I ATEN'T DEAD ! I've just got a busy schedule that limits the number of weekdays I can devote to this. Rest assured that this time around, I am not watching the EP without liveblogging it.
Some quick notes :
Something pointed out in the narrative that I forgot to mention is that it's obvious to Will that Bernkastel is haphazardly merging Fragments together this time around, hence why Shkanon is the only one with no clue about Lion. This, of course, begs the question of what forced Bernkastel into such a bizarre setup... My hunch is that she was trying to maintain the "original 18" while adding Lion... but there's no real Fragment where Shkanon and Lion exist together, so she had to fudge it.
It's suddenly pointed out that Battler isn't attending this funeral. Hmmm... Anyway, on to interrogate Maria.
And dear gods, this is sad, as Maria's as much a Stepford Smiler as ever. The symbolism is shovelled onto us, as it turns out "Maria" is something of a Meaningful Name. Born out of wedlock, she latched onto the Bible to make sense of her mother's refusal to answer questions... and ends up believing that she's the daughter of the Holy Ghost. Hence all the "Witch of Creation" talk.
Maria's first meeting with Beatrice only happened a while after that. She had been researching the occult for a while, and started seeking out the infamous witch of Rokkenjima. Who just showed up in front of her suddenly one day when Rosa was visiting and had left her to play alone in the garden. If one reads between the lines of Maria's rosy glasses, this Beatrice didn't actually know much about the occult, and barely managed to get the girl's respect with the infamous magic trick (the one when you switch candy in when the other person's not looking). There's actually a lot of headology in what this Beatrice is doing, from predicting the candy will eventually melt (it's summer !) to inciting Maria to wash her hands and teeth everyday as a "purification" ritual.
Of course, when Maria mentioned all this at dinner, nobody believed her. But the interesting detail (which Will does notice) is that Maria was sitting next to Rosa. If I remember the family seating plan well, this means that Lion didn't exist in this memory (otherwise, it'd be Lion sitting next to Maria). Hmmm...
Maria helpfully points out that the only ones whom Beatrice could show herself to were herself, Genji, Kumasawa, Shannon, Kanon and Dr Nanjo (but explicitly not Gohda). Although Beato did intend to eventually reveal herself to the whole family, so that she could be resurrected...
And wow, Will's thoughts now dissect in detail Beatrice's birth. Beatrice was initially created by "one person", but without another person acknowledging her she's just a delusion. So her creator picked the very gullible Maria so that "the 1986 Beatrice" could really be born. That's... depressingly cynical, ain't it ? Random applause by Bernkastel's peanut gallery...
Then Maria just stops talking and goes away, as the Gamemaster is pulling the strings into another direction. Anyway, let's move on to people who denied Beatrice, at least at the start. George & Jessica, if you would ?
Well, George's pretty much a wash : he doesn't know anything about Beato, although he did indulge Maria the same way as if she said she'd met Santa Claus. Jessica's recollections, though, are a bit more interesting. Being a bit more brash, there were times she didn't indulge Maria, such as last year. Which of course caused Maria to have one of her "moments"... And here's a thought : what if this creepy know-it-all child was what Maria wanted to be ? Jessica's not a stranger to the notion, considering she created a whole new persona for herself outside of the island — cf. EP 2. Actually, she has two of them : the "frail, asthmatic young lady" is now revealed to also be an act, created to avoid unpleasant conversations with sudden fits of coughs. Anyway, it's clear Maria revelled in being an authority on the occult instead of the little child everyone talked down to.
Anyway, the important thing Jessica wanted to talk about was the next day, when she confronted a couple of servants about Beatrice. After a while, they let out the "Beatrice shows up in the VIP bedroom at 2am" ghost story. Jessica gathers her courage to be there that night... The room's empty, but there's a Beatrice-like doll and an offering of cookies. At 2am... the phone rings. It's Maria, talking about occult stuff. And then suddenly the lights go out, Jessica hears someone moving and cackling before getting out. When the lights come back, the doll was gone...
Jessica elaborates that you'd need at least three servants to pull such a prank (as well as Maria's complicity for recording her voice), so by now she thinks it was just her nerves playing with herself. Although I do have a much simpler theory (Maria does secretly call the VIP room every night at 2am, and "Beatrice" hid under the bed when she heard Jessica coming in).
And Will yet again asks about the seating plan... Ange sitting to Jessica's right at dinner does again suggest Lion not existing in this memory, and to Jessica's credit she does catch on and gets a bit puzzled by it. Actually, now that Will's talking to Lion again, it appears that the former's never seen the epitaph under Beatrice's portrait, never came across of the various legends about Rokkenjima's witch... and basically, has never heard of "the witch Beatrice". Hmmm...
Well, that's more backstory and random tidbits (such as Jessica's on-and-off asthma) being clarified. At this stage, the obvious answer to "who killed Beatrice ?" is "Lion's presence", although I'm hoping for something less straight-forward...
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