[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

More than that, I don't think we should go back to the light bulb example at all. It's almost as nonsensical as as Renall's "locked = made of wood" example is.

If I were to say "Fred and Natsuhi are dead" and later it was suddenly revealed that, unconnected to anything, "Fred" actually referred to a light bulb, I think anybody would be quite reasonable in getting mad at me. However, that isn't even remotely comparable to a situation where I describe a person-like being as dead and then spend the entire rest of my story explaining the philosophy behind it.

Oh come now.

You're trying to cast my examples as absurd - which of course they were intended to be - to make it look like the dialed-back example that actually happened is reasonable. That isn't how it works. The examples illustrate the semantic absurdity of defining something that doesn't follow normal rules. The problem is not merely in this definitional trickery, but also in equivocating them with the standard definition without trying to distinguish the two in any way.

You understand that personality death is itself the hint that permits everyone to not be dead, right? I don't actually need any evidence that Hideyoshi has a magic form or an alternate personality (although, it's worth noting, there are multiple characters who could be spun to have one); that death != death is the "hint."

To suggest that "the entire rest of my story [explains] the philosophy behind it" is overly generous at best. If the "philosophy" is "by living in denial and refusing to be clear about things, I can make anything true," I guess you're right. But that's just my very point.

Nevermind that, and this is kind of an important thing, many of these so-called rule revelations do not come up in a format that - as far as we know - Battler was able to observe. I mean, a hell of a lot of information comes from places like the ep2 prologue flashback and Ange's review of Maria's diary in Alliance. Are we to just assume Battler saw these things (and he has to see all of them)? I have absolutely no way of knowing, as far as my recollection goes, whether he did or not. If he didn't, he doesn't have that information. So what if we did? Because it helps us figure out Shkanon? People had figured that shit out by ep2. It was a theory everyone was aware of, and was only doubted because he cheated to intentionally stir up the issue.

Like others have said, without the red it's actually easier for us and particularly for Battler. Who is the one who was meant to solve things. That proves the red was intentionally and maliciously deceptive on an authorial level.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

It seems pretty obvious that some people learned to think from the author's pov, and ends up having no problems with Shkanontrice theory.

There you go again with your elitism.

"Oh, people have problems with the author cheating? They just don't get it."

I understand what Ryukishi wanted to do. It was a stupid, amateurish move by an amateurish writer who thought he could pull it off, then panicked and disguised it when his big trick was immediately spotted by seasoned readers. The fact that he's claimed that he is an amateur doesn't excuse him.

Originally Posted by Xenon_gun

At this point, both Shannon and Kanon are specified as dead.

I believe the idea here is that Shkanon had moved out of the rooms by the time Meta-Beatrice had spoken that red and thus didn't count as being in the rooms at all. Sometime between the discovery of the bodies and the proclamation of deaths, Beatrice had taken over the body and left the room, and wasn't "hiding" in it. The room proclamation essentially doesn't account for the possibility that any of the bodies are actually still in them, only the bodies of the "victims."

I don't like it, but that may have been Ryukishi's intention with that one. Of course, one can apply the very same rule to the others, since they're not provably dead. Only "victims" are in the rooms. Nevermind that Shannon and Kanon are "victims," so the red should apply to them and force them to be in the rooms. I'm pretty sure Ryukishi will with a straight face tell you that Shannon/Kanon were murdered but weren't victims... or that "not existing" supersedes "existing as a victim." Or that Beatrice pretending to be Kanon's corpse is somehow different from hiding, because words mean whatever Ryukishi wants them to mean as long as they're convenient for him.