Yes, and because of this, anyone defined to be dead can also be physically alive. Therefore, “dead” doesn’t mean dead as we think of it most of the time, not just for Kanon, but for anyone at all. There is absolutely no method contained within the text itself to distinguish this as being an exclusive property of Kanon, as the Battler case proves. “Dead” could mean “biologically deceased” in some cases, but it cannot be proved when and where this is applicable.
But it does mean something true. If “Kanon is dead” doesn’t mean “this particular human being’s living body ceased to live and is now irreversibly dead”, then it certainly means something else. That’s the whole “Red vs. Blue” game: that’s why Erika started demanding further definitions. If I recall correctly, she did get further clarification on the definitions of corpses and the like later on, eliminating this kind of possible use of the word (maybe not for corpse, but for something anyhow). It’s a game of working around ambiguities.
Even if “X is dead” always used a different definition of dead: then at least you know dead was used in a different way. It still gives you some knowledge - just ambiguous knowledge, which can be further refined.
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Erika’s requests are irrelevant as they were applied ex post facto; there is no intimation that they apply universally and retroactively nor any indication that Beatrice intended them to be so.
My point is that one cannot selectively apply ambiguities. If Shannon and Kanon can both be “victims” – which is impossible if they are also the culprit, unless “victim” can refer to something other than the legitimate victim of an actual crime – while remaining alive, then one can construe statements like “dead,” “corpse,” and “victim” to be roles in a game. And if we have proof that a roleplaying or theatrical definition was applied in one case, we cannot discount the possibility that it can be applied to other cases as well. The very notion of “personality death” as some kind of magical inherent property of only one character (who can reverse it, somehow, which is a giant gaping hole in the notion) is absurd and not even worth seriously considering when a much simpler explanation is available.
“I worked at a haunted house one Halloween. People found my corpse, then I came back as a zombie.”
I was not actually dead, my body was not actually a corpse; I played the role of a corpse. My red is not untrue.
Bear in mind too that I’m not even touching on the voluminous textual evidence that backs up the theory, such as numerous references to wounds as “makeup,” the Second Twilight killings being logistically impossible to execute for real, the way Jessica appears to work against her own mother’s argument at times, and so forth. People are just trying to quibble over how they think red should work and getting caught up in a tangent.
I don’t disagree. I wasn’t intending to argue they applied retroactively to every use of the word; I simply meant to show an example of how that use of the word was clarified in that instance.
Well, yes. Those are valid uses of those words in a public language-game.
Right. That’s true for every possible use of every word and phrase.
Right. Those words have been used in a language-game before with those senses.
My point was very simple: that Red does communicate a true statement, and that (like Erika) one simply needs to narrow down the interpretations of those statements in a public language-game. Mainly, I was going against this statement of yours:
I disagree, because Red does communicate truth in a public language-game, meaning it has a meaning you can grasp from the use of those words. There are many possibilities, sure; there are even some that don’t say what they exactly mean.
But you can still use it.
Take, again: “Kanon is dead.”
Let’s use logic!
If “Kanon is dead” doesn’t refer to the biological body of Kanon, but a role played by Kanon: then we can deduct that the biological body of Kanon has more than one role! It wouldn’t make sense for “Kanon is dead” to mean “Ah, well, my role as Kanon died, but I don’t actually have any other identity. So now I’m just a nameless body.”
No: we can deduct the following: either a) biological Kanon body is dead; b) Kanon was one role in a body that played multiple parts, meaning two or more roles were in the same body (a PRETTY BIG DEAL); c) other interpretations of that line.
Basically, all I wanted to say was that Red Truth did, in fact, convey some truth, even if it’s not clear which; you just need to delve into the public interpretations of those words. It’s more ambiguous, sure; but even knowing “One of the following is true” is useful.
I have a massive problem with that sort of casual dismissing of the red truth. Yes, you can technically spin words in such a way that basically everything is stateable in red. But that’s no excuse to stop thinking and just say “welp the red is unreliable”. It’s the same if you were to say that everything except the red is unreliable. Yes the witch can show you anything, but it’s being shown to you for a reason. The red is much the same; the red statements are made for a reason.
Think back to when and in what context most of those red statements were made. The vast majority were made by Beatrice, some by Lambdadelta. What did they want to achieve with those red statements? If we put their identity as ‘clarifiers’ into question, we also have to establish what their purpose really was in that case. And for that I have to ask: Pray tell, why the hell would Beatrice or Lambdadelta make red statements that are only valid in red due to a technicality?
Let’s do this with an example:
Taken at face value, this statement clearly directly implies that both Eva and Hideyoshi are dead. At the same time, it’s very easy to say, “both” can refer to literally anyone in the world, maybe to two random people who happened to get killed at some point in the past, so the red statement is unreliable. But then one huge question pops up that cannot be ignored: Why would Beatrice make such a misleading red statement? As far as I’m concerned, there is no conceivable reason as to why Beatrice as we know her would do that.
Of course conversely there has to be a reason as to why Beatrice and Lambdadelta would make those nice clarifying statements as well. But I assure you, from that perspective, you can easily find a contextual reason for every single red statement in the game as to why it’s said and what the one who made the statement wanted to get across by saying it. Once we get to the respective parts in the Tea Party, I’ll be happy to give my own thoughts as to what those reasons might be; not that I find any of them to be difficult to reason out given the context.
That does not follow. It’s a post-hoc rationalization to attempt to explain away something that later evidence already shows. We cannot deduce this as you’ve formulated it from the red alone.
Moreover, your analysis of how a role works is incomplete. Replace “dead” for “out,” for example, if we’re using game terms. If you get tagged in tag or shot in cops and robbers you’re not really “dead” or “in jail” or what have you. There is also no reason for us to conclude that being a “nameless body” is invalid or impossible if the structure of the descriptions refer to a script or roleplaying layer. When Caesar is stabbed his actor can still move the scenery around between scenes; he has lost only his role on the open stage.
The sole difference between Kyrie and Kanon is that when Shannon dies Kanon still has a role he can play on the open stage. Kyrie must become a nameless background actor if she is still alive, or else excuse herself from the game entirely. Your analysis does not actually exclude this possibility as a “c) other interpretations of that line.” My interpretation is that in at least some cases death may refer to being eliminated from the “game,” and biological death need not be the sole explanation.
The Kanon thing actually helps us reach this hypothesis, rather than steering us away from it. It is possible to leave the game through death and remain in it (Legend). It is possible to leave the game through death and come back to it (Turn, and probably not just for Kanon). It is possible to give up all your known “roles” and continue existing as an unseen actor (Banquet).
Your fundamental error is assuming the dismissal is casual rather than reasoned; upon full examination of the evidence and the way red is utilized, its dismissal is entirely rational. We know that red isn’t a tool to assist reasoning, because it is used to lead the player down unproductive avenues and deflect them from the correct ones unless they think properly about what the statements may be saying. On a meta-textual level they are of some help to us as readers, but also a hindrance, but this isn’t really relevant to my point; my point is the things they hinder are not as tight as people might believe.
Irrelevant. No one is trying to dispute what “both” means or whether “both” refers to those people in the context (it’s possible that it refers to some random other people, yes, but it’s not textually supported the same way death-isn’t-dead is). I get what you’re driving at but you’re mistaken as to the point of the ambiguity. The statement may be read as:
“The setup for this mystery is that these two individuals were murdered by a third party; it does not account for the possibility of any sort of mutual killing.”
This gives us a multi-layered interpretation (which, by the way, is supported by Our Confession), which can be parsed as follows:
- The “Witch’s Narrative” in which an impossible closed room has been magicked into existence and two people are dead despite not killing each other, leading to the seeming conclusion that they were killed by no human being.
- The “Mystery Narrative” in which we are presented with the puzzle of two corpses in a closed room and must determine whether it is possible to have accomplished this by human means.
- The “Root Narrative” in which it is entirely possible that the higher-level scenes were deliberately constructed not by actual criminal acts, but by willing participation of Eva and Hideyoshi to play the role of victims in those higher-order narratives.
The “Witch’s Narrative” is constructed by the implications made by the witch in describing the scenes and the intimations of what the context they wish for people to reach, as when Beatrice proclaims her actions are done by magic.
The “Mystery Narrative” is constructed by the puzzle presented by the outline of the scenario and the facts taken as given, embodied in a literal reading of the red text.
The “Root Narrative” is not necessarily beholden to either set of facts, so long as it is still true for some expression of the red presented and supported by the text. There is more than enough strange behavior going on in Legend to support a much wider conspiracy than one culprit and a handful of accomplices. Practically everyone is suspicious and there’s probably good reason for that. The “Root Narrative” may contain actual murders, but I would posit this only occurs when something goes wrong with the plan. By all indications, everything works out exactly the way it should in Legend, and given what we know of Beatrice’s motives from Virgilia in End it seems far more likely that “everything working out” means not killing people. After all, she has the magic to kill and revive endlessly, and the only way to do that “for real” is not to kill in the first place.
Again, I would advise against trying to defeat the notion with this particular approach.
So if I got this right, your argument is that the red statements’ validity is resignated to the second layer, the ‘mystery narrative’, and the deepest layer consists of an alternate explanation of events that is not bound by the red?
Will looked down on red words. This is really not the path to solve the mystery.
Beatrice started to use the red under the pretence that people would not start reasoning without it, and then used it consistently to mislead Battler. Obviously, it was a weapon and she used her weapon against Battler (and us). That’s what the red is. It’s used to dismiss theories, not to validate them. That’s how it’s used in the story, and it’s sometimes used in ways where the right solution would’ve been to work around them to still push through the answer.
The idea that this is a murder/mystery game and that a character can be declared “dead” within the logic of the game is not by any means something impossible to consider as being true enough to satisfy the red. Beside there is plenty of evidence that a fake murder/mystery game was something really planned wether or not it went according to the idea.
If everyone are simply faking death that could be rather confusing but for a murder/mystery game there would need to be a given culprit that could’ve committed the crimes even if they are just an act. Otherwise you cannot find the culprit and so it’s not a game. There is nothing wrong with the idea of actual people being alive but them being dead within a roleplay and the red contributing to this, it’s the same idea as what actually was going on as by the time arc1 was written no one had actually died. There’s no reason to believe such a logic cannot be applied further within the game. Just like the fantasy story is weaved, so a mystery story can be weaved from the same core.
It doesn’t violate the red. It just twists it more fancifully. There’s no contradiction inherent in this nor any reason we shouldn’t think it’s possible since the “Witch Narrative” layer is doing the very same thing with the “Mystery Narrative” facts.
My point is the red can be read in multiple ways, and the speaker is under no obligation to specify which reading they’re using. Beatrice may – and does – speak in “facts related to the closed rooms specifically being discussed” and “facts in general,” sometimes switching between the two without clarifying. That’s her goal as the person trying to pass off the highest possible layer as valid and get the player to concede and accept it. There’s no reason to assume that’s the only trick up her sleeve, however.
Bear in mind that upon realizing the truth Battler has an awful lot of sympathy for someone who, if he is strictly aware of the truth as a function of the “closed room murder mystery scenarios” (or whatever you want to call each “puzzle”), is just repeatedly and meaninglessly slaughtering people. Is it not more probable that he realized the deeper truth of “Everything was intended as harmless fun, but something went wrong that was not necessarily her fault?” And if so, should we not be able to find this narrative pattern in the stories in addition to the one that lets us solve the puzzles?
And as I’ve demonstrated, the red is porous and the regular text indicative enough that we can, in fact, find this narrative, even when it runs directly counter to the puzzle scenarios.
That’s the point. I took the Red: “Kanon is dead.” I asked myself: what possible meanings does this statement have in English? (which really means: what possible meanings can this have across all public language-games?)
I then deduced: “all meanings of dead can be categorized into the following three options of a), b), and c); therefore, the meaning of ‘Kanon is dead’ is equivalent to at least one of these three.” I neglected to further look into c), since I don’t really need to right now; but if I wanted to categorize it fully, I would use “meanings of dead” in the public extension of it across all public language-games, which a dictionary does a good job of doing.
But we still use “I shot you! You’re dead!” in cops and robbers - the meaning being precisely “you’re out; you’ve lost the Game; in this role-play, the character you’ve played is dead.”
It is a use of language in games. It is a public extension of the word “dead”.
Precisely: he lost his role on the open stage. But he has another, deeper existence: his actual biological body. His real self. Even in the cases where “X is dead” refers to the end of a role or a character being role-played or being drunk on his feet, it still means something ended. The Red has a meaning; the mere fact that Battler didn’t think to use Blue to clarify the meanings of the Red through his theories (which was precisely the purpose of the Blue when they finally instituted it, if you recall) is his fault, not a fault of the Red Truth.
But I wasn’t saying it couldn’t be option c. The Red might really be option c. That’s what we deduced. The point, then, would be to craft a theory that the Red is option c. If that theory’s incorrect, Beatrice could counter it with Red: “option c is wrong.” Otherwise, you can keep running with it.
That’s how all these theories worked. That’s how they played the game later on: “The door was unlocked!” “The door was locked!” “Then the lock was broken by a tool!” “The lock cannot be broken by any tools!” “When you said ‘the lock’, you were referring to a different lock!” “No: ‘lock’ referred to this particular lock on that particular door!” It’s a process of narrowing down the possible truths.
And so on. The battle between Red and Blue is a battle of the Witch giving ambiguous Red and the other side giving Blue to specifically attack certain interpretations of the Red, until they’ve narrowed it down to one (they think). It’s a question of whether the wielder of Blue is wise enough to identify all possibilities.
EDIT: Just to summarize: @UsagiTenpura has a good point that it’s not the heart of the mystery to debate Red with Blue and so forth. But that’s not really what I mean to argue.
My thesis really comes down to a denial of the idea that Red doesn’t communicate truth. Whether you use it or not is irrelevant; I simply mean to deny the idea that it has no meaning. Like all statements in the public sphere, it does have meaning; it’s just a question of understanding its possible meanings and, if you want to narrow it down, start clarifying by going through each meaning.
Hmm, it’s a valid interpretation I can’t argue against with any basic premises, but that interpretation is heavily at odds with my own understanding of what Umineko is about. My interpretation is that rather than the fantasy and mystery narrative being both more or less at odds with the third narrative, it’s instead the narrative you get if you converge them back into one full story; the subjective embellishments (the fantasy narrative) and the cold hard facts (the mystery narrative), combined into one. That’s what the ‘third layer’ is to me. And the core message of Umineko is that this is the narrative worth seeking. Not just the illusions, not just the facts, but rather a combination of the two. You might say “looking at the facts with love”.
Of course this in turn means that I believe the mystery narrative is very much exactly what happened and not a game that was never real. It’s the story Erika considers important; the facts without love, made of pure unfiltered anti-magic toxin. The narrative the red truths have to be aligned with lest you find yourself in a Logic Error.
If you think there are any contradictions in this interpretation, feel free to point them out. I will do my best to defend it as being, at the very least, self-consistent.
You misunderstand my point then. I’m not denying that red speaks to the truth value of statements. I’m saying it can have multiple meanings at multiple levels of the narrative because of its fundamental decontextual nature and the ambiguity of its construction.
Also that’s… really not how Red vs. Blue battles work. It’s the way they’re presented as working, but Beatrice (1) didn’t actually want to win, and (2) had an ulterior motive that she wanted to accomplish beyond simply being defeated. That ulterior motive is precisely the thing I’m talking about here. Just because a character tells you they’re playing a certain game doesn’t mean they are. That’s the whole reason Battler “wins” at the end of Alliance but doesn’t truly “understand” until the end of End.
There is actually an example of a bunch of red referring to things that aren’t things by the by, it’s much of the red in End (the knock, and the “deaths”). Is it unfair that Lambdadelta referred to an event that didn’t occur by stating things that weren’t true about the event? It certainly creates the impression that there is an actual thing there that she’s talking about, but at no point does the red necessarily require that.
Mystery and Fantasy, as genres, can never synthesize into a true story. They are, by their very nature, embellishments that follow certain fictional tropes and rules. One of the points of Erika existing is that she is as absurd as a detective as Beatrice is as a witch. Confronted with the full power of a stereotypical murder mystery detective, Erika comes across to a reader as Mary Sue-ish and overpowered and downright inhuman. That most likely isn’t an accident. Battler is a poor detective for a Mystery story because he wasn’t a murder mystery detective; Erika is, and seen for what she is she’s just as hard to swallow. The fact she’s wrong about the truth or looking for a truth that “fits” further demonstrates that Mystery isn’t the answer either. We see how useful “cold hard facts” were in “proving” Natsuhi’s guilt.
What Mystery and Fantasy can do is dress up a true story by latching on to elements that play to their respective strengths and diverge from the truth into their respective genres. And then someone could certainly slam the two back together into a single narrative, but it’s not about seeing through one to the truth of another; the “cold hard facts” don’t exist in reality. The entire case surrounding Rokkenjima is unknown and unknowable. Testimony is limited and colored by interpretation and distorted by unintentional misdirection (message bottles etc.). Red truth does not exist in the real world.
You know Battler might’ve put himself in that Logic Error on purpose right? He had a particular objective and he accomplished it in spite of what Erika believed, and in many respects in direct contradiction to Erika’s expectations about how the game was supposed to work. There’s more to that reading than might be immediately apparent.
Since this is supposed to be about arc1 I’ll deal with an arc1 issue right away. In a way many of them.
First of all to believe that Yasu could have 5 clean shots that takes out all of the adults on her own is a ridiculous fiction. No one is that good with guns. The plausibility of the murders was never really dwelved into. The only thing ever being debated is the closed rooms. A closed room debate rather then the plausibility of the act of murder debate is exactly the kind of thing that fits within the mystery genre. Even in our confession the entire part about how Yasu manages to take out all the adults is left entirely blank. “She somehow does it”. That’s not something I can easily accept.
Second I’m going to talk about noise. Sure, ST could’ve potentially be done with a handgun with a silencer, but a gun powerful enough to blow up people’s head is not something that would’ve gone unheard within the same mansion (referring to T6-7-8). It doesn’t leave that the ST is still unlikely as they were both clean shots in the center of the forehead. That’s the kind of things that only occurs in fiction.
Third for now I’ll go back to the supposed official solution at least as far as I read. I may be wrong there btw, so feel free to correct me on this part alone, tho I’ll also attack it from the position I’m wrong after.
Supposedly Yasu convinced Eva and Hideyoshi that the first twilights were fake and that’s how they got them to play around. Are we supposed to believe that Battler’s pov is reliable while the pov of especially Hideyoshi who was right next to the corpses and observed them for far longer is not, that he somehow can’t tell if a body he’s been observing for a while is breathing at all (or a real body altogether). Let’s not forget that Battler says the two following things : he comments on their “makeup” and he also says that he can’t see “their faces”. This is the kind of thing that can easily go under the radar but has no reason to. I may as well add that in the T6-7-8 he comments that the victims look like their face has fallen into a tomato pie or something like that. If you want “clues” that this could all be fake, you have them within the narration’s own use of language by none other them Battler himself.
If this is actually not the accepted idea (that Hideyoshi and Eva were told they are fake corpse while they aren’t), keep in mind that Eva and Hideyoshi’s behaviour from the entire morning and even after the discovery of the corpse would be extremely weird if actual real murders are going on and they are somehow aware of it. They aren’t showing any sign of overwhelming stress which they should’ve if they were contributing to what they thought were real murders. Eva in particular is almost playful and think it’s a good opportunity to have a fight with Natsuhi and mess with her.
I want to stress out that this is nothing but my mere personal opinion, just to be certain things are not confused in any ways.
I don’t disagree that it’ll have multiple meanings at multiple levels; that’s precisely my point, as well. The only point where we appeared to disagree is whether we can gleam any useful truth from that ambiguity; if you weren’t arguing that we could not, but agree we can, then I suppose we aren’t disagreeing at all. But @Karifean and I assumed you were arguing we could not, with this line:
I don’t disagree that the Witch side intended to mislead with that ambiguity, but I would disagree if one stated no truth was to be had at all. If you don’t disagree, then I guess we can close this really long discussion on this minor subpoint.
It doesn’t change the nature of the Red vs. Blue battles. Beatrice simply created and used them for a deeper motive. Even if a player doesn’t want to win chess, it doesn’t mean chess works differently. Her ulterior motive doesn’t somehow change the way the game’s played; it just changes the focus of the novel away from being centered on the game.
The establishment of the Game was very clear, even if the motive behind the establishment of the Game was not:
Beatrice: "From now on, everything I speak in red is the truth. There is no need to doubt or question it."
Battler: "And I should believe you when you say that?"
etc. paraphrased: “This is necessary to establish a game between us; otherwise, we’ll be stalled due to the Devil’s Proof, etc.”
That’s how it all began: a Game of Red Truths and, eventually, a move offered to the other side, Blue Truth, to force the Red side to respond. Then it went into the games like we saw, even as late as the end of Chiru: Erika fighting Beatrice in a Red/Blue match, for example, with her fancy pirate hat. Or maybe that was Ange/Beatrice? Anyway, I remember it happening near the end: a clear Red/Blue logic battle of that kind.
It’s not what Beatrice’s ultimate motive was; I grant you that. It’s not even what Umineko is about. But that doesn’t change the Red v. Blue games; it just changes the focus of the story that the Red v. Blue games showed up in.
If that’s what you were really talking about and not the Red/Blue games themselves, then I certainly agree; there’s just a distinction to be made between the two that’s important.
I’m not sure we were disagreeing on anything substantive, no. My point is in that “may” or “can,” not necessarily that suchandsuch an interpretation must be true. Rather my point is it’s possible to construct an additional layer of interpretation.
Reading through this thread (though at a certain point I started merely skimming because I had gotten the general gist of what was being said) I find Renall’s arguments to be rather pointless. Certainly it is possible to twist the red truths to suit any explanation you desire. I’ve said many times that I could make any character the culprit (save maybe Kinzo and Battler) and get through all the red. But what point does that have other than as a pure intellectual exercise?
Ryukishi constantly tells us to not ignore the heart of the tale. To not simply just use the red. The red are hints, guiding us to the truth, as are the fantasy elements and many many parts of the non-red text. Dissecting the red to the point where you can get any statement through it is certainly possible, but it doesn’t do anything for you aside from allow you to avert your eyes to the heart of the tale.
Any logic game can be broken. Any word play can be butchered beyond reason. What Renall is proposing with the red is not fundamentally any different from twisting around words to suit meanings in any other context. Which is sort of fitting for Umineko considering one of the main messages is that there is no absolute truth, but at the same time it’s a very Erika level maneuver, one that is equivalent to taking the story and putting it through a blender. Nothing of value comes out of it that didn’t already exist. It allows you to put any interpretation you want on the story, but that was already the point. However people who don’t dissect red to the point where it’s meaningless at least have to try and fit their explanation into a mold. Renall is just smashing the mold so any conceivable explanation can be fit without effort. Something I see as a pointless and valueless exercise.
Regardless of whether you agree with Renall or not, is it really so bad to put all the red aside and at least think of the game that way? EP5 seems to guarantee that any valid “solution” must be made with evidence that doesn’t include the red, and we know that in-universe, the red was introduced specifically to be misleading.
Ignoring the red entirely does seem strange to me though. It seems to mean that Ryuukishi included an entire feature merely to irritate us. A feature he devotes pages and pages to, and then basically brags about when he refuses to give an answer in EP8. I can’t see why Ryuukishi would be proud of something that requires so little thought. …Unless thought actually did go into it. In which case, it’s our job as readers to figure out why he spent so much time on it, including why and how it was used in each case.
I’m not sure you’ve read nor understood anything that I said, and you seem to be attacking a position that no one took. This is not only an incredibly rude post, it’s also not arguing against the textual analysis that explains why the red should be doubted in this fashion. Not discarded; the entire point is that there exists a perfectly valid interpretation which is textually supported, and which was reached through textual analysis and not playing around with red in isolation (because the red, in isolation, is a dangerous tool of manipulation by the story’s own admission). As I have said repeatedly, attacking on that basis is not the best way to engage my argument. That was followed by everybody attempting to engage my argument on that very thing I explained wasn’t going to work or be productive. If you consider this discussion “pointless” (very classy thing of you to say), maybe try directing it back to my point?
I have made an argument proposing the existence of the very heart of the tale itself within the framework of the layers we were already aware existed, without disrupting or disturbing those layers. We were told this sort of thing existed in Chiru, so why shouldn’t we go back and look for it with that in mind? The very things you’re complaining about are the things I’m trying to tease out of discussion by making the argument.
You do understand what chronotrig is saying, right? It’s not “throw away the red,” it’s “don’t let the red be an obstacle.” Step back and look at the text as just a text. Pretend it’s a book without any colored text; that doesn’t mean don’t read the colored text, but read it as though it’s white text just like any other part of the story. Knowing what we know about the story and the way Battler reacted to it both before and after “learning the truth,” does it make any sense that he would simply have realized the solutions to the murder mystery layers of the stories? That alone does not seem profound enough to have influenced him so strongly, or to have awakened his sympathies so profoundly. Furthermore, in order to demonstrate his understanding he immediately runs a gameboard where the entire First Twilight is faked. Is Battler some kind of wimp who chickened out about his game, or is this part of demonstrating his understanding?
Now go back to the text of prior episodes. Is there any possibility of that being the case beforehand? Well uh, hrm, yeah maybe? There are quite a number of “deaths,” especially in Legend and Turn, that look kinda fake or maybe are not actually possible as physical murders even if you answer the closed room puzzles. “But the red says…” Well, we know the red can be misleading or have its rules seemingly broken, so where the red is in conflict with the overall text what do we believe? I think we have to look to the text, because the text has context and the red often deliberately doesn’t. And in the text it describes Natsuhi’s death in Legend as being arranged like a “stage,” and Natsuhi’s wound as “blood-makeup.” The FTs are in strangely dark, out of the way places (that no one would just stumble upon) where setting up an elaborate scene would be a lot easier if the “victims” were also participants. Jessica gets a super convenient asthma attack at a time where it most benefits Eva and Hideyoshi, people she has no reason to favor over her mother. There are a great many bodies Battler doesn’t get a close look at, and he’s the one to refer to blood and the like as “makeup” or “masks.” Even if he is speaking metaphorically, is the author?
Also, Will refers to every single twilight in Legend with “illusions to illusions.” Does that maybe mean something? He doesn’t do that for the others. What does he try to convey when he chooses between those two lines? Whatever it is we thought it meant before, could we be mistaken somehow? It’s not like he gave a strict definition for those things. Suppose that, in addition to giving answers of a sort, he’s also distinguishing between “the plan” and “the parts that went wrong?”
Well, Jessica does start coughing when she demands that Eva and Hideyoshi prove an alibi for the FT, but she might just have remembered that Natsuhi was the only person who survived the FT.
Eva and Hideyoshi have a weak but plausible alibi, saying that they left the mansion and met Genji sometime before the crime happened (Nanjo placed the time of death at 2:00AM or earlier, Eva and Hideyoshi return to the guesthouse at midnight). Natsuhi’s alibi is “the murderer walked right past me, but didn’t harm me at all, and I didn’t even hear them kill all those people in the same building”. Eva would necessarily have to respond with that accusation if Jessica didn’t terminate the conversation right there, after getting her line in.
Either way, it’s intensely suspect when a conversation is cut off for reasons like that in any work. And that wasn’t the only thing: Battler was gaining ground at that point and kind of got headed off and derailed by it (and by Eva and Hideyoshi leaving). It’s far too convenient a time for her asthma to just happen to act up, which makes it look deliberate. If it isn’t, the writer’s trading on some silly coincidences, and I doubt that was the only way he could’ve gotten past that scenario (so it’s unlikely he couldn’t think of anything else).