[chronotrig]

@Renall:

Spoiler for size:

Originally Posted by Renall

There is no evidence whatsoever that Piece-Battler accepting magic was Meta-Beatrice's goal at any point. And Meta-Battler is the only one who provably understands the entire "accept the witch" thing, the nature of magic, or the Golden Land itself. Other than Maria, Piece-Battler has no one on the board to tell him anything about the witches or magic, so he is never actually going to accept the witch (in ep2 it is not provable what, if anything, he actually does). The multiple episodes are clearly for someone's benefit, but that someone isn't Piece-Battler, because he doesn't and can't remember them.

...There's that word again. "Provable". The last time you said "you can't start making a theory unless you prove everything first", I managed to explain the entire opening of EP2. Now, I've taken the final scene from that game and shown that it explains most of the magic scenes for the murders in EP2 as long as you know about the gold text. Again, you say that "magic scenes prove nothing, so they should be ignored", and I say that "Ryuukishi added those magic scenes for a reason".

Originally Posted by Renall

On the board, how exactly did this elaborate plan go into place when they didn't even know when or if Battler would ever come back to the conference to begin with? If it's so important he knows, go out and convince him wherever he is.

They find out that Battler returned to his family some time before the 1986 family conference. Sayo could have heard about this long before, especially since she was set to be on-duty for the conference. Unless you can prove that no one knew Battler was coming until a day before or something, there's no problem here.
And she can't just "go convince him". That's not how Beatrice thinks, and it would be almost impossible to convince Battler that magic exists anyways. And she's not about to jump into a new relationship with Battler at the same time that she's getting engaged to George. The problem isn't that simple.

Originally Posted by Renall

Sorry, not buying it. You're intentionally conflating information the two Battlers don't both know. And no, I'm not going to ignore the "messy details" even temporarily, because they're important and they make this not make sense. One may as well say "Okay, ignore for a minute the red denying Battler as culprit, let's investigate the evidence that he is the culprit." Sure, we could do that, but it's pointless.

You're missing my point. I'm not asking you to set EP3 aside because it doesn't work well for my theory. EP3 is the reason I first became so sure this theory was right. However, I need to set the groundwork first, and unless I'm mistaken, this Battler-centric theory already provides a simple explanation for pretty much all of the meta-scenes in the other games.

And oddly enough, your example is a key clue towards finding the solution to EP5. Battler is the lead culprit for the fake murders, not the real ones.

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm not even sure that I understand where you're going with this. How do you know which meta-levels are abstracted, which exist within the allegedly-written stories, and which don't, when no one has told us the content of those stories? Ange seems to recognize that Alliance, End, and Dawn exist, but are they the exact same stories or not? Is Ange/Featherinne part of Dawn? One would think not, but did Ange-3 even actually read any such thing, or is that even further abstracted?

You're talking about the meta-Ange from EP6, right? As I've explained, I think those scenes with Hachijo were Featherinne's guess at the answer. That world's Ange was also part of that guess.

Think about it. If Featherinne really has been watching only the games we have, how could she know about Hachijo, much less whether Ange knew about Hachijo? This Ange's memory is no guarantee of anything except as a hint of what Featherinne's theory is.

In other words, the only argument you're making here is "your theory does not make sense if I already do not agree with parts of your theory".

Originally Posted by Renall

This is just ridiculous. Where is the proof of any of this, or even any evidence whatsoever? When did Shannon get a gun in ep2 and why didn't they know she had it? How does a delusional nutcase hold a dozen people hostage by herself? Why is her ep4 death in the place that it is, and why is Nanjo dead so close to her? Questions aren't being answered, they're just being reshuffled. Good answers make things easier to understand, not harder.

As for questions not getting answered, that's because I haven't even started explaining the murders yet. I've only covered the magic scenes for EP1, 2 and 4, as well as the pattern for which scenes we're allowed to see.

By the way, what's your explanation for the EP2 magic scenes?

Originally Posted by Renall

How would Battler understanding his role in things actually prevent the murders? In fact, if the culprit's mindset and resolution is as you described, the murders must go on anyway because not everyone's happiness has yet been achieved.

Uh, actually, I was just talking about Shannon's breasts
Didn't mean for it to be taken seriously.

Originally Posted by Renall

That's frightfully evil. Does she not know that the gold actually exists, or does she? If not I could sort of see it in a delusional "the gold will be granted through magic" sense, but if she has actual knowledge that the gold is real, why can't she just give it to them?

Putting aside whether refusing to give money to rich people is "evil" or not, she can't just give it to them for obvious reasons. She's still keeping up the illusion that Kinzo's alive, and that gold was not to be distributed until a new head was chosen. On top of that, it's the motivation for getting everyone to try and solve the epitaph, which is important as a way of creating a fantastical atmosphere and for helping Battler link the epitaph murders and the epitaph together.
Giving money to people who have wasted money and gotten themselves into debt is not Sayo's top priority, it would seem.