The appeal of Arlechi is the fact that I feel like I’m watching their relationship develop on screen and it feels plot relevant… mostly the plot relevant part, just taking off my shipping lense it’s interesting.
They’re interesting and I’m going to yap about it and I might divulge into another topic but that’s my bad. I’m not proofreading because I’ve already wrote too much.
It’s this… they’re too similar, like characters can be similar it happens but its the fact they’re similar and in close proximity. You usually want to avoid making characters similar especially in that regard unless it’s to make a point. However I suppose I’m specifically talking about their care for their families. It’s a focal point to their relationship because at least when they meet it’s the main concern he has for her, you could even argue that his criticism of her loyalty in the Tsaritsa could be simply because he knows what she did and how she got in and if someone could kill their mother then are they really capable of being loyal to anyone at all?
And then when what he believes is put into question and that what he’s absorbed from Pulcinella might not be the full truth or barely true at all it’s… kinda funny
(I have their entire conversation screenshot don’t talk to me about it)
What I find it funny how she only gives him a look when he says ‘at least… that’s what I heard’ because it’s one thing for Tartaglia to be all up and arms about it. She obviously doesn’t particularly care what he thinks of her but she seems to care a lot about what Pulcinella is saying to make others look at her a certain way. ‘I like when people have misconceptions of me’ wrong you like when you have control over the misconceptions. Its one thing if she gave off the impression to him, its another when someone else does it for her. She of course states otherwise but at least for me her wording felt like a ‘making the best of a bad situation’ because she can use that misconception but also it’s sort of out of her hands if it’s Pulcinella talking about her.
Either way that’s off topic
It’s the fact that at their core they hold something similar of value. It’s part of their conversation. Family is a key aspect of their characters although for Arlecchino it seems to be a driving motivation for what she does whilst for Tartaglia it’s treated more as a hinderance to his dangerous potential. Not in a negative way, simply that his family existing is a roadblock. He can’t throw it all away just yet because he has little sibs to think about. Wether it drives them forward or keeps them grounded, it’s one of the most important things to them.
And Tartaglia hates her guts.
That’s the part that always got me. From the beginning before everything I was always curious on why he specifically hated her, especially when he seems to have pretty neutral opinions on characters like Dottore who are objectively way worse individuals. From what I understand, it seems to be a one sided conflict born of misunderstanding of family values but more than that it reeks of cult isolation tatics… and that’s what I’m gonna talk about because ever since 4.6 dropped its been on my mind.
From what we’ve seen of the two together, whilst they have their reservations born simply because their harbingers, they get along fine. You could argue from that singular conversation alone they get along a lot better than most of the other harbingers seem to get along. It’s not necessarily that they like each other, but their personalities, goals, desires, and interests simply align better. Which makes it even more interesting that out of every single harbinger he hates her.
Arlecchino as a harbinger is very disconnected. Although she ranks high, it’s a position it seems she was cornered into rather than an illusion of choice, and the only two harbingers she states she was acquainted with were Signora who’s dead now and Pierro… who we don’t know much about so I can’t exactly say but seems disconnected from the rest of the Fatui anyways, he’s busy. She does her job and she does it well but others can tell that she’s dangerous in her lack of loyalty towards the cause of the Fatui, and the danger that comes with an uncontrollable member and her army of children who would do absolutely anything for her.
Anyways, Arlecchino always seemed to be isolated from the rest and at the same time they’re trying to force her into line. I mean in The Final Feast when they show off her in game model she stands in the center whilst the rest of the harbingers stand around her… With that in mind, we also have Pulcinella telling Tartaglia about her. It’s not that what he says is wrong, it’s that there’s deliberate details left out, details that would make an individual sympathize and maybe think about it from their perspective. Instead what Pulcinella does is not only turn Tartaglia against her, but effectively keeps him from the one harbinger that might have the capacity to understand him.
In her own voiceline she voices concern for his involvement and believes that his personality isn’t fit for that of being a harbinger, whilst at the same time acknowledging his talent and how he has lots of room to grow. Which implies to me that she has the capacity to understand him and then that mixed with what the rest of the harbinger might believe are Arlecchino’s threatening ideologies like… thinking the Tsaritsa isn’t all that, perhaps it’s the idea she could pull him onto her side and have more influence on him than they’d like. That’s just my theory though, I’ve always been a ‘Arlecchino’s is going to ditch the Fatui and she’s dragging someone with her’ kinda person. (It’s an old theory)
And that’s just all the in game stuff. In a meta sense ever since they interacted hoyoverse has been throwing Tartaglia into all of the arlecchino merch it’s nuts. Like count the merch arlecchino has with Clervie and then count the merch Co she has with Childe… the fact that it might be the same number is already crazy to me. Ofc in a meta sense it’s more of an excuse to keep selling Tartaglia merch but like… they could’ve just done that, why is he suddenly part of the family lol.
It’s like he finally talked to the one person he couldn’t stand in a scenario where he isn’t being watched by his vulture coworkers and not being told what to believe for once and suddenly goes
“I guess she’s isn’t an evil piece of shit… wow.”
Shipping lenses back on
I fucking adore these two characters so much, they’re my absolute favs and they make me ill and I think they’re relationship is relevant in a sense that Tartaglia might get a genuine fucking ally. I feel like everyone in the Fatui is working against him, and I feel like now that Signora is dead Arlecchino is lacking on the Ally front too considering she’s got two harbingers ganging up on her right now lol.
Believe me guys, I’m not crazy
