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NeoRonTheNeuron
Oct 14, 2012
Q-Taro's logic doesn't make sense. He knows he got the Keymaster from Sara and shoved the Sacrifice onto her. And he knows now that there was 1 more trade when he was unconscious.

If he's still Keymaster, then he cannot know for sure that Sara is still the Sacrifice. It would've been certain if there had been no more trades. Just 1 more trade throws everything into uncertainty again.

As usual, I don't expect the game to let our vote matter. With 9 total votes and 8 candidates, the game can avoid a large number of diverging paths by having the others split their vote into 4 candidates with 2 votes each. In the off-chance Sara's vote matters, then she should pick someone she cannot trust (Vote Sou) or try to defend herself from being set up (by voting for herself).

Unless Gin ends up in the final four, I don't see how Game 2 ends with Keiji and Gin dying, so we've likely diverged from what we read in the records.

================

There were a total of 5 trades.
1. Keiji(keymaster) <-> Sara(commoner) (We saw Keiji make the trade.)
2. ??? <-> ???
3. Q-Taro?(sacrifice) <-> Sara(keymaster) (If the initiator was Q-Taro, it means others can trade for you. Only Gin, Nao, and Sou were not present at the time.)
4. ??? <-> ???
5. ???(commoner) <-> Sara(sacrifice). (Gin was with Sara at the time.)

The last one is interesting because the initiator didn't choose to trade again after receiving the Sacrifice. That means it was either intentional, or they were out of coins. Considering Keiji tried to calm Sara down after Trade 3 and that her final card was Commoner, he probably was the one to initiate the final trade.

NeoRonTheNeuron fucked around with this message at 04:01 on May 22, 2020

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Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
Kanna's reasoning is the flimsiest here, and isn't in track with how Kanna has acted the rest of the game.

HYPOTHESIS: Kanna is not the Sage, but was the Sage. At the very beginning, when Keiji and then Sara each had Keymaster, Kanna was the Sage. The second trade that happened was neither Keiji nor Sara. (Assuming we believe Keiji)

Kanna is acting as though Sara was the Keymaster, meaning the second trade was someone traded with Kanna and took her Sage. Kanna still believes none of the other trades were with Sara.

wologar
Feb 11, 2014

නෝනාවරුනි
I doubt that Q-Taro ever had the Sacrifice. Since he was in cahoots with Sou, that's probably how he knows about Sara being the Sacrifice and is freaking out because Sou betrayed him (gave him the Sage while unconscious) or can betray him at any moment (blackmail). Q-Taro may have had the highest amount of tokens, but it was probably Sou the one who made use of them.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



We're also assuming there isn't some other punishment awaiting Q-Taro for breaking his tablet. But its totally going to be Sou loving everyone again, isn't it?

Also, we're assuming that the broken tablet is actually Q-Taro's, and not Sou taking Q-Taro's and breaking his own so he could manipulate Q-Taro into thinking he wasn't the Sacrifice.

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
Kanna was the original Sage and is now either a commoner or possibly a sacrifice. Alice is the current Sage after taking it from Kanna, Sou is the Keymaster.

HydroSphere
Feb 11, 2014







And I wasn't chosen. Relief... I can feel my strained nerves loosening. But... why these four...?



“Sara... You...!!

“It's just like I said. I'm not the Sacrifice, I'm a Commoner.”

“...!!”

“Four will advance to the final vote.”

Sou Hiyori.



Kanna Kizuchi.



Keiji Shinogi.



Nao Egokoro.



“S... Sniff...”

“............”

“This... isn't... right...”

“............”

(...I know this despair myself... You can't want to have a conversation when you feel like this... Which is why...)

Music stops.

(It's my role to inspire them.)






“We've always done what we had to do...! No matter how cruel it is, you can't stop!!”

“But...”

“Kanna, we're not your enemies...!”

“...!”



“We talk, and we advance the discussion...!!”

“Sara...!!”

“Wahaha... Right you are.”

“The real battle begins here...”

(Everyone...!)

“All right...! First it's time for those of us who weren't picked to guide the discussion!”

“Incidentally, I am a Commoner... Be at ease...”

(Alice is a Commoner, too?)

“Muscle gorilla! It's not the time to shrivel up, meow! Let's remember the card trades in order, woof!”

“Y-Yeah...!”

Music stops.








“May you not all perish...”

“Now, we will have an in-depth discussion on the card trades!! Understood?!”

“Stripey! Leave it to us, meow!!”

Music stops.

Gashu quietly sat in the chair again.





“By the way, I've been a Commoner the whole way, woof! Didn't get traded with even once, meow!”

“Trading cards requires 50 tokens. It's not as if just anyone could do it.”

Extract statement from Q-taro.

“There were four trades made in total! That ain't that many!”

“Honestly... It's all a mess in my head.”

“Glad we got given more time to sort it out...”

Extract statement from Alice.

“Trading cards requires 50 tokens. It's not as if just anyone could do it.”

“The token ranking, as I recall, put Cubetaro Hamburger in first and Gin Ibushi in last.”

“Nao Egokoro was also low-ranking...”

“Of the four candidates, I suppose Nao was the only one who lacked the tokens to make a trade?”

Extract statement from Gin.

“By the way, I've been a Commoner the whole way, woof! Didn't get traded with even once, meow!”

“My heart was pounding wondering when I'd get passed a bad card, meow.

“But my role didn't change up to the very end, woof.”

“I made it through all five trades, meow!”

Conflict Gin against Q-taro.

Music stops.

“Muscle gorilla! That's wrong, meow!!”

“W-What?!”

“There were five trades, woof!!”

“F... Five...?!”

“W-Wait, uhh... By my memory, there were three trades...”

“Then I heard there was one just before the Main Game...”



“There were two trades while you were out.”

“Whaaat?! That don't make no sense!!”

“That's our line, meow!!”

“S-Sorry... But nobody's givin' me an explanation...”

“Ahh, well, that's on us.”





“In fact, did you have the Sacrifice to start...?!”

Music stops.

“Nah... That ain't it.”

“The first card I had... was Commoner.”





“Wha?! I don't have a clue, woof!! Why's that, meow?!”

“Because your friendly policeman made the first trade.”

“What did you say?! Who'd you trade with, and what?”

“I gave Sara the Keymaster.”

“Eh...?!”

“Then what card did Sara start with?!”



“At first... I was a Commoner.”

“You traded Keymaster for Commoner, meow?!”



“...”

“Let's do a little sort-out.”









“Yep, that's what it'd mean...”

“Muscle gorilla! Tell us everything you can remember, meow!”

“You have an obligation to properly explain to us the the third trade...!”

“Urk...”







“I shall tell you. The third trade occurred while everyone was sharing the laptop...”

“............”

(These trades... I'd better keep them sorted out in my head, too.)




(The top row of this table is what cards everyone had to start with. Those further to the right had more tokens to spend... In broad strokes, at least. The next row is what cards everyone had after the first trade. Below that is after the second trade... after the third trade... and so on and so forth.)



(Of course, this is all guesswork... I'll rework it if new information comes up.)

Extract statement from Q-taro.

“............”

(Q-taro... Why aren't you talking?!)

Extract statement from Gin.

“At the time of the third trade, I was searching the first floor alone, meow! So I wanna know the situation, woof!”



“...What stuff did you do, exactly?”



Extract statement from Alice.

“I shall tell you. The third trade occurred while everyone was sharing the laptop...”

“Remembering that photo on the laptop still makes my heart quake...”

“But what's important now is that card trade.”

“Hmph... In the end, it was mutual betrayal...”

“Cubetaro Hamburger... Despite being right there, he traded his Sacrifice to you...!”

“Such a cold-blooded man!! Don't speak of bonds to me...!!”

(Huh? Something's strange here...)

Extract statement from Alice again.



Check Q-taro.

Music stops.



“...Why won't you deny it, Q-taro?”

“What...?!”

(...I mean, you need a Ring-Up Box to trade. If he used one on the spot... Shouldn't we have seen him do it?! What could he be hiding?!)





  • Q-taro's heart just moves left to right, but at a faster speed than Nao.

Music stops.

“Be as silent as you want, it's no use...”

“I...”

“Spit it all out, Q-taro!!”



“But I got used for convenience! I'm pathetic!! A pathetic adult...!!”

“The third trade... My Sacrifice bein' sent to Sara...”



“Say what...?!”



“...I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sou knew!! He knew I had the Sacrifice!!”

“What...?”

“When everybody was sharing the laptop...”

“Sou wasn't goin' to use the toilet...!”



“Don't know a thing about that...”

“W-Wait a second!! He chose two other people and made them trade...? You can do that?!”




“.............”

Music stops.



“..........”

PlasticAutomaton
Nov 12, 2016

Artoria Pendonut


Welp, that confirms that Sou is in fact completely full of poo poo and went to great lengths to dump the sacrifice on Sara. I assume he used Q-Taro to steal the tokens and pull this off. The Sage is still MIA, and I'm worried that such an easy kill role was part of the fourth trade, with Sou tossing it off to Keiji or Kanna.

Trade 1: Keiji hands Sara the Keymaster right off the bat.
Trade 2: Someone (Sou?) hands Q-Taro the sacrifice, this happened while we were backstage.
Trade 3: Sou uses Q-Taro's tokens and swaps Q-Taro's sacrifice for Sara's Keymaster.
Trade 4: ??? Happened right around when we got Ranger's chip.
Trade 5: Someone swaps their commoner for Sara's Sacrifice at the last minute. Sou again?

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
Looks like my various speculation was off, but, on the other hand.....

It's easiest to assume Q-Taro is lying here, which... why would he do that?

Nao suggested that the safest person to be the sacrifice or to leave out of votes would be one with very little tokens. Is this not implying that you could trade mid game?1 What if Q-Taro has the sacrifice now and is covering it up so he can ditch it at the last second? It's wasting a bunch of time in the main game so we don't figure out what's really going on, but he could be waiting to dump it on Suo (or anyone, but I assume while the details aren't correct, he has real beef with Suo)

Alternatively, if you can trade cards at the last second, a Sage might hold off on telling anyone anything if the Keymaster is one of the final four. That way, if the Keymaster gets actual votes, they can trade with them safely, and not kill everyone, including themselves.

That no one left out simply called Sage at this point, like, instantly, seems to imply one of the four up there is Sage, or maybe Q-Taro for the reasoning I just said, but I'd put him at the lowest odds of the five.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think following both my line of reasoning and the line of reasoning the game is giving us might be a red herring, though. What I want to know is Why Q-taro doesn't think it made sense that there were two trades while he was out. Why does Q-taro's mental math being wrong scare him so much?

EDIT:
1Nao also had one of the lowest token totals. It's possible she's the sage and terrified that people will kill her over it like they did when Kai had it.

Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 23:16 on May 23, 2020

Tylana
May 5, 2011

Pillbug
We can be pretty sure (but not certain) that it was Keiji's trade that gave Sara the Keymaster.

But not that it was his card he gave her. He could have traded her anyone else's and just ran with whatever her reaction was.

NeoRonTheNeuron
Oct 14, 2012
As expected, Sara's vote didn't matter. What is surprising is that Kanna and Nao ended up being included in the final four. The Sacrifice can only scapegoat 1 person, so it's interesting that 2 ended up in the final four without being top candidates in the discussion phase. (That said, the vote distributions so far have been nearly impossible to pull off without communication, so we probably shouldn't read into it too much.)

Q-Taro confirms that you can trade on behalf of others and that Sou set up Sara to be the Sacrifice in case the plan to escape together failed.

For Trade 5, my theory is still Keiji, but if anyone can trade for anyone else, I'm less confident.

EDIT: If you recall what happened after Sara woke up, we didn't have time to check our own tablet before being whisked off to the Main Game. It's a longshot, but it's possible that Q-Taro didn't check his tablet or that his tablet was swapped (let's say with Sou) and he doesn't even know his own role right now.

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction

Tylana posted:

We can be pretty sure (but not certain) that it was Keiji's trade that gave Sara the Keymaster.

But not that it was his card he gave her. He could have traded her anyone else's and just ran with whatever her reaction was.

Oh, that's an interesting line of reasoning. If you can trade for others, and Keiji was the Sage initially, he could have traded the Keymaster safely to Sara, without giving her another commoner card.

NeoRonTheNeuron
Oct 14, 2012
That level of anyone trading for anyone else goes a little too far for my liking. I can't rule it out though.

My preference is that the rule is based on tablet holders. For example, if Sou had Q-Taro's tablet, he can initiate trades as Q-Taro.

MarquiseMindfang
Jan 6, 2013

vriska (vriska)

NeoRonTheNeuron posted:

EDIT: If you recall what happened after Sara woke up, we didn't have time to check our own tablet before being whisked off to the Main Game. It's a longshot, but it's possible that Q-Taro didn't check his tablet or that his tablet was swapped (let's say with Sou) and he doesn't even know his own role right now.

Sara still has Q-Taro's original tablet, I'm pretty sure. She picked it up when she found him stunned, and never had a chance to give it back. Unless Gashu removed it when they were taken to their pre-Game rooms, she still has it. Q-Taro was given a replacement, per Gashu, so I guess he didn't take the original. You're right, time was tight, he might never have checked after that.

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
Actually, we know what Alice and Nao spent tokens on, and can safely rule Alice out of any trades, and probably Nao, since the only way she'd be able to afford it is by robbing Reko's corpse. Which could have also been done by Kanna or Gin.

Keiji could have made a trade
Q-Taro might have been able to make several trades
Sou might have been able to make several trades
Kanna, like Nao, probably couldn't make a trade without looting a body----and I'm still not ruling that out, either making a trade herself, or giving those tokens to Suo. (EDIT: This is wrong. I keep actively conflating Kanna with Nao.)

I'm also not ruling out Kanna and Suo working together up to this point---just because Suo knows what knocked out Q-taro, doesn't mean he was actually the one who did it, even if he confessed. Honestly, especially because he confessed. Kanna could have done it and made a trade from Q-Taro's tablet. This is notably the trade Q-Taro didn't know about.

But even that's meaningless, because even if you could trade using someone else's tablet, you'd have to specifically have tokens that weren't theirs so, say, Nao could have zapped Q-Taro and traded using his tablet, since she could then use her own tokens to trade. They wouldn't have been Q-taro's.

MarquiseMindfang posted:

Sara still has Q-Taro's original tablet, I'm pretty sure. She picked it up when she found him stunned, and never had a chance to give it back. Unless Gashu removed it when they were taken to their pre-Game rooms, she still has it. Q-Taro was given a replacement, per Gashu, so I guess he didn't take the original. You're right, time was tight, he might never have checked after that.

This could be a huge dick move even if he did check it. Sara and Q-Taro might know each other's roles, but not their own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gently caress trying to figure this out. The point of the game is death games are inherently unfair.

Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 23:52 on May 23, 2020

Goon Boots
Feb 2, 2020


Of course, everyone gets at least 2 votes so we can't have a clear guess at the sacrifice. It seems that Keiji was able to deduce something during the trading period, and I think he somehow figured out that Sara was likely to have the sacrifice and traded back her original commoner role. I have nothing to base this on of course, and I don't think Keiji would go so far as to sacrifice himself, but it would be quite a twist if that happened.

It will be fun to suss out the trades as we get more info.

Also, Q-taro's nervous reaction sprites makes it seems like he really needs to go to the bathroom.

Goon Boots fucked around with this message at 00:50 on May 24, 2020

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



I dunno, I can see Keiji taking the Sacrifice card and taking the hit for Sara (or hoping to persuade her to vote for him so they can both escape). His secret is out now, but he always seemed to be trying to do good, and he may view it as a chance of redeeming himself.

placid saviour
Apr 6, 2009

Goon Boots posted:

and I don't think Keiji would go so far as to sacrifice himself, but it would be quite a twist if that happened.

This is actually what I'm suspecting. Wouldn't that put us exactly where the "prediction" told us we'd be?

e: f,b

whitehelm
Apr 20, 2008

Veryslightlymad posted:

This could be a huge dick move even if he did check it. Sara and Q-Taro might know each other's roles, but not their own.

The tablets are fingerprint activated, which is why Gashu didn't bother taking Q-taro's original one from Sara. She would've had to check it while she was with unconscious Q-taro.

Hydrosphere:
If I remember correctly there's optional dialogue on the Sort Out screen where Sara can "Ponder" each trade. That might be good to include.

whitehelm fucked around with this message at 05:20 on May 24, 2020

tomanton
May 22, 2006

beam me up, tomato

quote:


Is this too obvious? :tinfoil:

Bloody Emissary
Mar 31, 2014

Powawa~n
Whew, caught up with the thread! Boy, that memorandum in the hacking room is interesting. Now I've got a theory as to who the mastermind is and what the game's all about, albeit one unfortunately contingent on a bunch of circumstantial evidence and narrative theory.

The mastermind is the victor of the Hades Incident, as well as the guy in the "Inauguration" portrait in the hacking room and the author of the memorandum about "That Incident". This seems like a reasonable assumption: the mastermind is someone with a lot of resources, "inauguration" referring to the new head of the criminal underworld seems likely, and only a survivor of the first death game would be able to write a book about it from a participant perspective. The silhouettes shown during the memorandum imply that Sara is the 17-year old schoolgirl that the author admired (and loved, per implication). This would explain all the evidence that Sara is deeply involved in the death game, but there's still the practical concern of that girl being, well, dead. Except we have AIs and dolls running around that are copies of existing people, both perfect and imperfect.

The minute we found out about the fake Reko thing, I thought, "I wonder how many of the players are dolls?" And then immediately went, "ah gently caress, it's gotta be Sara at the very least, huh." At the time it was a narrative hunch only supported by circumstantial evidence like Sara's dad not being her real father and the fact that we've only seen her bleed in her hallucinations, but the memorandum creates a possible motive—the mastermind wants to remake Sara using the death game. Bringing back the dead love of your life is a common motivation for fictional monied folks to put resources into endeavors to replicate humans, one that explains the impression Kai and that office worker (Shunsuke?) have, which is that Sara is at the center of everything.

That said, if the mastermind trying to mold Sara-the-protagonist-doll into a copy as close to the original as possible is some guy we've never met, there's no emotional impact beyond the "turning out to be a doll" part. He might as well be a regular mad scientist trying to replicate humans for any number of reasons; story-wise, the difference is only superficial. There's no reason for the personal connection with Sara. But if he's someone we know, like one of the current participants (as he was in the original game), then we've got an emotional twist! Plus, well, making one of the participants the real mastermind is traditional and all. And he was a participant in the first game; if he wants the circumstances of the game to resemble the original one (so that Sara will experience similar events and thereby resemble her original even more), he needs to include himself, right? ...Yeah, I admit this bit is woolier than the first two paragraphs and more opinion than inference.

So: if one of the participants is the mastermind, who could they be? Well, the mastermind is old and grey-haired now per his portrait, so unless he's Mishima, a doll-version of him or his younger self would be the one actually participating.
  • Sou seems to fit the description of the memorandum's author best—he's mistrustful and didn't participate in the Russian Roulette game. He's been hit over the head hard enough to knock him out twice, but neither time made him bleed—specifically remarked upon the first time, none visible on his head the second time. This is in contrast to Sue Miley, who bled after getting hit over the head lightly enough that she didn't pass out. It's plausible that he could be a doll.
  • Keiji is the other frontrunner, though. Keiji is attached to Sara for some reason. He's been on her side since day one and is close enough to her emotionally that other people (Sou, who is under the impression that she's "dear" to him) have noticed. The game makes romantic insinuations about their relationship, from the point of view of the other characters, from time to time. Like the mastermind, Keiji killed someone in his first trial and has hallucinations. He also tries to keep the trials running smoothly and steers discussion, which is generally something to be suspicious of in games like these.
  • Mishima is another possibility, although I think he's less likely than the other two. Mainly because of how bloody his death was; I'd like to believe that the "dolls don't bleed" thing isn't a lie and that there are no offscreen fake blood shenanigans, since the former violates a premise that the outcome of a trial hinged on and the latter has no evidence to support it. If it is a lie, it's possible that he swapped himself out for an AI doll at the same time that Sue Miley swapped herself in for her doll, and the reason his head went missing is so that nobody would notice that it was a doll's head...but that seems like it would be too easily discovered and too risky. (Wouldn't the mechanical bits have been exposed when his head fell off, anyway?) It's also possible that he died for real, but why would somebody who'd gone through all this trouble to revive Sara let himself be killed off so soon?
  • Joe and Kai are both suspicious by dint of having a close relationship to Sara, but they're both very publicly and bloodily dead. Kai's role in the game was also a big plot reveal and being the mastermind would contradict it. Maybe he's like Rio Ranger/Laizer, a doll-copy son of Gashu's, but I think the implication there was that Rio was supposed to be Gashu's attempt to replace his real, biological failure-of-an-assassin son. Invalidating all of that in favor of a different backstory? I don't buy it.
  • The others are all equally suspicious, which is to say: there's no evidence against them or in favor of them at all. (Except Gin, who is a good boy.)

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Bloody Emissary posted:

Except Gin, who is a good boy.
But the dog is always the mastermind! :tinfoil:

(That is a very thorough post and I wish I could comment on it. But, alas, I'm ahead of the LP.)

HerpicleOmnicron5
May 31, 2013

How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?


My money's on Gin. The Gin doll is him decades ago when he was a kid, and now old Gin is straight up Blofeld.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Actually, have we seen Gin's collar? For that matter, have we seen his face? ... eh, it'll probably turn out that he has that anime disease where he can be 600 years old and still look 12.

Though another point in favor of Gin being the main villain, Gashu was very "Yes-man" to all of his comments and jokes. Whether that's because he's playing along to keep a child calm, or because Gin is his boss (and can blow off his head at any time)... just something to mull over.

Falconer
Dec 7, 2003

Did you know, I was THE MOON once!

Yes! You see, one night it turned out the moon had been STOLEN!

The animal people asked ME to take its place as I am so WISE and BRILLIANT!!
I'd been wondering about how Gin had never shown his face or neck (not long after Sou made a point to show off his 'necklace' to deter suspicion that he was with the kidnappers, come to think of it). Something else I'm curious about is who was in each of the pairs when this all started. We know that Sara was paired with Joe, Mishima was paired with Nao, Kanna was paired with her (now dead) sister, and Keiji was paired with his (now dead) superior officer. As for the others:

- Q-Taro may have been paired with the boxer. Put the two sporty meatheads with each other then see what happens.
- Sou may have been paired with the businessman who cursed Sara before dying. That could explain why Sou is determined to screw with Sara.
- Alice may have been paired with the lady who lost a game of Russian Roulette. After all, Alice was spooked by the sounds of gunfire from the game that Sara and friends were involved with during the first day.

Reko and Gin I'm not sure on mostly because I don't really remember the other two dead people nor do I remember how they died (I think one was hanging and the other was death by way of multiple blades?). Gin's been unusually durable this whole time though considering everything that has happened so far; Keiji, Q-Taro, Nao, Sara, Sou, Kanna and Alice have shown signs of stress and exhaustion but Gin keeps keeping on.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Falconer posted:

I'd been wondering about how Gin had never shown his face or neck (not long after Sou made a point to show off his 'necklace' to deter suspicion that he was with the kidnappers, come to think of it). Something else I'm curious about is who was in each of the pairs when this all started. We know that Sara was paired with Joe, Mishima was paired with Nao, Kanna was paired with her (now dead) sister, and Keiji was paired with his (now dead) superior officer. As for the others:

- Q-Taro may have been paired with the boxer. Put the two sporty meatheads with each other then see what happens.
- Sou may have been paired with the businessman who cursed Sara before dying. That could explain why Sou is determined to screw with Sara.
- Alice may have been paired with the lady who lost a game of Russian Roulette. After all, Alice was spooked by the sounds of gunfire from the game that Sara and friends were involved with during the first day.

Reko and Gin I'm not sure on mostly because I don't really remember the other two dead people nor do I remember how they died (I think one was hanging and the other was death by way of multiple blades?). Gin's been unusually durable this whole time though considering everything that has happened so far; Keiji, Q-Taro, Nao, Sara, Sou, Kanna and Alice have shown signs of stress and exhaustion but Gin keeps keeping on.

I don't think pairs in the first trial were guaranteed. I think they're focused on 'drawing out emotion' from the people there, if what Gashu said is correct. Then Keiji's trial makes sense as him being 'confronted' with having the life of the woman who essentially holds sway over him. Now the question is, why DID she protect Keiji? Was it to put him in her pocket, or because she genuinely cared for him? Now that's the question I.E. the button to be asked, "If you think this woman cared for you, press the button and you'll save her life, if you think she was just using you, then leave her to be killed."

Notably, Keiji's trial, apparently, has no way for him to die, he'd pass no matter what from what I can tell. Where would be the purpose of pairing up random people with no connection? Especially when all the paired trials we know about placed people with connections together.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

That's my thought, is the paired trials that we know about have connections: Mashima-Nao, Kanna and her sister, Keiji and his supervisor, Sara and Joe, and as selfish as Q-Taro is, and how young Gin is, I think they'd be more distraught on first meeting if they were paired up.

As for his boss, I kind of got the impression that she's into him but he's not into her, so uh there might be some multiple, layered reasons for her to bury the incident.

Goon Boots
Feb 2, 2020


Robindaybird posted:

That's my thought, is the paired trials that we know about have connections: Mashima-Nao, Kanna and her sister, Keiji and his supervisor, Sara and Joe, and as selfish as Q-Taro is, and how young Gin is, I think they'd be more distraught on first meeting if they were paired up.

As for his boss, I kind of got the impression that she's into him but he's not into her, so uh there might be some multiple, layered reasons for her to bury the incident.

I had forgotten about Keiji's hallucinations. I'm sure we'll get the full story at some point, but I'm going to guess his boss had something to do with whoever Keiji is having hallucinations of.

Eeepies
May 29, 2013

Bocchi-chan's... dead.
We'll have to find a new guitarist.
I think it's unlikely its Gin simply because he had a real chance of dying in that trial if Q-taro didn't swap and no one pushed Fake Reko into the pit, but maybe that's the real reason why Gashu executed Ranger?

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Eeepies posted:

I think it's unlikely its Gin simply because he had a real chance of dying in that trial if Q-taro didn't swap and no one pushed Fake Reko into the pit, but maybe that's the real reason why Gashu executed Ranger?

I think Gashu's reason for killing Ranger has to go to the 'rules of the game'

If the Floor master betrays the rules, the experiment is over, unless the floor master is killed. Ranger broke the rule about floor masters directly killing participants. He killed Alice/Reko when that is NOT within the bounds of his rules, and if he'd lived, then the rules of the organization state that the game is over and they can go home.

Mindblast
Jun 28, 2006

Moving at the speed of death.


I'm not sure what to think of Keiji's boss. She wasn't shown in a light that suggests she's actively malevolent... but on the other hand Sou also hid his brand of crazy pretty well in the early game.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Mindblast posted:

I'm not sure what to think of Keiji's boss. She wasn't shown in a light that suggests she's actively malevolent... but on the other hand Sou also hid his brand of crazy pretty well in the early game.

Like, I almost got the impression she isn't intentionally malevolent, but my very woolly impression is she suppressed the killing, and tried to leverage it to gain Keiji's affections and given how earnest he seems in the flashback, that would be horrifying for him.

wologar
Feb 11, 2014

නෝනාවරුනි


There's nothing to be suspicious about, everyone. Please don't mind me and carry on with the majority vote. Um, meow woof.

Bloody Emissary
Mar 31, 2014

Powawa~n
Gin's been seen bleeding, so him being the mastermind again hinges on how true the "dolls can't bleed" thing is. On the other hand, his line about "playing using Sara" is kind of suspect...although it also sounds like a joke or reference that's going over my head. Hmm.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

That first link is interesting because Safalin made herself bleed to show the salve was safe, so either she's not actually a doll or there are dolls that can bleed.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



... I was serious when I said that they have a whole Joe-worth of blood just sitting around. Wouldn't be hard to stage Gin having an "accidental" scratch. That being said, theres no reason to believe that dessert-head isn't a human if Gashu is as well.

Goon Boots
Feb 2, 2020


The doll/bleeding thing has to be upended at some point so a twist can be thrown at us. It's just too juicy of a "rule" that appears to offer some sort of order to the game.

HydroSphere
Feb 11, 2014










(Between the statements these two give, I should either affirm correct ones, or deny incorrect ones...!)



Affirm “Q-taro couldn't do the third trade.”

“Exactly! Because he was with us!”

“The question is, how did you know the Sacrifice...?”

“Sheesh... Just rolling on ahead with this assumption that I knew, huh.”



Affirm “Couldn't I just take a peek to do that?”

“Precisely! You saw it directly! Q-taro's intent was to negotiate with Sou... And as a condition for his trade, he showed Sou his Sacrifice card... It's natural to think that!””

“Such an active imagination, Miss Sara.”

“How about you use that imagination to consider what their negotiation was like?”



Affirm “Q-taro started to negotiate outside Sou's bedroom door.

“Yes. Even Sou's already recognised that fact!”

“Ahaha, that's right.”

“How did Sou react to Q-taro's proposition...?”



Deny “He must've let him in the room quickly and struck the deal.”

“No, I'm sure Sou was on guard! Q-taro'd taken the laptop from him once before! Sou wouldn't let him in the room no questions-asked!”

“Then did they make a deal through the door...? Wahaha... How amusing. I just thought of a way.”



Affirm “Q-taro slipped the tablet under the door.

Music stops.

“That's it exactly! That's what Q-taro did to propose his deal! Sou must have been fairly wary of Q-taro, who could best him using force! So Q-taro informed him that he was the Sacrifice in advance! Not vocally, but by showing him his tablet...!”



“To control the Sacrifice as you wanted.”

“...You got it.”

(…!)





“Then I heard Q-taro through the door. “Wanna make a deal?”, he said. I didn't care to listen, but he slid his tablet under the door...”

“And there I saw it: Sacrifice.”

“How brave of him to go as far as offering up info just so I'd share the laptop.”

Music stops.

“What do you know...?!”

“...”

“Sara...”

“You... saw that 1F security footage, right...”

“...!”



“I haven't discussed my First Trial, have I? It was one absurd trial, I tell ya...”





“Then it's true? You set up the cards?!”

“Yeah... 'Course, I didn't know what they meant yet...”

“Once I found out, I knew Kai's fate was set...!!”



“That's why I at least wanted to get Kai's laptop back, one more time...!!”

“...Such an emotional story.”

“So that's what drove you to give me a whole 100 tokens.”

“O... One hundred, meow?!”

“That's enough for two trades!! Are you insane?!”

“But you left yourself enough for just one trade.”



“What a dirty adult you are.”

“Say again...?!”

“All told, you left yourself an escape route. If you were in a pickle, you could pass the Sacrifice away from yourself.”

“That's why I decided to act first, and send the Sacrifice to someone else.”



“Is that the truth of the third trade...?!”

“Ahaha. I was hopeful it might make you tear off your sheep's clothing.”

(Why does he do all this to me...?!)

Music stops.

“But... You went above and beyond my expectations.”

“Eh...?”

“The fourth trade... was you, wasn't it Miss Sara?”

“...Um?”



“What do you mean by that...?!”




“I didn't even have enough tokens. I couldn't do any trades.”

“No tokens...? That's hard to believe.”

“Quiet, loner!! I was with big sis Sara for the fourth trade, woof!”



“Hmm, well then... It must've been an ally who did it for you.”

“Keiji, you took the Sacrifice from Miss Sara, didn't you?”

(Wha...?!)

“What's the meaning of this...?!”

“It's really very simple.”



“A... Ahem?!”




“They schemed to escape by working together and having Keiji win the vote.”

“I suspect the fifth trade that followed was Miss Sara and Keiji making a bluff.”

“They just picked two random Commoners to have trade.”

“Then you say Keiji Shinogi has the Sacrifice...?!”

“That's all a wild fabrication!!”



(Sou's spouting nonsense to lead everyone by the nose!)

“If my reasoning is correct...”





“W-Wait a second!!”

“At the start, you said you were the Sacrifice...”

“Yep, that was a lie. I'm a Commoner.”

“No way...!! Then... wouldn't you be in the same boat as me?”





Music stops.

“Enough.”

“...Hm?”



“Here's a friendly little police report... I long since used up all my tokens.”

“Ahaha... And you want me to just believe that?”





“Huh...?”

“W... What are you saying...?”

“The Keymaster is Q-taro, though...”








“Q-taro's the Sage?!”

“R-Ridiculous!! That's impossible...!!”

“It's possible, all right!! And as the Sage, I'm makin' an announcement...!”

“Keiji's without a doubt... the Keymaster!!”

“It can't be true... That's all...!!

You were on the right track to think accomplices...

"But it wasn't Sara I teamed up with... it was Q-taro.”

"..........”



"The trade between Mr. Policeman and Q-taro.”







"When I heard what happened, I proposed to Q-taro that we team up.”

And so in the fourth trade... You two traded your cards?!”

That fourth trade sure ended up punishing the loner now, meow...”



Extract statement from Keiji.

“When I learned about the Sacrifice incident, I proposed to Q-taro that we team up.



“But I ended up talking with Q-taro, and we thought things over.”

“In the fourth trade, I traded my card with Q-taro's Keymaster.

“But actually... I went and did this trade myself while Q-taro was passed out.”

“Seems Q-taro figured it out during the Main Game was able to put the story together.”



Extract statement from Alice.

And so in the fourth trade... Keiji Shinogi and Cubetaro Hambuger traded their cards?!”

“Why you...! Can't you make a proper trade, Keiji Shinogi?!”

Extract statement from Gin.

That fourth trade sure ended up punishing the loner now, meow...”

“I'm sure Mr. Policeman was burning with the desire to see justice carried out, meow!”

“He used a whole 50 tokens to trade cards with muscle gorilla just to defeat the loner, woof!”

“...”

“...Huh?”



“Then he couldn't have traded, woof!”

Extract statement from Sou

“Hold on! Q-taro, weren't you passed out during the fourth trade?”

“I mean... Keiji could do the trade himself... But... but...”

“Uhh... ergh...”

(Is he panicking? He hasn't worked out his logic...)

Extract statement from Q-taro.

“First, when Sou betrayed me with the Sacrifice... I went stompin' around in a rage!! Seein' you acting funny, Sara, I was convinced. The Sacrifice had moved ta you...”

“I wouldn't let it stand! I decided I'd knock 'im down and take my tokens back!”

“Keiji noticed me then, and came to talk.”

“He persuaded me to give it up! Didn't know what Sou was thinkin' after all...”



(All of them...?!)

Conflict Gin against Q-taro.

Music stops.

“You gave him all your tokens, meow...?!”

“Sure did... An' it seems like that landed way outside Sou's ballpark.”



“Running out of leeway, are we...?”

“I... I've still got doubts! I can't be convinced with just that!”




“Huh... So you still don't know...”

“Okie-dokie. Let's resume the discussion...”





Conflict Keiji against Sou.

Music stops.



“Hm? Yeah, the Sage's clairvoyance, of course.”

“The Sage... could use clairvoyance even outside of the Main Game?!”





“You intentionally didn't mention it...!!”

"Wahaha... Unraveled all the mysteries now?”

"This should prove it. Mr. Policeman used clairvoyance to see Q-taro's Keymaster




"Convinced of your victory earlier, you confessed. I'm a Commoner...”



"Any other questions?"

Music stops.

(No, there's something odd about Keiji's story...)



(It'll become clear if I look back at the trades so far.)












(That's right... The Sage is out of place. Keiji should have been a Commoner the whole time!)

Music stops.





whitehelm posted:

Hydrosphere:
If I remember correctly there's optional dialogue on the Sort Out screen where Sara can "Ponder" each trade. That might be good to include.

  • Initial "pondering":




(The first card I had was Commoner. Keiji traded me Keymaster in the first trade, so Keiji's initial card should be Keymaster.)



There's no question that Keiji initiated the first trade. My Commoner and Keiji's Keymaster were swapped. No room for doubt, I think.)



(The Commoner that Q-taro started with apparently got changed to the Sacrifice. At the time, I was with Keiji in the 1F kitchen, listening to Miley and someone else talk.)



(I can't believe Q-taro would send me the Sacrifice... Time-wise... It happened when we were sharing the laptop.)



(Not much information... We don't know anything yet. It happened when we were in Safalin's doll room, looking for Ranger's chip...)



(Here, my Sacrifice was swapped with someone's Commoner. Don't tell me Sou really took the Sacrifice from me...?)



(Q-taro confessed to being the Keymaster. No reason for the unchosen to lie, so I believe it... I'm curious about Sou's initial Sacrifice confession. It could be a lie as usual, but...)

  • After the reveal of the fourth trade, but before Sara has figured out that Keiji lied about his initial role.



There's no question that Keiji initiated the first trade. My Commoner and Keiji's Keymaster were swapped. No room for doubt... at least, I thought...)



(Time-wise... It happened when we were sharing the laptop. It was Sou who sent me Q-taro's Sacrifice... Urgh... That means Sou received 100 of Q-taro's tokens and used 50 of them...)



(It happened when we were in Safalin's doll room, looking for Ranger's chip... Did Keiji and Q-taro become accomplices and make this trade...? For now, if I want to piece this together, I need to extract info from them on the fourth trade.)



(Here, my Sacrifice was swapped with someone's Commoner. This is the biggest mystery... Who traded for my Sacrifice? To what benefit? I don't know... But I can only imagine they were aiming directly for my Sacrifice!)



(Err... Keiji confessed to being the Keymaster, and Q-taro the Sage... Those two don't seem like they're lying... And Sou, caught by their trap, let it slip that he was a Commoner.)

PlasticAutomaton
Nov 12, 2016

Artoria Pendonut


Get loving destroyed, Sou. Watching the little poo poo's plans all go to hell after he's already burned his bridges with Kanna is beautiful. :allears:

At least we have confirmation that Sou was 100% aiming to get rid of Sara, and this is personal. But there's still a bunch of gaps, the biggest part being "who the hell took Sara and Reko's tokens." (Nao is 100% the real sacrifice though, rip.)

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

PlasticAutomaton posted:

Get loving destroyed, Sou. Watching the little poo poo's plans all go to hell after he's already burned his bridges with Kanna is beautiful. :allears:

At least we have confirmation that Sou was 100% aiming to get rid of Sara, and this is personal. But there's still a bunch of gaps, the biggest part being "who the hell took Sara and Reko's tokens." (Nao is 100% the real sacrifice though, rip.)

I'm not convinced that Sou isn't still the sacrifice, and playing along with the trap to try to convince people he's safe to vote for. Including things like throwing his main ally under the bus, who is also a child.

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PlasticAutomaton
Nov 12, 2016

Artoria Pendonut


...Actually something is bothering me, considering there's a broken tablet and we know that other people's cards can be traded. Trade 1 can not have possibly been Keiji giving us HIS Keymaster with what we know about trades 2 - 4. We've assumed it was Sou behind trade 2. So who did Keiji originally take the Keymaster from? And who the hell actually has the Sacrifice now? (I'm thinking it's Nao. Her behavior was too much of a give-away)

Trade 1: Keiji trades Keymaster for Sara's Commoner.
Trade 2: Someone trades the sacrifice to Q-Taro, taking his commoner.
Trade 3: Sou trades Q-Taro's Sacrifice for Sara's Keymaster.
Trade 4: Keiji trades HIS Sage for Q-Taro's Keymaster.
Trade 5: Someone trades Sara's Sacrifice for a Commoner.

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