[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

Why is it a bad thing that Battler is trusting and empathetic?

I think you misunderstood my point.
The fact that Battler is trusting and empathetic is what allows Beato's game to turn into mental torture and torment for him.
In short he too suffered mental torture and was tormented as Erika, through the manner used by Beato was different because Battler is different from Erika.

Personally I like that Battler is trusting and empathetic but I can't deny this was used against him by Beatrice, causing him pain.

If you want to say Beato never had fun abusing him this is probably true but it doesn't change the fact she mentally tortured him.
The game was supposed to be torture for them both.

It's also possible that Battler felt sorry for Erika and merely decided not to show it. He also felt sorry for being a jerk with chick Beato but didn't want to show it in the beginning.
In EP 8 he pleaded for Erika to be freed by Bern. He wasn't so cold toward her destiny... though it's understandable how he might have found hard in EP 6 to feel sympathy for Erika as she did her best to be hated.

Originally Posted by Renall

Also you can certainly argue that the whole "19th Person" thing was not actually baseless speculation at all, merely that Battler was not characterizing the issue quite right. Which is understandable if he's a purely Meta-World being and/or Tohya's consciousness.

Through not totally baseless it proves 2 things:
1) Battler didn't even know the one he was supposed to solve was a mystery and so he didn't adopt a mystery mentality
2) He chose the possibility that was less probably rationally because led by his emotions that said that the people he loved couldn't commit murder. While very human in this game is definitely a handicap for him.

Erika was advantaged. She knew it was a mystery and her reasoning wasn't lead astray by her feelings... though her disadvantages were that her reasoning was lead astray by her arrogance and the need to please Bern that wanted a certain type of solution.

So, even through Erika's 'lack of feelings' is morally wrong it makes things easier for her. Also, considering she knows the pieces on the gameboards are mere tools for a game her coldness toward them can be compared to the coldness of a mystery reader toward the characters of the book.

I don't really know a reader who feels sorry for the death of Roger Ackroyd...

Originally Posted by Renall

The fact that he's hurt whenever they're hurt means he objects to the morality of the game and desires to put a stop to it. That's why he wants to win. This is good.

That's because he hadn't understood yet what the game is. He owns tons of mystery books and don't object to the morality of them.

Originally Posted by Renall

Erika's inability to empathize with the pieces means the only reason she wants to win is for winning's sake, or to show how smart she is. This is bad. But it really isn't her fault (under this notion) because she has been purposefully misled (and presumably wasn't as moral an actor as Battler in the first place). If we take full comprehension out of Erika's hands we also must absolve her of her responsibility for many of her actions. I'm very uncomfortable with the notion that somehow Erika was meant to be sympathetic when she treats people like objects.

Honestly I'm not sure what you mean.
You seem to say she was told the pieces were just pieces when they're real people.
I guess this can be a theory but I personally go for 'the pieces are just pieces'.
If the problem is we disagree on what pieces are I guess we can't find an agreement on this one. If I misunderstood you then I'd like if you could explain your point better.

Originally Posted by Renall

Beatrice wasn't a liar until Ryukishi made her one retroactively. I still don't really see any particular point to that contradiction in ep1-4 as it's not actually necessary for Beatrice to make her point. But then neither was Shkanon in the first place, really.He could at least not be ludicrously indifferent about it.

I guess this is another thing we don't agree about and there's nothing to do about it.
For me Beato is what Ryukishi wrote. If she lied, she lied.
A character is how his writer wrote him/her, it's not like Beato had free will and could decide to be honest or a liar.
I don't really care if it could be that when Ryukishi wrote that scene the first time he was planning for her to say the truth, then he changed his mind and she became a liar. In the end she lied on the status of Shannon and Kanon's body in 3 episodes.

Kanon was killed in this room [EP 2]
6 people: Kinzo, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, and Kumasawa are dead!
The six people died instantly! [EP 3]
Kanon is dead.
Among the five people in Kyrie's group, he was the first to die.
In short, he was the 9th victim. [EP 4]
The six people were already dead by the time they were discovered! [EP 4 referring to EP 3]

However, if you want to view things differently I'm not going to argue with you.

Originally Posted by Renall

This plus his ep8 performance basically paints a portrait of BATTLER as exactly the sort of thing he was supposedly fighting against in the earlier episodes. What's the point of heroic character growth if you just end up turning into a carbon copy of the villain?

Again, if the games were nothing more than a mystery tale and not real they weren't evil per se.
It's like believing you're fighting to save the universe and then discovering you're merely on Star Wars set.
You might decide to have your character join the emperor because... well it's all fiction and your laser sword can't even cut butter.

Also it was made pretty clear that Battler had to create the 6 game and win it and, in order to do so, he has to play it the way Beato would have played it.
Either he gave up on his goal for Erika's sake or he fought Erika for Beato's sake.

What would you expect him to pick?