[ijriims]

Originally Posted by TeeHee

I need someone to review my thought process to show me if I'm missing anything. There are a total of NINE question that I tried to answer myself.

Feel free to respond with:
1) More questions,
2) More answers/insights to my questions, and
3) Rebuttals to my analysis. I'd hate to think I'm right when I'm totally off.

Spoiler for Seriously, read this.:

1) To whom was Battler's sin against? What was it?
- If Kinzo, abandoning the Ushiromiya family. However, "Beatrice" says that that's not it (EP4).
- If Kyrie, refusing to acknowledge her as a mother, thus breaking her heart.
- If Jessica... breaking her heart despite being a cousin?? I doubt it.
- If Shannon, he could've broken her heart by abandoning her for six years. Battler's vague recollections show that he had a huge crush on her... was it mutual? (EP3, beach)

2) What can we assume "Beatrice" knows and did?
- Wrote letters under the pen name "Maria" detailing scenarios that were never acted out (EP1 and EP2 were detailed in EP3 as the witch's doing).
- Dressed up as Beatrice in front of Maria, Kyrie and Genji (EP2), and Battler (EP4).
- Wrote a page in Maria's diary with magic circles.
- Sent bank account cards complete with PIN numbers (07151129).
- Has the money to set up the high-security vault accounts.
- Knows that George likes Shannon and that Jessica likes Kanon. (EP4, headship challenges)
- In summary, familiar with Kinzo's occult studies, has enough money to set up high security vault accounts with lots of cash, able to dress up as Beatrice, and is an insider on the love scoop.

3) Who is physically capable of these things?
- Occult: Probably all residents/regulars of the mansion, more likely Kinzo's trusted servants. Edit: Oh, yeah, I guess Nanjo isn't out of the question.
- Money: All adults, and also the servants. Recall that it is said that most servants could serve for three years and do what they want with the accumulated money for quite some time. Also, the servants occasionally leave the island.
- Imitate Beatrice: The females.
- Knows of the love stories: I'm guessing Shannon, Jessica, maybe Battler, maybe George, maybe Kumasawa.

4) Therefore, who is "Beatrice"? Is it one person? More?
- Based on my analysis, assuming it's one person, Shannon would be the culprit because she fits all of the "Beatrice" criteria.
- If there had to be an accomplice, I would bet on Genji, Kanon, Jessica, and Kumasawa.

5) When Battler met "Beatrice" in EP4, was it actually a human, or is this an illusionary presentation? Did she seek to reward him for apologizing for his sin?
- I'll bet on "yes" and "no", respectively. But why am I betting? I want to get the right answer!

6) Is "Beatrice" necessarily alive at the end of Eps 1-4?
- Who knows. I wonder if "Beatrice" even cares if she's alive in the end.

7) Can we assume "Beatrice" is always the culprit/mastermind for Eps 1-4?
- Yes. Then again, I can assume anything I want.

8) Is it possible that "Beatrice" is not the culprit in Ep5?
- Very much so. The magic circle(s?) is extremely shoddy this time around, and the twilights weren't even finished. Someone totally half-assed it, and still got away with making Natsuhi the culprit (assuming she's innocent).
- Now that I think about it, isn't it strange that an envelope with Kinzo's ring inside it IS SEALED WITH KINZO'S RING????

9) Is the "offended" seeking revenge? Or could it possibly be a favor for the intended survivor? If not, what exactly? Did the sin merely cause a chain reaction, like a series of dominos?
- I'm not sure, but the EP5 hints suggest that it is love-driven.

One of my recent threads in another post should have answered Question 1-5,7 and 9.

Spoiler for To keep it short, information from EP6 removed:

I speculated that the real Beatrice (Kyrie) was the daughter of 1952 Beatrice (a foreigner, Italian I guess, that's why Kyrie's name was so westernized inside the traditional Sumadera family ), who had ran away from her family to Kinzo. What Kyrie had about her mother was only how she taught her about magic and witch.
And she was in lack of mother's love from a very young age.

Maria was in a similar situation, who was also yearning for mother's love, while believing in magic and witch, like when Kyrie was in her childhood. She taught her magic so that she could honour her mother in a way.

Kyrie was the one who made all the pranks on Ushiromiya family, while she was searching for Kinzo's gold (1952 Beatrice leaked the location of the gold to Kinzo, so the gold initially belonged to Sumadera family, and it was her gold. She wanted to reclaim it because she wanted to get it back to Sumadera family's hand, not because she really needed it, but because she wanted to clear up her mother's name of being a traitor)

She thought that Kinzo was a liar to her mother who only yearned after her mother's fortunate. She confronted with Kinzo, Kinzo showed her the epitaph to test her. She solved it and claimed the status of the head of the Ushiromiya family as well.

She also located Kwadorian as well, and from there, she knew that she had a sister (1967 Beatrice. She witnessed the efforts Kinzo had been putting in reviving the initial Beatrice. She realized that Kinzo's love to her mother was real and also knew that her sister's love towards Kinzo (moeBeatrice's love towards Battler).

Knowing that none of his offspring was really doing a good job but fights among themselves, Kinzo's last wish was to test them whether they were qualified to acquire his fortune (deeply in the heart, he wanted to reunite the family), but he knew that he would not do it before he died.

Around these time, Kyrie knew from Maria that Rosa abandoned her at home most of the time. Kyrie had no choice but to urge Maria to believe in Rosa's well being. However, the destruction of Sakutarou triggered the complete collapse of Maria's hope on Rosa. Kyrie then concluded that this Ushiromiya family was rigged and only after this she agreed to Kinzo's request to test the whole family, even if it meant to use death to test them.

Battler's sin was his departure and forgot about his promise to Maria that he could come to see her every year. Seeing that Maria was really enjoying with Battler, Kyrie knew that if Battler upheld his promise then Maria could never turn into a dark witch, or at least so quickly. If Maria did not lose all her hope, Kyrie would never agreed to stage such a test for the whole Ushiromiya family.

The disregard of his influence and importance to the Ushiromiya family was Battler's sin.

Kyrie recruited Genji and Shannon to her side. Genji just obeyed his old master's order, while Shannon understood Kyrie's intention and agreed to help her.

Question 6: She was well prepared to die in every episode. Since even if she died, Genji and Shannon would accomplish the remaining plan for her (EP2).

Question 8: She was still the one who planned the death of the sixes and Hideyoshi while framing Natsuhi. She had a abrupt change of heart after she knew that Battler was her son based on inference from Rudolf's few words (particularly the sentence"It is related to your birth"). She realized Rudolf really loved her and he eradicated every other family members to make the Rudolf's family the only beneficiary in the end. The 19th man scene did not occur in other episode since Rudolf did not tell it was related to Battler's birth (EP1) and no one solved the epitaph so early in the game so as to prevent any other death from happening.

The ring was slipped into the envelop after using it to seal the letter, through the small gap as the flap was not completely sealed.