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Originally Posted by einhorn303
The "contradiction" that those two red truths create is easily solvable, just like any of the Closed Room puzzles that Beatrice has tried to trick Battler with. It's probably no coincidence that one statement refers to "humans" and another to "people."
Anyway, the contradiction here is a red herring from Ryukishi07, since it can't actually apply to Erika:
There are 18 humans on the island. "Erika is the eighteenth human on Rokkenjima."
There are 17 people on the island. "Even if she is welcomed, there are seventeen people on the island."
"At least one of the people on the island is a human, but not a person."
Erika is a human: "Erika is the eighteenth human on Rokkenjima."
Erika is a person. Referring to the "count of people on the island" in Episode 5, it's stated that: "Furudo Erika only increases it by one person." The introduction of Erika introduces the count of people by 1.
"Erika is both a human and a person. Therefore, one of the other characters on the island is a human, but not a person."
How to solve this contradiction? Well:
"Maria is in a vegetative state, and is pushed around by the other characters in a wheelchair. Therefore she is a "human", but not a sentient "person." Rosa has the delusion that her daughter is fine, and everyone else humors her. None of the red truths in any of the games are contradicted if we assume this to be true. They only mention Maria being at or leaving locations (at the same time as others leave them), not taking actions, or being killed: i.e., all things that would be possible for a mentally vegetative person in a wheelchair."
or,
"One of the two humans on the island is actually a single person." (Basically, Shkannon or any similar theory.
or,
"'Person' only applies to people with the legal rights of personhood. Genji is legally owned by Kinzo as a slave, so while he's a human, he's not a person."
etc, etc.
I think the "they contradict, so they refer to different game boards" reasoning is a bit suspect. I think we should assume, by default, that all statements apply to the gameboard of their current game. Because if any statement could apply to another gameboard without explicitly stating so, we could ignore any inconvenient truth by saying, "That applies to a different gameboard."
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This doesn't work; I'm pretty sure "Human" and "Person" are the same in the Japanese, but even if they're not, "Human" and "Person" have been used exactly the same in every other situation, ever. You have a bad habit of taking the Red either too literally, or trying to apply special rules to certain reds in order to justify your way of thinking.
Here's a more likely scenario. "Hey guys, I'm Erika, a character given the assignment of 18th person by the Gamemaster." "We're sorry, but even though it is true you were given that assignment by your creator, there are only 17 people on the island. Deal with it."
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If one denies the Red Truth, we wouldn't know anything about the "real" Rokkenjima except for hearsay. Then it's impossible to conclusively prove or disprove Erika's existence. Maybe she existed on the island, maybe she didn't; one couldn't say with absolute certainty.
(Although I personally don't believe any "The Red Truth is fallible" sort of theories.)
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Excuse me, can we stop the train for a second so we can address something, here? Because I think this is a stopgap that is really hurting the thinking of lots of people, here.
The Red Truth is something which is, one way or another, absolutely true we're told, right? Leaving aside the rules of this Red Truth, and it's specific workings, the person who introduced the Red Truth and defined it's powers IS NOT ACTUALLY A WITCH, and MAGIC CANNOT DO SOMETHING THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE BY HUMAN MEANS.
Beatrice is a human being. We know this, even if we haven't been able to explicitly prove it; it's the premise for our win condition. If Beatrice is a human being, how in the fuck can she just conveniently whip out some magical power that is magically compelled to be absolutely right all the time? She can't.
The power of the Red Truth works because of what she says: That is, she only repeats things she knows are true from her own life experience (Maria's past, for instance), or she speaks about the Gameboards, which are fictions she (or a higher plane author, it doesn't matter) wrote herself, as they exist as stories in the "real world" of 1998. Of course she can speak about the truths of AN IMAGINARY WORLD SHE FUCKING INVENTED, and though these gameboards exist to help us discern the truth between them, these Red Truths do not necessarily speak of the reality of Rokkenjima Prime unless we are explicitly told so or we can prove they do. The Red Truth is no different from JK Rowling saying
Dumbledore is Gay.
Keeping this in mind, you have been abusing the authority of the Red Truth, treating it's statements as a divine thing that supercedes the Gameboards in all contexts. That's not the way it works. Hell, Beatrice even mentions using magic in Red when Ange tries to get Maria out of the Golden Land, meaning that
in the most literal sense, the Red Truth is not absolutely reliable. It is treated as valid only because the players and readers involved decided to trust the speaker. Lambdadelta all but affirms this.