You do bring to mind something interesting here, and that’s the role of Battler as a piece. In Episode 1, we’re lead to believe that Meta;Battler doesn’t exist yet, since it’s from this fragment that Meta;Battler was born in the Tea Party. In that case, is it safe to assume that the Batter of the Episode 1 Gameboard is in fact just another of Beatrice’s pieces?
But then what about Episode 2 onwards? It’s made clear in Episode 6 that the challenger (Battler through eps 1-5) has control over his own character on the Gameboard, while the rest are controlled by the Game Master. But isn’t that weird?
We have two conflicting interpretations of what the Episodes actually are: forgeries from the bottles, or ‘gameboards’. The former interpretation leaves no possibility that the Battler featured in the forgeries has any free will; surely, they must be following the script of the author. But the latter interpretation, on the Meta layer, strongly suggests that Battler as a character is controlled by the will of Meta;Battler. Thus, he is acting outside of the author’s (Beatrice’s) understanding and influence.
How can we hope to resolve this apparent paradox?