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Recap / Fate Grand Order Event 27 Murder At The Kogetsukan

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Written by guest writer Ban Madoi.

The protagonist falls into an unusual dream where they are one of the guests of the Marble Trading Company, where two crime families are brokering a marriage for their heirs. Holmes, Moriarty, and Mash are intrigued by descriptions of this dream, especially once the murders begin and take it upon themselves to guide the protagonist through this moonlit interlude.


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  • Adaptation Expansion: The novelization fleshes out the cast, including the person the protagonist was possessing.
  • All for Nothing: In a way. Sadly, this all canonically happens before the Lostbelts, which means that, no matter what happened to the families after this, all was washed away by the Foreign God attacking Earth.
  • And the Adventure Continues: Even with the murders at the Kogetsukan over, there are plenty of questions remaining such as how will the Violet and Goldie families deal with the enemy that brought about the alliance in the first place, will Cain be able to reform both families as he promised and will Juliet and the person the protagonist is possessing get together?
  • Arranged Marriage:
    • The Violet and Goldie families are attempting to create an alliance with an arranged marriage between their eldest children. The murders keep changing who will get married till it's Laurie and Cain.
    • In the backstory, Harriet's father arranged her marriage to Adamska. Harriet notes that had she admitted she was pregnant by Aaron to him, she might have been arranged to marry Aaron instead...that, or their families would have gone to full-out war.
  • Book Ends: It begins and ends with Holmes musing on the mystery and the player's role in this.
  • Big Brother Instinct: After Morris and Chris have been murdered, Cain drops his act and threatens the protagonist with a knife. Holmes arrives to save them which forces Cain to reveal he was planning on scaring the protagonist off as he thought the protagonist was murdering his sister's fiances so they could marry her.
  • Breather Episode: It's sandwiched between the Fate/Apocrypha crossover, which is a belated epilogue to Darnic and Sieg's stories with the typical stakes of a big crossover, and the third Gudaguda event, which is more serious than its predecessors and hinges on the tragedy of Okita Alter's ticking timebomb nature. In contrast, this event is very low stakes as it's only a limited cast who's threatened by the antagonist and features no fighting or farming outside of mandated story battles. About the only real threat is the spoken potential that the protagonist might die for real if they die in the dream.
  • But Thou Must!: Regardless of the options the Person the Protagonist is possessing can choose, there are certain incidents that leave you with two options of the same thing.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The Violet family has purple hair, while the Goldie family is blond.
  • Crotch-Grab Sex Check: The protagonist has the choice to do this or pat Morris' chest when trying to prove that Morris is a woman. They find to their surprise that "there's something down there" or "there's nothing up top", which riles up Morris enough to try and beat the living daylights out of them.
  • Dramatic Irony: Once The Reveal is shown, with Harriet being the murderer all along, her marriage to Adamska, who looks like Lancelot, is layered with extra irony as she's the one who committed adultery in the story.
  • Dying Clue: Chris gives two after his murder, first wrote "mor" with his blood then broke his prized watch he got from Ann so it stopped at 11:25. It's deduced he was trying to write a clue to his killer's identity and the time was approximately when he was killed. It's originally believed he was trying to write "morris", but Moriarty notes it was more likely he was trying write "mom" but ran out of blood before finishing the last "m," leaving it a "r" before he succumbed.
  • Easily Forgiven: When it looks like Morris might have been the one to kill Chris, Aaron is just pleased at the prospect that one of his sons is still around and yells that he'll get Morris a top lawyer if he comes back.
  • Facial Horror: Dorothy and Juliet come across Morris' corpse when looking for Laurie and Cain. Based on Wu and Hawthorne's statements, Morris' lips and eyes were eaten by fishes as he was floating in the ocean.
  • Fair-Play Whodunnit: Because the entire event originally hinged on the players deducing the correct culprit to get in-game rewards, it's structured to give them a chance at figuring it out by merely paying attention to the family dynamics and working from there. In fact, each story chapter in the event is titled after one of the items in Knox's Decalogue.
  • Faking the Dead: After Chris is murdered, it's suggested that Morris was hiding after killing him. Sheringham is revealed to not only be alive but actually Holmes to save the protagonist from Cain.
  • Feuding Families: The Violets and Goldies are rival crime families who have fought for years for control over a certain city. While the heads have decided to bury their feud by marrying their families together due to a new enemy attacking both of them, they both know a good portion of their members wouldn't agree thus they are going on this trip in secret. It's this reason that Juliet goes through with the marriage despite hints that she's in love with the person the protagonist is possessing. It's also revealed by Harriet this was the reason she never revealed to her father she was pregnant by Aaron, as she was afraid the families would have gone to open war.
  • Flashback: Technically the entire event is one, as it establishes the date is May 2017/2019 and the crew is still in Chaldea despite the game having already moved onto its (then-)current year of 2018/2020 and the crew now on the Shadow Border.
  • Genre Shift: Goes from the usual fantastical comedy used in Grand Order events to a subdued, rather mundane, mystery. Besides Holmes' involvement as a Servant and the protagonist dreaming, there is literally no mention of magic in the dream.
  • I Gave My Word: The Marble Company's biggest asset is their client's trust in them, it's stated that any contract they are present for will never be broken thus why the Violet and Goldie families hired them for the arranged marriage and alliance.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: After Morris is missing and then later revealed to be dead, Aaron starts drinking to deal with his grief.
  • Identical Stranger: Every character in the event looks like Servants the protagonist has encountered. It's justified as it's the protagonist's mind projecting their Servants' appearance on them with Moriarty suggesting the protagonist's mind subconsciously doing so to prevent overload from too much new information. However, Holmes warns the protagonist not to rely too deeply on said appearances, as their mind is merely using the best possible choices as substitutes, citing Morris sharing Mordred's appearance simply because they have similar violent and brash demeanor, while Morris is definitely a man rather than a woman with a preference for dressing as a man as Mordred is. There is a hilarious Subversion with Sheringham, who is not only really Holmes and faked his own death.
  • Irony: Holmes' Faking the Dead could have only worked if Hawthorne, who looks like Moriarty to the players, played along.
  • Mafia Princess: Juliet is this currently and her mother, Harriet was this in the past. Juliet's family has scared away everyone except the person the protagonist is possessing and Dr. Hawthorne admits he was close with Harriet in their youth but simply too scared to make a move on her due to her family.
  • Mental Time Travel: A notable twist in the story is that the Protagonist's dreams take place in the future and not in their present. When Holmes figures this fact out, he tracks down where Kogetsukan is and inserts himself into the story as Sheringham.
  • Named by the Adaptation: The person the protagonist uses as a vessel is named Rikka Fujimar in the novel, a play on the Canon Name of Ritsuka Fujimaru.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: It's revealed at the end that Cain has been faking a mental disability to avoid the pressures of his family to become involved in criminal activities like them.
  • Old Man Marrying a Child: After Morris and Chris are murdered, Laurie and Cain are engaged to preserve the budding Violet and Goldie alliance. It's downplayed as Cain is only a high schooler and after Juliet states how uncomfortable this arrangement is, Aaron replies there simply needs to be an engagement for their alliance and they can revisit it once Laurie comes of age.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Moriarty's called "Professor M" in the event proper. However, you note that he antagonizes Holmes at every opportunity, even laughs when his counterpart Sherigham gets offed early. Even if you don't know his name, anyone familiar with the lore would figure out the identity.
  • Perception Filter: Somehow, the protagonist sees characters differently from how they actually are in real life. Holmes notes this before his deduction of the events, to give the players a clue as to who the culprit really is.
  • Polar Opposite Twins: Reserved, dutiful Juliet and lively, outgoing Eva.
  • Poor Communication Kills: A lot could have been avoided if Harriet had been able to a) tell someone that she was pregnant by Aaron, or b) tell Morris/Chris that they were about to become engaged to their own sister.
  • Red Herring: Morris is seen at first as Chris' killer until his corpse was found. Then Eva has seemed as the guilty one until she reveals that Harriet was the mother. This one is due to the protagonist subconsciously thinking that Raikou was Eva due to how the former kept calling herself mother. Finally, Mash thought Ann was the culprit due to being Chris' mother.
  • Rivals Team Up: Dr. Hawthorne states the reason for the Violet and Goldie families creating an alliance is the appearance of a new enemy attacking both families. He even states if they don't work together both families could collapse in a decade.
  • Secret-Keeper: Hawthorne actually knew "Sheringham" faked his death so that the mystery can be solved.
  • Self-Disposing Villain: After confessing to the murders, Harriet collapses and dies from taking the poison she used on Chris.
  • Spare to the Throne: When Morris goes missing, while they don't write him off as dead it still leaves the problem of the Goldies needing someone to offer to the marriage. Aaron decides to use this moment to reveal Chris is one of his sons from his running around days that he left with the Marble Company to raise, announcing his intent to name him the new heir to make the engagement go through, stating that the Marble Company should have no problem with that since they've allowed things to get this bad in the first place. Ann agrees despite her own personal misgivings about it, as does Chris, who considers maintaining the honor of the Company more important than any personal feelings.
  • Stable Time Loop: After hearing about the protagonist's dream, Holmes theorizes that Sheringham might be himself pretending to be someone else. After convincing Da Vinci to let him rayshift, Holmes recreated his actions from the protagonist's dream using what he heard and his own deductions.
  • Surprise Incest: The motive for the murders, as the Violet girls are actually Aaron's daughters and their mother wants to prevent them from marrying one of their half-brothers.
  • Tap on the Head: Subverted. After Chris is revealed to be another of Aaron's sons, Holmes states it's possible that Chris or even Juliet will be the next target. The protagonist becomes so worried that they start banging their head against the wall to fall unconscious, Mash tells them to stop as they might get a concussion.
  • Theme Twin Naming: It initially seems that Harriet and Juliet are this. After The Reveal, Holmes points out that Juliet and Eva are actually each named after one of their (supposed) parents.
  • Wham Line: Eva calls Harriet "Mother" at the end of the penultimate chapter.
  • Withholding Their Name: James Moriarty's true name aren't revealed in this event to avoid spoiling players who haven't gotten to the reveals in Epic of Remnant. He is only referred to as Professor M in this event.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: The protagonist is possessing Rikka over the course of several days; however for Chaldea it has all been a single night. Meaning later events in Kogetsukan are in the future.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: Holmes warns the protagonist might die should they die in Kogetsukan since Chaldea has no clue why the protagonist is seeing this.

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