Why is Lilith Itou assumed to be the mother of Itou sisters?

[Panda V4]

I have seen people in the forums here and even on the game wiki say that Lilith Itou is the mother of Itou Sisters. But the only place which mentions their mother is a email in the Message Inbox of the spy.

"From: itou-buecher Subject: RE: Book Store Keys I understand that you need entry to the bookstore for your patrol, but we do not have a spare key for the front door. However, you can use the back entrance to get into the store. It’s secured with a keypad. The code is the birthday of my daughters (note: they were born on Vineta- check the last 6 digits of their PKZ numbers.) Kind regards, Anja Itou"

According to this message the mothers name should be Anja Itou.

Can somebody clarify this to me?

[Wind_Falcon]

I just went in-game to check the PC with the emails and indeed it is signed Anja Itou, pretty sure this wasn't the case before. Interesting, it might have been changed with the 1.1 patch, I think it was just signed ITOU before.
Either way, It makes sense for this Anja to be an alias for Lilith, as Ariane comments that Erika and Isa have a Vinetan accent.

[Panda V4]

But again you are working backwards from the asumption that Lilith Itou absolutly must be the mother, so automatically Anja must be an alias. There can be multiple people with the same surname from the same place you know. For all we know Anja Itou and are Lilith Itou are some relatives to each other.

There is nothing in the game indicating that Lilith is the mother besides them sharing the surname.

[Wind_Falcon]

Signalis is a mystery game. I'm working under the assumption that characters and events are not what they seem from a simple surface reading. Before this change to Anja in the email, there was nothing suggesting Lilith Itou might not be Isa and Erika's mother. Regardless, the Vinetan accent comment still implies some sort of connection. We already have Ariane's aunt working as a spy on Rotfront, so the scene is set with characters not being what they seem initially and hidden identities to be at play on Rotfront, and considering the Itou bookstore has banned books in it, an alias doesn't seem a stretch.

I've had people argue with me that the then only Itou signed email might imply it was their father replying, rather than anyone else, and I think that assumption was wrong for the same reason assuming Anja is an entirely different character is wrong - there is nothing else in-game to solidify such a distinction, while there are clues suggesting otherwise.

Finding Lilith Itou's name on the picture is build up as a sort of revelation imo, while if she's only distantly related seems to deflate the importance of her inclusion. But the fact that we have a Lilith Itou that was part of Alina and Elster's gestalt unit on Vineta, and have a Erika and Isa Itou with Vinetan accent seems pretty on the nose if you ask me. The odd detail out of these is "Anja", not Lilith.

I just found my old screenshot of the email before the patch, it indeed was simply signed as "Itou": https://i.imgur.com/Wf0W05M.png

[Panda V4]

Ah but that makes another problem. There is the floating assumption that Elster pattern is based on Lilith Itou. Now wouldnt Ariane immediately see the similarity between Elster and the mother of her friends? Like one would expect she would have mentioned the similarity in one of her notes, yet there is no such thing.

[Wind_Falcon]

I've made that same argument. I think from a "twist" perspective Elster being based on Lilith Itou has more punching power plot-wise, but I don't think that's actually the case for the same reasons you mentioned. Elster's gestlat is either Anna Huang or some other character listed on the photo. Either way who she is exactly doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of the game.

[Panda V4]

And now that I think about it, its not just Ariane who should recognise Elster as being based on the mother of the Itou sisters. After all Elster meets and repeatedly talks with Isolde Itou. Isa should be able to recognize her own mother, even if its a younger version of her.

[Panda V4]

Originally posted by 髑髏の騎士:

Elster's gestlat is either Anna Huang or some other character listed on the photo.

Why specifically Anna Huang?

[Spaceman]

The Anna Huang theory doesn't work for me. There's this document that I missed called "Search Protocol" that was updated with photos in update 1.1. Julia Huang (the second person) looks nothing like Elster's gestalt. There is also the interrogation report that lists Emilie Huang as deceased. I wish the game's results screen showed you how many documents you found, even Resident Evil does this.

[Spaceman]

I'm glad we're having this discussion, if the devs are updating the lore with each update as a lead up to something. I'm going to be so excited.

[Wind_Falcon]

There is a console cheat that gives you all (I think) readables in your menu archive.
The Anna Huang connection is tenuous as well - she's first right before Alina in the names listed on the photo, and there are a bunch of other Huang characters (presumably siblings/family) that makes Anna have a bit more grounding in the plot. Some think she might have had a more overt role in the initial story of the game (we know the plot changed a lot). I think a bunch of the other female names in Alina's unit have accompanying photos elsewhere so they are easy to rule out visually. It makes more sense to be Anna Huang that has at least some connection to other characters, than to be someone that literally doesn't exist anywhere else besides as a name among many on the photo.
But either way, like I mentioned, it doesn't really matter who Elster's gestalt is.
I guess whether or not Lilith Itou is Isa and Erika's mother isn't that important either. The tricky thing to pin down is the Alina-Ariane-Iris and Kamilla Yeong-Great Revolutinary and her daughter-Falke connection, or rather how exactly are they connected.

[SamuraiChameleon]

There's absolutely nothing that confirms it that I've found. It's all just speculation as far as I know. It would be a very confusing coincidence to throw in with no explanation if Lilith Itou is a completely unrelated person with no connection to Isa and Erika however. That she's related somehow is a logical conclusion. How she's related and whether or not it has any significance is all up for speculation.

[Spaceman]

Originally posted by SamuraiChameleon:

There's absolutely nothing that confirms it that I've found. It's all just speculation as far as I know. It would be a very confusing coincidence to throw in with no explanation if Lilith Itou is a completely unrelated person with no connection to Isa and Erika however. That she's related somehow is a logical conclusion. How she's related and whether or not it has any significance is all up for speculation.

I guess you can say that the few people Ariane could count on has always been an Itou, even if Isa failed her once.