge the Abyss out of existence, but everyone avoided her because she’s a literal burning witch who destroyed everything in her path. In Inazuma, she was defeated by the player in Tenshukaku, resulting in her death, and if the whole Durin arc refers to Signora instead of Durin himself, then this could mean that we will be the one who resurrects her, with Capitano (analogous to Wanderer) possibly intervening given how he transferred his life force to the Lord of the Night, which might give him powers we haven’t known yet.

Scenario 2: Wanderer represents Signora while Mini Durin represents himself and/or Durin

Because Wanderer is an ex-Harbinger, and Signora was removed from the ranks of the Harbingers after she was executed, it’s possible that Wanderer is analogous to Signora instead, as the latter would also be an ex-Harbinger if she gets resurrected, unless if her Harbinger status is reinstated. Similarly, both Wanderer and Signora have a tragic past which led them to join the ranks of the Harbingers, and both have a sense of betrayal (Wanderer feeling betrayed by humanity, Signora feeling betrayed by Barbatos), so the two do have some parallels here.

There is the possibility that Scara will only be taking care of Mini Durin, while Signora deals with the real Durin, though at the same time, Simulanka’s quest says otherwise. This is the major flaw with these two theories.

Albedo: You saved the Durin of this world. I don’t see that as a mere coincidence.

Albedo: If there is any meaning to be read into the actions of the three Goddesses beyond fairytale whimsy alone, I can only boldly speculate that…

Albedo: …The fate of this reflected world may have a reciprocal effect upon our own world.

Albedo: If Durin of Dragonspine will soon come back to life, we will need Mini Durin’s help… as well as yours, given that your fates are now intertwined.

(Wanderer): Well, that’s a nuisance.

Albedo: To be sure. It certainly won’t be easy.

Things might not be very straightforward however, as the parallels between the two are only loosely connected. Looking at the aforementioned Teyvat/Simulanka parallels Reddit post, the similarities are superficial. For example, the three Narration Footnotes characters are Albizzi, Boborano, and Capet, while the three scholars are Aberewaa, Bosomtwe, and Cuxtal. But aside from the fact that both involved piecing together events from three different people with the same initials, the Narration Footnotes quest itself did not foreshadow Capitano’s events of finding out about the Secret Source, so perhaps this dialogue about Scara’s part in Teyvat may not be as simple as “Wanderer saving Mini Durin = Wanderer saving the real Durin”.

Scenario 3: Durin’s resurrection and Signora’s resurrection are two separate plots

This ended up being the correct outcome, at least at the time this update was posted.

This is the most likely possibility, given what happened in the Mondstadt interlude, and how the first two scenarios have the same flaw in that Albedo has canonically said that “[Scara’s] fates are now intertwined”. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, it would be weird to do a Mondstadt-related plot in Natlan as the two have little connections with each other, and resurrecting Durin does not address the issue of how the Harbingers will steal the Pyro gnosis, not to mention that it was a Mondstadt resurrection, not a Natlan resurrection.

Mondstadt interlude continues the trajectory of the Act 3 of the Mondstadt prologue, with its own storyline separate from Natlan’s. On the other hand, Natlan’s storyline after Act 5 is followed by Act 6, which is Dainsleif’s act, and then the Mare Jivari interlude chapter.

Now, releasing 3 consecutive acts like this over the span of 2-3 versions after the main Natlan AQ has concluded might seem a little awkward, but they’ve done this before back in 2.x. Interlude Act 1 (Jade Chamber) was released in 2.4, followed by Dainsleif act in 2.6, and Interlude Act 2 (The Chasm) in 2.7. Similarly, they could release the Mondstadt prelude in 5.6, followed by Dainsleif act in 5.7, and Mare Jivari interlude in 5.8.

This way, they could resolve the parallels between Simulanka’s and Teyvat’s Durin while not interfering with Natlan’s resurrection and the Harbingers’ gnosis heist.

Scenario 4: Whatever the Hexenzirkel does is the missing link between Durin’s and Signora’s resurrection

If the new weekly boss really is tied to Signora’s arc, based on its placeholder title and the key elements used for its mechanics (Cryo and Pyro), and the Hexenzirkel is involved in both Durin’s and Signora’s narratives in the Mondstadt prelude, then there is a possibility that both Durin’s and Signora’s resurrection are part of the same arc. Maybe Signora will proceed to travel from Mondstadt all the way to Natlan to take the gnosis, who knows. This is something that needs to wait before we get further information from the livestream or preload.

Other evidences

These theories have a potential ground for foreshadowing to work. Durin’s skeleton is in Dragonspine, and in the same region, there’s also the Frostbearing Tree which suspiciously has vague potential references to Signora’s themes, with things such as “Crimson Wish”, “Frostbearer”, and the way even the tree itself has some crimson butterflies/moths once you’ve maxed it out. In fact, Durin’s connection to the Frostbearing Tree is implied in Crimson Agate’s description:

When the nail that froze Dragonspine descended, the trunk and canopy of this tree shattered into many fragments that were then frozen. A long time later, a black dragon fell into the valley and its blood seeped into the ley lines. And a long time after that, someone has broken the icy shackles, and the ancient tree that has absorbed that “crimson” has now sprouted anew…

Even more convincing is that the Lavawalker wore a circlet made out of crimson agate to withstand the heat of Mare Jivari:

Update: I stand corrected. Someone told me that the original CN description of this “crimson agate” isn’t the same as the Crimson Agate item, so this artifact piece may not be related to it after all.

An ancient circlet that once belonged to the Lavawalker — a sage who wandered in the Mare Jivari.
Upon close examination, one can almost see his figure standing strong amidst the fiery flames.

The wandering sage of the Mare Jivari known as the Lavawalker crafted this circlet from crimson agate to resist the intense heat of the flames.
The circlet was built with wisdom and tenacity. It sparked fear and jealousy among peers and seniors alike.

This is important, because like I’ve mentioned earlier, players have speculated that the resurrection plot might take place in Mare Jivari, as part of an interlude chapter. It has been described as the “Sea of Ashes” or “Sea of Flames”, and according to the Lavawalker set’s plume lore, a phoenix dwells within it, and phoenixes symbolize rebirth. The location itself has been teased as recently as 5.1 in the Iktomi Spiritseeking Scrolls event, but the region itself has yet to be released. The connection between the Lavawalker, Mare Jivari, the Frostbearing Tree with its suspicious references to Signora’s motifs, and Durin, could be the missing piece we need to tie everything back to Signora.

Signora has good negotiation skills, as implied by how she was able to take Zhongli’s gnosis without having to fight him. Mavuika is a powerful fighter, being able to beat Capitano and injure him to the point of abandoning his objective to steal the gnosis, and we’re talking about the top Harbinger here, the one who Nahida claimed has godlike strength. A direct confrontation with her will pretty much result in a failure, so the only way for the Fatui to have any hopes of stealing her gnosis would be either through stealth or negotiation, and she’s the perfect candidate for that.

The change in the domain name for her artifact set and its potential connection to this year’s Lantern Rite story

Even more interestingly, the Lavawalker set is in the same domain as the Crimson Witch of Flames set. Y’know, the set that is literally about Signora. And in 4.8, this domain’s challenges underwent a name change, from “Frost” to “Roaring Fire”, and is the only domain to be renamed in that version. While some might see this as a mere coincidence, something interesting took place in this year’s Lantern Rite that may hint at this as a sign that they’re doing something with Signora’s arc.

I found this post on the r/Genshin_Lore subreddit explaining the potential connection between the Hidden Palace of Zhou Formula (the Lavawalker/CWoF domain), the Lantern Rite backstory, and Signora herself. I’ll just quote what they’ve said verbatim:

One of the things that was noteworthy in this Lantern Rite was how they integrated domains that have been present since 1.0 in our maps to a integral part of the story. Feels, for the first time in quite some time, that the domains and their story are not there by chance.

Now, on the Sanctification of Tao Dou, and how the Seven-and-Eight Gate Array was used, with the sacrifice of the Lone Butterfly of Crimson Flame. While it is obvious that Hu Tao is directly associated with a butterfly motif due to how butterflies are normally understood as a personification of the soul, another character has been associated with this motif too: Signora.

The sealing of Tao Dou remains happened in the Hidden Palace of Zhou Formula, as stated when talking with Baizhu in the first part of the Lantern Rite. It seems logical to understand that the Lone Butterfly gave up her life there. The Hidden Palace of Zhou Formula is the artifact domain for the Crimson Witch of Flames set. I feel like this is too much of a connection to just be coincidental.

Rosalyne experimented with herself to become the Crimson Witch of Flames, and in this sense, whatever she made, was too much for her body to bear, as she started to suffer immense pain from the burning inside. That was the reason the Tsaritsa gave her a Cryo Delusion in the first place.

I might be mixing things, but, not only the Wuwang adept, but also the Lone Butterfly had a tight connection with the border of life and death. In this sense, Rosalyne might have used the Lone Butterfly’s remains or lingering power somehow in order to become the Crimson Witch of Flames. Since those were the powers of an immortal being, far more exceptional than an ordinary Akademiya student, this would be responsible for the great pain she endured during her life as the Crimson Witch, and how her life got so prolonged. Given the Lone Butterfly’s connection with life and death, it might have been not only a plan of revenge for losing her lover, but also for trying to get him back somehow, a desperate attempt at blurring the lines of life and death so she could either be reunited with him beyond, or bring him back to the realm of the living.

Anyways, this is obviously just a theory of mine. But I seriously think that it cannot be a simple coincidence that the Crimson Witch of Flames, whose name and aspect seems to connect with that of the Lone Butterfly, has her set in the same domain where said Butterfly sealed Tao Dou during the last Seven-and-Eight Gate Array. Hoyo never leave this things out there by chance.

The fact that they not only renamed the domain’s challenges to “Roaring Fire” (which makes it relevant to Signora’s CWoF form, and the only domain that was renamed in 4.8), but also made a potential connection between the backstory mentioned on Lantern Rite and the domain, is incredibly suspicious, as if they’re hinting that this might be relevant further down the line. Additionally, Signora’s moths in her boss fight are referred to as “Crimson Lotus Moth”, the Lone Butterfly was the only one of the Eight Adepts to sacrifice herself during the purification spell according to Yun Jin, and Signora was the 8th Harbinger, so there might even be an implied connection there.

It’s worth noting that this might simply be due to the domain’s recommended element being changed from Cryo to Hydro, which isn’t observed in other domains that recommended multiple elements prior to the change. However, it’s still something we should pay attention to, given the relevance of the two artifact sets in here.

Paimon: We were actually learning about the Eight Adepts earlier, but we never found out who the Three Beasts of Tao Dou were.

Yun Jin: Oh really? Well for starters, the Three Beasts of Tao Dou are also known as the Three Immortals of Tao Dou.

Yun Jin: They were the Lone Butterfly of the Crimson Flame, the Jade-Plumed Silverwing, and the Gold-Eyed Celadon Mare. Three auspicious beasts, all with the power to take on human form.

Paimon: Oh! So they really weren’t human, huh… Um, the Lone Butterfly sounds pretty self-explanatory, but what about the silverwing and celadon mare? What kind of creatures were they?

Yun Jin: Silverwing was a swallow, and the Celadon Mare was a white horse. Legend holds that after purifying Tao Dou, Silverwing and Wind Reader went wandering together, but the white horse retreated into seclusion.

Yun Jin: Have you ever read Moonlit Bamboo Forest? That story mentions a white horse that roamed the Qingce mountain range. A lot of people think she was the Gold-Eyed Celadon Mare.

Paimon: Oh, cool! So… what about the butterfly? What did they get up to?

Yun Jin: The Lone Butterfly gave her life during the purification spell… She was the only one of the eight to sacrifice herself in this way.

The event’s epilogue further suggests that there may be connections between Liyue, Natlan, and possibly other regions, so this is definitely something to look out for in the future.

Beidou: Hey, the crisis is resolved. Why the long face, Tianquan?

Ningguang: Thanks to Director Hu and (Traveler), disaster was averted. But we still do not know what caused the crisis in the first place.

Ningguang: I know you are well-informed, Captain. So I trust you are aware that recently, the nation of Natlan has recently endured some major events relating to the Ley Lines and to issues of life and death.

Ningguang: It makes me wonder whether these events might somehow be connected on a deeper level.

Beidou: If they are, then this’ll be bigger than just Liyue and Natlan. I’ll send word to my business partners, and keep an eye out for any similar incidents in the other nations.

Previous regions have always had two Harbingers involved in the region’s Archon Quests

Related to the point above, Natlan is different in that we’ve yet to see the other Harbinger who’s involved in the region; one takes the gnosis, the other doesn’t, You see, each region aside from Mondstadt had consistently featured two different Harbingers.

• Mondstadt: Signora (because we hadn’t been introduced to another Harbinger yet)
• Liyue: Childe, Signora
• Inazuma: Scaramouche, Signora
• Sumeru: Dottore, Scaramouche
• Fontaine: Arlecchino, Childe
• Natlan: Capitano, ???

You could argue that Childe appearing in Skirk’s story quest is our second Harbinger in Natlan, but that’s not the case, as her SQ will take place in Liyue instead, not to mention that it’s an SQ, not AQ. Act 6 of the AQ doesn’t appear to feature him according to leaks, so the only logical conclusion is that this second Harbinger will show up in the Mare Jivari interlude, and they’re very likely to be the one who takes the gnosis. Capitano, like we’ve mentioned previously, doesn’t fit the bill because he respected the outcome of the duel and won’t make any further attempts at stealing the gnosis, of which Mavuika remarked that another Harbinger will be sent to take it anyway.

Dottore’s appearance in Nod-Krai, as confirmed by the teaser in 5.7 stream, very likely eliminates the possibility of him showing up in Natlan. Arlecchino would have little reason to visit Natlan, so she is out of the question. The only two candidates would be Childe or Signora, but logically the former would have to take a while to go from Liyue to Natlan, if we assume that the SQ timeline aligns with the AQs. Having Signora would pretty much eliminate that problem as it would fit her lore hints very well while also being able to reach mainland Natlan in no time.

Nod-Krai could pave the way to bring back Signora’s relevance in the story

One argument that’s frequently thrown around against Signora’s resurrection is that she’s no longer relevant to the story, having been dead for more than 3 years already. This is understandable, but I believe resurrecting her in Natlan would give Hoyo plenty of time to reintroduce her in the story so it wouldn’t feel out of place, especially given how a recent Nod-Krai teaser strongly suggests the presence of other Harbingers such as Dottore and Sandrone.

Indeed, the fact that the Tsaritsa is ordering the Harbingers to assemble in Nod-Krai raises some questions. It’s possible that they either will have managed to steal all the gnoses by the time we get there, or are planning on how to steal the pyro gnosis if it hasn’t been stolen. If it’s the former, then they might be trying to figure out what to do with all the gnoses next.

If Signora turned out to be the one who stole it, then perhaps this might involve her being reinstated as the 8th Harbinger, or alternatively, they’re trying to figure out how to bring back Capitano now that she set a precedent that their members can be resurrected. Alternatively this could also involve her success story of how she managed to steal 4 out of the 7 gnoses. Remember that post-Irminsul, Signora appears to be the only one present in Inazuma, and thus, everyone remembered her as the one who took the electro gnosis, rather than Scara. Perhaps we might even see some flashbacks on how the event panned out in this alternate history, which was never shown previously.

Resurrecting Capitano too early would undermine his very own sacrifice

The whole point of his sacrifice is so that he can finally rest after being denied that for over 500 years due to the curse of immortality, so bringing him back in 5.8 would completely downplay his sacrifice in the AQ, and not to mention that it sounds a little disrespectful towards him. He wanted to rest for a while, and we gave him that, but now we want him back so soon? Unlike Signora, his arc is pretty much complete for now, even if a little unsatisfactory, as he got exactly what he wanted.

Now I’m not saying that Capitano should remain dead; I believe that all 11 Harbingers should be made playable because they’ve always explicitly marketed them as the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, so many people expect that all of them will become playable at some point, similar to how the archons are often referred to as The Seven, and they have consistently been playable. You might argue that Focalors is dead and that disqualifies this argument, but her model is literally just Furina in a different skin, and she’s voiced by the same VA in all languages, so in a way, they did make Focalors playable.

I honestly feel like they should save the best for last and release him in Khaenriah instead given how he could play a bigger role by manipulating the ley lines after transferring his soul to the Lord of the Night. Also, he hails from Khaenriah, and his constellation appears to be the three nails, and it’s very likely they could come up with a more impactful resurrection by doing it when we get there instead, while fulfilling his symbolism of being revived after three regions.

Both Skirk and Capitano are likely to be cryo sword characters, and releasing both in 5.x would cannibalize the former’s sales

Leaks regarding Skirk have surfaced as early as 5.5, and recently, Dim (a known reliable leaker), corroborated on how she’s a cryo main DPS relying on freeze reactions and Cryo/Hydro units.

Most people wouldn’t want to pull two characters with the exact same element, weapon, and role, as they’d rather spend their pulls on the cons of the more desirable character instead. That is unless if you’re a fan of both and want to get both despite being potentially worse value overall than just pulling for cons.

Take for example Mavuika’s banner. Most people who have gotten Arlecchino back in 4.6 skipped her because there’s no point in getting yet another pyro main DPS, given how overly saturated that element is with DPS. And pulling for Arle’s cons gives those players a much better value as her C1 offers a massive damage buff while her C2 provides comfort by adding some RES to the player while also instantly maxing out the bond of life without having to wait 5 seconds, which matters a lot in the Abyss where every second counts to get 36 stars. Others decided to pull on Citlali’s banner as she’s a valuable support for Pyro and Hydro teams, which resulted in Mavuika banner receiving far fewer pulls than Furina and Nahida at launch.

Given how Capitano is seemingly more popular than Skirk, and the fact that Skirk’s kit has been confirmed by a reliable leaker to be mostly restricted to Cryo/Hydro teams similar to Nilou or Chevreuse, I can see a situation where people would skip Skirk entirely in favor of waiting for Capitano’s release. Conversely, releasing Signora would be less of an issue, even if she’s Cryo, because she’s a catalyst character, and if her TCG kit translates into her playable kit, she might be able to transform into CWoF, perhaps via elemental burst, making her more of a hybrid forward/reverse melt DPS. This encourages players to get both Skirk and Signora due to them having different use cases while maximizing the FOMO potential in the marketing side of things.

Releasing the lower-ranking Harbingers like her makes more sense than releasing the cream of the crop like Capitano early

To me, it would be rather awkward for them to go from releasing the 11th Harbinger, to the 6th, to the 4th, and then to the 1st Harbinger, before we even get to Nod-Krai, let alone Snezhnaya. I don’t think it’s time for him to become playable just yet, considering how Hoyo is very likely to indirectly nerf him (or other characters) when they feel like it’s time for them to hype up their new characters, and we’re still far away from Snezhnaya and Khaenriah.

If Capitano, the highest ranking Harbinger, gets powercrept by literally the Harbingers below him, it would sound really stupid when this gets brought up several years later when the story is approaching its end, and I don’t think Hoyo should do that considering how this will be very noticeable in the Abyss where HP inflation is a real thing that keeps happening.

We’ve seen them desperately trying to nerf Neuvillette because he’s too OP. Who’s to say that’s not going to happen to Capitano when we get to Snezhnaya or Khaenriah, arguably the time when he deserves his spotlight for being the top Harbinger?

I get that many people want him because he’s the 1st Harbinger, which makes him look badass, and that he’s been teased as early as 3.x in Varka’s letter, and then again by Neuvillette in Fontaine AQ epilogue. I personally would like to get him too, considering how collectable the Harbingers are just like the Archons, but consider the potential consequences in the future if they actually brought him back in Natlan. Do you really want him to get powercrept once we get to the new regions if he turns out to be too powerful?

Also, Capitano mains have some form of reassurance that he will eventually be playable, as evidenced by his model being designated as “Avatar_Sword”, him getting an official sticker, and the way Hoyo releases merch for him, something that Signora mains don’t have the luxury of.

“Waifu Impact” is in full force

Ever since 5.1, Hoyo has been releasing quests that are highly fanservicey in nature. Citlali’s Tribal Chronicles involve flirty conversations, and earlier on in 5.1’s Iktomi Spiritseeking Scrolls event, she bites her lip if you use Aether as your MC, while Mizuki’s SQ is outright a fanservice with a “private therapy session” sequence, and then presenting the MC alongside her on a cherry blossom tree at the end of the SQ, with flirty lines such as “The moon sure is beautiful tonight”.

Given how there’s only 3 more female Harbingers they’ve yet to release, it would be more likely that they commit to this given their current trends. Some people object to this, and I’m personally not a fan of watering down every female character’s personality to fanservicey waifus, and would rather see her being presented in a similar fashion to Arlecchino, but sadly this might be one of the very few ways they might bring her back, knowing how companies like to double-down on strategies that they think have worked well in the past.

Natlan might very well be a giant red herring to distract Signora mains

I found this Reddit post speculating about how Signora might have survived the Musou and that they have been throwing some red herrings for a while. While I disagree with the “Signora’s death denial” part, I agree with their argument that they’ve likely been throwing red herrings left and right, and Natlan might have been specifically designed as a giant red herring to distract us from guessing who the resurrected character will be.

Think about it: this region has been hyped for a while due to its “Incandescent Ode of Resurrection” title. Many players who have been wanting for Signora to come back have speculated since 2.1 that she may get resurrected in Natlan because of that, especially considering how both of them have fire motifs. The last thing the writers wanted is if the majority of their audience can correctly guess who will get resurrected way in advance like this. It’s possible that they wanted to bring back Signora after seeing the overwhelmingly negative reception with the Inazuma archon quest, but they need to come up with a way to make it less obvious. Enter the world of red herrings.

Consider:

• The 5.0 livestream and the host mentioning that “could it be that a deceased character will come back to life?”, which is such a bold statement to make that it’s almost guaranteed that it will come true, lest they’d be hit by false advertising lawsuits in China.
• The fact that no one was actually resurrected in Natlan’s main Archon Quest despite making such a significant statement. This is our first red herring, in that they wanted to erode people’s belief that someone will get resurrected, as many will be quick to assume that they are unlikely to pull a resurrection plot in an interlude chapter.
• Capitano’s death that serves as a way to shake up people’s faith in Signora’s resurrection. This is our second red herring: kill off a character that’s just as hyped (and the highest-ranking Harbinger at that) to further wear down the community’s optimism in her revival.
• Durin’s “revival” in 5.6 which is really more like a soul swap between Mini Durin and Durin, and with no Wanderer in sight despite him being hinted in the Simulanka event to be an important character who takes care of Mini Durin. This is our third red herring, in that the resurrection wasn’t actually a real resurrection, and the fact that this all took place in Mondstadt, which makes it a Mondstadt resurrection, not a Natlan resurrection.
• The gnosis hasn’t been stolen yet which implies that a Harbinger WILL steal it in the future. I believe this is a hint that implies Signora mains shouldn’t follow all the red herrings I’ve mentioned earlier.
• The missing 17th character and the existence of v5.8, which is another hint that nothing is just as it seems.

What if it turns out they’ve been delaying the resurrection to hide the character who will eventually be resurrected (which, in my opinion, is her) and that they’ve been throwing red herrings left and right to shake off potential leads?

And this works very well. Most Signora fans get demoralized very quickly the moment they notice that no one was brought back from the dead, and even other communities like r/FatuiHQ followed suit. This way, when they finally drop the charade and reveal that they’ve resurrected a major character all along, people will be caught off-guard and there will be a sudden surge in hype and popularity of the game.

Little One’s arc is pretty much over

This is something that I forgot to mention in the initial publication of this post. Some people might consider that Mare Jivari could be the continuation of Little One’s WQs, but because he parted ways with us, I don’t think this is the case. Besides, there’s very little point to do so because his Flamelord’s Blessing story was pretty much resolved in 5.5 when he refused Kukulkan’s offers. If anything, this just further strengthens the possibility of the proper revival arc taking place in the Mare Jivari instead.

The red sky in Mare Jivari

Some keen-eyed players have noticed that the placeholder Mare Jivari region has an abnormally red sky. This appears to be heavily connected to Signora’s description of the “crimson dawn” and “sea of fire that will consume everything”, something that’s now all but confirmed. It’s unlikely that this is a coincidence, as so far it seems unlikely that any region in Nod-Krai or Snezhnaya would have an unusually red sky like this, let alone a place described as “sea of fire” or “sea of ashes.”

Why we may NOT want Signora to be resurrected in Natlan (yet): The SAG-AFTRA strike VA’s “collective work refusal”

Signora is voiced by a VA who chose to remain anonymous. However, after doing a little research, I was able to figure out who she is, and her portfolio page contains some voice clips of her performance as Signora. I won’t disclose who she is out of respect, given how toxic the community can be towards Signora fans sometimes.

What I can tell you, however, is that she’s a union VA, as one of the videos on her site mentions her as a member of SAG-AFTRA. This is a problem, as the EN VAs have chosen to voluntarily refuse to work on the game’s VOs for over 8 months, and there has been an ongoing drama regarding the EN VAs stemming from a harassment of Kinich’s new VA, Jacob Takanashi, which led to the VAs being exposed for committing a “collective work refusal”. That is, it’s not an official SAG-AFTRA strike, but rather, something that’s suspiciously similar to a wildcat strike, which was supposed to be illegal in the US.

This means that her VA may or may not be able to voice Signora if the strike is still ongoing while her resurrection plot takes place, because some of these VAs are leveraging the strike and the AI protections as a smokescreen for their real intentions: to force Hoyo into signing the interim agreement so that they flip union and are forced to bow down to SAG-AFTRA, potentially resulting in many non-union VAs getting recast, as union projects are prohibited from hiring non-union talents, and Taft-Hartleys only work for up to 90 days in a lifetime.

Even worse, there’s a chance that she might be recast if she refuses to work when they’re about to release Signora’s resurrection arc. And this is definitely possible, as Hoyo has recasted several playable characters recently, including Kinich’s previous VA, John Patneaude. Not to mention that the last time she voiced her was back in 4.3 with the release of Signora in the GITCG, which was over a year ago, and her last in-game appearance was in 2.3, which was over three years ago, so they would consider her recast to be a low-risk approach, especially when her role is currently uncredited.

Voice works are usually done months in advance, around 1-2 patches prior to release. The last time such a strike occurred, it took over 11 months before SAG-AFTRA could reach an agreement, so there’s a chance of a worst-case scenario where the resurrection takes place in 5.7, but she’s either unvoiced or been recast if the VA chose not to work during the strike.

This would be a huge blow to Signora fans who have been waiting for this, as it would ruin an otherwise massive plot. We can only hope that either the official strike ends and an agreement is reached before they have to record her lines so we can experience Signora’s resurrection in its full glory, or she’s willing to voice Signora despite the strike, as the work refusal against Hoyo was never official to begin with.

Update: At the time of this update, the SAG-AFTRA strike has been officially suspended, and according to the announcement, “All SAG-AFTRA members are instructed to return to work on productions under the IMA, including work promoting or publicizing projects produced under the IMA…”

This means nothing for Genshin because it’s never been a struck project to begin with, but it does make their work refusal hard to justify as this instruction came straight out of SAG’s mouth, so hopefully by the time Signora returns in 5.8, she’s able to be fully voiced.

My theory on why Natlan’s AQ feels so unfinished

This is something that I’ve been wondering for a while, because I feel like anything past Act 4 felt rushed and awkward, such as how Act 5 is literally called “Incandescent Ode of Resurrection”, with the developers teasing about how “a deceased character will come back to life”, and yet no major character was resurrected, and instead we ended up with Capitano dying, or how Xilonen said that forging an ancient name for the MC would cost her life, but it was never elaborated on after Act 4, and we never saw her falling ill or dying at any point in the AQ.

Assuming that Signora is the character who will be resurrected in the Mare Jivari interlude chapter, then here’s some possible reasons:

I suspect that Hoyo might have changed the plot for Act 5 in the middle of development to accommodate for Signora’s resurrection, perhaps after 4.6’s Arlecchino banner had concluded, upon realizing the fact that Harbingers are more popular than they thought. The execs or the marketing department might have realized the continuous demand to make Signora playable a little late into Natlan’s development and was only finally able to put 2 and 2 together before Natlan came out and realize “oh, this region will contain a resurrection arc and it’s pyro-themed.”

This could explain why they ended up releasing an interlude in 5.2. It’s likely done to buy them some more time to rewrite Act 5 because they only had around 7.5 months to do that, and mind you, writing an entire storyline like this normally takes 1-2 years and likely plenty of revisions, by Xiao Luohao’s own admission. They likely didn’t want to involve multiple resurrections, so whatever plot they had which involved resurrecting someone else was scrapped entirely, but overall, Act 5 still felt awkward nonetheless due to the loose ends of the resurrection and the fact that Xilonen’s condition was never brought up again, possibly due to them not having enough time to rewrite everything to make it make sense.

If Signora is in 5.8 interlude, then it would pretty much confirm that they pushed back the resurrection plot to buy some more time by around a year, if we assume they use financial reports from Q2 2024, which is for April - June, well within Arlecchino’s banner run period. They probably don’t want to compromise on the resurrection aspect itself as people have been anticipating this for a while.

Update: It could also explain why Skirk’s release in 5.7 feels so out of place. She was pretty much introduced with no prior hints or involvement in Natlan’s AQ, not even in Acts 5 or 6. She showed up in Fontaine, then 1.5 years later, suddenly reappeared in Liyue as opposed to Natlan. My suspicion is that they might have seen the feedback from version 4.2, and they saw an overwhelming demand to make Skirk playable, but Natlan’s general outline might have already been made since then, so they couldn’t shoehorn that into the AQ itself, which led to this awkward release for a supposedly major character in the story.

As for why this might have happened? If the resurrection plot originally involved Mavuika dying, then maybe they scrapped it because it would be far too predictable as we all know that every single archon would be playable at the end of the day, so the outcome wouldn’t have been very impactful. And besides, archons usually sell very well regardless of how the story is executed (see: Inazuma’s dumpster fire of an AQ vs. Raiden’s banner revenue)

If it originally involved Xilonen dying due to her attempt to forge an ancient name for the MC, perhaps as a way to introduce tension of one of the heroes of Natlan dying before they could execute Mavuika’s plans, then they might have realized that resurrecting an already playable character wouldn’t be as impactful as resurrecting a dead but non-playable character like Signora. This is hinted by a dialogue in Act 4, which oddly was never brought up again in the interlude and Act 5 even as the forging process is completed:

Citlali: So, it’s true. Forging an Ancient Name consumes the life of the craftsman…
[…]
Xilonen: If giving up my life means that all the people of Natlan can have a future, then the sacrifice is practically negligible.

And if it originally involved Xbalanque being resurrected, then it could be because it’s a safer bet for them to bring back Signora than to make Xbalanque playable, as the former has a proven track record of being reliably profitable due to the popularity of the Harbingers (see graphs above), while the latter’s profitability is pretty much unknown considering how he was only ever mentioned in Neuvillette’s character introduction. Workplace politics might have come into play here, and perhaps the higher-ups might have thought that they should just play it safe and take advantage of this opportunity to revive her, knowing how Harbinger banners print a ton of money for them. Also, someone at Hoyo likely had the comprehension to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that Inazuma’s AQ was a dumpster fire, and that bringing her back would at least undo one of the biggest blunders they’ve committed in there.

Like I’ve said earlier, resurrecting more than one major character in Natlan would feel too cheesy, and players might complain about how it cheapens out the concept of death, so they might have changed the plot of act 5 at the last minute to make it so that only Signora gets brought back, instead of resurrecting Xilonen and/or Mavuika alongside her. Given how there’s a decent number of people who have speculated about Signora’s resurrection in Natlan, they might be trying to capitalize on that and scrapped whatever resurrection plot they might have originally planned prior to that.

Basically, everything might have only happened due to executive meddling, and in this case, it ironically ended up being a good thing for us. They might have vetoed narrative decisions that may not be as profitable as simply releasing a forgotten Harbinger who died 3 years ago as well as a character that was teased in Fontaine that generated a lot of interest among the community, and while it was a bit messy due to it being a last-minute decision a few months before Natlan gets released, it gets the job done. After all, what matters is the bottom line, and they might have realized that the potential payoff is going to be much greater than the risk of rewriting the story itself. If they hit record profits with Skirk’s and Signora’s banners, then it doesn’t matter if the story was half-baked because they got a ton of money regardless.

Miscellaneous things

These are things I found that may or may not point to her revival, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

In past regions, we’ve always had at least two characters with the same element as that region. Mondstadt has Jean, Venti, and Sucrose; Liyue has Zhongli and Ningguang; Inazuma has Raiden and Miko; Sumeru has plenty; and Fontaine has Neuvillette, Furina, and Sigewinne. However, in Natlan, we currently only have one pyro character, which is Mavuika.

In the GITCG, there are two Tavern Challenges related to her, which are the Bouquet of the Crimson Witch of Embers and Feathers of the Crimson Witch of Embers. One thing I’ve noticed is that the Flower-Feather Clan is a Pyro tribe judging by how the Qucusaurus uses Pyro, and the tribe icon itself is red, and yet neither of the playable characters from that tribe, Chasca and Ifa, are Pyro, unlike other tribes where there’s at least one playable character with the same element as the tribe’s saurian.

The tribe itself is named the “Flower-Feather Clan”. Guess what else is associated with “flower and feather”? That’s right. It’s the two GITCG titles, Bouquet and Feather. Some people have speculated that one of the ways they might associate Signora with Natlan is that she could originally be a Natlanese who moved to Mondstadt similar to Vennessa but ultimately lost her memories of being a Natlanese due to Natlan’s ley lines being formerly unstable prior to Capitano’s intervention.

I wonder if they would use this as an evidence that they’ve been teasing her resurrection all along, albeit in a very subtle manner. Remember, the last thing they wanted is for the revival to get spoiled because they gave out hints that were way too obvious.

A counterargument would be the fact that the People of the Springs tribe is also missing a character, namely a second character aside from Mualani. Other tribes have consistently had two characters, including the Scions of the Canopy, in which Mavuika hailed from there. It’s possible this might be reserved for future content, which could explain why there were rumors about a Hydro support in 5.8, but the way they are missing is indeed suspicious.

Answers to your questions about the new leaks

There has been several new leaks that, if true, would disprove my theories of her being in Natlan. However, I don’t buy them in the slightest for several reasons.

Version 5.8 will allegedly feature an electro support from Nod-Krai, NOT Signora. Do you think this kills this theory for good or do you have other explanations?

While there is always a possibility that Signora may not become playable in 5.8, do keep in mind that it is still possible that Signora may have a resurrection arc in some form in Mare Jivari. Like I’ve said, there’s a chance that she may not be immediately playable to avoid the drip marketing from spoiling the plot, as it will inevitably have to be released a version prior to the launch, or they may have to do some exceptional measures such as launching her banner on the 2nd half and releasing her drip marketing on the 1st half while not revealing the character on the 5.8 livestream, only teasing her vaguely unlike other characters that have been released so far. This would be a huge deviation from their usual marketing strategy, which is why there’s always the possibility that they’re saving up her banner for Nod-Krai while resurrecting her early in Mare Jivari as a teaser for what’s to come.

In fact, there is already a precedent to this, such as how Durin was revealed in 5.6 but is yet to be playable, how Capitano “died” in 5.3 but we all know he’s very likely to be playable given how he has a playable avatar model, or how Baizhu was present in the AQ as early as 1.0 but wasn’t playable until 3.6. Hoyo might be planting the seeds for future playability instead of letting her playable immediately after her resurrection arc.

There’s a leak by Shiroha showing Nod-Krai’s potential roster, and it does not include Signora anywhere on the list. Why do you still believe that she’s coming back soon?

This is by far the most damning evidence that Signora may not return in the near future, considering how Shiroha is known to have a good track record in HSR leaks, and the only three Harbingers that have been leaked to be playable are Columbina, Dottore, and an unknown Geo Harbinger. However, they have proven themselves to be unreliable as evidenced by the fact that they immediately backpedaled after the 5.7 livestream just days after they made the initial post and made a “correction” that the upcoming playable witch (Hexenzirkel) character would be Nicole rather than Barbeloth, despite Hoyo clearly showing Alice in the teaser instead, which would strongly imply Alice will be the playable Hexenzirkel member.

This is exactly why you should never trust rumor mills like this, even if they have a reputable track record in other games. For all we know, they might just be doing an asspull to gain some attention among the Genshin community while making contrarian takes, then backpedaling at every turn and disclaiming that “everything is subject to change” to save face if their rumors didn’t turn out to be true. Remember, most “leakers” are in fact just rumor mills who make speculations while pretending they have insider info, and they don’t know any better than the community in general.

And besides, isn’t it a little suspicious that they’re only revealing the more notable characters people have been expecting to become playable the most, but not any unfamiliar names that possibly belong to the new factions such as the Lightkeepers, the Frostmoon Scions, the Voynich Guild, or the Wild Hunt? To me, it sounds like a classic example of rumor mills giving us speculations that most people want to hear, regardless if it’s true or not. When Natlan’s character roster was leaked, it was initially flaired as a suspicious leak but ended up becoming 100% true all along, and they all have unfamiliar names, aside from Iansan which had been revealed in the Travail teaser. Also, remember all the leaks about Columbina being playable in 5.x or how Madame Ping will be the 5-star character in Lantern Rite? Yeah, that never happened alright.

All I can say is, just ignore the noise. There’s a good chance that they’re just pulling things out of their asses, and Signora mains are on the right track all along.

Have you ever considered that the Pyro gnosis might be stolen in 6.x instead?

I’m well aware of this, but what made me unconvinced of this is the fact that Hoyo has officially confirmed that Nod-Krai will involve the Fatui stealing the moon powers instead, so it’s very likely that by the time we get there, the gnosis will have already been stolen. Everything just screams “something will happen in Mare Jivari, and it’s gonna be HUGE.” It simply doesn’t make sense to steal the moon powers, a power that predates the 7 elements, before they do the Pyro gnosis. Not to mention that many Genshin players don’t have that great of an attention span unless if they actively keep track of the game’s lore, so having the gnosis be stolen in 6.x might be confusing for some players who don’t follow along with the story.

Bonus: Numerology

Just for fun, let’s delve into the numerology conspiracy theory, because people love finding patterns with the Harbingers through this.

• Childe was released in 1.1, on 11/11/2020.
• Wanderer was released in 3.3.
  • 3 + 3 = 6.
• Arlecchino was released in 4.6 on 24/4/2024.
• Signora may be resurrected in 5.8, and that version will be released on 30 July, two days before August, the 8th month.
• This year’s Lantern Rite involves something known as the Seven-and-Eight Gate Array.
• The Eight Adepts include the Lone Butterfly, which was the only one to sacrifice herself.
• The CWoF domain had its challenges renamed to “Roaring Fire” in 4.8.
• There are at least eight members of the Hexenzirkel, and one of them has died.
• Capitano may be resurrected in Khaenriah, 3 regions after Natlan, fitting his three nails constellation.

Conclusion: Signora may become playable in 5.8 or 6.x

Given how there’s still the mysterious 17th character, the existence of version 5.8, and the resurrection plot hasn’t happened yet, that leads me to this conclusion: Signora may be resurrected in 5.8, in the Mare Jivari interlude chapter, and become playable in either the second half or 6.x.

Hoyo has officially confirmed that Skirk and Dahlia will be in 5.7, along with a Dainsleif act, so the 17th character will definitely show up in 5.8 instead. If she doesn’t immediately become playable, then having her banner in 6.x would be quite fitting as we’ll definitely be focusing on the Fatui and the new factions in there (the Lightkeepers, Frostmoon Scions, Voynich Guild, the Wild Hunt).

As for how she will get resurrected? I’m not sure. Hoyo is known for overly complicating things, but my theory is that it may involve her remnants merging back into the CWoF. Remember that her artifact description mentions that she “sacrificed her mortal body to become the embodiment of liquid fire herself”, which means that she’s an elemental being rather than a normal human, and was the reason why she was able to live for 500 years. This means that Hoyo can pull some esoteric narratives that only those who are into her lore would immediately get, or something similar.

We will see whether my predictions are correct when 5.8 betas come out. It would be incredibly exciting if this turns out to be correct and I was able to predict that the missing 17th character was no coincidence. However, if this turns out to be false, then I’m willing to lose some of my dignity, because at the end of the day, these are just educated guesses, and even the so-called “leakers” get things wrong all the time because many of them aren’t really leaking things, but rather just making some educated guesses like I do (take the Madame Ping in 5.3 “leaks” for example, or the early Natlan “leaks”).

I might be hyped up over nothing… or I might have done a 200 IQ move and predicted this would happen all along, like some kind of 4D Pierro’s or Hexenzirkel’s chess.

I hope this post has brought back your faith and optimism in Signora’s return and playability. Keep the conversation going, because who knows if Hoyo listens to its customers and decides to undo their mistakes and set things right. When the time comes, everyone deserves to have their C6 Signora on their account, even those who actively oppose her return and her fans.

It turns out that most, if not all, pseudocylindrical and similar types of maps can be interrupted. NASA’s G-Projector software supports interruptions of some pseudocylindrical projections (Goode homolosine, Mollweide, Sinusoidal) but unfortunately doesn’t offer it for most other pseudocylindrical projections. For example, the McBryde P3, which is based on Craster parabolic projection can be interrupted (and is in interrupted format by default), but the original parabolic projection itself can’t.

I looked up for a way to interrupt these projections myself and found this answer on Stack Exchange. It basically requires an image editing tool (I used Photoshop) and a bit of patience. I’ll just put it here for convenience:

If you look at a random example of the interrupted sinusoidal, each perfectly vertical meridian corresponds to a single sinusoidal projection.

For that example, you’re looking at sinusoidals centered on longitudes: -160,-100,-60, …

Then, cut and shift the parts to line up: The bottom left part is composed of longitudes -180..-100 and latitudes 0..-90, and projected with a center longitude of -160. The next part is longitudes -180..-40 and latitudes 0..90, projected w/ a center of -100. And so on (the example I linked was pretty intricate & there might be funny business going on in Russia; it doesn’t look like a vanilla sinusoidal there).

It doesn’t have to be sinusoidal; any pseudocylindrical, lenticular and other similar projections can be used, such as the Robinson or Hammer projection. However, it’s best to use a projection that has a straight equatorial line to make it easier to cut the north and south parts. The projection also doesn’t need to be equal area; while most of the commonly used interrupted projections are equal area (e.g. Goode homolosine), compromise projections (e.g. Winkel tripel) can still be used, resulting in an even more minimum-error map.

The rule of thumb is, if both the central parallel and meridian are straight, and the widest part of the projection is on the center, then it’s most likely interruptible.

Before proceeding to the manually created examples, let’s see all the projections that can be interrupted by G.Projector.

G.Projector interrupted maps

Boggs eumorphic

The Boggs eumorphic projection is an arithmetic mean of the sinusoidal and Mollweide projections. The difference between this projection and the Goode homolosine is that this one is an average of the two projections, while the latter is simply a fusion of them.

The name “eumorphic” means “good shape”

Baker dinomic

The Baker dinomic projection is a fusion of the Mercator and sinusoidal projections at 45°, with interruptions only on the sinusoidal projection.

Goode homolosine

The Goode homolosine is a fusion of the sinusoidal and Mollweide projections at 40°44’11.98’’ (approx. 40.737°). The projection was originally copyrighted but then expired, because it’s not possible to copyright mathematical designs in the US, map projections included.

The name itself is a portmanteau of “homolographic” (Mollweide’s alternative name) and “sine”.

Oddly enough, the Goode homolosine uses the uninterrupted format by default despite it being rarely shown that way.

McBryde projections

F. Webster McBryde developed a series of equal-area projections for use in interrupted maps. These projections are patented, but the equations are publicly available, owing to the inability of copyrighting mathematical designs in the US. G.Projector offers all of them in the software, and they use McBryde’s landmasses interruption patterns by default, although other interruption methods (including the McBryde oceans interruptions) and uninterrupted maps are available.

An older projection series also exists under the name of McBryde-Thomas flat polar projections.

The following maps use Goode’s interruption patterns for consistency.

McBryde P3

The McBryde P3 is a fusion of the Craster parabolic (hence the P designation) and McBryde-Thomas flat polar parabolic projections at 49°20’ (approx. 49.333°)

While this projection contains portions of the Craster parabolic projection and can be interrupted in G.Projector, the original Craster parabolic itself can’t, for some reason.

McBryde Q3

The McBryde Q3 is a fusion of the quartic authalic (Q designation) and McBryde-Thomas flat polar quartic projections at 52°09’ (52.15°).

McBryde S2

The McBryde S2 is a fusion of the sinusoidal (S designation) and Eckert VI at 49°16’ (approx. 49.267°).

McBryde S3

The McBryde S3 is a fusion of the sinusoidal and McBryde-Thomas flat-polar sinusoidal at 55°51’ (55.85°). Interestingly, whoever wrote the G.Projector user’s manual doesn’t seem to know the second projection of this, replacing it with “???” instead.

McBryde-Thomas flat polar parabolic

McBryde-Thomas flat polar quartic

McBryde-Thomas flat polar sinusoidal

Mollweide

The Mollweide

For some reason, this projection is interrupted by default, using Goode’s interruption patterns (i.e. the Goode interrupted Mollweide). This projection is normally presented in an uninterrupted format, and it’s rather weird that the developers of the software chose the interrupted one as the default.

Quartic authalic

The quartic authalic projection is an equal area projection first invented by Karl Siemon in 1937 under the name of Siemon III, but was reintroduced by Oscar S. Adams in 1944, commenting that “as far as we know, no such projection has been heretofore proposed.” It was named so due to its fourth-order curves.

Siemon IV

The Siemon IV projection is a modification of the quartic authalic with axes adjusted to a 2:1 ratio by dividing x-values and multiplying y-values by 1.05391.

Sinusoidal

Examples of manually interrupted maps

Craster parabolic

Equal Earth

The Equal Earth projection is a new pseudocylindrical equal-area projection designed by Bojan Savric, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny in 2018, and was inspired by the Eckert IV and Robinson projection. It was made in response to the adoption of the Gall-Peters map by Boston public schools and serves as a visually appealing alternative to it.

This example uses the Goode interruption pattern (displayed as “Interrupted: Continents” in G.Projector), but any interruptions can be used.

Interrupting this map reveals a substantial vertical stretching on low- and mid-latitude regions.

Fahey

The Fahey projection is a modification of the cylindrical stereographic projection designed by Lawrence Fahey in 1975. The parallels are spaced for a Gall stereographic based on a cylinder secant at about 35° instead of 45°, making it closer to the less-known BSAM cylindrical, which uses a standard parallel of 30°.

This example uses the Baker interruption pattern, which is used for the Baker dinomic projection.

Foucaut stereographic equivalent

The Foucaut stereographic equivalent is a novelty equal-area map projection, named so because the spacing of the parallels along the central meridian is the same as that of the equatorial stereographic azimuthal projection (or of Braun’s stereographic cylindrical). It has very sharp poles and much more extreme shearing in the polar regions than that of the sinusoidal, so it’s essentially useless for general-purpose maps.

The Foucaut stereographic equivalent projection with Goode interruption pattern. Clearly, not even interruptions can help save this map from being really distorted.

Larrivee

The Larrivee projection somewhat resembles Van der Grinten I in terms of maintaining distortions but has somewhat less distortion and no circular arcs. The poles are also of curved lines.

The Larrivee projection with McBryde interruption pattern. Because the poles are curved inwards, each lobes have different pole sizes.

Loximuthal

The loximuthal projection is a compromise projection that was designed so that straight lines from a chosen center are loxodromes or rhumb lines of true length, path, and direction from the center. Its reference (central) latitude is adjustable to the user’s needs.

The easiest method of interrupting a loximuthal projection is to set the reference latitude at the equator, which makes it look similar to the Bordone oval projection. Setting the reference latitude to anything other than 0 degrees will cause the interrupted maps to overlap, requiring some readjustments to make it look right (that is, using the negative reference latitude as the interruption center.

The "Bordone oval" loximuthal projection, with Goode interruption pattern.

This is what happens if you try to interrupt a loximuthal projection that isn't centered on the equator. Notice the odd curves at the lower portions of the map. Fixing this requires readjusting the interruption center, which should be at 45 degrees south in this case.

Kavrayskiy VII

The Kavrayskiy VII projection is a minimum-error compromise pseudocylindrical projection. It balances areal and angular distortions to an acceptable level, just like Robinson and Winkel tripel. However, it’s very rarely used outside of Russia and former Soviet Union countries.

Compared to Robinson and Winkel tripel, Kavrayskiy VII has very simple equations, which is amazing considering how it’s on par with those two projection in reducing distortions.

Mayr

The Mayr projection is a pseudocylindrical equal-area projection. The computation of one of Mayr’s projection equations depends on the solution of an elliptical integral, which likely contributes to its minimal use today (such things are supposedly slow to calculate on computers). In 2008, Ipbuker has proposed alternative solutions to generate it, utilizing analytical expressions.

Ortelius oval

I know that literally no one uses this very old projection, but this one is interesting because although it appears to be a pseudocylindrical projection, it doesn’t qualify as one because the meridians are not equally spaced along the parallels, so it doesn’t belong to any common types of projection. If I had to name what kind of projection this is, I’d say it’s a “pseudopseudocylindrical projection”.

This actually looks pretty neat for an obsolete projection.

Van der Grinten I

The Van der Grinten is a compromise projection with a circular shape, used by the Nat Geo from 1922 to 1988, when it was replaced by the Robinson projection. It was designed to combine the appearance of Mercator while having a rounded shape like Mollweide. This projection is normally cropped near the poles on world maps due to its extreme distortion there, although it’s able to show the entire world.

A circular projection that’s actually conformal exists, and is named the Lambert-Lagrange projection, which was apparently developed earlier than Van der Grinten, although it was unfortunately never popular, and is such an underrated projection. If I were to choose between Van der Grinten and Lambert-Lagrange, I’d definitely pick the latter due to its ability to show the entire world while maintaining conformality just like Mercator, which makes it superior. It’s essentially the Van der Grinten successor that never was.

The Van der Grinten projection with McBryde interruption pattern. It does help make the map slightly more "conformal".

Winkel tripel

Here’s something you might have been waiting for: the Winkel tripel projection, now in interrupted form. If you like Nat Geo’s preferred compromise projection, you better see this.

Looks nice.

Robinson

Another excellent minimum-error projection in interrupted form. To be honest it looks better than the interrupted Winkel tripel.

I prefer Robinson because it's got less vertical stretching on the low- and mid-latitude regions

Other projections that are interruptible

Azimuthal equidistant projection

Azimuthal equidistant is the only azimuthal projection that can be interrupted. This comes at the cost of having more severe stretching on regions farther from the center.

Other azimuthal projections can’t be interrupted because the spacing between each meridians aren’t equal.

An interrupted azimuthal equidistant projection with Goode interruption pattern.

Polyconic projections

Polyconic projections can be interrupted and might slightly resemble the interrupted azimuthal equidistant projection in certain cases. It also suffers from extreme stretching on regions farther from the center. An advantage of interrupted polyconic projections over the azimuthal projections is that the regions near the central meridian of such projections usually have little to no distortions—a trait found on the sinusoidal projection—which allow for creation of minimum error gore maps suitable for making globes. The American polyconic is an example of a projection having such traits.

An interrupted American Polyconic projection, with Goode interruption pattern. Notice the severe distortions along the eastern hemisphere and the extreme stretching of the northern portions of Borneo, Sumatra and Celebes.

Other examples of interrupted polyconic projections are presented below.

Maurer SNo. 160 “Apparent Globular”

The Maurer Apparent Globular projection is one of the three polyconic projections presented by Hans Maurer. Unlike the American Polyconic projection, the Apparent Globular projection can be used to map the entire world without introducing severe distortions.

Canters W20

The Canters W20 projection is a polyconic projection introduced by Frank Canters in 2002.

It turns out it’s actually quite easy to make pseudoazimuthal projections without the knowledge of making the equations for it. They are made by halving the longitudes, projecting it to an azimuthal projection, and stretching the result into a 2:1 ellipse. Using an image editor and map projection software, one can do the following to get the same results:

1. Using an image editor, compress an equirectangular world map into a 1:1 square, and then edit the canvas size so that the width is twice the height of it again. This is done to avoid the projection software from correcting the map’s aspect ratio.
2. Project the equirectangular map with an azimuthal projection and limit the projection range to a hemisphere. This is not possible with gnomonic or vertical perspective projections, meaning that they won’t show the entire world.
3. Stretch the result so the width becomes twice the height of the image again, and you’re done.

The only drawbacks of using this method are you won’t get to know the equations, everything has to be done manually, and you can’t get a visualization for the distortion patterns of the projections.

Airy pseudoazimuthal

The Airy projection is a minimum-error azimuthal projection designed to minimize areal and angular distortions.

Quoting from Snyder’s “Flattening the Earth” book:

[Airy] approached the development of his projection with a goal of having a minimum “total evil” determined by what he called “Balance of Errors”. His “Projection by Balance of Errors” is neither perspective, conformal, nor equal-area, but it is a compromise appearing very much like the azimuthal equidistant projection, especially if limited to about one hemisphere. Airy’s specific approach was to minimize the sum of the squares of the erors in scale both along and perpendicular to the radii from the center of projection. For the polar aspect, these measurements are along meridians and parallels, respectively.

I’m not really sure if the pseudoazimuthal version is also good enough in minimizing distortions, but it’s definitely a compromise projection.

Breusing geometric pseudoazimuthal

The Breusing geometric projection is another minimum-error azimuthal projection. It balances the shape distortion of the azimuthal equal-area projection and the area distortion of the conformal stereographic projection by using for a given point a radius from the projection center equal to the geometric mean of the radii as calculated for these two projections.

Breusing harmonic pseudoazimuthal

The Breusing harmonic projection is a modification of the Breusing geometric, named so because it uses the harmonic mean of the same base projections as those used by Breusing for his geometric mean, namely, the stereographic and the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projections. In appearance, it strongly resembles the Airy projection.

Gott-Mugnolo pseudoazimuthal

The Gott-Mugnolo azimuthal projection was designed to minimize distance errors. It is based on the azimuthal equal area projection, so the end result looks rather similar to the Hammer projection, but is a compromise projection.

Pseudognomonic

The gnomonic projection can only show less than a hemisphere, and forcing it to go very close to it will cause severe distortions. It’s still possible to create a local or regional map with this though.

The pseudognomonic projection showing a half of the world. Distortions are still acceptable at this scale.

The pseudognomonic projection showing two-thirds of the world. Distortions start to become noticeable at this scale.

The pseudognomonic projection showing 17/18th (around 94.4%) of the world. At this point, the distortions are so extreme that the map is practically useless and ridiculous.

Pseudorthographic

This was developed by Daniel Strebe (developer of Geocart) in 2016, so you might find the equations there. I made this thing manually though since Geocart is expensive as hell.

It’s able to show the entire world because an orthographic projection projects the earth from an infinite distance, which means it’s able to show a whole hemisphere, which is exactly what’s needed to create the pseudoazimuthal projection.

The projection looks pretty awful though, so I don’t see any reasons for anyone to use this. Landmasses near the center of the map are significantly inflated, while those on the edge of the map are shrunk down and barely noticeable. It also loses the common purpose of having an orthographic map in the first place: to simulate a globe.

Pseudostereographic

This was developed by Justin Kunimune in 2017 and is available in his Map Designer software. He described it as “the next logical step after Aitoff and Hammer”. Despite being based on the stereographic projection, which is conformal, the resulting map isn’t. However, the angular deformations are somewhat more controlled here at the cost of having a much higher areal distortion than Aitoff or Hammer.

Because this projection exists in the Map Analyzer/Designer software he made, the distortion patterns can be visualized with it.

This one was made using Map Designer instead of by hand.

Distortion comparison of the pseudostereographic (left) and Aitoff (right) projections.

Wiechel ellipse

The Wiechel pseudoazimuthal projection is a modification of the azimuthal equal-area projection in an attempt to make it both equal-area and equidistant. It essentially looks like a pinwheel and has some severe angular deformations because of it. Turning this into a Hammer-like map may probably still retain its area equivalence, at the cost of losing its equidistant properties and terrible angular deformations, so it’s more of a novelty.

I don’t wanna say “Wiechel pseudoazimuthal” for this modified version because the original one is already a pseudoazimuthal projection.

Bonus: Logarithmic pseudoazimuthal

The logarithmic azimuthal is based on the azimuthal equidistant projection, designed to magnify the central portion of the map. It can also be used humorously by blowing up the central portion excessively.

The logarithmic pseudoazimuthal projection with a cental scaling of 5.

Who says you can't have fun with map projections?

AuthaGraph

Top: The official AuthaGraph map
Above: The projection's clone applied to a silhouette map of the Earth

Pros:

• Minimum-error projection: balances out areal and angular distortions to an acceptable degree.
• Good placement of landmasses to avoid severe distortions.
• Won the Japanese Good Design Grand Award in 2016.
• Probably the most well-known tetrahedral projection out of all after it took the media by storm.

Cons:

• Its equations is proprietary and has never been published anywhere, requiring people to resort to alternatives such as its reverse-engineered clone to make similar maps.
  • Because of this, it’s impossible to use the original projection in any GIS software.
  • Not only that, every single image of this projection on the internet uses THE SAME SHITTY LOW-RESOLUTION POLITICAL MAP, WHICH IS THE ONLY MAP THEY WERE WILLING TO PUBLISH ON THEIR WEBSITE (see above). UPDATE: I’ve managed to find a high resolution image of the map. See here.
• Landmasses such as Australia or Brazil look weird with this projection despite the its minimum-error properties.
• Compromise projection means that it’s not really equal-area as it name claims it to be.

Lee tetrahedral

Pros:

• One of the best conformal projections: preserves angles locally while maintaining area proportions relatively well unlike most conformal projections. A good configuration of the map can yield results where most landmasses avoid touching the singularities, where its conformality is lost and distortions are the worst.
  • The AuthaGraph-like configuration is a good example of this.
• Unlike most conformal projections, it’s possible to show the entire world with this projection, and it tessellates too.
• Generally looks more appealing than compromise or equal-area tetrahedral projections due to its angle-preserving nature, and landmasses look more “normal”.

Cons:

• Higher area distortion than compromise projections, although this is to be expected.
  • This causes Western Australia to appear noticeably inflated.
• As with most conformal projections, singularities do exist on the edges of the map.

van Leeuwen

Pros:

• Equal-area: absolutely no areal distortions unlike AuthaGraph.
• Using the AuthaGraph-like configuration also yield pretty good results to minimize its angular distortions.

Cons:

• Severe angular deformations are noticeable with this projection, though this is to be expected due to its authalic properties.
• Landmasses look even weirder than AuthaGraph because of this.

Kunimune’s “EquaHedral”

Pros:

• Interrupted equal-area: Minimizes distortions that is caused by its area equivalence properties, resulting in a better looking map than van Leeuwen.
• Customizable: Sinus length can be adjusted.

Cons:

• Interruptions make it difficult to measure distances in certain cases, and can slice up landmasses.
• Its best configuration with sinus length of 42 isn’t compatible with the AuthaGraph-like positioning of landmasses, since it slices up Brazil, Russia, and Indonesia.

Kunimune’s “TetraGraph”

Back in 2016, the AuthaGraph projection took the media by storm when it was awarded Japan’s Good Design Grand Award. News outlets claim it to be “the most accurate ever” or any other sensational claims. However, I feel like this projection is severely overrated and all those media have blown this news out of proportion, and I’m here to show you why.

Its equations have never been published

Mr. Narukawa keeps the equations to make the AuthaGraph projection a trade secret. It’s never been published anywhere, and he doesn’t need to, because he sees it as a fairly profitable business. With its equations being kept proprietary, applications of this projection in GIS software is impossible, and people who wants a map in this projection must buy it from him.

I don’t get why anyone would do this, considering that not even something like the authors of Van der Grinten (in which it used to be patented) or Dymaxion projection (in which the name was trademarked) hide their methods of projection. They all either publish their equations somewhere or show in full detail how to make one. Meanwhile, AuthaGraph only has a really vague explanation on their webpage, which isn’t very useful, so people can’t really try to make one properly.

It’s not even a new projection

The AuthaGraph projection has been around since 1999, but only managed to gain some attention in 2016, when it was awarded the Japan Good Design Grand Award. This means that even after 20 years of this projection’s existence, Mr. Narukawa doesn’t want to reveal the equations to create it just yet.

There’s a better tetrahedral projection that is conformal and visually more appealing

AuthaGraph isn’t the only tetrahedral projection out there, of course. In my opinion, the Lee tetrahedral projection is way better than it. Because it’s a conformal projection, the shapes of the continents don’t look weird unlike it does in AuthaGraph, since it preserves angles locally.

Not only that, it also maintains area proportions pretty well for a conformal projection. You see, conformal projections are notorious for its terrible areal distortions they usually have, but not with this one, since it’s polyhedral and you can configure it so that most, if not all of the continents avoid the regions where distortions are the worst (i.e. the singularities). Any tetrahedral projections can be configured to look like AuthaGraph, including this one, so you can have both the conformality of this projection and the cleverly-done region placements of AuthaGraph at the same time.

The Lee tetrahedral projection with Authagraph-like configuration.

The AuthaGraph name is misleading, because it’s NOT an equal-area (authalic) projection

AuthaGraph’s name was derived from “authalic” (which means equal-area) and “-graph”. However, an analysis of a reverse-engineered version of this projection shows that it’s not equal-area, but rather a compromise projection. Equal-area tetrahedral projections do exist, such as the van Leeuwen projection, but not this one.