The Eleven Fatui Harbingers and their relation to Italian Theatre Play

It’s not entirely uncommon for video game to borrow inspiration from aspects of real life, it could be said the same with the recent reveal of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers from Genshin Impact.

Ever since the Venti shanking incident and the introduction to La Signora, fans have been anticipating their reveal. And with each introduction of the regions, it seems that more and more information regarding the Fatui are slowly being released.

In Liyue, we were introduced to Childe and with the addition of Inazuma, we got to know more about Scaramouche.

It is until recently that the rest of Eleven Fatui Harbingers and their own code names have finally been revealed to be inspired by the “Commedia dell’arte”, which is a type of Italian Theatre play that was popular between the 16th and 18th century in Europe.

Who are the Eleven Fatui Harbingers?

For those of you who are unaware, the Eleven Fatui Harbingers are the highest rankings of executive officers for the Fatui, as well as the acting lieutenants of the Cryo Archon – Tsaritsa who are given absolute authority.

Each members of the Harbingers have their abilities enhanced by the Delusion which are Vision-like objects granted by Tsaritsa, making them stronger than your average allogenes.

The Harbingers each have their own designated divisions within the Fatui that they command over.

What is Commedia dell’arte?

The Commedia dell’arte features a cast of Masked characters who are represented by fixed social types and stereotypical characters such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado, and its plot of its plays were often borrowed from the classical literary tradition of the commedia erudite, or literary drama.

This type of play can be compared to modern day comedy sitcoms where they have a certain cast of character stereotypes like the nerds or the jocks, where the characters go about dealing with conflicts in an episode.

The “Masked” Characters

According to the official Chinese Mihoyo website, we have confirmation of  each of the Fatui Harbinger member’s title as well as their respective voice actors/actresses.

Thanks to twitter user @EmanatingAuras, we have some information on each of the fatui’s lore.

Pierro

The first fatui harbinger that was shown in the trailer is known to be Pierro, and they go by the title “The Jester”.

Solemn and serious, Pierro is the first of the Fatui Harbinger and also the Founder of the Fatui, who likely hails from the nation without a god, the Kingdom of Khaenri’ah. Pierro is also seen to wear a mask that bears a slight visual similarity to the Bloodstained Knight.

In the Commedia dell’arte play, the Jester is portrayed as the sad clown, and his defining characteristics are that he is seen as a fool, often the butt of the jokes, yet trust-worthy.

The Jester has shown love interest with Columbina but was denied as Columbina got together with Harlequin instead.

Arlecchino

Arlecchino or “The Knave” may seem cold and harsh at first glance,  but they are empathetic towards the late Rosalyne and her children. This trait is further emphasised with them running the orphanage “House of the Hearth” which takes in orphaned kids into the Fatui,

Arlecchino whose patronymic surname are “Snezhevich” or “Snezhevna” which is translated to either Son / Daughter of Snow.

For the play, the Knaves is also known as the Harlequin who is characterised by their chequered costume, their role is that of a light-hearted, nimble and an astute servant, who also pursues their own love interest, Columbina.

Sandrone

Sandrone, or “The Puppet”, whose personality seems to be of few words and detached from conversation. It also seems that she had refurbished Ruin Guard technology to act as her personal servant, which was similar to Lumine during the “We Will be Reunited” trailer.

In the plays, Sandrone is represented as a peasant who is described as crude, clever and cunning. They are also the spokesman of a humble people who have been ill-treated, eternally hungry as well as using tricks to make ends meet.

Columbina

Making her first ever appearance in Teyvat, “The Lady” or Columbina has not been shown anywhere in Genshin Impact, so we have no other concrete information outside of that.

But in terms of the play, Columbina is the wife of Pierrot and Harlequin’s mistress, she is the personification of the tricky slave archetype who are people of lower class but are clever, who brings about the happy ending of a comedy for the lovers.

Pulcinella

The fifth of the Fatui Harbinger, Pulcinella or “The Rooster” was personally involved with the induction of Childe into the Fatui. Pulcinella seems to be a snobby realist by his cold and calculative personality, he won’t blink twice if sacrifices need to be made if it’s all for a greater cause.

He is also referred to as “Mayor” by Pantalone as we can see that he issued the order to stop working for half

Pulcinella in the plays have a dualistic character personality where he either plays dumb, though much aware of the situation. Or he acts as though he is the most intelligent and competent, despite being woefully ignorant of the actual situation.

It can be seen that Pulcinella’s character design also takes inspiration from the Pulcinella in the plays as the distinguishable long nose feature is kept for the Genshin variant.

Pantalone

Pantalone or “Regrator” is the ninth of the Fatui Harbinger and is also the one that controls Snezhnaya’s finances.

Mild-mannered yet malicious, Pantalone desires to control the economic sector of Teyvat via Liyue.

Pantalone was characterized with being obsessed with their financial gains to the point of having emotional extremes if things don’t go their way in the plays. He is considered to be sinister and often treats his fellows inhumanely.

Capitano

According to the tweet by EminatingAura, “The Captain” or Capitano was mentioned briefly by the Fatui Diplomat – Viktor as “preferable” to Scaramouche.

In the trailer, Capitano had voiced their disapproval to La Signora’s methods which shows that they are probably very goal-orientated based on his dialogue in the trailer where he seems to be either in charge or interested in the progress on the acquisition of the Gnosis.

Capitano in the plays is characterised as someone who brags and swaggers a lot who talks at length about made-up conquests in an attempt to impress others but in the end only impressing himself.

Dottore

The Fatui Harbinger that was first appeared in the Genshin Impact manga, Dottore was seen to be conducting human experimentation in the search for a perfect being.

He once attended the Sumeru Academia, and is seen to be in pursuit of technological perfection.

In the plays, Dottore or “The Doctor” was seen as a person who was obese, who is fond of food and drink, most notably chocolate. He was also fond of girls, however was extremely untruthful and gets caught cheating several times.

It’s also worth noting that the Mask that Dottore has in Genshin Impact bears a lot of similarity to the actual mask that Dottore wears in Commedia dell’arte plays.

Tartaglia

The wolf in sheep’s clothing, Tartaglia or as we know him as Childe, he is one of the youngest among the Eleven Fatui Harbingers. First appeared in Liyue, Tartaglia is lives for the thrill of battle, and the rush he gets from it.

Known as “The Stutterer” in the plays, he is farsighted and has minor stutters when speaking, hence the name. He is often represented as one of the group of old characters who appears in many scenarios as one of the lovers.

La Signora

Seen as one of the antagonist of the Archon Quests, La Signora also known as Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter is the eighth of the Fatui Harbingers.

La Signora was the one that managed to steal Venti’s Gnosis back in Mondstadt when we were first introduced to her and was met in her eventual demise after being executed by Raiden Shogun after losing a duel to the Traveler.

Known as “The Lady” in the plays, she is the wife of Pantalone who is described as a tough, beautiful and calculating person. She often wears wide dresses and have heavy makeup, she has a tendency to wrangle her way into the household of any man.

Scaramouche

Sixth of the Fatui Harbingers, Scaramouche was introduced as the main antagonist of the Unreconciled Stars event.

According to rumours that were heard by Viktor, Scaramouche wasn’t well-liked as he has a disagreeable personality, making him difficult to get along.

After obtaining the Gnosis and the events that led to La Signora’s death, Scaramouche cut off contact with the Fatui, causing them to believe that he had gone rogue.

Titled as “Little Skirmisher” in the plays, Scaramouche tends to influence his audiences to do his bidding. He is often beaten by Harlequin for his boasting nature and cowardice.

Now that we have more context over the inspirations of the titles of the Harbingers, it’s super interesting to see some form of relevancy towards each of the member’s design or personality in comparison to their theatrical play counterparts.

It’s also really cool to see how well received the reception was of the revelation of the new Harbingers as my twitter feed were bombarded by so many good fan art of the members.

Here are some of the amazing fan art that I could find for each of the new members of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers:

That is all that we could gather on the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, for more information, do check out the official Genshin Impact website.

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Genshin Impact

Publisher: miHoYo

Developer: miHoYo

Release Date: 2020-09-28

Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

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