[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Finished part 4.

Spoiler:

Ah, Kyrie. By far my favorite of the adults, though Eva is another strong contender. She is not to be trifled with, although it's interesting that this tale maintains as a truth that Kyrie never actually killed Asumu. The original tales were a bit more ambiguous on that score, I thought. So is this meant to reflect the author somehow knowing Kyrie didn't pull the trigger and the death really was natural causes? Or maybe that was just a necessary assumption to make the narrative work, since Cassitrice was supposed to get knifed at that point.

What is up with Rudolph being so clutzy with firearms? That doesn't seem like him at all. He was quite the badass in ep 3, and also in the teaparty of 7. Maybe that's supposed to be a deliberate 'oops, I almost accidentally murdered my wife.'? Which Kyrie prevented by leaving the gun disarmed?

One thing is sure. Battler and the other kids are definitely sitting most of this one out, just like Ep 4. I'm used to approaching these as 'Battler is the detective, so trust his PoV (or maybe Erika's that one time) and everything else is suspect', but he isn't really seeing much of anything at this point. The conversation near the start about a different opening move throwing off opponents applies.

Ah, but of course I did remember one thing. What happened to Beatrice? Beatrice is not in this story because this story features Lion. Lion can only exist in a world where Beatrice never awakens. I can't believe I forgot that for the last few posts when Will made such a big deal of solving that in Ep 7, lol. I think someone's supposed to declare me incompetent in red about now?

Less simplistically, Andy and Cassitrice are mad as hell, and say they're killing because people deserve it. That is a definite contrast with Beato, who plays herself up as a cackling super-villain, so that everyone else gets their 'moment of heroic defiance' before she rumbles them. In Beato's tales, I can't see any of the humans just sitting around drinking and laughing it up while the furniture fight for them like gladiators. Maybe if they were enthusiastically cheering for their stake, like an Umineko-pokemon crossover (Asmodeus! Use your ricochet strike attack! Goat, I choose you! lol) But this author is pulling out the worst in the adults. The siblings have no love for each other, conspire to cover up a murder, and generally act horribly dickish thus far.

So, to build on my previous blue, While Beatrice is interested in offering the family a slim but real chance to come together and redeem themselves in the core games, this game represents a world where the adults have all been written off as horribly wicked and sinful people who all deserve to die to a greater or lesser degree. It is the function of Beatrice to be a 'sin eater' in her tales, but this author offers no redemption.

I also notice that there is a real lack of tactical coordination from the adults so far as well. If Krauss and Hideyoshi had called for reinforcements while 'team invader' was under seige in the guest house and attacked with everything they had, things could have gone a lot better for them.

I'm not really seeing the parallels to 96 yet though. Except for personality overlap between Cassitrice and Jeroboam/Andy I haven't picked up on any ties to Karl or to Hiro or anything that would really make me believe that this game is a confession to that crime, except that Walter told us so. (well, there's the actual tale of 96, of course. Was that part of the forgery as read by Battler and Walter?)

Well, I have one theory that I think is blue-worthy on its own. When the adults are portrayed differently from their 'cannon' portrayals, it represents people that the writer actually met and had a distinct impression of, different from Yasu's take on them. There's been a lot of emphasis on people having lives outside the island. The added scene with Battler and Ange, and the bit with Eva-trice being distracted by running her corporate empire in 96, make me think that this is a theme which will be touched on again in an important way.

Or maybe I'm just stubborn about my idea for Jeroboam's motive to be a culprit, lol.