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Originally Posted by GreyZone

I am very sure "brain injury" was given as the reason for Tohya being in a wheelchair. Of course this could just be a translation error, but I am sure it was worded like this in the witch hunt translation.

No, Tohya ended in a wheelchair later, when he had a fit about something he remembered (or something like that) and injured himself.

Originally Posted by Renall

Well, that information could have simply come from nowhere. It's like the bank boxes if indeed Ange's meeting with Nanjo Jr. was just a catbox interpretation. It's either fantasy or it's accurate information with no apparent source. The Kinzo story is basically the same; the only people who could possibly have told the story are Kinzo, Beatrice C., and possibly Dr. Nanjo if they told him everything. And if Nanjo is the one who retold it to somebody at some point, we run into the further question of whether Kinzo and Beatrice would've misled him about anything.

If Ep 7 is fantasy... well we'll give fuel to the people that dismiss EP 7 as an author's deception.

If the info is true but came out of nowhere... it's poor writing as far as I'm involved.

Genji could also know Kinzo's story and he could have told Yasu about it, same with Nanjo and Kumasawa might have added other parts to the story.
It's likely Yasu made questions after finding out who was her dad.
Plus she could have heard gossips and Kinzo rambling about his past.

The problem is passing all those info to Battler so that he could place them in his tales. It should have taken time.

Originally Posted by haguruma

But that is exactly the point some people here, including me, are alluding to when trying to say that this would make Yasu a horrible person. She does NOT leave Battler with the miracle and happiness of having become Touya. If she were Yasu she'd knowingly drag out the Rokkenjima story under the pretense of writing a story only to satisfy her own semi-sexual needs for him to recognize her.

It could have been coincidental as it was Battler who caught her looking at the info on Rokkenjima and began remembering things. It could have been a slip of tongue, confidence in the idea he wouldn't remember a change of mind as she thought maybe it was bad if he didn't remember.
At the beginning maybe he wasn't so scared, just intrigued and could have developed an interest in Rokkenjima due to it and she could have supported him thinking it could have been equally nice if he were to remember... and only later, when Tohya started being scared by his own memories she might have realized her mistake.

Honestly, I tend to think if Yasu is anything like Beatrice she probably isn't good at judging what can hurt a person. It makes her dense, not evil.

And anyway we're speculating on something over which we know too little.

Once Ryukishi said we had a poor opinion of Kinzo due to what he did to his daughter but we didn't really know how things in Kuwadorian were and, in a way, all the hints about life in Kuwadorian might come from sources who're biased.

Maybe it was Kuwadorian Beato who seduced Kinzo but no one could picture her doing this so they passed the story placing the blame on Kinzo (I'm not going to believe Kinzo is innocent though but maybe he didn't force Beato as much as it looks... though he's still to blame for keeping her trapped there)

With Ikuko the problem is even bigger as there's basically nearly no story passed.
We've a summary of what went on given by Tohya in which we don't know if we can't believe and in which, although he admit he suspected Ikuko for being responsible for his incident, he never blamed her for anything else.

He didn't accuse her of keeping him trapped not of mentally toying with him.
Sure, she covered up the fact she found and helped him but, apparently, Battler could leave when he wanted. It's possible she lied to him, saying 'oh, I told the police to search if you've a family' but we've no info about this.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Secondly, man, that's a lot of hoops held by their bootstraps to jump through trying to make Ikuko=Yasu both not-a-murderer and sympathetic.

Well, a popular theory is that she didn't murder anyone on PrimeRokkenjima so why now it should be weird I come up with a theory in which she didn't?

Originally Posted by Kealym

I ... disagree? Going way back to forever ago, Shannon's dialogue about the fish in the aquarium seemed to be about herself, and the way she viewed the world, introducing this idea that Rokkenjima is literally all she knows. And it IS, kinda. Hell, "Shannon" is a construct based in Rokkenjima, a fake name that belongs to the kind of maid she aspires to be. Kanon is very similar, and going further than Shannon, literally has NO aspirations outside of ... outside of anything, really.

I have no doubt that she probably had genuine intentions to eventually leave the island, either with George, or (rather unlikely) with Battler, or just finally considering herself too old to continue in the same way, but Rokkenjima was pretty much her entire memorable life.

We're also told in Requiem that while she was friendly with a few kids at school, it was nothing Yasu really cared about, apparently, and we are told literally nothing, NOTHING about her school life other than a vague "well ... she went."

Likely Shannon is like Beato. She's created to exist on Rokkenjima as 'perfect servant'.
The problem here is: is Yasu also tied to Rokkenjima?
While Shannon's wish to leave Rokkenjima might be more an imposition from George, Yasu came up on her own with the idea to leave it when she was a child and talking with Battler.

Though probably to leave Rokkenjima Yasu would have to destroy her 'witch of Rokkenjima' identity as well as her 'perfect maid of the Ushiromiya' identity.

Anyway this is just speculation. We cannnot prove Yasu would be unable to leave and assume another identity. We cannot prove how much of Shannon there's in Yasu and vice versa. After all Yasu, Kanon and Shannon all have different love interests so they are definitely different even in matters that can be important.

Originally Posted by Kealym

So ... I ... should ignore the whole "kidnapping / mental torture to fulfill a adolescent infatuation" thing?

To kidnap someone you should force someone to stay in a place against his own will.
Battler/Tohya isn't forced to stay with Ikuko against his own will.
He defines himself as satisfied with his life.
And he probably wrote Banquet, Alliance and End (and maybe Dawn) of his own will. And she didn't look like she was having fun when he was in pain.