Signora

La Signora, also known as Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter and by her codename "The Fair Lady," was the Eighth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers. She is the first Harbinger to appear in the game and was formerly the Crimson Witch of Flame.
Ultimately, she lost to the Traveler in their duel before the Raiden Shogun's throne and was executed by the Musou no Hitotachi.
==Profile==
As a Fatui Harbinger, Signora possesses great power, both in combat and in diplomatic relations.
Signora wields a Cryo Delusion and can also use fire-based powers.
===Appearance===
Signora is a tall woman with pale skin, platinum-blonde hair, and light gray eyes. Some of her hair is tied into two rose-shaped buns at the back of her head. She wears a black earring on her left ear and a black mask that covers her right eye. She is seen with what appears to be a Catalyst hovering behind her right shoulder.
==Quests and Events==
==Story==
===Life Before the Fatui===
Her origins are unknown, but she lived in Mondstadt roughly 500 years ago. As a maiden, she loved to sing and eventually fell in mutual love with Rostam. She was accepted into Sumeru Akademiya and shortly before she left for her studies, Rostam gave her a special hydro-timepieceEN: Hydro timepiece.CN: Since the Chinese version does not differentiate "water" in a general sense and the element Hydro (both are represented by ), it is not clear whether it was a water-powered timepiece or a Hydro-magic one. to keep track of the amount of time she would be away. She was likely an apprentice studying Pyro magic there, though what means she used to harness Pyro is unknown.Witch's Heart Flames says that the Crimson Witch of Flame turned herself into liquid fire and that the techniques for making liquid fire are now lost. This does not sound like usage of a Pyro Vision.
The cataclysm struck while she was in Sumeru. When she returned, she learned that Rostam had died in battle against the monsters. In her grief and rage, she decided to use "her life's flame" to cleanse "the world's crookedness," becoming the Crimson Witch of Flame. She was rumored to have abandoned her mortal body and instead let liquid fire flow through herself with an art that is now lost to history,EN: "Rumor told of how she sacrificed her mortal body to become the embodiment of liquid fire herself."CN: burning her own face and scarring her body in the process. Although she only burned monsters and demons, she became feared by the people.
===Recruitment into the Fatui===
Before she could be fully devoured by her own flames, Pierro found her and decided to make her an ally. She was given a Cryo Delusion to suppress her flames and became known as La Signora, the Eighth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers. In the process, she willingly cast aside and forgot her past, possibly with the help of her Delusion.Stainless Bloom: "Then, let glacial ice take the place of my erased past [...]";Hellfire Butterfly: "The seal of ice was broken under duress, and as her former will surged forth from its pale white prison and she remembered her old name once more, [...] she remembered her past, [...] she recalled the face of the person she could never meet again";Molten Moment's description contains dream imagery;Funerary Mask: "The Fatui often face the world from behind their masks, and it is said that this is because all they once were mean nothing once they become Fatui, and thus must they forsake their true names and face alike." Though, this is symbolic rather than literal for most Fatui.
===In-Game===
Signora presumably arrived in Mondstadt before the Traveler's arrival; her subordinates, such as Viktor, were placed in various parts of the city and most of them resided in the Goth Grand Hotel, which was rented out by her fellow Harbinger Pantalone. Based on the dialogue of the Fatui Pyro Agent guarding the Holy Lyre der Himmel, she ordered her subordinates to steal it.
Signora makes her first in-person appearance at the end of Act III of the Prologue, after the party successfully restored Dvalin, thwarted the Abyss Order's plans, and returned the Holy Lyre der Himmel. Although Jean believed the Fatui's plans to take Barbatos' power and harm those close to him had been thwarted, this turns out to be far from the truth. Signora was aiming to draw out Barbatos himself, and with his return in the form of Venti, she could now achieve her true objective: taking the Anemo Archon's Gnosis. To that end, she ambushed him and the Traveler outside the Mondstadt Cathedral with her subordinates, overpowering Venti with her Cryo Delusion's powers and letting her subordinates keep the Traveler pinned down. With her objective complete, Signora then departed with her subordinates and left both Venti and the Traveler unconscious, making sure to leave no evidence behind for the Knights of Favonius to conduct a serious investigation on.
At the end of Chapter I, Signora turns out to be the liaison between Zhongli, the Geo Archon Morax, and the Tsaritsa. Tartaglia had been dispatched to Liyue with the impression that he was to defeat Morax and take the Gnosis; however, it was actually part of Zhongli's plan to have Tartaglia cause chaos in Liyue and test the Liyue people and adepti's ability to protect Liyue without his power. Satisfied with the proceedings, Zhongli handed over his Gnosis to Signora as per his contract with the Tsaritsa. With the Gnosis in her possession, she swiftly left alone for Snezhnaya after Tartaglia refused to join her.
When the Traveler arrived in Inazuma, they found themselves stuck in Ritou like many other outlanders until they made contact with Hiiragi Chisato. She revealed that her father and head of the Kanjou Commission, Hiiragi Shinsuke, plotted with an unidentified "arrogant-sounding woman" to keep the Traveler stalled on Ritou. This woman turns out to be Signora, who had arrived at Inazuma with the intent of furthering their Delusion Factory's productions, a job she later handed over to Scaramouche, and obtaining the Raiden Shogun's Gnosis.
The Traveler encountered Signora for a third time within Tenshukaku after following Kujou Sara's rampage, only to find Sara lying defeated at Signora's feet. When the Traveler confronted Signora, the woman flaunts her status as a Snezhnayan diplomat and plays ignorant to all of the Fatui's plots on Inazuma, including the Vision Hunt Decree and the distribution of Delusions to members of the Watatsumi Army, or otherwise dismisses the suffering that the Fatui caused both on Inazuma and in the previous two nations that they had encountered each other in. When Signora suggests that the Traveler could incite the Raiden Shogun's wrath for barging into Tenshukaku, the Traveler challenges Signora to a duel before the throne, which the Raiden Shogun approves. Confident in her ability to defeat the Traveler, Signora accepts.
During the duel, Signora finds her Cryo Delusion too inhibiting and deactivates it, transforming into the Crimson Witch of Embers.The Crimson Witch of Embers is the same person as the Crimson Witch of Flame(s). This is a deliberate title change in all languages; in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, she becomes the .The title change likely indicates the strength of Signora's flames, as her flames have been suppressed for the last 500 years by her Cryo Delusion; her boss description in the Archive indicates that her embers were once flames in both English and Chinese.See Trivia for details as well as a full list of indicators that Signora is the Crimson Witch of Flame. Despite this, she loses the duel, returns to her normal appearance, and falls to her knees, considerably weakened from the fight. As per the rules of the duel, the defeated is formally executed by the Raiden Shogun's Musou no Hitotachi. In the face of her impending doom, Signora loses her cool and flies into hysterics before making a final lunge at the Raiden Shogun, only to be sliced by the Shogun's blade. Signora's body dissolves into ashes, which leaves the Traveler and Paimon greatly shaken.While all beings encountered as enemies disappear upon defeat, beings who are not encountered as enemies, such as those in cutscenes or those who become open world objects, may leave behind a corpse. Signora disintegrates into dust during a cutscene.
It later turns out that Signora's search for the Gnosis was in vain; Yae Miko reveals that Ei had given her the Gnosis centuries ago, after completing the Shogun and before entering the Plane of Euthymia. By the time Signora met the Shogun and dueled the Traveler, Miko had already exchanged the Gnosis for the Traveler's life, which had been at Scaramouche's mercy. Scaramouche, having obtained the "heart" he had long yearned for,In the original Chinese text, the term "Gnosis" is abandoned the Fatui to pursue his own goals.
Signora's death shocked many Fatui, who expressed surprise at her demise. Some of her subordinates in Inazuma remained to exact revenge on the Shogunate, while ones in other nations were recalled to Snezhnaya to await news on who their new commanding Harbinger would be. Meanwhile, some other branches in the Fatui saw Signora's vacancy as an opportunity to promote other Harbingers' agendas, such as with Efim Snezhevich's plan to build Arlecchino's prestige by sabotaging the peace talks between the Shogunate and the Watatsumi forces. In Snezhnaya, the remaining Harbingers arranged her burial and remarked about her demise, with Pulcinella decreeing that the Fatui halt their work for half a day to mourn her passing.
==Character Mentions==
==Trivia==
* English texts consistently use the title "Crimson Witch of Flame(s)" for her name and artifact set.
** On the other hand, the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean versions use the grand title only for her artifact set; for her name, they use a shorter title .
* While there has been no unequivocal confirmation that Signora is the same person as the Crimson Witch of Flame, there are enough similarities between the two that it is unlikely they are different people.
** Signora's boss description in the Archive indicates that her embers were once intense flames in both English and Chinese: .
*** Notably, is used and is similar to the grand title of the Crimson Witch of Flames in Chinese, .
**The English titles "Crimson Witch of Flame(s)" and "Crimson Witch of Embers" are structured too similarly to not be intentional.
** The descriptions of Molten Moment and Hellfire Butterfly say that Signora burned evil and that someone close to her died during a time with "poisoned blood." The Crimson Witch of Flame burned monsters and demons, and Rostam died in Khaenri'ah during the cataclysm.
** The Harbinger recruited in Stainless Bloom was filled with fierce, undying flames that nearly consumed her and were only extinguished with Cryo from the Tsaritsa after meeting Pierro. The Crimson Witch of Flame turned her body into liquid fire, and Ashen Heart and Funerary Mask say that Signora nearly died from her own fire and that she received a Cryo Delusion from Pierro. This is unlikely to be a coincidence. Fires and flames are not typically described as pale, but Signora's dialogue during Duel Before the Throne includes two instances of , and Stainless Bloom is part of the artifact set.
** Molten Moment is nearly identical in shape to the Crimson Witch of Flames flower artifact, Witch's Flower of Blaze. This is notable because unlike other items, all artifact items thus far have been completely unique in shape even when compared to non-artifact items, except for the Prayers circlets (recolors of each other since they're related) and the Initiate and Brave Heart flowers and plumes (same shape, probably because the Initiate set is relatively inconsequential).
* Signora shares the same Chinese voice actress with Eula.
* Signora shares the same Japanese voice actress with Changsheng and Bonanus.
===Etymology===
* "" (The Lady) is a stock character in , a type of Italian theater. In such plays, La Signora is typically tough, beautiful, and calculating; she is also proud and enjoys mocking others. Oftentimes, she is the wife of Pantalone and the mistress of Pedrolino.
* Rosalyne is of Latin or Germanic origin and can mean "beautiful, pretty rose" or "gentle horse" respectively.
* The etymology of Kruzchka is unclear.
** It may come from German and the Russian diminutive suffix , meaning "Little Cross."
** In the Russian localization of the game, Kruzchka is written as . This name may or may not be related to the following words:
*** , which means "cliff," "precipice," or "steep descent."
*** , which is a conjugation of , which means "to destroy" or "to shatter."
*** , which means "mug," "tankard," "noggin" or "poor box," "charity box."
**** This word is also a declension of , which means "circle," "study group," or "interest group."
* Lohefalter means "blazing butterfly" in German.
==Notes==
==Other Languages==
==Change History==
==References==
==Navigation==
de:Signora
es:Signora
fr:Signora
ja:シニョーラ
pl:La Signora
pt-br:Signora
ru:Синьора
th:Signora
tr:Sinyora
vi:Signora
zh:罗莎琳·克鲁兹希卡·洛厄法特