Rokka no Yuusha

I don't know what I was expecting Chamot's power to look like, but it sure wasn't that...

Maura seems like the obvious culprit at this point. We still don't even know what her power is, and she's been authoritative and controlling of everyone this whole time; hiding in plain sight, in a sense. Chamot knows her, but she's such a self-centered sociopath that she wants to solve the puzzle by Russian Roulette, and she doesn't suspect Maura at all, so I doubt she'd notice suspicious behavior from the only person she has any respect for. And being the overlord of the saints or whatever, it wouldn't be surprising if Maura could activate the barrier remotely. Dragging Chamot around would let her kill off the heroes without getting her hands dirty (why'd she leave Chamot alone after all those nonchalant murder threats?), she might have even groomed Chamot to be a Brave to exploit her bloodlust.

Nasch has done suspicious things, but so has nearly everyone else, and if she was the traitor, why wouldn't she jump on the "Adlet is the seventh" bandwagon? Why did she help him escape from prison in the first place, when it'd be smarter to leave him there so there would be only six and no one would suspect her? And she was with Goldov and Flamie when the barrier activated.

Because if Nashy was the Seventh, Hans would be the greater threat to her. He's just to smart to be left alive, he would have blown her cover eventually.

As far as she knows, Hans is 99% certain that Adlet is the seventh. Blaming Hans when no one else does seems pretty risky... and she doesn't seem to have a clue how to convince anyone that he's the bad guy, even though he's ridiculously sketchy on the surface. And that still doesn't explain why she let Adlet out of prison before she even met Hans or any of these other people.

Chamot is delightfully psychopathic, Hans is great, Maura more suspicious, and Goldov is friendzoned hard.

It seems to me that Nach is prejudiced against Hans because he is an assassin and that he was leading the charge against Adlet. So she's being kind of immature like Goldov is, some measure of reasonable doubt clouded by their prejudice due to personal reasons.

edited 25th Aug '15 11:52:36 AM by vicarious

Now, see... I think I'm probably wrong about this, but it's been niggling at me for a few days now, I'd feel like an idiot if I didn't point it out:

Hans sure did make a point of emphasizing the idea that he never lies shortly before announcing that he was the seventh. And then he sure didn't give any really strong evidence against that idea.

Announcing he was the seventh might have been part of the hallucination. In any case, "I never lie" is usually itself a lie, especially coming from an assassin with the power to make people hallucinate...

I still regret reading about visual novel since it makes me tempt to give hints even though I haven't read the book myself, just tvt page of it :P Watching people speculate is fun and so is giving hints, but spoilers are bad thing D:

Okay, new theory time: There's Seventh AND Eight, but the Seventh doesn't know that he's a fake. Basically Demon God put a fake mark on someone to create a discord among the heroes and distract them. Meanwhile his real agent is working unseen from the shadows.

That makes the most sense to me, as I still don't see why anyone here would be a traitor.

I think it's Goldov because he's the least interesting person here and therefore the least likely to be missed in the sequels. Also, he has the motivation to want to stay by Nash's side despite not being chosen, and maybe something that happened to him on his solo journey.

Furthermore, what he said at the end of the latest episode made no sense unless he's the seventh ("all six braves are still alive, plus the seventh"). How would he know the seventh is alive if they're not on the tattoo? For all he should know at that point, Adlet's been eaten by Chamot. So he's either the traitor or just really stupid.

edited 30th Aug '15 7:35:19 AM by Clarste

Maura has been tripping all kinds of alarm bells in my head- nothing solid, but she's pushing the whole 'Adlet needs to die' angle really damn hard with both Hans and Flamie.

Meanwhile, that sure is a weird lie Naschy caught Hans in. Like, it says he's hiding something, but I don't know what or why. I'm definitely thinking Naschy is the most suspicious, though.

I wonder where the thing with Hans is leading. I don't know if he's the seventh but he's definitely hiding something.

What are Nashy and Goldov even doing? They seem to be wandering around without purpose for a while now? Is it heading anywhere or what?

Maybe she's wasting time on purpose so that people start killing each other while she's gone.

Adlet and Fremy's relationship was very touching this episode. Damn, now I feel depressed for knowing what happens to them later in the light novels.

...

It's Goldov, isn't it? At this point, either it's him, or the seventh doesn't know they're a fake. ^note Naschy's sudden flare of emotion and whispered apology to Hans doesn't make sense if it's her, and Maura would've attacked Hans to back up her lie if it was her.

Also, Hans was hired to kill Naschy. He saw her while making preparations, but because of his knowledge of her security, he also knows that he'd have to answer some awkward questions if he admitted to recognizing her. He's decided that taking down the Demon Lord is the priority right now, but is totally planning on killing her once the battle's over.

What a strange yet touching moment. I couldn't stop laughing while it happened.

Goldov you poor sap. You picked the wrong girl. Nach is crazy.

Gil: Maybe she feels somewhat responsible for what she thinks happened to Hans. Like she didn't want anyone to actually be hurt, she just wanted to... stall the group maybe? But then Adlet resisted and is now a danger to everyone. I still find her breaking a tablet and waving her arms around a bunch suspicious.

And what is with her bunny ear headband anyway?

I know this is supposed to be the obvious answer right now, but there isn't really any other reason for Maura to recoil that hard at Hans also knowing that Flamie's innocent. Plus Hans was going to blow their cover regardless of what she did.

It also makes the most sense from a narrative perspective, considering her sudden treatment of Flamie as well as Chamot in general.

edited 5th Sep '15 10:39:27 PM by Demonfly

*slams hands on a desk, Ace Attorney style.*

Darn it, Maura! You really are the 7th! I tried burying my suspicions, but after this, I can't turn away from the truth...

Adlet, you did well getting this far, even convincing(as well as confessing to) Flamie. But this isn't over yet. There's one more witness to overcome, one final push to reach the truth. And she had to turn right when you finally got Flamie on your side...

Hope you some of your wits left, cause all Nasche is thinking about is turning you into a pincushion. It's crunch time!

I find it hilarious how everyone is guessing a different person :P

I'm about 85% sure that it's Naschetanya at this point; she's getting crazier by the episode and has been off doing who knows what for a while know.

Goldov, meanwhile, is so obviously uninteresting and aggressive that it basically can't be him. Hans and Chamot both seem to be pretty conclusively not the seventh at this point, Maura's still ambiguous but probably on the side of good, and Adlet is the protagonist so unless we've got one hell of a case of unreliable narrator going on here...

The reason why everyone's guessing different people and the basis of those guesses are mostly narrative is because the show itself gives us pretty much no facts to go with. Which is bad, considering its hoping to keep one engaged in the mystery.

Overall the sense from the series I'm getting is that of misrepresentation. First it misrepresents what genre it is, posing as an adventure/action thing before turning into a really prolonged mystery. Then it misrepresents itself as a mystery where you're supposed to think about the puzzle alongside the characters while not really giving you the tools to solve it. No need to go into how it misrepresents the characters.

Even with all that though, I find the whole thing mostly enjoyable. I do wish, though, that they'd just get on with solving the seventh thing already.

I'm not totally sure it's that big of a misrepresentation, since we ARE definitely still getting some action/adventure stuff; but more importantly the elevator pitch basically is that there's a huge mystery at the centre of things.

As for complaining about missing tools...while I personally think this is a pretty standard closed circle mystery, I'll agree that not totally knowing how the magic and gadgets work int his setting does make for some seemingly out-of-nowhere twists, which doesn't exactly work well in this kind of a story. But hey I'm still enjoying it, and I've yet to see a light novel reader say there's either any major missing details from the novel so I'm hoping that there actually turns out to be a really clever resolution coming at the end of the season.

Nash is freakin insane.

I mean, we haven't been given any solid clues, but we have been gradually narrowing down the list of suspects; at this point it's gotta be Maura, Naschy or Goldov- the other four are in the clear from our perspective.

But the lack of solid clues is why I increasing suspect that the fake isn't aware of it- the seventh is an unwitting pawn meant to make the heroes suspect each other, and the barrier was activated by somebody else entirely.