"You can find this statue of the Goddess of Light in one of the stages. She's watching over the arena." ~Sakurai
This pic shows a new stage, also you can see the Palutena statue, but that still doesn't de-conform her as a playable character, it's just a statue after all. Maybe it's just used to increase our hype, or to debunk the Palutena leak.
Do you have any hopes for Palutena to be playable? Or do you think it'd be a bad idea?