[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]We don't actually know when the bottles were really found or that they were "found" at all. We have anecdotal reports, stories basically, about how they were uncovered. Ange certainly never spoke to a police officer (for obvious reasons) involved or to the fisherman who actually supposedly found it. Even then, it's not a guarantee that they were set adrift before the incident even if they are found washed up somewhere.

What do you mean "anecdotal reports"?

Ootsuki says that the first message was found by the police right in front of Ange. I don't think he'd have any reason to lie and therefore the first finding is a fact stated by official sources.

How could this be less anecdotal than this? This is practically the only official statement claimed by the police that we're actually aware of.

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm just deeply suspicious of the idea that the message bottles have to predate the incident. That line of thinking causes more problems than it solves. Postdating the message bottles creates only one, though it's a doozy (namely, that Beatrice would have survived).

You're using the same logic that made you think shkanon was false. And you know, I agree with you that it causes more problem and it's very hard to explain in a sensible manner. But you are starting from a wrong assumption which at this point you should drop.

I did...

Originally Posted by Renall

Probably, yes, but that still dates it to a possible window of "whenever Battler was announced to be returning" into perpetuity. Perpetuity still has the edge.Patently absurd. Do you know how much retooling would be necessary to remove an entire person from a narrative? Let alone a person who is entirely different from Battler (thus you can't just cross out "Ange" and fill in "Battler")? If Ange were in the manuscripts she'd have to become a victim, etc. and this never happens. It is somewhat improbable that this would not be accounted for, particularly with Rudolf and Kyrie dying so early. Unless Ange's role in the original story was "tail Maria around, never do anything she doesn't do," you can't just write her out like that.To guess it perfectly, you have to be pretty close to the date. Weather forecasts are quite inaccurate and the entire narrative of the first two episodes requires that the family could not leave on Sunday as planned. That was controlled by Kawabata, not the family.

I think the main issue is the fact that the novels were handwritten. So a correction of that sort would require a lot of efforts... So yeah it's highly improbable that Ange was included in the beginning.

Originally Posted by Renall

Oh I agree. The existence of a game is almost an absolute necessity if the message bottles are written ahead of time, as otherwise we're forced to assume some manner of culpability on Beatrice's part. The games themselves do not actually mention the explosion; that seems coincidental.

Really, the "problem" with pre-writing is you need some excuse as to how Beatrice "knew what was going to happen" but didn't cause it or fail to try to stop it. If she in fact did not know, that means one must explain away her actions through some other means. "A game was planned; the explosion was coincidentally similar to the game outcome (i.e. everyone "dies")" works... mostly.

There are also the letters to consider and those were postmarked on October 3rd.
In other words we need to accept that Beatrice planned something beforehand or knew something was going to happen or that something could happen.

Unfortunately it's almost impossible to conclude with any certainty about how much she knew of what then actually happened.

It could go from "She knew everyone would die" from a "She had a completely different plan and everyone died because something went wrong".

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

By the way, anybody wonder whether Ryu knew that Knox had converted to Catholocism from Anglicanism, or was that coincidental Fridge Brilliance? (He presumably knew that Knox was Catholic, given that Dlanor is part of the Inquisition.)

I think Ryuukishi either knew or he doesn't know/care about the difference.

Dlanor's symbol of the two keys is the very same symbol in the Vatican's flag

Originally Posted by immblueversion

Magical Gohda Chef sure doesn't help. In fact, he practically messes everything up.

Gohda might not have caused the Rokkenjima incident by mistake as some speculated, but he did cause the golden land to reach a premature end because of his blunders!