A detail I don't understand (spoiler)

[Adun]

So, when we learn that it is actually Renoir who causes the gommage, someone says something in the lines of "Aline is trying to warn them by painting that number". And I wonder: how? Why? After the third or fourth gommage, the people of Lumière would have pretty much connected the dots on their own. And it's not like having a glowing number 100 kilometers away is all that useful. There is obviously no way to hide from the gommage. So what does Aline actually think she's doing?

[goodbye_bonito]

First to connect the dots and understand the logic behind Gommage. Then come to Monolith and help Aline to get rid of Renoir. People of Lumière connected the dots, they did, but there is nuance.

You could say she just could write simple short text explaining the situation instead of numbers, but then there wouldn't be a game to play if it was this simple.

[Ratsplat]

I thought it was said or implied somewhere that she is weakening, and she can only hold back the gommage so much every year. So you can say that her power is so weak that a number is all she can muster. Renoir purposely went after the oldest creations first, which are the oldest people.

But yes, how a number was supposed to be a warning would take a 200 iq genius to fully figure out within the game world. At the very least, it did get the Lumierans to start the expeditions. If she had never painted a single number, no one would have ever known where to go.

I'm fairly confident that if some expeditioners that had no one in the painted family present, she wouldn't have attacked them. Though, this sorta implies that she herself put the barrier up, not Renoir (haven't seen confirmation on this myself yet).