[Serpit]

Originally Posted by ChaosDimension

Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster. After looking at those revealing screenies of EP5 I am now going to reveal my theory on what game the are playing. I started this theory when I was in mid ep3 and only strengthened it after reading ep 4 and now reading that 3rd pic of ep5.

Spoiler for Theory:

I am going to barely elaborate on this but if more people are interested then I can go in depth.

So what game are they exactly playing?

Texas Hold em' (A variation of poker, google if you don't know)

Take a second to take this in.

Now go take a look at the epitaph. Notice something? The first part of the epitaph is practically a whole metaphor of Texas hold em. And even kyrie herself told us that the epitaph is segmented into 3 parts. The first part tells us what the game is, the second how the game will go, and the 3rd how the game will end.

Lets analyze the beginning.

My beloved hometown, the sweetfish river(River Card?) running through it.
You who seek the Golden Land(The pot? in this case, beatrices pot of gold), follow its path downstream and seek the key.(if you go down the river you'll see other community cards)

If you follow the river downstream, you will find a village.(Could be referencing that the community cards are all face cards, meaning people)
In the village, look for the shore the two will tell you of.(the shore could be a reference to the end of the poker table, which your hole cards lay, 2 of them.)
There sleeps the key to the Golden Land. (self explanatory, key to winning the game, also a reference to cards being dealt face down, hence sleeping.)


He who lays hand upon the key shall travel under the rules below. (lol wut, basically, use that hand to play the game!)

Now the next part, is a segment in which, goes differently every episode because another round is played every episode. It can help us theorize how the game will go. That's up to you guys to analyze, I'm only going to show you the way. The only thing that's weird is how it's said Village of gold instead of Golden land.

Now the 3rd part is pretty easy to analyze.

The witch will praise the wise, and should bestow four treasures.(congratulatory part, why? Read my conclusion.)
One shall be, all the gold from the Golden Land.(winner of the hand, gets the pot)
One shall be, the resurrection of the souls of all the dead. (new round starts, everybody is dealt new cards and whoever lost last round is "revived" to play again)
One shall be, even the resurrection of the lost love, (this one could be referencing that after every episode lost love is found, i.e george/shannon, jessica/kanon/, rosa/maria, ange/battler
One shall be, to put the witch to sleep for all time. (Does not happen, game restarts and the epitaph is not fulfilled.)

Sleep peacefully, my most beloved witch, Beatrice.

What's my conclusion? Beatrice is the DEALER! Think about it, the game cannot end unless there is one winner, hence, Beatrice cannot sleep. That's why the game must keep restarting. Battler isn't fighting Beatrice at all, battler must fight all the participants and disable all the theories that can be used against him. That's why the Beatrice can say stuff in red, she knows what's going on but cannot help Battler win the game at all. She can only give hints and stuff.

In a poker perspective all that battler is asking are things like, "George has a flush" and Beato can only reply with, no "George does not have a flush."

Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg, I got so much backing and stuff on why they are playing a poker game, but so far I have not seen any thing in the game that can disapprove this theory. What do you guys think?

While I applaude you for this very creative and fresh idea, there is one major problem: With your interpretation, the epitaph would only be solvable from a Meta-POV, since it references the repeating events. However, this would make it impossible for any of the "pieces" on the board to solve it, which Eva managed in Episode 3. So unless she somehow had insight of the whole meta-duel between Battler and Beato, she shouldn't have been able to do it.