Bernkastel's Last Bow [Complete]

Gameboards
#41

Ah, a new challanger. Most excellent.

I can follow your theory well enough until you get to the point of putting it back under the statuette. You’ve evaded knocking it over well enough I’d say, but the part where you lose me is placing the letter back. The statuette would’ve been too heavy to simply slide the letter back under it, regardless of the force pushing it [the letter]. In other words, to place the letter back, you’d have to raise the stauette, if even slightly, to get the job done.

I could say more… but I think this should be enough for the time being to deny the theory at its core.

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#42

The idea would be that the wire would have been under the statuette, thereby raising it slightly. At no point was it flat on the table. If the envelope was taped to the inside of the loop (as opposed to the outside, where the original envelope was), it would slide under the wire, not directly the statuette.

By the existence of that red though I’ll assume I’m on the wrong track and point back to my initial theory involving Shannon distracting Krauss when pouring champagne. The narrative states she popped the champagne and poured their glasses, so my proposal is Shannon would have to get inbetween people to fill their glasses, blocking their view. George, who’s flanking Krauss and wrote the fake letter under the table, quickly swapped out the letter in this window.

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#43

I do admit I’m having some trouble visualizing this. Even if the wire went under the statuette, I don’t think it would’ve been enough space to match with the space needed for the envelope to slide in. And if the wire had provided enough space, then surely for a wire of such size, the loop would’ve started to cause the statuette to move, too, no? I also don’t think it would’ve been as unnoticable in that case, either.

As for your second idea…

This moment is still covered by Krauss’ field of awareness. In other words, even if George, or anyone else around Krauss, tried stretching their hands out across the table at the time, Krauss would’ve noticed it. I do admit Krauss’ attention would’ve probably been lowered, but not to that point.

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#44

<Good!>
Alright, another test of the field of awareness.
Eva is the culprit. Before Krauss’ speech, she uses two long sticks (let’s say wok chopsticks for instance), one to tip the statue slightly and one to quickly swipe the letter to her. The same motions can be used to replace the letter. Her arms stay relatively still, at least enough to not arouse suspicion (natural motions, not reaching). Due to the statuette being directly in between her and Krauss, Krauss cannot see the sticks.

There must be a reason for this seating arrangement being so different, and possibly a reason for the statue other than making string tricks difficult.

I don’t think Eva’s been proposed as culprit yet, so I’ll touch on her possible motives and knowledge as a formality: Eva wants the headship, or at least for George to succeed. She spites Krauss a great deal for fumbling the headship she deserves. As I suggested before, she snuck into Kinzo’s room and stole the seal and envelope. It’s also possible that Kinzo didn’t specify a specific statue and she planted the large owl as the only statue in the cupboard to help pull the stunt off. Her status as culprit is also why she’s weirdly warm towards Krauss in the end, is because she’s finally won and she knows what happens next.

#45

Regardless of what my response might be, the variations on an approach like this are endless. So. Shall we make this simple? By which I mean make it even harder?

The letter, if it was indeed switched, had to have been done by hand. Which is to say, the act of raising the statuette and taking the letter placed by Genji before dinner began would have had to have been done by hand. In addition, the act of placing a letter back also would have needed to be done by hand.

A few notes regarding this red, to stop any preemptive attacks:

  1. You will notice the red at the end refers to ‘a letter’. The reason for this is merely to avoid any attacks such as ‘well, the letter placed was not THE letter Genji placed - the act of placing some other letter didn’t have to be done by hand’.
  2. While I’m at it - there are no tricks of this nature and I can assure you all of the reds referring to ‘the letter’ up to this point can be taken at face value given the context. In other words, at no point have I attempted to pull the wool over your eyes and tried to simply throw reds about a letter that was potentially irrelevant to the events at hand.
  3. There is, of course, no deception on the part of ‘letter placed by Genji before dinner began’. It’s not referring to a random letter Genji at some point placed before dinner. It means the letter placed in the scene in question and the letter you’re struggling over right now.
  4. Let me assure you that the red hides no big secrets. It means exactly what it means. If you wish to claim the letter was switched, then the actions the culprit MUST have taken at one point or another were: lifting the statuette, taking the letter that was there, and then putting another - all with their own hands. Or, if for whatever reason you want to claim the culprit took the letter, but did not immediately put it back - then they would have also needed to lift the statue and put the letter back with their hand.

As a side-note (this is directed at everyone attempting to solve the game), feel free to post things aside from theories here. Even a general route of reasoning, where you find yourself stuck, what you think about certain things alluded in the story: all those things could help perhaps other players. And sometimes writing out the problem helps put things in a perspective that’s easier to show what points are worth attacking.

Together, you are stronger, after all.

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#46

I mean you can ask for that but so far my thoughts on this one go mostly in circles.

Question: When was the letter written?

Assumption: The letter was not fully written before the events.
How solid is this?
It is backed up by:

Assumption: The culprit could not have guessed every event described in the letter.
How solid is this?
Fact: Krauss chose the number in Battler’s game at complete random. It was impossible to guess for anyone but Krauss.

Question: Could it have been written beforehand regardless?
Yes, in fact. Going by pure logic, nothing stops anyone from writing down whatever they want.
Not their fault if it’s then interpreted as a magical prediction. Heck, in a game titled after the witch of miracles, a completely random troll letter turning out to match up with events against all odds would not even be something to exclude.
The thing that stands against it is:

Fact: The contents of the letter would have been the same regardless of Krauss’ guess.
Does this rule out guessing and turning out to be right?
Most likely, as any pre-written letter could have very-well turned out to be wrong.
There’s no way around that, really, unless we question the nature of the narrative itself and assume there was something about it that made the letter ‘destined’ to be correct.

All in all, so far it seems reasonable to conclude:

(A part of) the letter was written after the culprit witnessed the events described.

Question: When was the letter placed on the table?

Fact: The letter can only be switched by hand.
One could question the definiton of ‘switch’, but aside from that it seems solid.

Fact: Krauss would have seen anyone reaching for the letter within his area of awareness.

Assumption: At no point was the letter outside that area of awareness.
This one might still be possible to get around.
It would require one of these things:
1.) moving the letter
2.) moving the table
3.) moving Krauss

All of these seem hard to pull off subtly, especially with the table being completely ordinary.

Hm, ultimately this one is still inconclusive, although I have a hard time coming up with anything that would fit.
Let us temporarily assume it cannot be done, just to test if there are any other areas of attack.
In that case, the conclusion would be that the letter could not be switched.
And if it wasn’t switched, then it was placed when Genji placed it. Which leaves us with the paradox of writing a letter after it’s been placed.

Question: If it wasn’t switched, can one write the letter after it’s placed on the table?

Fact: The letter was handwritten with a normal pen
Hard to get around that one except with rather exotic penmanship techniques.
The letter was blocked by a statue from the top and a table from the bottom.
It’s fair to assume no pen would fit between this, unless the statue was hollow, but handwritten does imply your hand needs to be there to do it so we’d be back at the Krauss problem.

My conclusion here, given the previous conclusions, would be that from when Genji placed it until after Krauss read it there was no way to write on that letter.
Alas, writing it after then is meaningless.
Unless you time travel.

Other open questions:

What was the thing Krauss stepped on?
It was at the exit, not the kitchen. Meaning it’s unlikely to just be the explanation for Shannon’s accident.
It seems likely it’s connected to the letter trick, but what would help there?

How could the culprit have been prepared for the letter?
Depends on whether the trick is something you could just come up with on the spot.
The letter kind of came out of nowhere, who would have even known it’d be a thing aside from Kinzo (and maybe Genji)? And assuming the ring was stolen for that purpose there weren’t exactly many chances after dinner began.

And those are my thoughts for now.

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#47

Blackrune’s reasoning seems valid. It doesn’t seem like the letter was switched during the dinner, but it must’ve been switched after it was placed on the table. So, let’s go back to the logical conclusion I stated previously, but dropped the ball with.

I assume Krauss’ absolute awareness of the letter applies only for the duration of the dinner. After the speech, he asked Genji that since the dinner is over, are they allowed to open the letter. By that point, Krauss’ awareness of the letter was no longer absolute. In order to ask Genji about the letter, Krauss would naturally turn towards Genji. Looking at the diagram showing where everyone was seated, it becomes obvious that if Krauss turned his head towards Genji, Battler would be behind his field of vision. It was at that moment when Battler noticed his chance, and quickly swapped the letter on the table with his own. I’d imagine the other people around the table would also turn their attention towards Genji when asked about the letter, too, so it isn’t unreasonable for Battler to be able to perform a quick switch without anyone noticing - he’s the person sitting in the corner opposite from Genji, and thus is the only person who could do it.

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#48

Zen zen dame da.

Krauss would have noticed a hand reaching for the letter within his area of awareness from the time the letter was originally placed by Genji at the very beginning, to the point where Krauss picked it up to read it.

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#49

Damnit, I was so sure that’d be the answer.

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#50

There is no simple way out of this hell, I’m afraid.

#51

A quick clarification for a previous red. It has been stated that if the letter was switched, it must’ve been done by hand. What if the letter was never switched in the first place, but rather, something obscuring the original letter was placed on top of the letter Genji placed, and the new letter was placed on top of that? I assume that such a trick would also have to be done by hand?

#52

I can’t think of a reason the culprit would want to do such a thing without taking the chance to swipe the original letter, but yes - that too would also have needed to be done by hand. Otherwise the previous red would’ve been far too misleading for my tastes.

#53

I guess it would’ve been kindasortaplausiblemaybe to place some weird mechanism into the statue that lifts the statue a little, puts a sheet of paper printed with a wood pattern under the statue, and then puts the new letter on top of that, with both the sheet of paper and the letter being stored inside the statue in advance. Such a trick couldn’t be done in a way that would also remove the original letter.

Oh wait, no, that’s small bombs level of stupid.

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#54

I do agree it’s too far-fetched for numerous reasons, but also doesn’t get around the rule that requires the hand either way.

Still, entertaining if nothing else.

#55

If the letter had to be switched by hand, and Krauss would’ve noticed any hands reaching for the letter for the entire time the letter was on the table in the area of absolute awareness, then it can’t have been switched unless the letter was moved. Let’s borrow selkie’s conveyor belt for a moment.

Battler had set up a conveyor belt made out of transparent string to the middle of the table in advance. Using this conveyor belt by tugging on the string from under the table, he moved both the letter and the statuette far enough from Krauss to be able to perform the switch by hand. Then he shimmied the new letter with the statuette on top back to the original position by operating the conveyor belt in the opposite direction. Battler knew to set up the conveyor belt in the middle of the table because he had met with Kinzo in advance, and implanted the idea of using a dramatic letter placed on the middle of the table into his head. That meeting was also when he obtained the head’s ring from Kinzo, which was required for sealing his envelope.

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#56

Alas. The only person that ultimately decided where precisely on the table the letter would be placed was Genji. And you can’t very well claim the conveyor belt trick with him, given his own movements…

I would also point out that this would still be Battler having to reach for the letter, since all he’d done was move it in front of him. Thus, he would’ve been caught in Krauss’ area. However, given that you can simply switch it to one of the people outside of the area, I figure the red truth should be sufficient to deny it.

#57

Battler simply guessed the place where the letter would be placed. Where else would Genji place the letter, other than somewhere in the middle? It’d be just weird to place it, say, between the plates of Eva and Hideyoshi, or some other strange location. Additionally, he could’ve used the conveyor belt to move it all the way out of Krauss’ area of awareness. Sure, it would’ve required him to reach out for the letter quite a bit to perform the switch, but if the switch was done at the very end when most people were probably looking at Genji, it might’ve been plausible to do so unnoticed. Then again, it isn’t like Battler would’ve been aware of some magical region of awareness that would’ve given him a reason to move the letter that far, so I guess arguing this point is meaningless.

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#58

Let’s make it even more simple.

The only two people who knew that Genji was to present the family with the letter before he actually did so were Genji and Kinzo. Again, no wordplay around ‘the letter’, refers to the one he placed at the beginning of the scene, etc. etc.

I’m considering revealing an ace I’ve been hiding up my sleeve for a while now. On one hand, I’m not sure if making the overall situation more difficult would help you. On the other hand, letting you argue about something else could bring a change of pace… Hmm.

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#59

Just because I can, I’ll still push onwards with this.

Battler had set up the conveyor belt without knowing that any letter would be placed in the middle of the table. His original plan was to sneakily slide down a letter of his own making in front of Krauss to make it look like a letter had magically appeared there out of nowhere. That Kinzo had Genji place a letter of their own in the middle of the table at the beginning was merely a coincidence. That the letter happened to be placed onto the conveyor belt that he’d prepared in advance was a coincidence as well.

#60

No good for me, it seems. If I deny the string, you make the conveyor belt will simply be made of something else. If I deny the conveyor belt, another string trick will take its place.

This has been going for quite a bit, as well.

So, let’s load this gun and go for the kill, shall we?

Nobody in the dining room would have been able to write a letter in the period since Genji set the letter to the point where Krauss picked the letter on the table to read it. This includes having some sort of pre-written letter and a ‘fill in the gaps situation’ for things that end up happening or just writing one from scratch. I’d hinted at this in the past by pointing out it would’ve been a bit difficult to write a letter in your lap, but might as well throw it out there.

I’d originally intended to say ‘nobody would’ve been able to do it covertly’, but let’s face it, that would’ve inevitably left trying to find holes in ‘covertly’, and that’s no fun, is it?

(This still isn’t my ace, no worries.)

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