[Renall]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

The only reason the trial looks unfair is because Erika keeps using cheap tricks to prevent all answers where Natsuhi is innocent. However, we know that Natsuhi is innocent. Therefore, no matter what tricks Erika uses, no matter how cheap she is, there must always be a way to demonstrate Natsuhi's innocence, using only the evidence Lambda gives us.

No, the reason the trial looks unfair is because the trial is unfair. The scene is poorly-written because it's clear that Battler will not be able to advance anything under any circumstances because he has no mechanism to do so, yet Erika will be able to do anything she wants because the people running the "trial" are specifically biased in her favor. Erika's speculation is nothing more than that, and everybody knows it (especially the audience). The only reason it could be "found to be true" is if everyone is intentionally working to make her right (they are) and Battler doesn't bother to raise the objections which actually torpedo her theory (he doesn't, at least until the climax).

There are several obvious avenues of attack, and Battler does take them, but only after things build to the point that he's able to suddenly pull out gold truth. A reveal that, by the way, doesn't actually work very effectively as a narrative measure, because we don't even know what it is until several episodes later.

The basic structure of the scene is thus:

ERIKA: I've eliminated all possibilities except that Natsuhi did it, by completely failing to do any alibi establishment for her for absolutely no reason.
BATTLER: But-
WITCHES: Sorry, you can't say anything.
BATTLER: The hell with that.
DLANOR: GASP, it's the gold truth!
AUDIENCE: What.
DLANOR: It's pretty awesome and it means he's the Game Master and knows everything and shit so he's right.
ERIKA: But-
BATTLER: Sorry, you can't say anything. By the way here's all the reasons your theory can be challenged. Also, I posit that I was the culprit which is equally as ridiculous as Natsuhi doing it but also equally impossible to disprove.
ERIKA: Why didn't you just come up with that at the climactic moment? It would've been just as surprising and actually have defeated me by playing by the rules, instead of just randomly vanquishing me with as stupid a trick as my idiotically comprehensive research that somehow failed to ever account for Natsuhi's location.
BATTLER: I dunno lol. Anyway I get to be a wizard now.
ERIKA: What.
BERNKASTEL: Oh well that's cool. I'm going to crank up my villainy to 11 now for some reason. This will be fun.
AUDIENCE: But wait, so what is the gold truth? I mean what does it do, what are its rules, what can be said in gold? Why does Battler win?
WITCHES: *shrug*
BEATRICE: By the way I died at some point in here.
AUDIENCE: Nobody cares, you'll come back.
BEATRICE: Probably, yeah.