Episode 4 plot question *SPOILERS*

[AHA-Lambda]

OK, I've not finished episode 4 yet I just got to the first twilight, so keep that in mind as I ask this.

But why on earth did Kinzo not summon Ronove, the Chiester sisters or Virgillia in the other episodes if he has this power?

And I thought in Episode 3 Kumasawa and Virgillia were the same person but now they're not?

And now Beatrice is claiming to have set up the idea of smashing people's heads only halfway so Battler can identify them. But how?? She wasn't the one to kill them it was Kinzo who did it??

[Heatth]

If you haven't figured out the answer for all of that you probably will by the time Episode 4 ends. But I recomend you revisit EP3, in particular Virgilia talk with Battler after her fight with Beatrice.

[Veltharis]

I hate to say it, but it's next to impossible to answer these questions, particularly regarding Kinzo, without spoiling a fairly big plot point for EP IV, and frankly the first half of the series as whole.

[AHA-Lambda]

right ok, i'll wait until the end of the episode before I question this stuff any further.

[AHA-Lambda]

Argh, I'm so confused!!!

so Kinzo was always dead?? The why did we see him in each episode!!??

what the hell is going on?? O__O

[Veltharis]

See what we meant?

Wall of Text incoming. Also, we should probably flag this and have it moved into the spoiler section...

[NotAfan]

Hmm...how should I explain this...

Well, since you're past Episode 3, I guess it's not really spoilering to just steer you in the right direction.

What episode 3 tells you is that pretty much all of the scenes that involve magic and the supernatural are basically symbolic representations of what's really going on. I feel you're getting too hung-up on information that's not meant to be taken at face value. All the crazy scenes have to be interpreted and theorized, and to answer your questions would be pretty spoilery for the answers given to you on the rest of the story.

So try to approach the magical scenes as puzzles and hints to the overall mystery, not actual crazyness. Then again, you'll realize later what magic trully is and...uh, I digress. Anyway, that's that.

[Veltharis]

To reiterate and expand on what Heatth said earlier, this is, simply put, the fundamental conflict at work in this series: the metaphorical tug-of-war to define this story as either "mystery" or "fantasy".

Battler and Beatrice stand on opposite sides of this debate.

In order to find the culprit, Battler has to reject the existence of the supernatural (witches, demons, magic, etc.) because to permit any of that throws the validity of the mystery itself into question. Proper mysteries have rules (more on that will be explored in EP V), one of which being that supernatural elements play no role in the crime - while such things can be suggested, no one actually sees a ghost and no killer is actually a vampire. Or a demon, or a witch. The crime must be something that can be performed through human means and the reader must be able to solve it through logic and reason. As amusing as it may be to theorize dropping Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes into The Deathly Hallows to try hunting down Voldemort from the Muggle side, as a "mystery" it would be written off from the start. So long as the witch and those who serve her exist, the mystery cannot be solved - they are nothing more than an illusion that hides the truth.

By contrast, Beatrice is pushing the case that this story has actually been a fantasy all along, and fantasies have no such rules. Anything can happen, and any number of things that do not exist in reality can play any role in the story that the author wishes. The "illusion" of a witch, of demons and magic, are all real. Reasoning is pointless, because there was nothing to "solve" in the first place.

Virgilia's hints in EP III provide a helpful way of looking at things. There are a number of scenes that, if taken at face value, can only be viewed through the lens of "fantasy", the witches' duel between Virgilia and Beatrice perhaps the most memorable of them. Therefore, to "spin the chessboard around", you cannot take those scenes at face value if you are trying to understand the story from a "mystery" perspective.

You now know the truth about Kinzo. The implications of that revelation reach all the way back to EP I. If the scenes in which he appears can no longer be trusted, what does that mean for those who claim to have interacted with him? Think hard on that.

[Heatth]

To summarize: A whole lot of what you have been seeing so far is pure and simple bullcrap. Fabrications to represent something else. Figuring out which scenes are false and then what they mean is kind of the point of the game. That is why Kinzo never summoned the Chiesters in the previous episodes, or whatever. He never actually did in this episode either.

An example of how these "fantasy" scenes can be interpreted: when Krauss goes to Kinzo study to call him to eat on the table (I think he does that every episode, right?), what he is really doing is going to the study door and talk to himself out loud, to give the impression Kinzo is still alive and, thus, postpone the matters of the inheritance.

[Michael Murphy]

It was described early on that Battler's point of view is the objective perspective, even though it isn't very helpful as he's highly vulnerable to sleight of hand tricks. Any scene not witnessed directly by Battler is a mere subjective speculation of what might have happened, and cannot be taken at face value. Even the red truth cannot be trusted fully, as it's meaning can sometimes be interpreted in multiple ways.

[Sergent H]

Originally posted by AHA-Lambda:

OK, I've not finished episode 4 yet I just got to the first twilight, so keep that in mind as I ask this.

But why on earth did Kinzo not summon Ronove, the Chiester sisters or Virgillia in the other episodes if he has this power?

And I thought in Episode 3 Kumasawa and Virgillia were the same person but now they're not?

And now Beatrice is claiming to have set up the idea of smashing people's heads only halfway so Battler can identify them. But how?? She wasn't the one to kill them it was Kinzo who did it??

I laugh so hard; you were so in error
You will understand when you will get "reponse"

As they said, don't trust all you see.
If i'm remember well at the beginning:

Battler to Beatrice : "Told in Red that magic really exist"
Beatrice : "I will not because it's the purpose of this game"

[Smeckledorf]

Originally posted by AHA-Lambda:

Argh, I'm so confused!!!

so Kinzo was always dead?? The why did we see him in each episode!!??

what the hell is going on?? O__O

Whatever you see when Battler is not present is what Beatrice wants you to see.