Oof, it’s been a minute. This has been a very busy month. Most notably, our game Shaderland now has a demo available on Steam! It’s a puzzle-programming game about computer graphics, but also about weird creatures that live inside your head and find expression in the world of computer. Will it end up having the scope of an Umineko? …well, maybe not, but we’ll see. Have a read of the devlog if you like!
Anyway, we just wrapped up the main part of Episode 5, but Battler—piece!Battler perhaps, since player!Battler has been stabbed to death by the Lance of Longinus or something—has an objection to Erika’s perfect solution to the case. So, let’s begin the Tea Party and perhaps find out what he has to say…
Tea Party
We find ourselves back in the witches’ courtroom. Bernkastel is issuing instructions to Dlanor and Erika, to go ahead and solve the first four games.
So it seems we won’t get Battler’s objection right away. Are these going to be the real solutions? Given how unconvincing Erika’s ‘solution’ to Episode 5 is, I’m not so sure. Nevertheless, let’s quickly go over my current theories…
- Episode 1
- Kanon dunnit, as discussed in the liveblog of episode 4. The key ‘trick’ is that Dr Nanjo colluded to fake Kanon’s death.
- Episode 2
- Rosa dunnit, I’d need to review the murders in detail to check if that works for all of them but it at least accounts for the candy scene
- Episode 3
- Eva dunnit; this probably isn’t true on the principle that Battler is always wrong, but we haven’t seen evidence to contradict this yet
- Episode 4
- This one is so vague it’s hard to draw any definitive conclusion, but Kyrie probably either dunnit or was an accomplice, given she’s the main source for supernatural claims
Erika… goes with none of these and blames Natsuhi (or ‘freak exceptions’) for all four games. …I don’t think that’s logically possible, not least because Natsuhi’s death gets confirmed in red at least a few times. For example, in Episode 3, Natsuhi’s body was found in the gazebo and confirmed in red during Eva Beatrice’s ‘checkmate’. (Time scope quibbling notwithstanding…)
Still, let’s see what Erika has for us. Bernie orders her to explain away not just the murders but also the other elements of the Beatrice mythology, such as other characters talking about the events in supernatural terms.
Erika says she’s searching for the ‘vessels’ of the furniture, which the narration elaborates to
What sort of fantasy were they based upon which allowed them to “manifest”?
So whose headmate are they, if we want to be a little cheeky about it.
Dlanor announces that the Seven Sisters were likely produced in 60s New York… a strangely specific time and place. We established, back in Episode 3, that the Sisters seem to be based on a scheme linking demon names to the Seven Deadly Sins by Peter Binsfield, a German theologian from the 15th century. Of course, Binsfield likely didn’t conceive of them as anime girls in school uniforms[citation needed], but it’s not like anyone was doing moe anthropomorphisation in the 60s either.
So is this instead when someone in the story conceived of them? I don’t think any of the cast have been established to have spent significant time in the States.
Indeed, Erika brings up a previously unmentioned ‘group of big-time swindlers’ who sell occult tat to rich people. And Kinzo was a perfect mark. (It seems we’re mostly talking about the stakes here, rather than the anime girls.) Erika and Bernie spend some time gloating about this.
Of course, since really quite early on in the story we’ve been reiterating that, with the right beliefs, a cheap mass-produced object can have personal (and therefore magical) significance. From Maria’s cheap apotropaic charm to Sakutarō, this has been a pretty significant recurring theme. So I’m not quite sure this would strip the Sisters of their power… though, notably it is asserting that they fail to live up to a value system where something needs to be old and expensive to be important.
Dlanor objects that this ‘execution’ is not supposed to be open to the public. Erika counters that Bernkastel is a member of the ‘Senate’ (yet another piece of witch bureaucracy…), pulling rank on her.
The irony of witches investigating witches is highlighted by Erika: after declaring that the Ronove, Gaap and Virgilia are being investigated by the Chiesters, she says they’re next on the block.
It seems I was wrong about the ‘vessels’; in fact the ‘vessels’ seem to refer to physical objects such as murder weapons, albeit objects with an associated fantasy. A shared fantasy, notably..?
Ever the guro freak, Bernkastel gets quite excited imagining methods of execution. She even goes so far as to call Erika her ‘precious daughter’ as the latter promises to put on a good show.
As a prelude, she orders Erika to tear down the portrait of Beatrice and put up her own portrait in its place, which gets a fully painted CG…
I wonder if that will persist into the next game? Would be kind of ironic to have an episode revolving around the legend of Erika. Of course, this does rather call to mind the alternative Beatrice of episode 2…
Anyway, this also involves temporarily appointing Erika a witch, which means it’s time to get used to writing Erika, huh? Erika’s witch epithet is the Witch of Truth. (In Japanese, adopting smallcaps means going to katakana, i.e. ヱリカ, and ‘Witch of Truth’ is pretty straightforwardly 真実の魔女 ).
hey, I’m going to create a piece called momcan, and she’s the smartest ever and gets everything right, and as a reward for getting everything so perfectly right, I’m going to appoint her to the rank of super smartypants
This all resolved, we move on to the question of piece!Battler’s dead body. Lambdadelta proposes that he should be made into a statue and decorated more cutely. OK, I’m listening…
As they banter, the witches throw out some references to Onmoraki no Kizu (陰摩羅鬼の瑕), a 2003 novel which roughly translate’s to something like ‘the demon’s wound’; and (the translators claim) the villain of Galaxy Express 999. Which I mention largely because it merits a grimoire note. I can unfortunately find little about it in English.
The witches declare their love for each other (aww), and suggest they’ll meet again, sooner or later, as they go about ‘gobbling up’ the various fragments to stave off boredom. Sure, we’re definitely all done here, right?
…huh it seems they actually might be leaving. Bernkastel instructs Erika to write the next episode and title it herself. So there are going to be more games..? To what end?
Erika declares the next title will be Checkmate of the Golden Witch.
…and that’s it for the Tea Party. Oh, OK! That was less exciting than I thought. But yeah, I guess Erika is straight up GMing the next run. Which should be fascinating. Lambda’s game was kinda weaksauce if I’m honest, but Erika has the autism to make something proper deranged.
OK, just one more segment before we wrap Episode 5! I’ll get straight to it.
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