I’m not convinced the switch didn’t occur. [color=blue] Another key did exist once the group entered the room: the one Kinzo had on his person. Battler stole that key and made the switch with it. [/color]
[color=blue]That doesn’t deny the possibility that someone introduced another key in the room once they entered [/color]
You clarified what you meant by this in discord, but that’d be just… wrong of me to do, if it was a solution. I’m also questioning what character motivation could possibly exist to justify it aside from avoiding the red. Oh, well. [color=red]At no point did more than one key exist on Battler’s person.[/color] We’ve already established just holding it in his hand would’ve counted as “on his person” so this should be enough.
Sure, but you can’t introduce what you can’t obtain. [color=red]Nobody left the group during the scene in Kyrie and Rudolf’s room.[/color] Since nobody could’ve gotten an extra key before leavin’, and nobody could’ve gotten one after the fact, I can’t see it mattering much.
…And even then, the switch was just a bonus for me. I’m not seeing how it helps with the actual key problem.
Okay, so right now we have the fact that the key Battler found in Kyrie and Rudolf’s room was the same that the one that was inside the pot, and that he put a key inside his pocket… however we don’t have proof that the key Battler took was the red skull key…
Well, given these things it’s unlikely anybody smuggled it in. It could have been hidden somewhere near the door in the hallway I suppose, but that seems like a stretch of what these reds want to tell us.
Kinzo could still have had a chance to have an extra key since he didn’t search himself, but all of that doesn’t help with the fact that removing the key from Battler that he put into his pocket seems more or less impossible.
The important thing is to not overthink this, as strange and difficult as it might seem.
If your theories revolve on wordplay, please ask yourselves if it’s something that is reasonable and reachable. For example, what’s the point of a game where I ask of you to specifically tell me a solution like “Aha, there was a key at the doorway to the room, therefore it is not on the way to there and it is not in the room, therefore the culprit could’ve gotten the key!” It’s basically a solution impossible to reach without the reds making it necessary to exist in the first place!
This can be done. Just don’t lead yourself astray.
Well, one should not be discouraged. Let’s try It again.
[color=blue]While Kinzo was searching the members of the group, one of them could have pickpocket the key of Krauss and Natsuhi’s room from Kinzo if he still had It on him. After that, when Shannon, Jessica and George approached Battler to confort him, one of them could have switched the red skull key witch the other key[/color]
Still, there would be still the problem about how dissappeared Battler’s key
It should be more or less clear I’m not a fan of pickpocketing, but… sure. I can see it in the grand scheme of things. Still, as you say - the issue of the key itself remains.
I think nobody has tried this yet: [color=blue]Battler searched the key in the wrong pocket, so the key never actually disapeared. Shannon’s examination might not be correct, or, if she was the culprit, she was the only one to inspect Battler’s jacket so she could have lied[/color]
For the first idea - there’s not a whole lot of margin of error here. [color=red]Battler only has one waistcoat pocket.[/color] How does he search the wrong pocket?
As for Shannon, it’s simple enough. [color=red]Shannon is not the culprit. Her examination had no oversights.[/color]
Seems we are stuck with that key
[color=blue]Battler didn’t put the red skull in his own jacket. Shannon just saw him slid his hand and the reds regarding him putting the key “in his jacket” could refer to Battler putting the key in another’s man pocket, like George’s, Kinzo’s or Nanjo’s[/color]
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I mean, that’d be pretty awful of me to do. Not to mention the narrative and what happens with everyone questioning Battler where the key is doesn’t make sense if Shannon had clearly seen him put it in someone else’s. (Also just a bit bizarre he’d slide his hand into someone else’s suit jacket like that instead of just… handing it over.)
I can amend the red slightly, though: [color=red]Battler put the key in his own pocket.[/color] I seem to remember putting out a red out there somewhere where he didn’t switch parts of his suit with anyone, so any attacks suggesting “his own pocket” still means he put it in the pocket of someone that had Battler’s suit or something should be (and ultimately will be) ineffective.
The problem of the key is solved by merely asking yourselves questions.
The problem of the writing is solved by flipping the chessboard.
The problem of the study… well. We have yet to see the problem there.
Since most people seem to be stuck on the key issue (
), I’ll break down what my thinking on it has been so far using some of the reds we’ve gotten about this particular piece. Maybe some of the fresh eyes in the thread will be able to spot a conclusion drawn they don’t necessarily agree with, or see a hole that I haven’t spotted yet.
So, starting with these reds:
[color=red]The key that Battler found in Kyrie and Rudolf’s room is the exact same one that was in the pot. [/color]
[color=red] Battler did indeed put a key in his pocket. [/color]
One could conclude here that Battler put the red skull key in his pocket. I’m not convinced he did. The red that supposedly counters this above is [color=red]At no point did more than one key exist on Battler’s person. [/color]. Let’s counter this red while we’re at it: [color=blue]Battler first planted the red skull key on someone else. Then, he stole the key Kinzo had.[/color] This way, a key (not the red skull key) did make it into his pocket, but he never had more than one key on him.
However, there are problems with that line of reasoning. So let’s pursue the more realistic scenario, where Battler did indeed put the red skull key in his pocket. Once there, he couldn’t have dropped it without noticing, nor could it have been pick-pocketed without him noticing.
So how could the key have left Battler’s pocket and made it into the pot?
- He put it there himself. This seems impossible, with the red that seems to deny a string trick. He didn’t get close enough to the pots himself to plant it by hand, and I believe we have it in red that he was watched the entire time between when the group found the key, and when they opened the lids of the pots.
- Battler did notice either of the scenarios denied in red (pick-pocketed, dropped), but chose not to say anything to the group. We also have it in red that [color=red]if Battler is not the culprit, had he noticed he had dropped anything, he would have had no reason to hide or lie about it happening.[/color] So if he dropped it, he has to be the culprit. However, the culprit is also the one who put the key in the pot, so this line of reasoning makes no sense, as this would make putting the key in the pot impossible from that point on. The other possibility is that [color=blue]Battler was pick-pocketed, but chose to say nothing to the group[/color]. This blue isn’t quite denied by the red that states that [color=red]If Battler is not the culprit, then he would have never intentionally disposed of the key he put in his pocket after doing so [after putting it in his pocket, that is]. Of course, ‘unintentionally disposing of the key’ is considered dropping the key. [/color]
We’re left with very weak blues at this point, it appears. Hopefully someone can spot another possibility or an erroneous conclusion 
EDIT: After some more thinking, it occurs to me that now that we have confirmation that the culprit put the key in the pot, there’s a new question to ask. If the culprit intended for the key to be found in the pot from the beginning, why leave it in Kyrie/Rudolf’s closed room in the first place? There are a couple of possibilities:
- The culprit intended for it to be found in the closed room, but Battler finding the key somehow spoiled their plan, so they schemed to get it off Battler and put it in the pot to be discovered once more, this time by someone who isn’t Battler. How could they guarantee this though? The only way they could is if the culprit were Kinzo.
- The culprit did not intend for it to be found in the closed room. But then, why leave it there at all? The most logical thing to do would be just to put it in the pot in the first place.
3 Likes
Not a while lot I could say here (not that it was really meant for me to begin with), but there were blues, so I figured I should at least address it.
You’re already aware of the issues here. Not the least of which is getting the key in the pot.
Given the nature of the key’s disappearance, where it was found after disappearing off of Battler and the brutal nature of the murders, I personally at least can’t think or a justifiable reason for him just keeping quiet. Like, at that point, he’d be teethering on being an accomplice.
The questions and points asked are good, but don’t seem to necessarily push towards an answer that pushes towards a more definitive solution of the problem. I suggest you keep things simple - both in terms of questions and the amount of assumptions needed to answer them, if that makes sense.
I mean the only excuse I could see for him to not say anything after getting pickpocketed would be if he literally was no longer able to. For example, if he was dead at that point and replaced with Black Battler. 
The perfect plan.
GEORGE: “Hey guys there’s a guy that looks just like Battler.”
KINZO: “Don’t worry about it fam.”
SHANNON: “Is he… groping him?”
KINZO: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
JESSICA: “He’s now stabbing him. He is literally stabbing Battler.”
KINZO: “I swear to God, I’m hungry as fuck I don’t have time for your shit.”
NANJO: “He’s taking his clothes.”
‘BATTLER’: “Hey guys waddup? I’m just gonna run up ahead a bit. Don’t worry about it. If anyone asks I was here the entire time.”
I was thinking more the hitman approach where he just gets stealth-strangled while vomiting.
But that works.
2 Likes
If we can’t think of anything about how Battler’s key disappeared, we could approach the problem starting from the end.
The result of all this is the key being inside the pot. Starting from this, we have two options: someone put the key inside the pot in the kitchen’s scene, or someone managed to put the key in the journey between Rudolf and Kyrie’s room and the kitchen. If we work on the basis of the first option, we can theoryze [color=blue]the red skull key wasn’t yet in the pot when the group arribed at the kitchen[/color]and we could think that the only ones too seem capable of doing It were George, Nanjo, Jessica and Shannon, since apparently -unless anyone thinks about some way to do it- neither Battler nor Kinzo did have a chance to even touch the pot with the key. If we work with that in mind, we have two options:
1- [color=blue]Battler is the culprit and somehow he managed to hook the red skull key to George, Nanjo, Jessica or Shannon’s sleeve, and they dropped It in the pot when they opened it without anyone noticing. We are talking about a pot with boiling water for hours. It is logical to think that when the lid was lifted steam came out and blocked their vision for a moment.[/color] That would eliminate the problem of how the key disappeared from Battler, and I think It doesn’t violate any red.
2-Battler is not the culprit. We can use the same theory: one of the people who approached the pot with the hand and put inside of It the key. The problem itself remains: how could anyone take the key from Battler?
I would suggest that, for the time being, we let pass the possible key switch and work with the hypothesis of Battler just carrying one key. There’s no meaning in adding the problem of a switch when we still can’t think of a way of taking the key from him if he is not the culprit. We should keep it as simple as we can.
2 Likes
I hear you loud and clear.
One would have to question how none of them would have noticed it being at their sleeve, or how the key would’ve detached from their sleeve at precisely the right time - without them noticing, at that. Especially since Battler would’ve had no gurantee the person in question would’ve necessarily even gone to the pots, much less put their arm in a position the key could’ve fallen into the water.
1 Like
Fine. I see no directly apparent reason, but got to at least try to get my mind off keys for a bit, even though you could technically just let it pass to get me right back into key land, and there’s probably lots of incentive to just do so.
[color=blue]Things happened more or less as Shannon reasoned. Culprit was inside the study, drugged everyone else. (they avoided eating the drugged food themselves)
Then when everyone was asleep or off guard they grabbed a gun and messed shit up. After that they returned to the study and closed it to the inside.[/color]
Could apply to Battler, Kinzo, or some other person hiding in a corner, so keeping it general.
Don’t really see a problem here, at any rate.