What do Bayonetta and Charlie B. Barkin have in common? They’re kept alive by a magic watch, and a huge part of their death scenes is the camera’s emphasis on said watch becoming damaged.
The watch has always been important in Bayonetta, by the way. Bayonetta visibly panics a little when Jeanne swipes it in the first game, and in the second game, Rodin outright confirms that a witch’s watch needs to be intact for her to be saved, as is the case with Jeanne. Luka being unable to save Bayonetta in 3 is actually one of the few places where the game doesn’t spit on continuity, because her watch is busted.
If anything, it’s Bayo 2 that should raise all the questions surrounding Bayonetta’s death, because Gomorrah rampages for a different reason in 2 than he does in 3. In 3, it’s obviously because the watch broke, but in 2, it’s supposedly because of Loptr (as evidenced by the angels and demons working together to guard Fimbulventr in Chapter XVI) but never actually explained. (Of course, the Chapter XVI thing could just as easily be a matter of the angels wanting to kill Bayo and the demons wanting to kill Balder, because when has writing ever been a strong suit of this series outside of 1 and 2’s small character-driven moments?)
Actually, the importance of the watch as “the heart of an Umbra Witch” probably should have been explained in the games as well, even if only in a lore document, because there’s far too much about it that neither 2 nor 3 really get into.
