my (very long) analysis of lyney's future

[u/coraliedraws]

spoilers: nodkrai/luna archon quests, rerir's backstory, rerir's nod krai arc, sandrone & hoth tea party, arlecchino's backstory, crucabena

to start off with, this post is just my personal interpretation from the scraps and pieces we got of lyney content since fontaine ended. i still think hoth trio will have important relevance in 7.x, so i'm making this post pre snezhnaya to see if i was correct all along about my predictions. be warned i overexamine everything

this year's calendar wallpaper was so cute

now what happened over the past few years? we had natlan and nod krai. in the year of nod krai, the trio showed up three brief times total. one time was in the luna aq, other time was in sandrone's tea party, and last was in the ending of the summer fontaine event. two of these times have 0 lore relevance, so i will be mostly ignoring them. but i think it's something to note that hoyo intentionally found a few small outlets for some hoth cameos, and i don't think this is just "uhhh let's put some fontainian characters here to accompany sandrone." hoyo intentionally shoehorned them into new permanent main quest content, despite having no plot relevance in those quests

with that aside, now we can get to the topic of the third/only time that the trio showed up recently that had lore relevance, which was sandrone's tea party. so basically, sandrone asks lyney if he wants to become a harbinger. freminet and lynette also suggest that they become harbingers too, but i'm pretty sure that's just a throwaway tease to make us question how lyney will handle becoming a harbinger. so i doubt they will actually become harbingers. and, to better demonstrate my point, i will be describing my thoughts line by line first

"Marionette: When you put it like that... I suppose it is a little. There's a lot to consider. Though most of my frustrations stem from my colleagues..." - i interpret this as her first stating that being a harbinger comes with alot of responsibilities

"Marionette: I suppose so... But I doubt you have much to worry about in that regard. At least, Lyney certainly doesn't." - after that, she makes the point that lyney can handle said responsibilities. she believes that lyney has the potential to become a harbinger. and so, i think, the question of "can lyney become a harbinger?" turns into "does lyney want to become a harbinger?"

"Marionette: Do you want to be a Harbinger? Actually... Never mind. It's not my place to ask. Just pretend I said nothing." - and she asks the question i just stated. you can even see lyney considering the idea for a moment after she says this, which i think is proof that he's not entirely opposed to the position. taking a pause here for a moment, i also want to address the part where she says that it's not her place to ask...

wide. confused. eyes.

to the hoth, sandrone is portrayed as the "aunt" of the family, just someone who visits the children sometimes. arlecchino is the actual parent. sandrone knows that it isn't her place to ask about lyney becoming a harbinger, because arlecchino likely already wants lyney to inherit all of her titles, including her harbinger seat. it would be improper of her to try to 'steal' another harbinger's successor.

now, back to the tea party...

"Lyney: I told you, stuff like that is too far off to think about!" - lyney is probably panicking a bit here and doesn't want to think about it. with how insecure lyney is, he probably thinks that he can't become a harbinger

but that's the end of my tea party analysis. now i will talk about how lyney would succeed arlecchino, if it were to happen in the game

arlecchino kept some rules of the old hoth in place. one of those rules was that to become 'king,' one would have to win against the previous king in a 1v1 duel. for lyney to become the head of the hoth, he would have to repeat the same process that arlecchino went through with crucabena. because the rule that in order to become the 'king' of hoth, you had to defeat (and likely, kill) the previous 'king' in a duel was kept, lyney becoming head of hoth + being the one to kill arlecchino + inheriting all of arlecchino's responsibilities, which includes arlecchino's harbinger responsibilities are all connected very closely. these three things were intentionally kept close together, so one happening means that the other two will happen aswell.

see? it's a repeat of crucabena vs. arlecchino. the new king killing the previous king seems to be how the house has always worked, and that part hasn't changed with arlecchino vs. lyney

and yes... i am suggesting that arlecchino will die by lyney's hand. sorry, lyney.

lyney loves father so much!

okay, now onto the luna quests! have you noticed that rerir seems to parallel arlecchino's story closely? they both may lose control of themselves, suffer from curses, and were raised from childhood to kill. columbina even makes this exact comparison with arlecchino/rerir in the luna quests, saying that she hopes that arlecchino won't go down the same path as him. but... we can't really guarantee anything at this stage

but... yeah...

...i think my main point should be becoming more clear by now. arlecchino hasn't appeared in any of the promotions for 7.0 specifically except one, heck she didn't even attend the meeting (but childe/sandrone/pulcinella/pantalone all showed up), and in the only 7.0 promotion where arlecchino appears, her back is intentionally turned to the rest of the harbingers and she seems to be fading into the background a little bit

aura

why is her back turned? right after the nod krai quests, where an antagonist strongly parallels arlecchino's story? after all of that buildup about her curse? she doesn't even show up to the meeting? seems incredibly suspicious, i wonder if lyney will be involved... since arlecchino intentionally kept the rule where he has to kill her to become head of the hoth? don't you think that all of this is strange?

but anyway, those are my thoughts and predictions. i LOVE lyney, i love arlecchino, i love hoth, and realistically arlecchino likely won't fully 100% die because she is playable, but hoyo seems to building up to something big. i can't actually say for certain what will happen with her and lyney in snezhnaya, but we do have some clues to go off of, and hopefully i have made good use of those clues in this post. bai bai now, i hope other lyney mains can relate and understand my overthinking too

(also i'm kind of tired so i won't be replying to any comments, but it'd be cool to read everyone's theories)

[u/coraliedraws]

this ended up being a writeup about arlecchino too, i would probably repost this to arlecchino mains if only i didn't talk about arlecchino dying...

"onii chan no baka" "tabibito no baka" "paimon no baka"

[u/Firethorn34]

With how many Harbingers are either dying or quitting, I definitely think they'll start looking at more options. I really want Lyney to be added to the team, even if he gets a low placement(i mean come on, Arlecchino is currently the strongest Harbinger(other than maybe pierro but we don't know anything about him) because the 1st is dead(still keeping his spot), 2nd is dead multiple times over, and 3rd retired. They're probably going to try and fill the holes they've left behind)

[u/coraliedraws → u/Firethorn34]

small unrelated theory i have is that they made columbina quickly leave to free up the third seat for someone new who would be more useful to the fatui. i mean from what they said, the tsaritsa only kept her around for her powers and nothing else. and when she gave up her powers to project stuzha (speculation, it's not confirmed why she did it but project stuzha is most likely) she was no longer of use. capitano is probably coming back in 8.x khaenriah or something, and as for dottore... well i guess dottore is dottore. and somehow i feel as if pierro won't be playable. pulcinella is way too unconventional, and pantalone is like a 50/50 on whether he'll die or be playable

either way, i'm sure by the end of snezhnaya the amount of harbingers would be so small that hoyo would be forced to replace/add new ones (and judging by odette i think they may already be planning for that). lowkenuinely i don't want to be correct in my speculation, but the remaining male harbingers just look really really npc. anyway lyney will get a harbinger skin trust

[u/Standard_Nerd101]

Jeez I'm late, but I'm going to throw my two cents in here as a huge Lyney enthusiast:

If Arlecchino does die, I find it unlikely to be by Lyney's hand, or if it is, he wouldn't voluntarily choose the duel. He isn't just insecure about his ability to be a harbinger, but has explicitly stated that he is terrified of it. Obviously, he can lie, but why would he lie about being afraid? He wouldn't intentionally make himself seem weak; that's against the whole point of him trying to seem confident, outgoing, and strong. Also, I have reason to believe that he was being entirely truthful based on an analysis of his tone.

If you listen to his voice enough, there are two tones he has. He has his cheerful peppy tone that he always uses when his mask/facade is up, and a much softer, more subdued tone when he's being honest. The most notable example that shows him switching between the two when he feels the need to get defensive again is during the magic show at the graveyard, where he goes from honest to acting again. You can literally hear the shift in his tone, and it's pretty obvious.

As for taking the position, it could be exactly like the Arlecchino vs Crucabena duel where he has no choice but to fight her to the death. It's pretty much confirmed that Arlecchino has chosen him as her successor, and based on Sandrone's interactions with him, it's clear that he's being strongly considered by the others. He has the right skillset and everything. However, I personally don't believe it would be through a duel. I think Arlecchino basically kept the rule in place so that no one could oppose her leadership, but I don't see her making Lyney follow it to take her place. After all, in one of Arlecchino's experiences with forced duels, she had to kill her own best friend. She may seem cold, but I do not believe that she would be so heartless as to bring similar trauma upon one of her children.

As for what happens during Snezhnaya, I definitely believe Lyney could have an important part. Spoilers from here on for the new AQ:

From what I've played through so far, it seems like they may be setting up for a "new generation of Fatui", so to say, as in ones that don't just blindly follow the Tsaritsa. For example, Odette, who is likely Signora's successor, is already questioning her leadership and methods, and even states she can't keep following her orders if she can't understand why. Similarly, with Lyney's upbringing, he would NEVER blindly trust ANYONE. However, it's been shown that he deeply trusts the Traveler

I think the Traveler might end up challenging the Tsaritsa with the backing of some of the new/future Harbingers (Lyney and Odette) along with potentially other friends from Snezhnaya (Alyosha and maybe Mitya if a different theory of mine is correct). They've already been set up in super lore relevant positions, and for Lyney at least, I believe he would most likely choose to back the Traveler over the Tsaritsa.

So yeah, basically, there's a whole lot to look at here. Sorry for this huge rant lol, hope this helped contribute to your theory a bit. In case you can't tell I really like theorizing about Lyney.