Out of all the Layton’s siblings, Flora’s ‘main outfit’ is closest in colour to Layton’s— peach dress (Layton’s orange shirt), black boots (his black coat), and her red ribbon (the ribbon around his hat). 

Despite sharing such a similar colour palette to him, Flora is the only Layton kid, as far as we’re informed, to keep her last name (at the time of the original trilogy). 

In her character profiles, her last name is always listed as ‘Reinhold’. Yes, this could be due to Flora’s characterisation differences between the original Japanese games and the localisations… but rather than debating all that, what if it makes her relationship to Layton even more confusing?

Who is Layton to Flora? He’s a stranger but he’s her saviour— the person who solved the puzzles of St. Mystere and found the Golden Apple. The one who helped her smile again. Can she really trust him? Enough to leave St. Mystere with him? Will she stay with him? Is he her guide to the outside world? Is he her mentor, like he is to Luke? Is he her new guardian? Should she keep calling him ‘Professor’?

Flora still loves her papa (Baron Reinhold), to the point that at the end of Curious Village HD, she sends a silent message to him— telling him not to worry about her— as she smiles up at the sky.

Even in the English dub of the games, it’s never confirmed whether Layton adopted Flora. (Adopted kids don’t automatically need to change their names, but still.) She is referred to as Layton’s ‘devoted follower’ in PL3. Flora wants to follow Layton so badly, both literally and by the example he sets. She wants to be like him, like Luke is with him. Flora is also called Layton’s ‘protégé’— someone he guides, protects and supports... But not raise, because Flora isn’t Layton’s child… is she?

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Kat’s main outfit definitely compliments Layton’s the most. It’s obvious that Kat (Level 5) spent hours finding that perfect combination of clothes that would remind people of her father and make Kat feel closer to him. 

Kat has her top hat hairband with the red ribbon given to her by Layton when she was a child (she’s held onto this thing for years, or gotten an identical one to replace it).

Kat wears a lot of the same colours as Layton, but the inverse. (Is that the right word?) Layton wears black trousers and a black coat on top of an orange shirt. (Dark over light.) Kat wears a tan coat over her red dress and black leggings. (Soft over bright, and there’s much less black in Kat’s outfit.) Layton spends years grieving and — despite his top hat and his reputation as a famous mystery solver—doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. 

On the other hand, Kat wants to be seen. She wants fame and fortune. She wants to be recognised. She wants to be found. She’s not grieving, because her dad isn’t dead. He isn’t. Kat isn’t anywhere near as attached to her hat as Layton is to his. She’ll happily change her outfit from episode to episode in the anime and leave her hat-hairband on the hook, though she always returns to her ‘everyday’ outfit.

You can buy all those extra outfits for Kat in the LMJ game… And yes, it’s ridiculous that they included Flora’s dress as one of those outfits but neglected to include Flora herself.

Kat could be seen as vain and shallow for buying all these clothes. But what if this also speaks to Kat’s search for an identity? Sure, she’ll boast about being Professor Layton’a daughter, but she’ll also dress up as Flora, Emmy, Luke etc. People who were part of Layton’s past and his adventures. Kat never got to experience an adventure like that… 

Maybe, because her father disappeared on an adventure, Kat’s family (particularly Flora and Alfendi) sheltered her growing up, shielding her from the press and potential danger.

When Kat, aged 21, opens her detective agency, maybe Flora is terrified at first. But Flora breathes a sigh of relief when she hears about Kat’s fluffy ‘mundane’ cases that involve finding lost pets and missing film scenes and vanishing clock hands. Kat’s cases are child’s play compared to her father’s and Alfendi’s work…

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Out of all the Layton kids, Alfendi’s outfit looks the least ‘Laytonesque’ to me. He keeps newspapers in the pockets of his white lab coat (Layton likes to read the paper?)… and I guess you could say Teenage Hershel wore red and blue in his outfit, like Alfendi’s stripy red and blue jumper? There’s his darker coat we see him wearing— which does kind of resemble Layton’s coat— but that’s by the end of the game, when the truth of the Forbodium case has been brought to light. 

At the end of the game, we see Commissioner Barton talking to Hershel(?) on the phone and telling him everything that happened with Alfendi.

I’m not saying that Alfendi and Layton had a horrible relationship in the past… but there could be a divide there. A distance. And this is supported by how, out of all the Layton kids, we never see Alfendi and his father interact, which is a crying shame.

I think Alfendi references Layton two or three times during LB:MR? (I haven’t replayed the whole of LB:MR in a WHILE, so please correct me/make additions!)

There’s Alfendi’s comment when he first meets Lucy about how his father (father— not dad), an actual university professor, wouldn’t approve of Lucy calling him ‘Prof’. Alfendi thinks Professor Layton— who allowed Rosetta to call him ‘Professor L’— wouldn’t approve of such a casual nickname. Alfendi almost makes Layton sound strict here… or at least like a stickler for formalities. Fendi— the new personality that appeared after Forbodium— wants to stick to the rules, as he expects his father would have done. But Layton also had a reckless streak (enough to scale dangerous machines with Luke in order to save people) that can be seen in Alfendi. 

There’s also that famous line from one of Alfendi’s ‘arrow comments’ — “Forget Hershel!”, I think from the last LB:MR case file. This could just be a funny comment from when Alfendi got fired up, but it does stick out to me… especially with Layton going missing for eleven years. By this point, everyone seems to have forgotten Hershel Layton and many people (possibly including Alfendi) must believe he died.

…Which is why I find it so interesting that Alfendi took the Layton name, unlike Flora. Again, in reality, you could say Level 5 just slapped the Layton name on LB:MR to sell the game. But for Alfendi as a character? It’s fascinating to me. I don’t think Alfendi kept the Layton name just to get respect at Scotland Yard. By the time Lucy comes in, most people seen to have lost faith in Alfendi and forgotten Hershel— the Layton name isn’t winning him any points.

Some part of Alfendi, like Kat, wanted to emulate his father. Alfendi works with the police, solving cases as his father one did. Sure, Alfendi’s murder cases may be a bit gorier than Layton’s puzzles, but at the end of the day, he’s still making London a safer place. Layton would be proud of his son.