Quote:
Originally Posted by Vnonymous
You misunderstood my argument. When you say that the story itself is lying to you and you cannot trust direct evidence, you throw the entire story away. You can't say "Yes, the story itself was lying here to deceive the player" without putting your theory on the same level as the Purupurupiko man one. "The story was lying here" can be said about every single part of the entire narrative, including the parts that support Genius Battler! When you discount those parts of the story as Battler lying to Ange and Featherine/Himself/The players, I can say the exact same thing about the "evidence" supporting that theory! If you're going to provide evidence for genius battler that's great, but if you're going to deny the text of the story then you just lose any basis for discussion.
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The issue is that the things the omniscient-form narrator says are directly contradicted by statements about the nature of being GM in ep8. It's an inconsistency that cannot be avoided, no matter your perspective on Battler's motivations or lack thereof in ep6. Either Battler knew what was going on and could only possibly have been planning things the whole time (and ep6's narration is wrong or misleading) or he didn't know what was going on and he/Beatrice/Lambda are full of crap (and ep8's dialogue is wrong or misleading).
You make a fair point, and I would generally be inclined to say omniscient-form narrative > dialogue in terms of credibility in a narrative, but the problem is that you pretty much run up against a problem any way you slice it. This leads us to conclude one of two things:
- That the omniscient-form narrator wasn't actually omniscient (Ange read her own ideas in, etc.).
- That the narrator was correct and Ryukishi screwed up or changed his mind by ep8.
I think the weight of the evidence is in favor of the former for once, and the things that Battler was supposedly thinking in ep6 were wrong. LyricalAura and others have provided a possible explanation for this: Ange was "reading," and her reading colored the narrative. This gets around several problems with Battler's behavior:
- The idea that he's surprised by Erika or swayed by her pouting are Ange's conclusions drawn from Battler's reaction. Since she doesn't understand what ulterior motive he'd have (he knows The Truth, she doesn't), she assumes his feelings are genuine.
- The notion that rescue by the dead victims was his first plan makes sense in the context of the fact that, as GM, he should already know they're dead; Ange wouldn't know this, so since that was the first thing Battler suggested as a solution she presumed it was his intended one and not an intentional step into a trap he knew was set.
- The idea that Battler could have said Kanon was in the cousins' room was stated in the narrative, but this shouldn't be true. Especially since, if he knows The Truth, Battler probably should be well aware of Shkanon (he doesn't seem at all surprised by it at the end of ep6, at least). Battler's acceptance of Erika's "everyone else" line is perhaps because it doesn't give away or break Shkanon, but as the reader Ange may not have been aware of this.
Basically, the argument LA and others are making is "The ep6 omniscient narration is provided by the Reader, Ange, based on what she believes everyone was thinking. In fact, the only thing we
can trust is what was actually
said, and it's impossible to tell the difference between Genius Battler and Incompetent Battler strictly from Battler's statements. However, since Genius Battler is supported by much more evidence in Chiru than Incompetent Battler, Genius Battler is probably correct."