Will say it again before beginning, this has spoilers for all games potentially.
This is also why I cannot put this in a single game thread, because it concerns all of them.
The idea is as the title say. What occurs between games. I’m talking about the meta-world, obviously, and the meta-narrative. I suppose someone could talk about what occurs in “Rokkenjima prime” in between as well, tho that may warrant it’s own topic… or perhaps it is actually interrelated too much to separate, but that’s not what I’m bring up right now.
The idea in question came to me when thinking in particular of what occurs between game 1-2 and 4-5. I’m not entirely certain, to be honest that all that much occurs between the other games. In particular what strikes me there is how that topic seems to never have been addressed by fans. I’m specifically referring to a few things there.
Between arc1 and arc2.
In purgatorio at the end of arc1 characters suddenly talk about the events that occurred in a mostly 4th wall breaking POV. This is not only Battler and Beatrice, but the others as well. This kinda in itself brings into question what exactly is the meta world in relation to the game. Perhaps such a “stage” existed even before arc1, but from the way we’re presented, it’s sorta a follow up of arc 1. As if meta-Battler was “created” as the result of arc1. That may or may not be a good place to debate that concept I guess, within the idea of wondering wether there existed a “pre-game meta-event” that we haven’t seen in arc1 tho, and not under the idea of debating about the exact working of the meta-world (as there exists a thread for this already).
Still from the way arc1 ends, we don’t really know how Battler feels toward the “gameboard”, and the idea of it being a “gameboard” hasn’t been bought up yet. Still in arc2 it’s like there’s been definitively a missing “large event” where Beatrice somehow bought forward the idea of rebooting the world and having it follow a different direction while Battler and Beatrice are watching it and playing their game, after Battler being unable to resolve arc1. We don’t really know if Battler had a form of reaction or another (like “what you can reboot time? I won’t surrender to this”) or if the meta-Battler form the end of arc1 is already somehow consciously aware enough that this is all a fiction that he just kinda understand that this will be another tale. There’s also the entire matter of how this is presented as a “game” with a “gameboard” and moves, you’d think somehow Battler has gotten some form of explanation in a way or another as to what was going to occur (by which, I mean, them playing the game on another gameboard and the whole reset). In any case it seems pretty obvious to me that there’s a large part of stuff that is “missing” there, that occurred between meta-beatrice and meta-battler, and probably on purpose as it would reveal things we aren’t supposed to grasp, at the very least at that stage. Yet I feel like there’s never been much speculation as to what that missing time was.
This becomes far worst between arc4 and arc5 as well. To keep it as simple as possible, Battler is basically super pissed off at Ange’s death at the end of arc4 and is all “I’m going to beat you Beatrice and then go back home to my sister”. Then the end battle does brings up a sorta more “dere” event between them, but it shouldn’t have been (on what we saw at the very least) enough to overturn everything.
Then suddenly in arc5 Battler seems to have completely forgotten about Ange (this occurs pretty much all the time to be fair) and has lost all form of animosity toward Beatrice and rather is interested in understand her properly and getting angry at Bern and LD for trampling on their game.
Again this suggests a lot of time went by between the two games that are filled with a mental progression that lead to this state, and potentially figuring out a bunch of stuff. Heck afterward in arc 5’s end and arc 6’s end he never even considers the idea of “coming back to Ange” ever again, it’s like the entire idea vanished, but it had already pretty much vanished by the time arc5 began.
So again I guess I’m wondering if anyone has any speculation to do about what could fill these blanks. This may be valid for other arcs as well, at least those who follow the meta-narration of Battler, but I think again this probably concerns the two “blanks” I pointed out more then the others.
Anyone up to fill up this darkness with speculation, feel free.