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Originally Posted by GreyZone

But in the end of EP5, Meta-Battler changes completly and becomes more like his piece version from EP5.

It's really not possible to compare the two as we'll never know if MetaBattler would have solved the epitaph with the hints PieceBattler had.

I wouldn't even be sure that MetaBattler of Ep 5 is smarter than MetaBattler of Ep 2. The main difference between the two is that in Ep 2 he thought he had to deal with a real life mystery and felt horror at the idea one of his relatives could have done it. In Ep 5 he finally became aware it's all a game and so he managed to solve it.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Also the "Genius Battler" Theory from EP6.
And didn't you wonder, why Battler suddenly lost all his "mystery knowledge" (that we got to know about in EP5 and EP7) in the first Episodes, that he was supposed to have? So he read a lot of mysteries and shared his expieriences with Shannon, but did not even know what whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit are? Used theories that involve fishing poles under the edge of the door, or "small bombs in the food" although his piece version in EP5 seems more knowledgeble about mysteries (and their tricks) than Erika?

Considering that the solution for some deaths is 'giant bomb in the secret underground military base' the small bomb theory doesn't seem so bad... -_-

And anyway Genius Battler theory still doesn't explain how the epitaph was solved but murders continued.

Also we don't really know how good Battler was at solving the mysteries he read.
He might have been pretty bad at it and totally unable to apply the solutions he knew once he was facing what he believed was a real mystery.

And not that in Ep 1 he mentions mystery books... though in the end he can't figure out the tricks used because he's going at it in the completely wrong way, by trying to find an extra person and blame him/her in place of his relatives because he can't deal witht he idea one of them might do something that horrible... a problem he likely didn't have when reading a book.

And who says he didn't know whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit?

Battler mentions more than once references to mystery novels:

If this case followed the standard form of any classic mystery novel, it was definitely a crime by someone with ties to the Ushiromiya family and who was entangled in the inheritance problem...

Oba-san had probably also read a few books in that genre.

......Eva oba-san's argument had a few one-sided conclusions to it, and it was probably a shortcut that anyone could have reached.


I think anyone would have doubted the servants, even if their logic was different.

Especially the story about the key to the shutter. That was enough to make it easy to suspect that one of the servants was involved in the case...


"...............That's why, ...I don't like it for some reason."
"What do you mean, you don't like it?"
"Nah, just talking to myself. Ihihi!"

I tried to trick her by joking, but I couldn't wipe out the sense of unease I felt inside me.

......Because it was an easy guess to reach.

A guess that anyone could reach・・・・・・・・.

...And I just couldn't accept that.

...If I tried 'turning the chessboard over' like I had learned from Kyrie-san, that was exactly why it was impossible for a servant to be the culprit.

If the servants really had been the culprits, they wouldn't hide the bodies in a place that was tied to themselves.
There were other places besides the rose garden storehouse, whose key they themselves controlled.

The police would probably immediately pursue whoever had been in control of the key.

That would create a danger for exposure.
......If we were to assume that they were the culprits, they had no reason to carry the bodies into the storehouse.

...If you twist that around, why did they purposefully put them in the storehouse?
No, that definitely didn't make sense.

When the police come and inspect the site, several things will probably become clear.
No matter how deeply careful the culprits were in carrying out murder, some kind of traces will definitely be found.

We didn't know whether he had already become a victim, or if he was one of the culprits, .........but this state of confusion had to be beneficial to the culprit.

By showing us the bodies that obviously, and making us all realize there is a murder case going on, the culprit had absolutely nothing to gain.

Right, that was where we could 'turn the chessboard over'.

So the culprit's goal was to clearly show us the bodies.

......So, at the very least, to the culprit,

the appearance of the corpses there meant・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

more than the deaths themselves・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・.

In other words, the culprit wanted to display this murder.
To who?

......To us.
It was a message from them.

This is beside the point, but it's fairly common in mystery novels for a corpse to be burned to hide whose body it is.

......But I guess that in Grandfather's case, just being toasted wouldn't be enough to hide the proof of his identity...

And, ......Grandfather's body was not simply burnt.

"Could that concubine of thirty years ago...or maybe a relative or hidden child with that person...hold some kind of grudge and be planning revenge? ...Ihihi, I see, this is starting to sound just like your standard western mansion mystery."

Hmmmm, well, even though the chain is incredibly simple, it's a big factor in setting up the closed room... .........However, there's probably some closed room trick they could have used. If you bought some closed room mystery novels from the bookstore, you could probably find some trick that would fit perfectly. ......Anyways, I can't think of one now...but I claim that there's nothing humans can't do if they try hard enough.

and note this:

But anyways, they must have skillfully used some kind of trap, or maybe someone is lying..., or what about this?! Kanon-kun, what if the whole thing was just you playacting?!

and this

"D, don't look at me with those pitying eyes...I'm not saying something that crazy, right? I'm just pointing out that it would be possible if you could think of the trick, alright? Look, isn't one of the fallbacks in mystery stories that the victims aren't really dead!?"
"Fallback...?"
"I, in other words, when Kanon-kun was killed, we really did know for sure where the rest of us were. And let's assume that Kumasawa baa-chan wasn't lying. But that only holds true for the survivors. ......What if the culprit pretended to be dead, placed themselves together along with the real victims to hide themselves, and then acted on their own later? Everything would be explained!"

In the end he basically was very close to the solution already right in Ep 1 but then discharged it when he began to realize the implications of accusing his relatives and missed still some answers (for example how the culprit didn't care about the police investigating or of his own survival).

Is Battler really incompetent? Or he's being just a mystery lover that's facing a real murder case involving people he loves?

He's likely aware that in books the detective has detective authority or whatever you want to call it but he perceives himself as in the real world so, even in Ep 4 when he inspect the corpses he thinks the police can complain about it.

When in Ep 2 Beato remembers him Nanjo might be an accomplice (as he suspected in Ep 1) and suggests him to personally check if the guys are really dead Battler is fighting in order not to cry.

I doubt he would have cried while reading a mystery novel.

And there are mentions of mystery novels in Ep 2 as well, and in 4. Battler definitely had mystery knowledge prior to Ep 5.

So, genius Battler.
If you remove from him the possibility he solved the epitaph his other accomplishments are 3.
Finding the culprit for Beato's games, creating an alternate solution for Ep 5 and building up a mystery in Ep 6 who required to be solved by ShKanon then letting himself be trapped in a logic error so that Beato could solve it.

Note that: Will found the culprit just using the hints from ep 1 to 4 (and we were supposed to do so as well according to Ryukishi), so he was more of a genius than Battler.
The first tricks presented in Ep 6 are pretty lame and really if the game had taken place in the real world Erika would have easily realized Battler and Co were faking their death as they were likely breating and their heart was beating.
If Erika had merely pressed a pillow on their face out of instinct they would have had to move to try to get some air, revealing their 'alive' status.

Genius Battler isn't really that smart the same way Ep 1-4 Battler isn't really that dumb, they merely looks so due to circumstances.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

You did however forget that he was told to repeat it and couldn't do so in the first place.

He didn't know he could do so in the first place.

"......Well then Battler. I shall have you repeat it in red."
"Y, you're telling me to repeat something? Heheh..., damn you, stealing my signature move. ......But can I do the red truth too? How...?"
"............I, if you wish for it to be that way, you can do it. It's easy."

Apparently the requisite to use red is just 'to wish for it' and you can use it as long as it's true. Asking him to repeat things wasn't a requisite to use red as proved by the fact he could say this in red.

Ange is, ......my little sister

You can't trust anything, you can't trust any words that aren't red...!!

Later, in the beginning of Ep 5 Battler will again use red.

Grandfather is dead at this point in time

Note that even Natsuhi used red

I never told anyone except Shannon that I like Fall.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

It would have held value, because red is simply the truth, as Bern stated in red (yeah doesn't really make it more credible lol)

It didn't in fact Dlanor smashed it.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

The original context got a bit lost due to me not answering immediately:
I suspected Battler to have mistaken a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, as this wouldn't violate any reds about him.
After that I just explained one way to mistake a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo.

This explanation fits in as soon as we get to the Golden truth were battler searches for a possibility of Kinzo being dead after all and says something along the lines that there is one corpse he could use for that.
Note you still can't mistake Kinzo for someone else, the corpse however had to be shown in one way or another or the golden truth would have been inferior to red.
So the only way to make the Golden truth stronger than Dlanor's red, and block her from using Knox 8, is that a clue about 'that' body has been shown.
Battler claimed to have seen Kinzo, and there is no way he could mistake anyone else for him. Mistaking a piece of cloth for him is also forbidden.

Hum... since when we know how golden truth work and what it required to beat the red truth that is, after all, the truth?

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

This does indeed only leave two options:
- Battler lied
- Battler mistook dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, the corpse was moved by the culprit in order to achieve the goal of making Kinzo look 'alive' if you don't stand right next to him.

Is it sick? Yes it is. (This is btw why I was asked if I'm serious I think)
Why even trying to think in such ways then:

Remember EP 2's first twilight. Kinzo being moved around is still ways below the scale that was set there.

Considering Kinzo is dead by such a long time the body should be... well, pretty ruined to say the least. It would be hard to recognize him as Kinzo...
It seems way more likely that Battler lied or that his words were misunderstood as I theorized in my previous post.