[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Renall

I base this on Ryukishi's own interviews. For example, he suggested that had Battler's ep1 groping gone off without a hitch, he would have discovered the secret of Shannon's chest. But does that mean that Shannon's breasts are real until Battler discovers otherwise? How is that fair? How is that workable? If Kinzo can be alive until someone realizes he isn't, does that mean he actually was the culprit alongside Beatrice in ep4? What stops that from happening, so long as Meta-Battler can't observe and conclude otherwise? Why go to the trouble of hiding Kinzo at all? If Kinzo murders everyone and then Battler determines Kinzo was dead from the start, is that a Logic Error? We know fantasy scenes can be destroyed without forcing such to happen, but even if there is an alternate explanation who was actually the killer before the Kinzo-killer fantasy was dispelled, Kinzo or the "alternative" suspect?

You aren't seeing this from a GMs perspective I think. An example of this very thing happens in EP6. If BATTLER's intention was to have the first twilight be faked from the start, it would have fallen apart the moment Erika used her proclamation and witnessed a corpse. So Battler would have made a game knowing full well that Erika wouldn't use her powers. This is pushing the Genius Battler theory to more of an absolute Omniscient Battler theory. It would happen in EP5 as well with the first twilight. Basically it turns into a "Everyone is trolling Erika" world."

[Toku]

Originally Posted by Renall

And if Kanon didn't have a body in ep5, this constitutes a fatal Logic Error. What gives?

Whether she lied or not is irrelevant; it's fair game. So in other words, we can conclude that if this theory is being followed, Kanon had a body in EP5.

If Kanon and Shannon weren't there, and Erika didn't see either, then obviously Bern and Meta-Erika should be calling foul right away, as Lambda is showing them two servants who weren't there and then claiming that everyone on the island is present. They don't.

It's worthy of note that by this point, Bern and Lambda were already cooperating to deliver a false verdict with the Natsuhi culprit theory. We know that they were cooperating, because Lambda could have slashed it down with the Red Truth in no time at all, and yet she did not. In other words, it's the same as the Witch side being about ready to admit defeat when they didn't have to. Why would she do that?

What we saw could have been just a show they put on for Battler, to get an interesting reaction out of him.

But unfortunately, this theory is impossible from the start. And the reason is because there is a Red in EP5 which confirms Kanon's presence on the game board.

And if Kanon and Shannon weren't there, but Erika observed the two of them anyway, that means the facts comport neither with Erika's own observations as a piece nor with the scene as Lambda portrayed it. In short, it'd be a double-layered cheating sandwich, with Piece-Erika as the meat.

The only question here is whether it's permitted for Lambda to deceive the observations of Piece!Erika. If it is, then this theory is fair game. If not, then no.

Which leaves two more.

"Kanon and Shannon were switching off and Erika saw both" means the scene was a lie but it was a semi-plausible lie to the memory of Piece-Erika, who observed at different times Shannon and Kanon being present and thus sees no issues with the scene as presented since her own memory didn't let her see what Battler would have seen from his perspective, but it "sounds right." The red is not a lie, because all human persons were present in the room when Lambda proclaimed it, even though Kanon (or Shannon) actually wasn't visibly present. The problem with this is it's really just "Kanon was standing behind Gohda" evolved. It's not really any more satisfactory an explanation, just one that can be explained without suggesting Erika's piece was deceived.

The Red cannot be a lie in the first place. Lambda finished her sentence, so she didn't even pull a trick like what Bern did in the EP7 Tea Party.

And I agree, this theory isn't very satisfying at all.

"Kanon and Shannon weren't both there but Erika just didn't see one of them" means Lambda was filling in a detail which was either a deliberate lie on Narrator-Battler's part or an intentional embellishment on her own part. If Erika can't remember seeing Kanon, but "buys it" because the scene put him there, that's an indicator that she's basically stupid and lazy. This is especially true carrying forward to ep6 where Shkanon actually means something. And if Battler's narration is lying, he's doing so for absolutely no reason. Stupid, lazy detectives and narrators telling lies for no reason are hallmarks of incredibly poor writing, and it's going to trip up the reader quite badly.

This theory is unacceptable. If you use this, it means that Erika should have been able to solve the Logic Error at the end of EP6.

But as far as Piece!Battler's narration goes, that's fair game. After all, he's just a Piece being controlled.

...Though technically, since Bern was supposed to be in control of Piece!Battler's narration at that point, doesn't that mean she knew about ShKanon and was hiding it? And that opens up a huge can of worms.

All in all, I think I'm now going to have to revert back to using the "Kanon had a body" theory.

[Renall]

The problem is more that I don't think we generally see deceptive first-person narration very often, even in fantasy scenes. So while it's fair game for Battler's piece to tell a lie, there's usually a reason behind it. Our Confessions gives people some kind of reason to lie; Beatrice tells them to as part of a game. Unless a game has already begun at this point (remember, this is like midday on the 4th), and Battler has already been recruited to it, he doesn't have any coherent reason to pretend he saw Kanon and Shannon as distinct entities.

It's one thing to show a scene where Rosa runs away from a demon and then tells Battler that she just ran from a demon (she could just be lying about the prior scene), and another to have Rosa narrate in her own words the experience of running from a demon that didn't ever actually happen, in a situation where Rosa has no reason whatsoever to experience such a thing or pretend she's doing so.

It's a very different kind of lie. There's "fantasy scene backed up by a lie," and then there's "this character is just lying to no one for no reason." Battler's narration is an example of the latter. He's not telling anyone any information, except the player. If Lambda has directed the piece to deliberately lie to essentially himself (this is an internal narration, remember, so it's basically what Battler appears to be thinking, not saying), she's seriously stretching the bounds of good storytelling if not outright breaking them.

And... for what, exactly? To convince Bern and Erika of something they didn't even doubt in the first place?

[Keriaku]

I'd like to draw attention to the final chapter of EP6, where Beatrice and Erika duel over the Logic Error. In this scene, when trying to figure out where Kanon could be hiding in the room, Erika realizes that he can be both under the bed and in the closet simultaneously. Because of the possibility that whenever she takes time to check any one, he could slip into another part of the room, the Fantasy side can posit him in any of the above places. She emphasizes how this is a ridiculous argument 'in real life', but in the Witches game it is a magnificent and elegant board setup. A key point here for me is that in this meta-game, things can be advanced as long as they are based on some sort of real-world possibilitiy.

So for this parlor scene, if we must know the 'trick' then it probably is something like being able to switch between Shannon and Kanon, alongside bribing people to go along with it. Yes, it's not a very likely scenario in real life, but it certainly is possible. And thus it's an avaliable move in the game.

But this is not to say that Erika couldn't have figured it out, by making a thorough examination of everyone in the room. But I'd chalk this up to her arrogance and full reliance on the Detective abilities. Since she used her abilities to gather everyone in the room, she already knows everyone must be there without having to check, so she doesn't.

And I still think that this is something that Beatrice could do, but wouldn't. I'd say that Beatrice probably went out of her way to keep things 'real-world' fair, and didn't do things that would be possible but unrealistic in real life. And really the whole Shkanon thing is pretty much a basic premise of the entire Gameboard. She wanted Battler to figure it out, not expose herself and show it to him as Fantasy 'just because she can'. There is no reason for her to do that. Though for Lambda, who said she was gonna be giving 'super special' hints in her game, understands Beatrice, and chooses to stay neutral, it does make sense for her to do this.

And for the record, I still think the EP5 game invitation must be talking about this scene. What else could it possibly be talking about?

EDIT for added thoughts:

I imagine that this leaves it as: Erika didn't actually see Shannon/Kanon through her piece. But if she goes back and checks the game records, they would be there.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

The problem is more that I don't think we generally see deceptive first-person narration very often, even in fantasy scenes. So while it's fair game for Battler's piece to tell a lie, there's usually a reason behind it. Our Confessions gives people some kind of reason to lie; Beatrice tells them to as part of a game. Unless a game has already begun at this point (remember, this is like midday on the 4th), and Battler has already been recruited to it, he doesn't have any coherent reason to pretend he saw Kanon and Shannon as distinct entities.

That game begins with Battler calling Jessica on the phone some time before the conference, for no apparent reason, and we don't get to see what they talk about. Frankly, he probably was compromised from the outset.

[Renall]

I think there are several differences there.

First, we know that there is an "intended scenario." Thus, at least some aspect of any setup necessitates knowing what you're planning to do ahead of time to some extent. Our Confessions backs this up, as does the idea that Battler was "planning" his game in ep6. If nothing else, his First Twilight plan was probably predetermined.

The situation that the Logic Error ended up in is a bit different. First of all, obviously, Battler didn't plan the solution Beatrice used (or at least, didn't use it himself). The Kanon-based solution was a highly theoretical one Beatrice was using in what amounts to a very different game. Erika was restricted in her claims, for example; in reality, if Erika could check one part of the room, odds are she could check all of them and eventually locate Kanon, or wait them out, etc. She couldn't because of the nature of the confrontation, but those "rules" were kind of being made up on the fly. It's part of what makes the final throwdown in ep6 somewhat hollow if you actually go back and read it critically. Beatrice and Erika are sort of fighting arbitrarily, Beatrice advances a clever idea, Erika basically gives up. It basically all happens on Lambda's whim anyway.

The parlor situation is entirely different. First of all, it's not being "played" over, because as far as anyone knows nothing is being presented that needs to be discussed. Second, even if we accept some solution along the lines of "Kanon/Shannon were switching off, giving Erika the mistaken impression both were in the room when she never observed both at once," it doesn't comply with the actual narrative we're given. It's one thing to fool the detective, but this solution is one we're only reaching because we're trying to explain away a presentation of the scene that deliberately tries to fool us.

And all the while, we're left to explain away Battler's completely misleading internal monologue as "he was lying, because the GM can make his piece lie." You know, to himself. In his own thoughts. For absolutely no reason. Is Battler's piece now aware that there is an audience and deliberately mis-thinking things to fool some omniscient observer? It's not like later in the episode when he alleges his mistakes could be embellished. Battler is flat-out lying in this case, or else Kanon/Shannon is the fastest quick-change artist in costuming history.

I don't see how this can be casually dismissed by anyone with "Oh Battler's perspective is unreliable." Unreliable yes, but he has no reason to lie to himself. His piece is basically thinking thoughts that only make sense if he's deliberately trying to mislead the higher-level entities through meta-knowledge. And even stickier... isn't Bern the one using his piece in ep5? How exactly can she make use of a piece that somehow knows she's watching and can blatantly lie to her?

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

That game begins with Battler calling Jessica on the phone some time before the conference, for no apparent reason, and we don't get to see what they talk about. Frankly, he probably was compromised from the outset.

Again, this cannot explain why Battler is lying to himself, in his own mind, where no one is (to his knowledge) listening. And if he is using meta-knowledge, what else is he making use of for it in ep5? Does Erika know it's happening?

[Keriaku]

Well this now becomes a matter of perspective on all of Umineko. To me, what we see on the gameboards is what happens to the pieces. When people are running for their lives from the goats or the stakes, they are actually doing that and they are scared for their lives. It's no different here with Battler. The trick, the truth, this whole mystery versus fantasy mechanics, all only matter from the Meta perspective. To the general piece, that is reality. I'd say the detective is the only one that's special, because it must be linked with a Meta-perspective.

But still, I think regardless, where we are now with the scene is much better then where it was left a month or two ago.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Keriaku

Well this now becomes a matter of perspective on all of Umineko. To me, what we see on the gameboards is what happens to the pieces. When people are running for their lives from the goats or the stakes, they are actually doing that and they are scared for their lives. It's no different here with Battler. The trick, the truth, this whole mystery versus fantasy mechanics, all only matter from the Meta perspective. To the general piece, that is reality. I'd say the detective is the only one that's special, because it must be linked with a Meta-perspective.

Except we don't have someone's first-person perspective on that. You understand the difference, right? One is "Bob ran away from demons, and told Steve that he'd just run away from demons." The other is Bob thinking to himself "Holy shit, there's a demon right in front of me! I gotta get the hell out of here and go tell Steve!" In the former case, the demon incident could well have not happened, and Bob could have concocted the story. In the latter case, even if Bob is lying about the story, he's also lying in his own present-tense internal monologue. People do not actually do this.

Now I suppose you can argue "Well so what? Just as I can declare that nobody really fought demons, I can declare that Bob didn't really think what he thought." The problem with this in respect to ep5 is it turns the parlor scene from one in which we have limited and unreliable narration to one where we don't have any narration, because Piece-Battler's thoughts have been ripped out and replaced with deliberate meta-gaming lies.

That would be fine if we had any other perspective on the scene, such as the one Erika ought to have had. But apparently Erika's perspective has never actually mattered to anyone in the Meta-World, because not only do we never see it, nobody acts like it exists to begin with.

That is not something we can really reconcile.

Originally Posted by Keriaku

But still, I think regardless where we are now with the scene is much better then where it was left a month or two ago.

Not really, no. There still isn't an actual answer, just more theories that don't quite work, like puzzle pieces where three of the four edges match a hole and the last one doesn't.

[Keriaku]

We might just be talking past each other at this point, but I'll see if I can explain myself. I don't fully remember where and how much we've seen things from first-person perspectives throughout the series, but it has happened before, so this is worth adressing.

There is no one 'lying with their thoughts'. If what we see on the gameboard is reality for them, that is what is actually happening and that is what they are actually thinking. If what they are thinking about is 'Fantasy', it's of no consequence to the Piece. It is the Gamemaster who has crafted their reality in that form and enabled that situation. The Gamemaster is the one who has the burden of proof for making sure the logic holds, that the Fantasy and Mystery coincide, the pieces do not. So I don't find your arguments about Battler's thoughts a problem here.

And isn't this whole idea basically what happens to George and Jessica in the Love Duel? Jessica talks about how she isn't happy with having to kill her relatives, et cetera, but if she changes her perspective to a Meta one and looks at it like a gameboard, then she can be okay with it. That's the difference between a Piece and a Meta-Piece.

[Toku]

Originally Posted by Renall

The problem is more that I don't think we generally see deceptive first-person narration very often, even in fantasy scenes. So while it's fair game for Battler's piece to tell a lie, there's usually a reason behind it. Our Confessions gives people some kind of reason to lie; Beatrice tells them to as part of a game. Unless a game has already begun at this point (remember, this is like midday on the 4th), and Battler has already been recruited to it, he doesn't have any coherent reason to pretend he saw Kanon and Shannon as distinct entities.

It's one thing to show a scene where Rosa runs away from a demon and then tells Battler that she just ran from a demon (she could just be lying about the prior scene), and another to have Rosa narrate in her own words the experience of running from a demon that didn't ever actually happen, in a situation where Rosa has no reason whatsoever to experience such a thing or pretend she's doing so.

It's a very different kind of lie. There's "fantasy scene backed up by a lie," and then there's "this character is just lying to no one for no reason." Battler's narration is an example of the latter. He's not telling anyone any information, except the player. If Lambda has directed the piece to deliberately lie to essentially himself (this is an internal narration, remember, so it's basically what Battler appears to be thinking, not saying), she's seriously stretching the bounds of good storytelling if not outright breaking them.

And... for what, exactly? To convince Bern and Erika of something they didn't even doubt in the first place?

I'd like to point out that this isn't the only inexplicably odd action Lambda has taken (if indeed she did take this specific action), in EP5.

In previous games, she made it clear that she wants the games to continue on, endlessly. If it ever looks like Beatrice or Battler is going to win, she'll step in, and prevent that from happening.

At some point after Beatrice gave up at the end of EP4... If I remember right, she made a statement that she had thought up another way to have the game continue on endlessly. This led me to believe that EP5 was her gambit to remove the obstacles that stood in the way of her goal.

However, it seems pretty obvious that, should Battler manage to reach the Truth, it will mean that he wins the game. Therefore, Lambda should be acting to prevent this.

On the contrary, she seems to imply in the EP5 Tea Party that this outcome is something she had planned (it's just that it happened sooner than she expected).

Furthermore, there's the fact that, as I had already explained, Lambda appeared to be ready to forfeit the game of EP5 to Bern when Battler arrived, even though she could have easily ripped through these Natsuhi theories.

At a glance, it seems like she made the whole game for the purpose of helping Battler reach the truth, but to be honest, I have no idea. This is further complicated by the fact that Bernkastel is supposed to be the one controlling Piece!Battler at the moment. But most importantly, since I couldn't figure out where to even start in figuring out Lambda's motivations, I had decided to put that on hold, and instead concentrate on what I could more easily reason out.

One thing that we have completely different interpretations of, though, is Piece!Battler's perspective. I'd like to say that he is not necessarily lying to himself, in his own mind. The fact is that, in EP5, Battler's Piece isn't even at Detective status, so he can theoretically be deceived with any illusion the GM comes up with. Therefore, Bernkastel could be having him look around the room and make observations, but Lambdadelta is showing him a scene where both Shannon and Kanon are there at the same time, even though that's not the truth.

Originally Posted by Keriaku

But I'd chalk this up to her arrogance and full reliance on the Detective abilities. Since she used her abilities to gather everyone in the room, she already knows everyone must be there without having to check, so she doesn't.

This much is confirmed in EP6, when she receives confirmation that "everyone else" is in the cousins' room, and this proves to be her downfall.

And I still think that this is something that Beatrice could do, but wouldn't. I'd say that Beatrice probably went out of her way to keep things 'real-world' fair, and didn't do things that would be possible but unrealistic in real life. And really the whole Shkanon thing is pretty much a basic premise of the entire Gameboard. She wanted Battler to figure it out, not expose herself and show it to him as Fantasy 'just because she can'. There is no reason for her to do that. Though for Lambda, who said she was gonna be giving 'super special' hints in her game, understands Beatrice, and chooses to stay neutral, it does make sense for her to do this.

How exactly is it that this scene is giving a hint to Battler?

Or did she do all of this just to confuse him further?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Keriaku

We might just be talking past each other at this point, but I'll see if I can explain myself. I don't fully remember where and how much we've seen things from first-person perspectives throughout the series, but it has happened before, so this is worth adressing.

Where else has it happened before? These are things we really ought to quote.

Originally Posted by Keriaku

There is no one 'lying with their thoughts'. If what we see on the gameboard is reality for them, that is what is actually happening and that is what they are actually thinking. If what they are thinking about is 'Fantasy', it's of no consequence to the Piece. It is the Gamemaster who has crafted their reality in that form and enabled that situation. The Gamemaster is the one who has the burden of proof for making sure the logic holds, that the Fantasy and Mystery coincide, the pieces do not. So I don't find your arguments about Battler's thoughts a problem here.

That's because you've taken refuge in absurdity. If fantasy is the reality for these people, what about the inconsistencies Battler finds in the evidence in ep4? How is anyone - Battler, Will, whoever - meant to find the trick when the fantasy is equally acceptable? How is the matter even a "game" if it's really just a mutable reality? And how can Battler get away with a simple blanket denial of something like the ep3 garden battle? His basis is "there's no evidence it happened." That's it. The same argument could be turned around on him: There's no evidence it didn't happen, ergo it did. Yet Battler wins this one. Why is he winning if the fantasy should be equally strong without some valid rationale for why it can't possibly be?

And isn't this whole idea basically what happens to George and Jessica in the Love Duel? Jessica talks about how she isn't happy with having to kill her relatives, et cetera, but if she changes her perspective to a Meta one and looks at it like a gameboard, then she can be okay with it. That's the difference between a Piece and a Meta-Piece.

Did she say that, or did she think that? And is Love Duel Jessica actually Jessica?

[Cao Ni Ma]

Rosa goes into first person mode when describing the final scenes in EP2. It was very jarring too cause it was a sudden switch from omniscient narrator to Rosa in a split second.

[Toku]

Originally Posted by Renall

That's because you've taken refuge in absurdity. If fantasy is the reality for these people, what about the inconsistencies Battler finds in the evidence in ep4? How is anyone - Battler, Will, whoever - meant to find the trick when the fantasy is equally acceptable? How is the matter even a "game" if it's really just a mutable reality? And how can Battler get away with a simple blanket denial of something like the ep3 garden battle? His basis is "there's no evidence it happened." That's it. The same argument could be turned around on him: There's no evidence it didn't happen, ergo it did. Yet Battler wins this one. Why is he winning if the fantasy should be equally strong without some valid rationale for why it can't possibly be?

The fact that there can be Logic Errors means that, at the core of Umineko, it is a Mystery. Therefore, Mystery must have more weight. I don't think anyone can dispute this.

However, this does not mean that showing illusions to non-Detective Pieces is forbidden.

Did she say that, or did she think that? And is Love Duel Jessica actually Jessica?

Love Duel Jessica is an illusion constructed by BATTLER. This is obvious, because the victims of the first twilight were all playing dead.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Rosa goes into first person mode when describing the final scenes in EP2. It was very jarring too cause it was a sudden switch from omniscient narrator to Rosa in a split second.

Do you by chance recall what she says?

Originally Posted by Toku

The fact that there can be Logic Errors means that, at the core of Umineko, it is a Mystery. Therefore, Mystery must have more weight. I don't think anyone can dispute this.

However, this does not mean that showing illusions to non-Detective Pieces is forbidden.

Our Confessions would suggest that the accomplice pieces are knowingly complicit and that any fantasy is subtly encouraged by the accomplices. If this is the case, they would never narrate their experience with something they know to be a deliberate falsehood. For example, if Kyrie was the accomplice in ep4 and was told to narrate a particular fantasy story to Battler, at no point would Kyrie have been thinking about those events in her own mind's narrative. Because she knows the events didn't happen and that she's just telling a story. If we could see in Kyrie's head, at no point would she make the implication that those things actually happened, unless she had somehow been earnestly deceived into believing they had.

[Kylon99]

IIRC, Battler was told that his flat out denials similar to the one you portrayed were better than his earlier flounderings, but ultimately ask they do is put the game into a stalemate. Like someone refusing to even make a move.

So it wasn't really a win.

Edit: Sorry, posting from a phone so I can't comment much. 8)

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

IIRC, Battler was told that his flat out denials similar to the one you portrayed were better than his earlier flounderings, but ultimately ask they do is put the game into a stalemate. Like someone refusing to even make a move.

So it wasn't really a win.

But the fantasy still basically disappears. He's not making any positive ground, but by engaging in his capacity for denial he basically nullified the existence of that scene. Granted, Beatrice "cleaned it up" as usual too, but it was portrayed less as "Yeah but you can't prove it didn't" and more as "Maybe so, but don't think you're going to win the game just denying everything."

[Toku]

Originally Posted by Renall

Our Confessions would suggest that the accomplice pieces are knowingly complicit and that any fantasy is subtly encouraged by the accomplices. If this is the case, they would never narrate their experience with something they know to be a deliberate falsehood. For example, if Kyrie was the accomplice in ep4 and was told to narrate a particular fantasy story to Battler, at no point would Kyrie have been thinking about those events in her own mind's narrative. Because she knows the events didn't happen and that she's just telling a story. If we could see in Kyrie's head, at no point would she make the implication that those things actually happened, unless she had somehow been earnestly deceived into believing they had.

You are correct. But while Mystery has more weight, it is not the single element. There is also a Fantasy side. In other words, there are 2 overlapping stories. In the Mystery story, what you're saying could be what's happening. However, in the Fantasy story, Goats and Stakes and Demons can exist.

Think about it this way.

Natsuhi is sitting on a bench. She is talking to her friend Beatrice. However, from the Mystery side of things, Witches do not exist. Therefore, we reason that either:
1. She is insane and consequently believes she is talking to a Witch.
2. She is just pretending, in order to cope with the trauma of Kinzo's death and the subsequent near loss of all of the family's honor.

I believe that neither of these is true.

On the Mystery side, what we have is just Natsuhi, sitting alone on a bench. She is not pretending to have a conversation with anyone.

But on the Fantasy side, she is chatting with the Witch.

On both sides of the story, she is certainly trying to cope with the trauma of recent family troubles. This is the important thing. Even if you are shown a blatant falsehood, it is not inherently a waste of time.

Even so, if you figure out what is happening on the Mystery side, the Fantasy will disappear.

[Keriaku]

Originally Posted by Toku

...

Even so, if you figure out what is happening on the Mystery side, the Fantasy will disappear.

Thought this was a really good post, Toku, and seems to mesh well with was we are told in EP3 and My Confessions (One I'm going off of memory, the other a summary translation, hmm....)

Originally Posted by Renall

But the fantasy still basically disappears. He's not making any positive ground, but by engaging in his capacity for denial he basically nullified the existence of that scene. Granted, Beatrice "cleaned it up" as usual too, but it was portrayed less as "Yeah but you can't prove it didn't" and more as "Maybe so, but don't think you're going to win the game just denying everything."

For this I don't think we can take it as evidence either way, really. We know that Ryuukishi was trying to give people hints on how to solve the game in EP3 because people had been giving up. So people were being shown how to fight, not just a Fantasy beatdown like EP2. And some things just need to happen to keep the plot going forward. The fact that Beatrice chooses to stop it seems telling to me, as we know she wanted Battler to solve it as well.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Do you by chance recall what she says

Its right after Maria throws the rifle back to Rosa. The narrator mentions that she grabbed it and then suddenly it changes to Rosa's perspective. She thinks to herself

"However, at the same time , I saw the goat head pursuers on the other side of the rose bushes increase in number. I've gain enough distance for now! I held onto the blanket wrapped around the ingot and the gun, and once again ran with Maria." "...Why am I running with a gun in my right hand and the gold on my left? Why don't I let go with one hand grasp Maria's hand..?!!

"I cant let go of the gun that protects my body. I cant let go of the gold that protects my future. But even so, I let go of the hand of my daughter, the person who is my future...?!! Run. Run. Run.

It switches back to the omniscient narrator then.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

I know this isn't addressed to me, but I think that the word 'people' can be interpreted in several ways and neither is objectively invalid. You can say that there are '17 people' and it's true because there are 17 physical human beings on the island. But you can also say there are '18 people' because there are 18 personalities on the island. It depends on your interpretation - neither can be said to be wrong. Both are completely true and both can be said with the red truth.

In other words, there can be 17 people and 18 people on the island simultaneously.

Sure, but I don't like how liberal this is with the Reds (even ones used by the same person).

And this brings us back to the same fundamental problem with Kealym's theory: Why were Lambda and Bern so cryptic and roundabout in showing the number of people on the island to be 18 when they didn't have to be (according to you, they could just out and say there are 18 people)? Why go out of their way to make extra room for Erika to suspect that the number is not 18?

Originally Posted by Toku

This 18th person X does not exist. This applies to all games.
How can you get around that?

Actually, wait. This 18th person does not exist?? If we say that only that last sentence about the 18th person X applies to all games, then that makes things easy.

In short, even with Furudo Erika, there are (1<x<17] people in all games. That is, if "people" and "person" are defined in the same way.

But, the number of humans simply cannot exceed the number of people, because humans are not counted once they are confirmed dead. And it wouldn't make sense for a human to not possess a personality while still alive. So if Erika is the 18th human while there are 17 people, that still makes 0 sense.

You're reinventing a non-existent problem. The conversation (a mix of red and white text) at the introduction of Erika in EP5 makes it clear that she's an exception, a "bonus" character. RK07 also probably hadn't planned on Erika when he released EP4.

But if you really want to dodge the Red, there are still two ways you can do it that I can think of. First, Erika is not a "person X"; she's not some mysterious factor working behind the scenes since Furudo Erika had no influence on any of Beato's games before now. Or, second, you simply say that This applies to all games!!! only means games up to that point.

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Well, I still think it has something to do with the quantum nature of the box. The way the narrator talks about Kanon during his finals scenes makes it seem like Kanon, the individual human, couldn't exist anymore after what he and Beatrice did.

I think so too. Kanon still existed as a human on the meta-level up until the ShKanon trick in EP6 made his existence impossible (as opposed to existing as a human on the gameboard-level; after EP6 it was decided he never had existence there in the first place). This is how Erika's "18" was true when she said it, because it was spoken in the context of the Meta-World and Kanon was still (barely) meta-alive until Battler and Beatrice saying "17" finished meta-killing him off.

Poor Kanon.

Originally Posted by Renall

"Kanon and Shannon weren't both there but Erika just didn't see one of them" means Lambda was filling in a detail which was either a deliberate lie on Narrator-Battler's part or an intentional embellishment on her own part. If Erika can't remember seeing Kanon, but "buys it" because the scene put him there, that's an indicator that she's basically stupid and lazy. This is especially true carrying forward to ep6 where Shkanon actually means something. And if Battler's narration is lying, he's doing so for absolutely no reason. Stupid, lazy detectives and narrators telling lies for no reason are hallmarks of incredibly poor writing, and it's going to trip up the reader quite badly.

You seem to think that Erika could not possibly make a mistake, but I'd like to point out that we only have two possible reasons that Erika could get ShKanon wrong. Either a) she made a mistake or b) she was trolled. Or, if you can see in shades of gray, some combination of the two.

Originally Posted by Toku

It's worthy of note that by this point, Bern and Lambda were already cooperating to deliver a false verdict with the Natsuhi culprit theory. We know that they were cooperating, because Lambda could have slashed it down with the Red Truth in no time at all, and yet she did not. In other words, it's the same as the Witch side being about ready to admit defeat when they didn't have to. Why would she do that?

What we saw could have been just a show they put on for Battler, to get an interesting reaction out of him.

You know, it's interesting because Bern supplied an unearned Red to Erika during the trial: at 24:00, Natsuhi, Krauss, and Genji were in a corridor on the second floor of the mansion. All the remaining people were at the family conference in the dining hall. Of course, at that point in time, no murder had occurred. Genji was also alive. Lambdadelta said it was something that Erika did not observe but then she acknowledged it anyway because otherwise the game couldn't move forward.

Again Bern said later... Of all the people in the dining hall, not one of them left the dining hall until 1:00 AM...! Beatrice complained that Erika did not observe it (which she didn't; she was in the guest house), but Bern responded: The red truth is simply truth, and there is no need to provide evidence, proof, or room for a counter-argument!!

And it happened yet again: When Genji finished transferring the call, he immediately returned to the waiting room. Erika did not observe this either.

So, hmm? Did Bern just assume right? Or did she know these things without Erika observing them? Or is she just making shit up and Lambda is letting her do it?

Originally Posted by Renall

It's one thing to show a scene where Rosa runs away from a demon and then tells Battler that she just ran from a demon (she could just be lying about the prior scene), and another to have Rosa narrate in her own words the experience of running from a demon that didn't ever actually happen, in a situation where Rosa has no reason whatsoever to experience such a thing or pretend she's doing so.

It's a very different kind of lie. There's "fantasy scene backed up by a lie," and then there's "this character is just lying to no one for no reason." Battler's narration is an example of the latter. He's not telling anyone any information, except the player. If Lambda has directed the piece to deliberately lie to essentially himself (this is an internal narration, remember, so it's basically what Battler appears to be thinking, not saying), she's seriously stretching the bounds of good storytelling if not outright breaking them.

And... for what, exactly? To convince Bern and Erika of something they didn't even doubt in the first place?

Except this exact thing happened when Battler met Kinzo on the way to the gold and the fact ended up a major plot point to prove that Battler's narration was unreliable.

Actually, I checked the scene again. It's kind of obvious that it wasn't Kinzo who showed Battler the way; he already knew it. Battler didn't solve the epitaph; he already knew all about it and just pretended to solve it. 8)

So anyway the question is not if Battler narrates lies in EP5, but how and why. And obviously the how and why have to be explained in meta terms since, as you say, people don't lie to themselves in their minds. The "how" I think has to do with the concept of the "Reader", the "why" I think has to do with fooling Erika and putting Battler on the right track. Lambda, and even Bern, might not actually be on Erika's side or be Battler's enemy, at least in EP5.