I am nuance enjoyer. Give me refined discussions

“Heathcliff cannot cross the mirror”

“The QnA is a mistranslation.”

The translation itself is incorrect, but the information itself (besides the obviously egregious “LCCB Heathcliff”) is correct. Somehow, the shoddy translation got another thing right about Heathcliff: Heathcliff can cross the mirror… as in: travel through Mirror Worlds. Or at least Erlking Heathcliff can do that sort of thing. In the boss fight against the Erlking, the stage background glitches out and different Mirror Worlds are seen in these alternative stage backgrounds, including…  the hallway of a high school, a field where a medieval battle would have taken place, and onboard of a boat. Clearly, neither of these places are the rooftop of Wuthering Heights, so something’s definitely going on. If Erlking Heathcliff has awakened the same abilities as Iori and can somehow go dimension hopping, then that would provide a good explanation for why battle stage switching in the middle of a fight is done in the canto boss fight of canto 6. Speaking of which, Iori also has the ability to switch battle stages in the middle of a fight. It’s called “Dimension Walker”, and it's one of her passives in Library of Ruina when her HP gets low enough.

“Heathcliff looks nothing like Iori”

"Heathcliff should be taller if he were to be Iori's son."

This is because Heathcliff was not originally made with being Iori’s son in mind (notice the regular pupils in some of Heathcliff's sprites? Yep). Demian, however, was originally designed with being Iori’s son in mind. But retcons and story rewrites occurred.

(We know retcons occurred due to Heathcliff not originally having slit pupils at service launch, story rewrites being cited as a reason for why Canto 6 was delayed, and Project Moon’s otherwise immaculate track record when it comes to properly foreshadowing story beats. If Project Moon, the franchise known for explaining every single little nook and cranny there could possibly be, fusses up and has to retcon something as important as a main character’s eye pupil shape (especially considering that eye pupil shape is also used to foreshadow Don Quixote being a bloodfiend), there absolutely has to be a good reason for Project Moon making a retcon. And since Project Moon straight-up told us, the reason for why Heathcliff got retconned to have snake eyes when he previously didn't is starkly obvious (story rewrites!!!). You remember all the theories which speculated that Demian is Iori’s son due to shared snake theming between both and Demian being thought to be somewhat similar to the Reverberation Ensemble’s conductor? Well, those theorists are also correct. It’s just that nobody expects retcons to happen when it’s Project Moon, out of all game franchises.)

(As a side note: Demian ALSO LOOKS NOTHING LIKE IORI. Demian clearly didn't inherit Iori’s height… and Demian is also somehow more monochrome (like… Jun and Vergilius levels of monochrome) than Iori…)

“Heathcliff does not have snake eyes”

Originally, no. But retcons happened and now he had those eyes since forever. Even as a child. (See previous point)

(the eyes usually leaning more blue than magenta/purple is another question to investigate for another time.)

“Heathcliff is too young to be Iori’s son”

“Iori’s son died 40 years ago”

“Iori has been looking for her son for 40 years”

See: House of Spiders Mirror World. Simply put, are ages constant across Mirror Worlds? No. 

Iori is 52, and her son died 40 years ago. So clearly, something's going on here. But what if her son is in his early to mid 20’s (or maybe even his teens)? Then that means Iori had her son when she was in her early to mid 30’s… which is far more reasonable of an assumption to make than child pregnancy. But then that meant Argalia lied… unless Argalia was talking about a different Iori son of a different Mirror World? Then the Iori we know and her son would have come from a different Mirror World. 

Nothing implies Iori has been searching for her son for 40+ years.

“If Heathcliff is Iori’s son, why didn't Iori just meet him yet?”

Iori implies as such herself. Maybe her and her son meeting is one of these paradoxes. If Heathcliff is Iori’s son, then that would be quite the parallel between him and Iori indeed. Two people who are cursed to never meet the one person who they love most ever again, across all Mirror Worlds. Seems like there’s a lot more things that run in the family besides purple snake eyes, special abilities, their damn smugass smile, wearing rings on their pointer finger, being demonic, being envious, and being purple.

“Why didn't Iori just replace her own son with another one of her son from a different Mirror World if she wanted to meet her son so bad?”

The only child that Iori cares about is her child. Not Vergilius’ orphans. Not Araya. Not the schoolchildren of Calw. Not even the orphans raised by the Dieci Association. Not even her students who she trained to be Color Fixers. Not even the son of another Iori of a next-door Mirror World. Her son, and only her son. Her son is the only child that truly matters in the end… at least to Iori. 

“Isn't Iori Roland’s ‘Grandma’?”

Roland does not refer to Iori with familial terms (Roland never referred to Iori as 'Grandma' within the entirety of Library of Ruina), but does show some level of familiarity with Iori. Roland is 33 as of Library of Ruina, and Iori is 52 as of Library of Ruina. If Iori happened to be Roland’s “Grandma”, then Iori would have had to be… 19… when she started taking care of Roland. Timeline-wise, this doesn't make sense with Iori’s son presumably being in his early to mid-20’s as of Limbus Company. It could be the case that Iori is Roland’s mentor in a similar style as Iori's relationship between Argalia, Angelica, and Kali, (hence being familiar with Iori) and Roland’s “Grandma” is someone else entirely, explaining why Roland doesn't refer to Iori with familial terms.

“how come Iori hasn't found her son yet, even after searching for multiple decades?”

"wouldn't Heathcliff be stupidly easy for Iori to find if Heathcliff happened to he Iori's son?"

Iori’s keypage says “meet”, not “find”. She already knows where her son is. Actually meeting her son is a different story and is presumably far more tedious of a task to accomplish than locating her son.

“Heathcliff is more like Roland than Argalia.”

“Heathcliff is nothing like Argalia.”

"Heathcliff is totally opposite from Argalia."

Of course, there are some exceptionally valid arguments for why Heathcliff should get the Roland ID, most of which include Catherine. It’s just that we're not discussing who’s going to get which “Color Fixer” Identity here. We're debunking most of every common hole that people point out for the “Heathcliff is Iori’s son” theory. And unfortunately for Rolandcliff agenda pushers, this hole is surprisingly easy to debunk. 

Heathcliff as Argalia and Linton as Roland. Catherine remains as Angelica. Did Argalia and Angelica grow up together? Yes. Is Argalia’s… attachment… to Angelica absolutely unhealthy and very weird, perhaps dipping well into incest territory? Yes. Did Heathcliff and Catherine grow up together? Yes. Is Heathcliff’s obsession with Catherine absolutely unhealthy at times and the relationship between the two is perhaps dipping into incest territory at times? Heathcliff is clearly adopted by the Earnshaws, but still, even in real life, adopted and completely genetically unrelated siblings feel uncomfortable about the idea of sexual relations between each other. Usually.

Is Roland an outsider to whatever’s going on with Argalia and Angelica? Yes. Is Linton also an outsider to whatever’s going on with Heathcliff and Catherine? Also yes. Does Roland wear black? For fuck’s sake, that’s what Roland’s known for. Does Linton also wear black? Eyup. 

Are both Erlking Heathcliff and Argalia described as insane or crazy? Yes. If you think not, go back and play through Canto 6… because I suppose Roland’s nickname of choice for the Blue Sicko is well-known enough. Do Heathcliff and Argalia each both lead their own overwhelmingly powerful band of borderline-nonhuman beings? Yes. Do Heathcliff and Argalia both distort? Yes. Did both Heathcliff and Argalia place their sense of life’s meaning onto the one person they cherish most, then officially go insane upon hearing of the news of the death of the one person they cherish most? Yes. Do they mess with the corpse of the one person they cherish most? Indeed.

(It should also be known that Roland and Linton both have their own issues regarding their total downbadness to their wife. It's just that they're comparatively more sane compared to the alternative… the brother of their wife. What probably throws people off the most is the fact that, unlike the Roland-Angelica-Argalia trio where Angelica likes Roland more than Argalia, Catherine likes Heathcliff more than Linton.)

(Is it really any wonder that, if Heathcliff is Iori’s son, that Iori says that Argalia reminds her of her son, especially if Iori already knows of her son’s whereabouts? This is how we know that Iori had already “found” her son.)

Am I trying to say that Heathcliff should get the Blue Reverberation ID? No. This is not a place for discussing Identity predictions. I am merely pointing out similarities between Heathcliff and Argalia that I thought most of the fan community had somehow collectively decided to willingly gloss over in favor of Rolandcliff. That is all.

“If Heathcliff is Iori’s son, why didn't Heathcliff didn't get the Si Heishou ID to better hint at his connection between Iori and him?"

(context for why people think iori and heathcliff are somehow related to the si heishou. as you can see: same eye glint color. same slit pupils.)

Because Heathcliff is already a Si Heishou... sort of.

Lemme explain.

Remember that Ricardo and Rufo have slit pupils as well. Both can be assumed to just... naturally have those eyes (Rufo is counted as someone who naturally has slit pupils because RufoDion does not have slit pupils like Rufo). And Iori has the same purple snake eyes as Heathcliff as well. So Jeb on Moonframe laid the framework for my realization that... humans and outskirts monsters can mate and have viable offspring. (I will also credit Journey to the West for this revelation). In fact, humans mating and having children with nonhumans without technological assistance is a fairly common trope in fiction, science and the process behind speciation be damned (surely, there must have been some sort of physical barrier blocking gametes between humans and nonhumans, but apparently NOT). And you should remember that Project Moon is a fantasy world that LARPs as sci-fi. Singularities register as magic to our muggle brains. Arbiter attacks can be watered down to mage spells. Lobotomy Corporation gear happens to be modern-day Relics. Abnormalities are bizarre. People can turn into Singularities just by wishing upon stars. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In fantasy worldbuilding, the author doesn't have to explain shit. Things happen, just because they happen, no need for an in-depth explanation of the physics behind why something works or doesn't work. So for Ricardo, Iori, Heathcliff, and Rufo, someone down the line did a Thomas Hogg and that's how come there are random people in the City who have slit pupils like the monsters of the outskirts. It so happens that these people are literally descended from the monsters of the outskirts.

(it does make me curious as to how many people decided to try asking Ricardo on whether or not he's a bloodfiend or not. But then I figured that the askers in question probably would get written up in the book and annihilated for even daring to compare any sibling of the middle to a lowly bloodfiend, especially if said assumption is incorrect.)

Heathcliff is a snake. Ricardo is a rooster. and if Journey to the West is adapted into the PMverse, Sun Wukong would be a monster from the outskirts and Zhu Baijie (Pigsy) would also be from the outskirts.

So that makes Iori a literal snake. Or someone descended from snakes. Maybe actual Jörmungandrs or Leviathans exist in the Outskirts. Only time will tell if this deduction is accurate or not...

Even if Heathcliff turned out to be NOT Iori's son but still related to Iori (such as... being Iori's grandson or nephew), people would still be complaining about Heathcliff not getting the Si Heishou ID.

So I daresay, let go and move on. Project Moon is the sole arbiter for determining which Sinner gets which ID, not the fanbase. Whatever reasoning the company has for picking and choosing which ID goes to who is arbitrary, but not meaningless.

if there are any more holes that i have missed, feel free to reply or reblog with the hole in question, and i will try my best to debunk said hole.

So, a counter to the idea of Project Moon's track record for these things being quite "immaculate":

Ryoshuu did not bring up in T corp or during the first Pigrita the effect on time despite having an affinity for sensing the passage of time by blood.

Don Quixote's original sprite had "Miguel" on her coat.

The timeline inconsistency with Iori's son and age (We'll get to that later)

The timeline inconsistency of Kali's Red Mist Title (stated that the title was given because of the Red Mist effect that Mimicry EGO gear gives in Ruina artbook. Stated/ heavily implied that she was a Colour before meeting the C-Crew)

I find there to be more evidence to believe the idea that his eyes are important to his heritage but not related to Iori specifically. Heathcliff's heritage, or rather his skin colour and the surrounding discrimination, is a major part of Wuthering Heights. Like you mentioned later in the post, there is a chance that he has some extent of Snake's blood in his body (Bets are on the World Serpent as Iori *IS* Leviathan, being the demon of Envy) or some related beast-man blood and such is why he carries the abilities. This is too conjecture but an alternative hypothesis: Heathcliff being of beast-man descent (related to or not related to Iori, but her presence does go against the idea) and carries these powers. This alongside his eyes, his skin colour and class all combine into the idea that he is outcasted for who he was born as. If his mother is a ostensibly normal woman with weird powers I feel that this does not work as well (also because Iori is super fair skinned as well).

^Thats just something to consdier alternative explanations. Also yes there is very much the risk of Project Moon ending up falling into the 'Mystical [Romani]' trope by giving him these latent powers but regardless of these two options it's because of his heritage so :/

This is correct outright however. Lesson to be learned is that 99% of the time the fanbase has terrible decisions for who should get what ID. I saw Callisto Meursault/Callisto Faust/Pinky Meursault/Valencina Hong Lu before and that's just this season. That being said I wish that Heathcliff did get the dog heishou SPECIFICALLY! Because the ID already plays into the concept of them being nothing more than tools, not people, just tools for the Lords to wield. Or Bunny because anonymity could play well into similar themes.

I think the assumption that any and all slit eyes are related to this ruins heritage is... questionable from a standpoint of implications when 2/3 of the Limbus characters with this trait have notably darker skin, and the fact that those two in specific (Rufo and Heath) are tied both to very "bestial" themes is a questionable decision to make when combined with the fact that they would be literally "half" human? I can't really articulate to that great an extent but I'm sure you understand what I mean by "questionable". Especially when Project Moon has replaced racism quite thoroughly with ableism through prosthetics (Smoke war 2 mirrors ww2 and N corp is a very clear party in that; The Stranger covers topics of racism (because the author was) and characters don't see the Algerians as... humans? And Meursault is from N corp which again is the stand in with Prosthetics)

Also snake blood is better than lycanthrope (wolf's blood) that I saw some people saying a long time back. Also Chickens have round pupils. So do Lions so this doesn't help my theory either of his future EGO but yeah something to note.

continuing the idea of his latent powers:

This can be explained by the presence of the Golden Boughs, the mirror technology within the Manor itself, and the fact that the manor is situated on top of a river which is the implied reason that Every Catherine was able to reach through to ours.

The Necromancy is still weird but we can assume it's the River Styx and call that a day (River Styx is immediately before//leading into the Ring of Heresy which is Heathcliff canto).

Iori's dimension walker was her being able to jump out of battle into a different floor of the library, while this was to some extent her 'testing' the Library it's still not quite the same at least in my reckoning compared to the intense differences of each mirror world.

"nothing implies that Iori has been searching for her son for 40+ years"

Argalia does directly state that her son has been dead for 40 years (makes 42 by time in Limbus). As far as the game has told us, our continuity is the same from that of Library of Ruina, meaning that this world's Heathcliff, this world's Iori (as there is no clear answer whether to Iori is able to dimension hop through mirror worlds or just through our single one) and our Iori's actions; These actions of our Iori would include: Telling Argalia that her son died 40 years ago.

Due to the fact that it has at least 2 accounts of breaking the timeline, I would say that it is somewhat fair to consider the Ruina artbook to be canon until contradicted (which we can assume to be retcons as a result of building the world as they go).

With this, would it not be more reasonable to assume that the age of 52 is contradicted outright, and the 40 years statement is more accurate? I find the evidence lacking that we should discredit both of the outright stated timeframes to make an assumption of her son's age.

b. What if Argalia is talking about a different Mirror World:

Like stated above, there isn't concrete evidence that she can hop mirror worlds, the extent of her abilities that which we know are spacetime jumping, with the potential of paradoxes (which is it's own can of worms unless we assume that everything she's ever done is because it was meant to happen... Oh wait that's already how I'm 99% sure the City works). Regardless, even if it were her son from another Mirror World, that would imply such that Heathcliff from this mirror world regardless is not her son. Or at least is not the son of the Iori that we know about if we assume that she is from a different mirror world (despite all her known actions taking place in this continuity). Moreover, she trained Argalia and Angelica as children, which I'm taking from the age range of around 5-20 years old, which places her travelling and her escapades to be at least 20 years prior to that happening, unless she has the ability to outright refuse linear time (to some extent we can say this to be the case, however the ability to contradict one's actions are to be brought up as in discussion of paradoxes)

Regardless, the mere fact of Iori having done things which are all in the range of 40+ years ago which she outright states to be part of this goal is fair evidence she has been searching for that length of time. (Kali died at 30 which happened before the Smoke War (undefined length) and Lob Corp (10 Years) which is again at least 20-30 years) (Argalia/Angelica as well, being 39 years old giving a 20-30~ ish range)

"meet" is indeed the phrasing. However.

"it almost seems to be within my reach, but it always ends up being a mirage" is the line that follows the use of "meet" (not to mention the fact that the word "lost" is used as well)

The line above shows that she does not know where to go exactly or how to get there in either manner. As for why she can't just meet him:

Just good practise but try not answer questions with a "maybe" unless you're providing alternative hypotheses with more/other support.

Furthermore, only that one sentence is answering the question in somewhat of an unsatisfactory manner? Her and her son meeting being a paradox doesn't make sense with the information we've been handed in so far. Iori can hop from space/time but her examples of paradox in the key page is that of retroactively changing something.

E.g Grandfather paradoxing herself, where she goes back to stop her son from dying and in doing so prevents her from reaching the point at which she goes back to prevent it.

Bootstrap paradox: The reason of her time hopping being BECAUSE of her time hopping in a causal loop. (Iori creates a paradox in this Iori's life by time hopping, Iori must then begin time hopping in an attempt to prevent this, causality ensues)

etc.

I can travel through time and space and see a myriad of possibilities, too many for you to possibly fathom. It’s probably a little bit different from time travel as you commonly imagine it. The future self who experienced a certain past returns to it in order to change the future… Whatever is going on in the past, some kind of paradox is bound to happen to causality. Big or small. Little things can set off massive twists, like the flap of a butterfly’s wings causing a tornado… And even I’m afraid of bearing that risk. It could turn into a cycle of meaningless struggles.

Tl;dr this section lacks supporting arguments to the point raised.

(also its implied that Iori to some extent experiences linear time in her own sense. Regardless if she were to travel to before her current point in time it would "delete" the timeline she is presently in for the sake of another one, due to the aforementioned Bootstrap paradox, if we assume that she is a fixed point in the timeline and cannot be retroactively effected by this one in particular)

I do agree with the fact that they are very similar, I just disagree on their exact relation. They both are indeed Purple!

Slight bit of false equivocation between the other children and other Heathcliffs but I'll let it slide.

I already spake my points about how Iori's dimensional hopping is not identical to Mirror worlds insofar as we know, and the fact that Iori's potentials are those born of every persons individual decisions and actions while Mirror Worlds have key and major differences or contradictions//are just straight out impossible (E.g Bloodfiend MW, Jia Ishmael) to have stemmed from any common point.

Being said, I don't think that they're completely divorced from one another just not one in the same. Now. Iori's son. If Iori was a present being in each potential timeline or "possibility", fundamentally she would have a period in which she is unable to travel to or from, being her entire lifespan, as this prevents to some extent paradoxes that would arise from her being able to exist in two places of one timeline at the same time, as well as the fact that her dimensional jumping should by all accounts be causing paradoxes time travel is fucked yall. We know this not to be the case considering that she is presently active and... alive to our best knowledge, which leads to the possibility that she is able to travel as a fixed point that moves anywhere stemming from the current timeline.

This also fits with her having snake's eyes, and Heathcliff while we're at it. Vertical slits are good for regulating vision, especially the amount of light that enters the eye at once, allowing for the animal to not be blinded. For all three of these characters, they are hunting something, their "perfect" world (and/or vengeance), the slit pupils might justly be related to their awareness of potentials, they have the regulation and depth perception to see and lock in on their end goal, their perfection. This could likewise link to other single track minded characters such as: Rufo and Ricardo, and the demeanor of the Snake Heishou (who each have something they desire, and also anorexia), they're all locked to a single idea or thought that they want to see out to the end, damning everything inbetween.

Like the postulating about Iori being his future mentor or potentially grandmother, this is mostly just a concept for consideration/alternative explanation. Not stating any of this as fact because I have a bad track record for predictions that I get confident on.

Time travel truly is fucked the more you think about it. I'm fairly certain I have Iori's mechanism down (ignore previous statement about confidence) but like that still has some problems with other concepts, and potentiality in terms of the Will of the City and The Flow, we know that certain events and ideas are "meant" to happen and if Iori changes them not to happen then the City's nature itself would be fighting against her? Another potential for paradox accumulation? I don't know.

Also Iori seems to be able to see people's future destinations (all of them, to at least a certain extent), or at least is implied with her actions of helping specific people like Roland and Argalia whose pain mirrors her own.