originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/163218...
So Rosa has chased all the servants away as disposable furniture.
Sayo, Genji and Gohda are explaining to George what they saw with the reanimated corpse of Kanon.
George asks Sayo why she went to get spider webs. Sayo says Kumasawa once told her that evil spirits that long ago lived on Rokkenjima were afraid of spiderwebs, and there’s a legend of spiderwebs as a magic ward. She believes that, by breaking the mirror, she freed those spirits, and starts turning on herself.
We learn that Sayo had in fact told George about breaking the mirror in the torii, but he’d not ascribed supernatural significance to it, just taken it as Sayo really wanting to get with him.
Gohda admits he hadn’t believed in Beatrice until now. Sayo explains the whole deal with Beatrice losing her powers until now, and being unable to appear before people.
Genji does not insist that George believe them. Gohda agrees that it all sounds hard to believe.
George speculates about finding and fixing the mirror, but it’s probably underwater after the mysterious lightning bolt destroyed the reef with the torii on it.
At that point, Gohda notes that Natsuhi used to keep a ‘spirit mirror’ around as a charm. Genji confirms that it apparently has the power to reflect evil. Hmm. Interesting.
George suggests they get the mirror and use it to oppose Beatrice. This is interesting. If they have that, there will be three protected parties:
- Kinzo, protected by wards on his study
- Rosa, Battler and Maria, protected by Maria’s witchcraft
- Sayo, George, Genji and Gohda, protected by Natsuhi’s mirror
Which means no soft targets. I wonder which would be most vulnerable to Beatrice?
Of course, they have to get the mirror first.
George mentions Natsuhi’s family is descended from Shinto priests. So it’s a competition between Japanese traditions, embodied in the mirror, and Western esotericism, represented by Beatrice.
The narration mentions George is suggesting this more to comfort Sayo than because he believes in Beatrice.
They have to go and get Natsuhi’s key from her body in the chapel first. Wasn’t the chapel locked by Rosa? Ah, but George proposes to break in with a rock. He says he’ll take responsibility for the damage.
So they get ready to go out in the rain. George takes charge. Genji says he must stay behind in case Kinzo gives any orders. He says he’s old enough, and wants to see the result of the roulette himself. OK, Genji, whatever floats your boat?
So when they all go, the narration lingers in the kitchen. Genji takes an unspecified something from beside the chessboard he was playing against Nanjo with.
He holds his breath.
A golden butterfly comes out of hiding! Oh, so Beatrice heard all that? And wants to follow them to the chapel? …but then Genji nails it to the wall with the knife he’d just taken. Nice!
In the parlour, Battler has given in, and now he is trying to solve the epitaph riddle with Maria.
He notes that if Kumasawa and Nanjo become the fourth and fifth sacrifices, that leaves three more people to die.
Battler wonders if solving the riddle will really save them, or if Beatrice would take that chance to go get the gold they located. Maria insists Beatrice wouldn’t need to find the gold, since it’s hers.
Maria goves over the magic = risk explanation again. She explains that great magic must always have weak points. It has to be a gamble, and for great rewards, you need long odds. Kind of a vague principle.
She’s not sure exactly what to do with the solution to the riddle, if it is solved, but suspects the ritual will automatically be interrupted.
Battler contrasts this way of thinking to game theory/’chessboard thinking’, which is all about minimising risk and getting the best result in all possible situations. He notes that because she’s deliberately exposing herself to risk, the assumption she’ll try to make the best moves she can think of no longer holds.
He starts wondering what Beatrice’s overall goal is - it can’t simply be killing everyone, because why go to such elaborate lengths of creating locked rooms and taunting them?
Is Battler really one to talk about over-dramatising things?
Battler contemplates other things, such as Rosa’s role in cycles of abuse.
Narrative!Battler considers that everyone might be projecting aspects of themselves onto the culprit. After thinking about Natsuhi, he considers whether Maria might be just projecting that Beatrice keeps promises. Meta!Beatrice is so affronted by this that she interjects to redtext I keep my promises.
Admitting it doesn’t make it better, you know.
She explains that as a witch, she must follow certain ‘rules’ of magic. She claims humans are somehow more selfish for not keeping promises. That’s… a perspective. She doesn’t like it when humans rules-lawyer her deals by wishing for more wishes and the like.
She says she’s not so heartless as Battler thinks. Battler’s like, bullshit, you just spent the last two games murdering people in horrible ways. He says he will continue to not accept Beatrice.
Bernkastel is mentioned.
Beatrice says she’s glad Battler is getting his fight back, because it would be an unsatisfying game otherwise. She says some creepy stuff about aging Battler like wine.
George, Sayo and Gohda break into the chapel. Unfortunately… Beatrice arrives too.
It’s time for more onscreen magic bullshit I guess.
To begin with, just a cloud of butterflies trying to eat Shannon. The squad races to the window, but can’t climb out. George tries to open the door while Gohda goes after the butterflies with his jacket, without a lot of success.
Beatrice shows up hovering above the table. She gloats about three sacrifices being there.
But then George opens the door, and the music changes. Got a really strong beat. Chase sequence?
It turns out the gold butterflies don’t do great in rain. So they make it to Natsuhi’s room and start ransacking it for the mirror.
They find a box that probably has the mirror in it, but it’s locked. Beatrice’s Goat Butlers close in with swords. It’s a nicely paced scene actually. Very tense, the music helps. Who knew EDM suited witches so well?
I sure hope this shinto mirror can help them.
Gohda tries to lock the door but it unlocks immediately. It makes an incongruously funny twang noise. He ends up just holding the door with hs shoulder.
At the very last moment, Shannon finds a letter opener.
One of the Stakes of Purgatory anime girls demonstrates the ability to pass through the door as if it’s immaterial.
Some Beelzebub facts in case you’re wondering:
Beelzebub or Beelzebul (/biːˈɛlzᵻbʌb/ bee-EL-zə-bub or /ˈbiːlzᵻbʌb/ BEEL-zə-bub; Hebrew: בַּעַל זְבוּב, Baʿal Zəvûv; Arabic: بعل الذباب, Ba‘al adh-dhabâb) is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron, and later adopted by Abrahamic religions as a given name to a winged demon. The name Beelzebub is associated with the Canaanite god Baal.
In theological sources, predominately Christian, Beelzebub is another name for the devil similar to Satan. He is known by believers as one of the seven princes of Hell, according to Catholic views in terms of demonology. The Dictionnaire Infernal describes Beelzebub as a being capable of flying, known as the “Lord of the Flyers”, or the “Lord of the Flies”.
Beelzebub is commonly described as placed high in Hell’s hierarchy. According to the stories of the 16th-century occultist Johann Weyer, Beelzebub led a successful revolt against the Devil,[18] is the chief lieutenant of Lucifer, the Emperor of Hell, and presides over the Order of the Fly. Similarly, the 17th-century exorcist Sebastien Michaelis, in his Admirable History (1612), placed Beelzebub among the three most prominent fallen angels, the other two being Lucifer and Leviathan, whereas two 18th-century works identified an unholy trinity consisting of Beelzebub, Lucifer, and Astaroth. John Milton featured Beelzebub seemingly as the second-ranking of the many fallen cherubim in the epic poem Paradise Lost, first published in 1667. Milton wrote of Beelzebub, “than whom, Satan except, none higher sat.” Beelzebub is also a character in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, first published in 1678.
Sebastien Michaelis associated Beelzebub with the deadly sin of pride. However, according to Peter Binsfeld, Beelzebub was the demon of gluttony, one of the other seven deadly sins, whereas Francis Barrett asserted that Beelzebub was the prince of false gods.
So Beelzebub ricochets around the room and stakes Gohda in the chest. That leaves only Sayo and George.
Beatrice enters the room with six Goat Attendants and her butterflies. She takes the chance to taunt Shannon.
Mean witch. She implies it’s a terrible thing that Sayo and George won’t be able to have sex ever and it’s a good lingering regret for her to enjoy. I mean, not in so many words, but essentially.
At this point George retrieves the Shinto mirror inside a pouch. Beatrice declares this ‘one move short’ and sends the butterflies while he tries to pull it out.
And then something entirely new happens, which is to say there’s a SFX overlay we have never seen. I didn’t catch it in time, but let me see if I can recreate it with the game’s art assets.
Pretty sure that was the right background lol.
Doesn’t this overlay remind you of the Time symbol/colours from Homestuck?
Anyway, this takes out the butterflies starting from a circle centred on Sayo.
What do you know, Sayo does have magic powers! Just like Kanon - except where Kanon had a sword, she seems to have a shield.
Sayo calls Beatrice out on disgracing Kanon’s honour after she’d killed Kanon. In response, Beatrice turns one of the goat demons into a Kanon. She can just make unlimited Kanons now? Albeit Kanons with red eyes that are perfectly loyal ‘furniture’ to her.
Beatrice makes the ‘Kanon’ attack Shannon, but it can’t penetrate her magic barrier and when it tries it gets totally disintegrated.
If you’d done this sooner, Sayo, Gohda might still be alive. But maybe it’s something she didn’t consciously know how to do. Maybe threatening George was what gave her this power.
Or not. Beatrice deduces that she’s drawing this power from the spirit mirror. But she can’t draw the mirror’s true power’ without time and prep. Also, she mentions the ‘central axis’ of the magic, so she knows something about how it works.
Shannon delivers a speech against Beatrice.
It’s pretty sweet. Also the shield animates a bit.
So they basically argue about the traditional heterosexual narrative. Sayo is like, me and George made our vows and you’ll never be able to take that from us.
Beatrice retorts…
…no, wait, she retorts…
God, I hope they’re not going to pull a “Beatrice is bitter because she never found the Right Man” thing.
Sayo seems to have really gotten to her. I’m all for a materialist interrogation of the ideological constructs of heteropatriarchal capitalism, but this is just throwing around Victorian attitudes to sexuality. [Note from the future: you absolute wanker lmao.]
Beatrice has a total meltdown rant, shouting and screaming and getting incoherent. She unleashes a magic barrage against George and Sayo, stronger than Sayo can resist. But the moral victory definitely goes to Sayo. It’s interesting that if Beatrice is the one telling this story, she’s done so in a way to make herself look like a total fucking loser.
In the last moments, Shannon asks George to say he loves her, and he does.
Next chapter: ‘Surrender’. All the sacrifices have been made now, so… all that remains is to kill everyone else.
Comments
brip
tbh your comments from 2022 are more annoying than the 2017 “moralising” lol.. you’re liveblogging, you don’t need to be 100% objective, we’re here to read about your perspective