1 - the biggest fish I’ll talk about first is… d3rlord3 was able to tank the knowledge, so it’s fully confirmed now!!! Hell yeah!!! Anyways, we can consider from words how powerful it was in its adversity by how d3rlord3 described it. He said it was like a truck hitting you or something along those lines, and he would presumably endure this pain for a considerable amount of time because he would had edited the video to censor his name and the king in yellow. But outside of this, we also to address the fact that D3rlord3 had to consistently stare at his screen without looking away just so that he wouldn’t feel that pain from the knowledge flood.
2 - figured out how the mountain world works, and used it against the fake Avery by fabricating a “fourth” rule, which made the mountain underneath the fake Avery to disappear, which ended getting rid of the fake Avery.
3 - figure out that the Avery who’d approached him in the mountain world was in fact a fake due to their behaviour not aligning to the Avery he knows in his head, and the other factor of fake Avery appearing as soon as d3rlord3 finds the tree, and Avery luring him away from said tree despite it being a rather uncommon occurrence within this mountain world.
4 - was able to resist the manipulation from the book in the church that effected Avery for 12 hours, and left a sign behind that pushed back against the manipulation from said book. D3rlord3, due to his understanding of Avery, likely knew it would work on Avery, so he left behind the sign in order to break the effects. Any proof? Well, d3rlord3 obviously knew that Avery would come because of two things: this very thing, along with the pairing fact of him hiding underneath the lecture with expectations of Avery coming; and perhaps the fact that the fake Avery made d3rlord3 figure out that the real Avery would come into the world to look for d3rlord3 due to mannerism and the whole copying persona needing to come from a point of origin.
5 - figured out the puzzle in the pillar world that he’ll need to lower his brightness in order to see the shapes that the shadows form in the water; it making arrows that pointed to one spot, which leads D3rlord3 to the next room. All because of the mere fact that the zombie wasn’t burning. This does require outside knowledge for minecraft to know.
6 - escaped the world that the king in yellow sent him towards in order to get rid of d3rlord3. How? Well, because of the fact that the y levels were high, and the fact that the C levels were not single digits, meaning it was not empty below him. Because d3rlord3 was at a high Y level, the C level (that being the amount of air below you) was changing, meaning that something was below him. D3rlord3 then uses this knowledge to escape the world by clipping through the Unbreaking floor with a boat, bringing him into a new world.
7 - sent in a google drive link (potentially empty when he sent it in, then adding all the stuff that was in it afterwards) in order to not be forgotten, likely knowing that Avery would find it because of his goodbye letter for Avery in it.
8 - got rid of the king in yellow by merging their minds together with a spell. Because d3rlord3 mind was on the verge of collapse due to the knowledge flood in his head, if his brings in the king in yellow into his ripping mind, will it kill it? Short answer, it’s yes. By doing this, he prevented the king from controlling Avery, killed it with his destroyed mind, and basically safe the world.
“whatever you do at the crossroads, keep going forward, or something like that. I was never really good at ending” -D3rlord3
He was the smartest semi realistic character for a while already, but people have been underestimating him and hating him for no reason.
He still hasn't even shown his full potential and he is already the smartest character excluding unrealistic fodders. Highest FSIQ, EQ, SQ, AQ, intelligence, thinking, reasoning, foresight and his other categories are top as well. Let's be real he can see through everyone and there is no way anyone could manipulate or fool him. His intellectual and psychological reasoning is perfect. I'm glad people are opening their eyes and realizing that nobody comes close to Koji. With his full potential he may be above some unrealistic characters, which I would love to see. Some people hate Koji because he beats their favorite character.
Objectively Koji no diffs Light who is literally an average human in many cases and Yuuichi who has below average intelligence and a few decent categories. He slams Johan and Akiyama easily, I would say low diff. Ayanokoji may need to respond and counter their schemes, but he would outsmart them with only one move. Baku is great at outsmarting people but I can't see him fooling Ayanokoji who could see through Baku. Only PM Hal may be on Koji's pair right now, but the rest are below him and people should stop saying that Ayanokoji is mid tier because he is nowhere near average. I used to have Baku=Koji only because most people had Baku much higher and I didn't want people to think I'm biased or Koji glazer, but I think Koji genuinely would outsmart Baku and now I feel fine saying that seeing that it's becoming a normal take.
During the RPS Poker Tournament, Yumeko and Mary have an entire conversation without actually speaking any words, they just read each other's thoughts so well that they're able to hold a conversation
Now this would mean that they're analyzing each other's facial expressions, body language, actions etc. so deeply that they're able to form coherent "words" that the other can understand
Now obviously this might sound absurd, however communication without words is something that was already established to exist previously in the manga, the characters of Miyo Inbami and Miri Yobami are able to communicate through subtle signals between each other that only they would understand. Mary and Yumeko are both vastly superior to Miyo and Miri in terms of intellect and due to Yumeko and Mary already having known each other for some time, it is not too absurd that they would have a solid understanding of each other, which once combined with their incredible intellect, would allow them to have a conversation without words, just like Miyo and Miri
However you can upscale Yumeko's EQ even further than this. You see within the manga a large amount of characters that Yumeko gambles against (Mary included) mentions how they can't read or anticipate Yumeko's thoughts at all. So in order for this feat to not contradict the narrative it would imply that Yumeko is allowing her thoughts to be read by Mary, in other words she understands how Mary would interpret her signals and is deliberately making those signals in order to allow Mary to read her thoughts and have the wordless conversation
1805 words, i dont even know the amount of characters, and about 13 pages of content
EP > EE > EM > EU here, everything other than EU to me scales to top tier and EU should scale very high tier(though this is probably my bias taking effect so probably best to take everything down a tier)
It felt like hell making this document but im glad I did it
On my rewatch of The Mentalist, I noticed a subtle detail I wanted to briefly talk about, that being Jane's ridiculously good VSI(yes there are more possible subcats being utilized in these scenes but that's what I mainly noticed)
First Slide - Episode 16 of Season 1 "Bloodshot"
Patrick Jane loses his eyesight for about a day in this episode, due to this being a first-time occurrence he is noticeably bad at detecting his surroundings and it culminates toward the end where he is unable to drive out of the parking lot while being blind and has to be saved by Lisbon
Second Slide - Episode 13 of Season 2 "Redline"
In this episode, Patrick Jane blindfolds himself and puts himself in an arguably tougher situation than he was in back in ep 16, now instead of it being night time with a slower and more stable vehicle he's in a much faster vehicle(and I'm assuming Jane probably doesn't have much experience driving supercars), here it's also day time with people around. But Jane is able to drive at high speeds near perfectly, yes Mashburn helps him with turns and stuff but compared to ep 16 where he was being explicitly instructed everything by Van Pelt it's a drastic improvement and a significant feat. But not only this, Jane is able to park the car perfectly all while being calm.
Here, we see great showings of composure, vsi etc, but more importantly, from a narrative perspective this cements to us that Patrick Jane is willing to master aspects of his mind that may have provided adversity for him in previous situations, his mind is constantly evolving and thus he's aptly known as, The Mentalist.
How-is-Baku : Baku has his heart replaced by a deceased heart,no he should’ve died within hours or days at most but didn’t . However,he still experiences and should experience reduced stamina,breathlessness,fluid in kidney’s,High BP,enlarged heart and finally lowered intelligence due to less energy for brain due to less O2 to break food. This ensures that he needs to revive as fast as possible from Near Death .
What-is-Near-Death : In STL,Near Death is a state in which one cardiovascular system is stopped while the Barin remains active. The Time for total cardiovascular death is your accumulation + 1 minute and in the 10 seconds for the drug to work,your cardiovascular system is partially active. It’s important to mention that the brain is totally active. Yakou will inject the antidote and give 10 chest compressions. As explain in R1T1,possibility of returning can be lowered from something as small as fear that you wouldn’t come out alive.
What-is-Sanzu-River : There is a folk belief in which a pitch black man and women would guide you to Yama across the Sahay River it appears even if you don’t believe in it as long as you have the knowledge . This I ascertain to be unconscious desire for closure and meaning. The only was to not see the river is to have a solid state of mind that can never be shaken off.
The-Near-Death : Baku failed his check and died for 1 minute and 33 seconds while having died earlier for 1 minute . His heart was stopped and his brain entered a near death dream. Unconcipus Baku had to structure his dream such that there was a correct route which would take him to a certain place before time runs out along with advice to his consciousness to take it. The time which runs out is the time before yakou declares Baku dead,which is time equivalent to 10 chest compressions after injection of Near Death drug. Even after reaching the correct route,Baku would’ve died if he hadn’t created enough emotional effect to Yakou to give him full force chest comprehensions despite the immense pain caused by it.
Required-Parameters : Rudimentary stuff out of the way : 1. Maintain the relation built by Baku,2. Have enough crystallised intelligence to understand how Near Death works,3. Maintain calm when being injected and not fearing being unable to come out alive while preparing to come out alive. They should have an evolved unconscious which could structure and visualise a large dream and formulate a way out before it is time. They should have an unshakable state of mind or in other words have better intrapersonal than Kiruma. Even if they revive,they will experience extreme dizziness and a prominent head ache due to build up of intracranial pressure (more so due to residuals of drug from earlier rounds and Baku’s weaker heart which needed more pumps to push the same amount of blood so more intracranial pressure). All the while having an extreme intellectual debuff which is comparable to Baku going from superhuman to subhuman in physical abilities.
Disclamer : The nature of the reasoning provided is slightly ambiguous due to lack of manga panels hence the analysis can be considered interpreted however naturally I have provide proofs with manga panels to support my hypothesis, feel free to disagree but pls stay civil while doing so.
Yokoya Circuit test reasoning
Note:
First off before I introduce the reasoning feat it is important to note that Yokoya performed this reasoning without listening to most of Akiyama’s words due to him being a floor above Akiyama the scans shown pretty clearly show Yokoya and his crews confusion at what was going on with the remaining players and the scan where Yokoya states that Akiyama stated that Akiyama lied saying that If we work together the everyone can be saved which wasn’t something Akiyama explicitly stated.
P1 Akiyama held a stick with 2 pendulums in front of his own wristwatch and the one with the longer wire moved
P2 Akiyama did the same thing with Akagi’s wristwatch but instead the shorter wire moved
P3 Akiyama did the same thing with Nao next but the longer wire moved instead.
P4 Muscles volunteered to come forward and Akiyama once again holds the stick with 2 wires and the longer wire moves.
P5 After this Akiyama, Muscles and Nao start contacting together and end up exiting the checking rooms claiming to be Normal+2
P6 Akagi is excluded from the contacting and treated as an outcast by Akiyama
P7 The only reason Muscles will contact with Akiyama and Nao is if he is sure that they are Normal
C1 Akiyama and Nao are Normal
C2 Conversely Akagi is infected
P8 Greese also volunteers and once again the longer wired ball moves and then all 3 of them contact with Greese
C3 On contacting with the wristwatch whenever the longer wire of the pendulum moves the person is Normal and whenever the short wire moves the player is Infected
P9 It makes no sense for The LGC to leave such an easy way to verify if a player is normal or infected
P10 The Pendulum wires can be controlled since they operate at different Time periods so if you twist the stick with the appropriate frequency only one of the pendulums will swing
C4 The Pendulum detection is a hoax designed by Akiyama
P12 If the pendulum detector is a hoax, How did Akiyama know that Nao, Akagi Muscles and Young jump are Normal
C5 Akiyama, Akagi and Nao have been working together in the cotraband so it makes sense that they would have allied in this game as well and hence Akiyama would know their status
C6 The reason Akagi was treated as an outcast and excluded was to scare the Infected player from taking Akiyama’s test and hence Muscles and Greese jumping to take the test prove that they are Normal.
Yokoya’s counter attack
Yokoya after seeing through Akiyama’s trick comes up with a strategy to use it against him
First Yokoya makes the claim That Akiyama is deceiving everybody else and calls on to the fact that he is abandoning Akagi, This makes Nao to go and make Contact with Akagi to debunk Yokoya making her N+1 due to use of vaccine and Akagi Normal, then Yokoya Forces everyone else in the Rotation(Muscles, Akiyama ,Nao and Greese) to contact with Akagi making the overall score
Nao(N+2), Akiyama, Akagi, Muscles and grease(N+4).
Then Yokoya next claims that Akiyama said 2 other lies
The 2nd being that the pendulum reacts to the signals emmited by the wristwatch, (Yokoya can have easily inferred that Akiyama’s bluff involved the term signals since he was holding the pendulum in front of players wristwatch).
He does this by taking the pendulum from Akiyama and holding it in front of muscles(Who should be N+4) wristwatch and making the shorter wire move and when everyone is confused He makes the longer wire move.
After this he proceeds to explain why Akiyama was able to both Muscles and Greese’s identity as Normal Players by purposefully using Akagi as a scapegoat and giving him the cold shoulder to discourage the infected players to Identify themselves.
Then he also proceeds to explain why Akiyama was able to discern why Nao and Akagi were either normal or infected by first bringing to everyone’s attention that Nao and Akagi didn’t volunteer for the test but where forcefully chosen by Akiyama to take the test and then makes the claim that the 3 of them have been working together all along.
This is able to work perfectly in increasing the players distrust towards Akiyama and Nao since Akiyama’s early reveal of Yokoya teaming up with Fatso and Forelock caused the remining players to have a negative bias towards the existence of groups.
Yokoya next makes use of this mistrust by asking muscles and Greese how do they plan on continuing now that the swinging ball test has been debunked Both Greese and Muscles who are currently N+4 make the decision to not take any further part in the game due to them getting the necessary points to clear the game with this Yokoya is able to remove 2 of the 8 players who are confirmed to be Normal.
Using both Muscles and Greese’s lack of willingness to continue as definitive proof that they are N+4 and hence both Akiyama and Akagi must also be N+4 due to the contact sequence.
And given how Muscles and Grease acted after being N+4 Yokoya basically primed the remaining players into believing that N+4 players are unhelpful due to them not having any reason to contact.
Nao attempts to counteract this by claiming that she still is N+2 and hence will definitely want to make contact with other players to clear the game, Yokoya proceeds to debunk this by calling on to the players memory regarding Akagi being infected, and then says that Akagi’s actual status doesn't make any difference to Akiyama’s strategy since even if he was normal he can still behave as an outcast to defer the infected from contacting and If Akagi was never infected then Nao wouldn’t be N+2 but would be N+4 and would have also have the means to pass the game (This is Yokoya attributing Akiyama’s supposed swindling to the rest of the group to destroy both Nao and Akagi’s credibility).
This perfectly connects back to the reason why Yokoya made sure that Akagi would be saved by Nao (due to his existing psychoanalysis of her) and then Forced him to contact with the Rotation of the normal players to make sure that all of them reach N+4 making sure that Akiyama and Akagi had no leverage over muscles and greese so they could safely quit, and that Akiyama and Akagi were N+4 as well with Nao being either N+2 or N+4, with this Yokoya was able to completely shut out every other normal option from the other players via utilizing the concealment of Akiyama’s own strategy to
To increase the players distress Yokoya reminds the other players that in the scenario that Nao is N+4 there are 2 infected among them making it very difficult for them to proceed, after this Yokoya states that him and his crew are all N+2 and are still in need to gather 2 more points each and hence they will willingly accept any player regardless of their status to join their group.
As a final blow Yokoya states that if they have 10 seconds to join his team using the sense of urgency instilled by his statement of their being 2 potential infected causing them to make a run for it towards Yokoya and his group since their seemingly only viable option would shut down in 10 seconds.
TLDR: Yokoya after quickly seeing through Akiyama's bluff with minimal info and only observation and is then able to perfectly utilize the strategies own Nature and hidden concealments to ruin his credibility and manipulate Muscles and Grease into abstaining from participation and then Fabricate a hypothesis that Nao is normal +4 to take control of the narrative leaving his team as the only viable option and generating urgency causing them to rush to join Yokoya's team
This is one of my favourite Logical manipulation feats while also being pretty solid in Reasoning, crystalized intel and Mass manipulation and decent (Emotional manipulation, EU and Prediction)
Also for those of you who are keeping track Akiyama failed to see through forced rotation while Yokoya completely saw through Akiyama's forced circuitry strategy. So the score is:
This is an analysis of one of COTE's many hidden plots. This is one of my favourites and provides plenty of decent feats for Koji's insane ToM, manipulation, EQ and SQ, especially in how he gradually turns Chabashira's attempt to control him into a long-term source of information, cooperation and influence. This is still not one of his absolute best feats, but it is a very interesting one. People like to act as if Koji is just responding to things, but no, everything that happens is according to his plan. This entire plot starts in Year 1 and continues to have consequences into Year 2.
Kiyo essentially flips Chabashira's blackmail back onto her. She initially believes that she has leverage over him through the threat of expulsion and intends to use him to advance Class D, but Kiyo gradually changes the dynamic until Chabashira herself becomes a semi-proxy and information source for him.
He wants to gather information on ANHS and Chabashira-sensei while giving Chabashira the illusion that she has control over him.
He aims to stop Chabashira's attempts to pry into his life and expose the truth about his abilities to others, such as Horikita.
He also wants Chabashira-sensei to stop her destructive behaviour toward her own class and instead work toward its growth.
He turns the blackmail back onto her and corners her into cooperation completely, establishing her as a proxy within his information network.
Using blackmail, he incorporates Chabashira-sensei into the X strategy, ensuring Kei's safety and later using her again in Year 2.
In the long term, this counteraction also changes Chabashira-sensei in a more positive direction, which further strengthens Class D for his four-battle plan & class tranfer
During the start of Semester 1, in Volume 1, after a month at ANHS, Kiyo was called by Chabashira to the faculty office. This was after two events: Zero Class and the private point gain in Class D, as well as the preliminary exam that Chabashira made everyone take.
Kiyo meets Class B's homeroom teacher, Hoshinomiya Chie, who answers when Kiyo asks, "Is Chabashira-sensei here?" with, "Hmm? Sae-chan? Oh, she was just here a moment ago."
Kiyo decides to wait for a while, noting that the way she referred to Chabashira as "Sae-chan" made it clear that they were close. They were also near in age, so Kiyo assumes they were probably friends.
Hoshinomiya then tells Kiyo that she and Chabashira have been best friends since high school, which is why they use each other's first names. Kiyo finds this information superfluous.
She later asks why Sae-chan called him, to which Ayanokoji replies that he has no idea. Chie realizes that Kiyo must have been called for a reason and asks for his name while scanning him from top to bottom, something Kiyo immediately notices.
After hearing his name, Chie acts overtly friendly, saying that it's a pretty name and that he must be popular. Kiyo notes that she behaves like a student, and that if this were an all-boys environment, she would probably catch the boys' hearts.
She continues to push Kiyo, clearly trying to draw information out of him.
However, Chabashira arrives and interrupts the conversation, taking Kiyo to the faculty office.
Kiyo was being sent to the guidance counsellor's office. Chie asks Chabashira what she was up to, since, according to her, Chabashira wasn't the type to have one-on-one conversations with students. She then asks if Chabashira is after something, and Kiyo notes that he senses a "storm brewing", an idiom that hints at a conflict, difficult situation, or trouble about to erupt, after Chie slips behind him and holds his shoulders.
Following that, Chie starts a play on words by saying, "Are you looking to be dominated by a younger man?" The sexual connotation of her words correlates with her previous actions involving Kiyo, which were an attempt to fish for information while also potentially misdirecting him. In this context, Chie is effectively probing whether Chabashira believes she can dominate, or rather control, Ayanokoji.
However, when Chabashira replies, "Don't say such stupid things. That wouldn't be possible," Kiyo takes note of it. When this is combined with Chie's following words, "Hee, you're certainly right. It wouldn't be possible for YOU, Sae-chan," Kiyo recognizes that her words carry a double meaning.
Kiyo figures this out from the context of the conversation. So, when Chabashira asks Chie why she wants to follow them into the guidance counsellor's office under the pretext of it being a Class D matter, this reveals to Kiyo that Chabashira intends to use him to help bring Class D up in the rankings.
Chie then asks if it isn't okay for her to give advice too. This confirms to Chie that Ayanokoji is more capable than he appears, while simultaneously showing Kiyo that Chabashira holds his abilities in high regard for a reason.
Her urgency to get Chie to leave is also consistent with the information Kiyo has gathered from the conversation above.
When they arrive at the faculty office, Chabashira glances at the clock, showing nine o'clock, and puts Kiyo in the kitchenette until she commands him to come out when she gives the signal. Horikita arrives at the faculty office, inquiring about why she was placed in Class D.
Chabashira answers Horikita's questions in a prepared manner, which makes Horikita wonder if she knew Horikita would come here to protest.
Chabashira replies as an instructor who understands the minds of students to at least some degree. She informs Horikita about the entrance exam and interview, explaining how they evaluated Horikita quite highly, and continues the conversation with her.
During the conversation with Horikita, Chabashira hints at knowing that Kiyo had lowered his evaluation on purpose by getting 50s across the board. People assume, for some reason, that he simply didn't know better and that this is why he got those scores. But just this scene, where Chabashira says, "...Strange students who would be happy being set at a lower level," makes Kiyo immediately remark that it was like she was talking about him at the time, especially considering the fact that he ONLY answered the hard questions.
Chabashira calls Kiyo to come out. Kiyo considers it a bad idea to come out since Horikita is also there. Chabashira doubles down:
"If you don't come out, I'll have you expelled."
Kiyo comments mentally that a teacher shouldn't casually wield expulsion like a weapon.
Horikita immediately asks Kiyo if he was listening to everything. Kiyo gives a clueless answer, saying that he has no idea what they were talking about and that the walls are surprisingly thick. Chabashira calls him out, saying that Kiyo can hear everything from there.
Chabashira proceeds to inform Horikita about Kiyo's 50s entrance and preliminary marks. Kiyo acts as if it was all a coincidence. This is done to make Chabashira defend her point with more concrete evidence, specifically the questions he answered. This way, Horikita will start to see him as actually competent rather than someone who is simply faking his abilities, since he only answered the hard questions on the paper and got them right.
She does that, and Kiyo once again feigns innocence, which slightly aggravates Chabashira, hinting that she knows nothing about him beyond those scores.
"For crying out loud! I respect your frank attitude, but it'll cause problems for you in the future," the teacher said.
"I'll think about that when the time comes."
Chiyabashira-sensei shoots Horikita a glance that seems to say, "What do you think?"
Chabashira pushes the idea that Kiyo might have more intelligence than Horikita. This is significant since Horikita had the third-highest entrance score and was placed in Class D despite being evaluated highly, while Kiyo being happy with his lower evaluation on Chabashira's side suggests that some students actually prefer being placed at a lower level.
Horikita already suspects that Kiyo seems to be good at social skills but pretends to be bad, as if he is deliberately avoiding trouble. Horikita asks Ayanokoji to explain this.
This little section confirms that he was fishing for whatever secrets Chabashira might know about him beyond those test scores:
"What other reasons do you have?" Horikita asked.
"You want me to explain it to you in detail?"
I noticed the sharp gleam in Chiyabashira-sensei's eyes. It was almost as if she wanted to provoke Horikita.
"No, we'd best stop here. Any more, and I might go mad and destroy all the furniture in here," I said.
The reason he stops here is to create the illusion that she has control over him and that he does not want what she knows, which is nothing, to get out to anyone else. He also uses this as a pretext to stay under her radar while simultaneously giving Horikita more incentive to interact directly with him rather than going around his back to Chabashira, where she would still eventually be sent to talk to him.
Chabashira replies sarcastically that if Kiyo does that, she would demote him to Class E, essentially meaning expulsion, and pushes Horikita and Ayanokoji into the hallway because it is time for the faculty office to close.
[Acting skills, manipulation, deception, information gathering, thinking]
Ayanokoji solidifies the idea to Chabashira that he is simply a "boy who wants to avoid trouble", the follower of the ostrich policy. Class D and Horikita also come to view Ayanokoji this way.
Kiyo later doubles down on this image with Chabashira when Ayanokoji and Horikita solve the issues surrounding Class D's behaviour, Zero Class, and the private point gain by conducting study meetings and using previous questions from second-year students to prepare for the upcoming exam, which could potentially lead to expulsion.
However, because the class average was 40 and Sudou scored below that, he faced expulsion. Chabashira then informs the class about how the test actually works.
Ayanokoji leaves the classroom and goes to Chabashira's faculty office under the excuse of going to the bathroom. He meets Chabashira and questions why she didn't inform the class about the exam beforehand.
This shows two things.
First, Chabashira deliberately or intentionally withholding this information provides insight into her personality as a whole. It shows that she had selfish reasons for withholding the information and, at this point, didn't genuinely care about Class D as a whole.
Second, Kiyo discovers the loophole of paying private points to obtain exam points while simultaneously feeding Chabashira another layer of his manufactured image.
The conversation makes this clear:
"One week ago, when you told us that the test's material had changed, you also said something like 'I forgot to inform you.' Because of that forgetfulness, we were notified of the change one week after the other classes had already been informed."
"Every class got the same questions, the points were reflected in the same way for everyone, and every class faced the same threat of expulsion. However, Class D was compelled to test under unfair conditions."
"Whether or not you truly forgot to tell us, or if it was an intentional slip, isn't really the issue. The fact remains that one person is now being expelled from this school because of those unfair conditions."
"That's unfortunate. What you've said isn't wrong, but I can't allow you to do that. Sudou will be expelled. That decision cannot be overturned at this stage. Give up."
She'd ignored my point, but her words remained logical. As I'd anticipated, her words always held some hidden meaning.
"You said it 'cannot be overturned at this stage.' Which means there may be a way to overturn the decision."
With Horikita arriving on the scene, Chabashira breaks into laughter, commenting that Horikita and Ayanokoji are very interesting.
After exchanging exam points with Horikita and Ayanokoji, Kiyo prompts Chabashira by asking if that's okay. Chabashira responds that there's nothing more to it while looking over at Horikita, essentially prompting her to give her opinion on Ayanokoji.
Horikita replies that she sees Ayanokoji as a disagreeable person who hides his abilities.
Chabashira then comments that the pair of Horikita and Ayanokoji might be able to reach a higher-level class. Horikita replies that Class D can also reach Class A.
This is where Chabashira's "defective products" analogy becomes relevant: a class full of defective students, once their defects are repaired, may produce a superior product.
Chabashira finds this interesting and leaves by saying that, as their homeroom teacher, she will watch over them with great interest.
This is another important step in Kiyo's manipulation of Chabashira's perception of him. He continues to present himself as someone who wants to avoid trouble while simultaneously demonstrating just enough ability to make Chabashira believe that he is useful to Class D's advancement.
Acting skills, manipulation, deception, information gathering, social engineering, EQ, thinking, and long-term planning.
The feat starts with Chabashira having leverage over Ayanokoji and attempting to use that leverage against him. Ayanokoji recognizes this, gathers information about her, understands her personality and motivations, creates a specific image of himself in her mind, and then gradually changes the nature of their relationship.
He essentially turns Chabashira's attempt to control him into a source of information and eventually cooperation.
This is why the feat has much more scope than a simple manipulation feat. It involves both sides of the interaction, opposition from Chabashira, adaptation from Ayanokoji, information gathering, deception, social engineering, image construction, and long-term relationship management.
During the Sudou trial in Volume 2, Sudou gets into trouble after being framed for provoking a fight with Class C students. Horikita and Ayanokoji help Sudou get out of the situation after he was already almost expelled in the previous test.
After the Sudou trial is dissolved, Chabashira informs Horikita that she has fallen into Ayanokoji's trap. This tells us that, up until this point, Horikita believed Ayanokoji was simply someone who wanted to avoid trouble despite having the ability to do more, essentially a fool who deliberately kept himself out of the spotlight.
This is exactly the image Kiyo wants Chabashira to believe as well.
Chabashira then advises Horikita that Ayanokoji is the "defective student in Class D" and tells her to get to know him and find his fatal flaw.
When Ayanokoji later meets Horikita to talk about the trial, Horikita questions the entire scheme and asks whether she was simply being used as Ayanokoji's puppet. Kiyo immediately notices the change in Horikita's behaviour due to Chabashira's interference.
However, one notable detail is that Kiyo figures out the subject of Chabashira and Horikita's conversation without even being present.
He infers it from only a few interactions:
"I knew more about me than anyone else. I knew just how defective (Chabashira), just how foolish (Horikita) I was. I was a horrible human being."
The chain of reasoning is essentially:
Chabashira knows my entrance scores → she recognizes that the scores are artificial → she knows something unusual about my circumstances → she has already influenced Horikita → therefore, she may continue manipulating my circumstances and using expulsion as a weapon.
This becomes important shortly afterward, before the first Special Exam and the announcement of the two-week vacation on the cruise ship.
Chabashira calls Ayanokoji to the faculty office again. She attempts to manipulate him by creating an illusion of safety, telling him there are no cameras, asking out what kiyo thinks of her ? and then revealing her personal history. She tells him that she was once a student in Class D and that her goal of reaching Class A was destroyed because of a trivial mistake, which also foreshadows the importance of mistakes and their consequences in later exams.
She then explains that Ayanokoji's presence is vital to Class D reaching Class A. More importantly, she reveals that someone contacted the school and requested that Ayanokoji be expelled. She claims that she rejected the request from this third party, but if Ayanokoji refuses to follow her commands and help Class D reach Class A, she could interpret his actions as grounds for expulsion.
In other words, she is threatening him with expulsion in order to force him to cooperate.
Before saying that Chabashira was simply being stupid for using expulsion and allowing a third party to interfere, there are several reasons why her approach makes sense based on the information she has gathered about Kiyo.
First, Ayanokoji has already given Chabashira three separate instances where he treats the subject of expulsion as something unfair: their first meeting, Sudou's potential expulsion, and the Sudou trial.
It is therefore logical for Chabashira, based on the false image Kiyo has constructed, to believe that he has an aversion to expulsion.
Second, Ayanokoji has already presented himself as someone who values his peaceful existence through the "boy who avoids trouble" persona. He has also shown distrust and irritation whenever someone pries into matters he considers personal.
Therefore, from Chabashira's perspective, threatening his peaceful life and bringing up the possibility of expulsion should give her leverage over him.
Kiyo further reinforces this image by acting as though he genuinely fears both the destruction of his peaceful life and the possibility of expulsion.
When Chabashira makes kiyo uncomfortable by threating by blackmail , Kiyo acts out and grabs Chabashira by the collar, questioning whether she has made Horikita uncomfortable and comparing it to someone entering another person's home while still wearing their shoes. The metaphor is essentially about crossing someone's personal boundaries.
However, while Kiyo appears to be reacting emotionally to Chabashira's actions, he is simultaneously extracting information from her reactions and behaviour.
He also recognizes that much of the story she is telling him is fabricated or at least strategically presented.
Kiyo therefore continues playing the role of someone being blackmailed by Chabashira.
Later, during the commencement of the first Special Exam, the deserted island exam, Chie-sensei interrupts Chabashira again, bringing up how it is fate that both of them ended up on the island together.
After the exam begins, on Day 1, Horikita tells Kiyo what Chabashira had told her. Chabashira had suggested that Ayanokoji was not interested in moving up the classes and had also leaked information about him to Horikita.
This is important because Chabashira is effectively turning Horikita into a proxy through which she can indirectly monitor and influence Ayanokoji.
Now Horikita also knows that there is something unusual about him.
Ayanokoji then carries out the leader swap strategy and several other feats during the exam while maintaining the illusion that he is following Chabashira's orders.
From Chabashira's perspective, Kiyo is therefore demonstrating ability while still appearing to operate within the framework she imposed on him.
When he meets Chabashira on the cruise ship after the exam, Kiyo asks whether she was impressed and also questions her about the man who wanted him expelled.
Chabashira replies that she knows quite a lot about him and asks whether that isn't enough reason for him to trust her. She also implies that the other teachers don't know about his abilities.
Chabashira then compares Ayanokoji to Icarus in his current predicament. She adds that Ayanokoji's father said:
"Sooner or later, Kiyotaka will gladly chase the means of his expulsion from school."
This is another sophisticated attempt by Chabashira to influence Kiyo. Notice how she brings up Icarus and then immediately introduces Ayanokoji's father into the conversation, creating a parallel between Daedalus and Icarus.
Kiyo, however, continues playing along with her framing:
"You should know, Sensei. Icarus(I) won't heed Daedalus(your)' warnings."
Kiyo essentially accepts the metaphor while subtly reversing its meaning. Chabashira believes she is the one warning and controlling Icarus, while Kiyo is already aware that he is not actually operating under her control.
Afterward, Ayanokoji meets Horikita and reveals more of what he accomplished during the exam. He then establishes a direct agreement with Horikita in exchange for his personal freedom:
"I don't mind helping you get up to Class A. However, I have one condition. Do not investigate me. If you promise not to touch on this subject ever again, I will help you."
Horikita accepts without hesitation.
"If you don't want to talk, there's nothing I can really do about that. If you'll help, I have no reason to refuse you. I'm not interested in digging things up that are better left buried. After all, you dislike trouble."
Horikita's handshake was firm. I work for me. You do things for yourself. The battle to raise our class up from the very bottom was about to begin.
This effectively accomplishes several things at once.
Kiyo successfully establishes a boundary with Horikita and prevents her from investigating his background. He strengthens the false persona that he is simply someone who dislikes trouble and wants to live peacefully. He also reduces the need for Chabashira to act as an intermediary between himself and Horikita, while simultaneously keeping Chabashira under the illusion that she has leverage over him.
In Volume 4, during the cruise ship exam on Night 1, Ayanokoji wanders to the first level for a vending machine to get some refreshments in first level in the ship where pub and Japanese bar with vendeng machine . It is the type of vending machine that also serves alcohol, considering the cruise ship setting and the Japanese pub and bar area. (ship has three levels - 1 - cruise liner, 2 - room & restarutments 3 - pub & bar ply for adults)
There, he finds the four homeroom teachers and decides to eavesdrop on them.
He learns that all four homeroom teachers were classmates.
Chie-san deliberately places Ichinose in the Rabbit Group because she is interested in what Chabashira is doing with Ayanokoji, essentially placing Ichinose in a position where she can observe Ayanokoji.
Chie-sensei and Chabashira-sensei also have a personal grudge stemming from something that happened ten years ago.
On Night 2, when Ayanokoji calls Chabashira for the fake leader phone strategy, Chie-sensei follows Chabashira to the location. From their interaction, Ayanokoji understands that Chie-sensei and Chabashira have a rivalry, and that Chie placed Ichinose, who is very observant and perceptive, in the Rabbit Group to spy on Ayanokoji.
She is also willing to spy on Chabashira and find out why Chabashira is interested in Ayanokoji and what she knows about his abilities.
Ayanokoji achieves the ideal scenario in the Rabbit Group while avoiding suspicion from everyone and laying out the X strategy.
In the Sports Festival, Ayanokoji meets Chabashira while passing through the main gate. He plays along with the act, and Ayanokoji answers her with, "I'm free to decide my own path," which is literally a callback to Icarus.
Chabashira does not realize that Ayanokoji is actually talking about her. Instead, she interprets it as him making his own path toward success while remaining under her blackmail. She mentions that if Ayanokoji steps out of line, she will stop covering for him, and that the same goes for his abilities.
In the Paper Shuffle, he acts and lets Chabashira know that Horikita came up with the plan and has been growing, showing her the promise of reaching Class A and beating the other classes.
After the exam, Class D would be able to evaluate Class C in the next semester, without any expulsions, something that Class D had become infamous for at ANHS.
This increases the stakes for Chabashira.
In Volumes 7 and 7.5, during the X strategy, after the parent-student meeting, Ayanokoji reveals everything to Chabashira, of course through his fabricated persona.
He tells Chabashira that what she told him was a lie and then tells her that the chairman had told him about her.
This gets a surprised reaction from Chabashira, showing that Chabashira did not have any connection with his father and that her story about his father was a bluff. chas comments kiyo tricked her on getting response .
Ayanokoji continues the conversation by saying that the chairman placed him in Class D because of their personal connection, but Chairman Sakayanagi still didn't knew that the Class D homeroom teacher still have the ambition of reaching Class A.
He also brings up Hoshinomiya's involvement and how Chabashira actually wants to supplement the class using one superior student rather than relying on the others, since she cannot submit to the authority of being a teacher.
Ayanokoji also realizes that Chabashira knew about the next Special Exam that could bridge the gap between the classes. This means that her story about blackmailing Ayanokoji into cooperating was fabricated around information she already had.
Ayanokoji then brings up the chairman again, saying that Sakayanagi will now watch over him. This means that Chabashira is now at the mercy of Ayanokoji.
Chabashira counters by saying that she can still expel Ayanokoji.
Ayanokoji responds that, given the current state of Class D, Horikita and the others will reach Class A without him. If he steps down from this point, the fight will continue, and Chabashira will not allow her ambition of reaching Class A to disappear.
That means Chabashira cannot really do anything to Ayanokoji.
If Ayanokoji were expelled, it would destroy Class D's progress and potentially cause the class to fall back to Class C, which would also destroy Chabashira's goal.
Chabashira counters again, saying that if Ayanokoji is so certain about this, she would simply expel him if she ever lost hope.
Ayanokoji counters that if, in the future, something happens that causes Chabashira to lose all hope, she can contact him, but her position as a teacher is not completely secure because of the chairman.
Did you notice what Ayanokoji did?
He cornered Chabashira into cooperation and effectively blackmailed her into following his demands, including staying off the stage in the fight between the classes and continuing to cover for him as she had done beyond what would normally be expected of her as a teacher.
Basically, the entire situation is turned against her.
Kiyo then uses his new proxy, Chabashira, to help Kei during the Ryuuen waterboarding situation. If Kei drops out, it would damage Class D and could potentially lead to rumours about Kei's past, which Ayanokoji considers a possibility.
He adds that if Chabashira does not help him, Kiyo could sabotage Class D.
This corners Chabashira into cooperating.
"To think that a student would threaten a teacher. The tables have certainly turned."
"If you do this for me, I promise I'll do nothing to hinder or sabotage Class D going forward. I think that's significant, don't you?" I asked.
"If refusing to help you with this means that we never make it to Class A, then so be it."
Kiyo later reveals that this was all just a test and that asking Chabashira for cooperation was not the main goal he had in mind.
Kiyo then suggests that she follow him and see the drama for herself, taking her to where Kei was being waterboarded on the rooftop.
There, Kiyo questions her about the conditions under which private points can be used to buy exam points, referring back to the situation with Sudou. He pressures Chabashira on the subject until she replies that she cannot answer.
This confirms to Kiyo that buying exam points with private points is only allowed under certain conditions and that teachers cannot reveal the details of ANHS's point system. It also suggests that the teachers themselves do not know everything about how the system works.
This conversation also serves to show that kiyo is truly stepping away from the inter-class drama and fighting, while showcasing that Horikita can carry Class D and therefore that Chabashira will not give up on her hope of reaching Class A.
This keeps Chabashira in check and preserves Kiyo's leverage over her.
Upon the arrival of Manabu, Chabashira is shocked and questions whether Manabu did not agree with Kiyo. She wonders what Kiyo would have done then, especially since she does not know about the student council situation.
Kiyo simply replies:
"Who knows?"
This also serves the purpose of showing Kiyo's abilities to Chabashira.
When Kiyo rescues Kei, he specifically ensures that the student council and Chabashira are there to protect Kei and handle the situation.
"A few steps below us, the student council president, well, the former student council president, and Chabashira-sensei are waiting. They know the circumstances to a certain degree, so they should be able to handle things, including taking care of your soaked uniform," I told Karuizawa.
>> The Chabashira counteraction plays a role in strengthening Kei's security and ensuring that her past remains secure, while also strengthening Kei as part of Kiyo's information network.
>> The counteraction also helps with the development of Class D in Year 1, as Chabashira-sensei becomes less willing to oppose the class in favour of a single student. This strengthens Horikita's grip over the class, increases her leadership, and contributes to Kiyo's plan of eventually making her Student Council President.
>>The counteraction also potentially works as a countermeasure against rumours about Kiyo and the White Room from Arisu, if such information were ever exposed. If that happened, Kiyo could leverage his cooperation with Chabashira to deal with the situation.
>>The counteraction also eliminates the threat of an unfair or outside-party-driven expulsion of Kiyo, since Chabashira is now willing to cover for and protect Ayanokoji.
The counteraction also provides cover for Kiyo's rumour-strike strategy in case it is exposed.
>>Due to the counteraction, Chabashira-sensei's behaviour toward Class D changes throughout Year 1 and Year 2. This helps with Ayanokoji's overall scheme of developing and strengthening Class D.
>> The counteraction becomes relevant again in Year 2 when Kiyo urges Chabashira to call a meeting with the other homeroom teachers. Through this, Kiyo expands the counteraction into a broader teacher-based information network, which also becomes useful for his countermeasures against Tsukishiro throughout Year 2.
>> The counteraction also gives Kiyo a significant amount of information about the ANHS system as a whole, including the private-point system, its conditions, and the restrictions placed on teachers regarding what they can disclose or help students with. Kiyo can then use this knowledge in later strategies, including his manipulation of Ichinose.
(imm possibly missing some details on how this connects to others thing and plot but that's what i can remember . will edit the list & post )
[long term planning][improvisation ][Emotional intelligence][social intelligence][planning coverage][deception : fabrication of control][deception : fabriaction via 2 layer persona ][manipulation][event manipulation][info gathering [acting skills][AC][perception][observation][subversion][concealment][cold & hot reading][thinking][decision making ] { ply many other categories but it's time to finish the post ; will update}
Major feat imo in the counteraction:
Persona utilization: it's one thing to use a persona to hide/conceal your true self, but making a 2-layer persona with fabricated weakness is another thing.
Kiyo doesn't just hide his true abilities behind a persona. He creates a fabricated weakness and makes Chabashira believe that he is simply a boy who wants to avoid trouble and live peacefully.
And when this persona of the boy who avoids trouble is exposed, he creates a second persona of someone who doesn't like being controlled and is afraid of expulsion, with another fabricated weakness.
He basically makes her think that she understands his personality and has leverage over him, while in reality, Kiyo is using that exact perception to manipulate her actions and keep her under his control.
If we take the timeline of the series, then Kiyo didn't manipulate a teenage girl first, but a teacher first.
writing wise : the arc in v5, v 6, v7 & v7.5 is inversion of the arc in v1, v2, v3 ,v4 . v1(sem 1) literally connects to (sem 2)v7 in inverted fashion
In this post, I plan to list some of the feats of Ben K. Tennyson, wielder of the Omnitrix and the hero who saved the universe. He’s a character whose feats in many categories can’t be logically explained because he operates beyond us (i.e., on a narrative scale), so I won’t go into unnecessary explanations. Also, it's important to mention that I'll be scaling Ben based on his feats both as a human and in his various alien forms.
Of course, there are more feats than the ones I've mentioned, and they probably span more subcategories, but this post is just an introduction, so I'm not going to list them all. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the post.
General Intelligence (GI):
Gs, Gwm: In "The Vengers" (Omniverse, season 6, episode 3), Brainstorm quickly observes and analyzes the Vengers and their entire environment, retaining complete information about each of them in his mind and using it to his advantage to devise a scheme against them. The cerebrocrustacean also claims to have an IQ of 1×10^32.
Gv, Gwm: In "A Small Problem" (Original Series, season 1, episode 11), Grey Matter needs to know where he is, looks out the window, and says there's a mountain peak 13.2 miles to the west, with a vertical angle of 45°, which requires an insane mental ability for spatial reasoning.
Gf: Basically any episode in which Brainstorm or Grey Matter appears. In "Rad" (Omniverse, season 7, episode 3), the Galvan was immediately able to understand the malfunction in his ship's warp engine, the Lovely Duck, even though Ben practically knows nothing about science. He was also able to repair that extremely complex technological system with great ease, evidencing a massive level of pattern abstraction and sequential induction to construct a novel solution.
Gc, Ga: In the same episode mentioned above, Grey Matter was able to decipher the Pyxi language on the ship's monitor, a language he had never heard before. This demonstrates an aptitude for learning verbal structures, grammatical sensitivity, and a vocabulary repertoire for establishing comparisons, as well as the ability to discriminate sounds, phonemes, and accents never previously perceived.
Emotional Intelligence (EI):
EP: In "A Knight to Remember" (Ultimate Alien, season 3, episode 22), Ben hears Driscoll's story about George, the first Forever Knight who lived in the Middle Ages, and concludes that he is still alive. Kevin, who is very perceptive, doesn't understand how he knew; and Ben explains that he noticed it from the emotionality of his account, since Driscoll spoke as if he knew him personally and they had a familiarity, even though there were no markers in his narration that indicated it.
EC: In "Paradox" (Alien Force, season 1, episode 12), Ben infers that the interdimensional beast from Los Soledad is Hugo, the assistant from the 1952 experiment. He manages this by noticing that the creature had a route that went past the phone booth, the police station, and the dormitories, relating it to what a normal person would do if they were lost in a military facility and felt scared, understanding that his feeling of being alone and helpless would become the driver of an anxious search throughout the entire place.
EF: In "And There Were None" (Omniverse, season 5, episode 9), Ben adopts a state of concentrated calm and active resignation, using the feeling to boost his intuition and hand the Omnitrix over to the Ben without a watch, inspiring in him the determination to reboot the multiverse.
ER: In "Perfect Day" (Original Series, season 4, episode 1), Ben, a 10-year-old boy, breaks an artificial induction of hedonism and comfort designed to hijack his dopaminergic reward system, voluntarily detaching himself from a system of perfect euphoria, regulating himself so as not to invalidate his autonomy and moral values.
Adversity Quontient (AQ):
Origin, Ownership: In "Showdown: Part 2" (Omniverse, season 2, episode 10), Ben overcomes the childhood trauma he suffered when he lost his favorite alien, Feedback, which also took part of his very being (literally). He makes peace with his past self and takes it upon himself to forgive himself and resolve the current adverse situation.
Reach, Endurance, Control: In "The Final Battle: Part 2" (Alien Force, season 2, episode 20), Ben was defeated by Vilgax and had to hand over the Omnitrix, feeling completely without options against the conqueror's army. However, he recovers from this and devises a strategy to turn the situation around, taking control of it and not letting desolation leave him static without fighting.
Manipulation:
Direct, emotional, logical: In "Alone Together" (Alien Force, season 1, episode 14), within 24 hours and despite being hating by him because of their past history, Ben manages to turn an extreme speciesist and supremacist like Reinrassig III—a Highbreed who from birth was indoctrinated with ideas of racial superiority—into someone who sees humans and all species as equals, questioning his beliefs and inspiring feelings of equality in him.
Deception:
Misdirection, fabrication, acting skills and concealment: In "Of Predators and Prey: Part 1" (Omniverse, season 1, episode 9), Ben, knowing that Khyber is watching him, pretends to be desperate to find him, going with Rook to Undertown to look for him. Rook harasses a citizen supposedly checking that he isn't the hunter's pet. This provokes a fake argument with Ben, who claims to disagree with his police methods and with what they should do. Throughout this entirely public argument, he acts furious and even threatens to start a fight, breaking his working relationship with Rook. Blonko leaves, leaving him alone and crushing with his truck a soda can that Ben had made look like his Plumber badge (a communicator), something Rook reinforces with his words. Thus, with this setup, he makes Khyber—who doesn't know that Ben has already deduced his existence—believe that he is partnerless, paranoid, and out of contact, setting a trap for him and waiting for him to catch him. In reality, Ben keeps the real badge in a pocket, waiting for Khyber to capture him and take him to his base of operations.
Acting skills, misdirection, fabrication: In "Birds of a Feather" (Alien Force, season 1, episode 19), Ben plans to deceive Simian by acting as if he doesn't know that he is lying to him about being the prince of Aracna and about his true intentions. When Simian is knocked out by the crystal's security system, Ben takes an ordinary box and puts a DNAlien resin cleaner inside it to give the impression that he actually has the crystal inside (due to its weight and size). The moment Simian wakes up, he argues that he stored the crystal in that box because it could be radioactive. After that, Ben forces a fight to make Simian believe that he is just now discovering his lie, forcing him to escape quickly without confirming the contents of the box, thinking he had gotten away with it.
Scheming:
Structure, integration, effectiveness, versatility, adaptability: During "Ben Again" (Omniverse, season 3, episode 5), Ben swapped minds with his 11-year-old self, but he has to devise a plan to prevent Eon from stealing the Chrononavigator from his time, and he can't time travel without severely altering the timeline, so he's trapped in the past. Since Eon is capable of traveling through time, he designs a treasure map that only he, at 11 years old (in his 16-year-old body), could solve to find the Chrononavigator. The plan consists of systematically leaving a set of clues in various locations that he knows won't be destroyed or affected over the next 5 years, guaranteeing that the trail isn't lost. The clues are objects that only he as a kid would give importance to, catching his attention to start the search. To make sure, he asks Gwen to go find him exactly 5 years in the future, no matter where he is, and take him to Mr. Smoothy, the starting point, which is also a location he goes to regularly. He also tells her not to talk about it with anyone until the right moment, guaranteeing there are no inconsistencies in the chronology. There he leaves his favorite Sumo Slammers sticker on a post, anticipating that the 11-year-old Ben would see it and Rook would investigate the post, finding that coordinates and the name "Armodrillo" are inscribed at the top. Thus the search begins; at each location there's another clue that only Ben can access through his alien forms, such as Goop, who must look inside a faucet, NRG in a nuclear reactor, and Wildmutt, sniffing and digging underground. This way, even if Eon discovers his strategy, he could never follow it, since he ignores the starting point and can't transform into those aliens. Finally they arrive back at Mr. Smoothy, since, as another safeguard of the plan, Ben hid the Chrononavigator at the start of the treasure map, exploiting a psychological blind spot. But in addition, Ben chose Mr. Smoothy because he was aware that Eon had moved through time with Professor Paradox, but not through space, so when Eon arrives in the present and takes the Chrononavigator, his misuse of the device opens cracks in space-time that allow both Bens to communicate with Professor Paradox (at the end of time, still in the same place) and organize together to defeat Eon, thus returning the consciousnesses of both Bens to their own moment in time.
Foresight:
Logical prediction: Also in "The Vengers", Ben, transformed into Brainstorm, calculates in seconds all the exact movements of each of the Vengers during their fight, including the order of attack, the form, the timing, and the type. Then, based on their psychological profiles, he predicts that if Ben steps aside, they will no longer have a common goal, and their egos, arrogance, personal differences, and constant pursuit of media attention would start clashing with each other, which would be aggravated by their workload as heroes, inevitably leading to their self-destruction as a team within hours.
Anticipation: In "Above and Beyond" (Alien Force, season 2, episode 15), Ben plans to deceive the Plumbers' Helpers, simulating that he has gone insane and is trying to eliminate Grandpa Max. Ben foresees each of the team's actions, anticipating that at first they will all attack separately, knowing who, where, and how, as well as the outcome of each battle. Later, he declares that he is three steps ahead the whole time, which is demonstrated by his constant traps prepared even before the kids act.
Anticipation: In "The Color of Monkey" (Omniverse, season 7, episode 7), Ben foresees that Argit must be involved in illicit activities and infers that it's about the sale of a Tiffin that was believed lost, since it was stolen. Ben knows that Tiffins are tasty but very expensive, so Argit would have to sell it to a buyer from Argistix Security. Upon observing that Simian works with him, his suspicions grow even more and he connects the dots, predicting with accuracy almost half of the episode: that Simian would betray Argit to keep the payment for the Tiffin, that he would hire Rojo to steal it, and that Argit was going to pin all the responsibility for the corruption in his company on Simian. This is why, when he was at the Plumbers' headquarters, before everything started, he kept an ordinary Argistix Security container, foreseeing that Argit would store the Tiffin in an identical box so as not to draw attention among the products; afterwards, he swaps the containers behind his Tenn-Speed and puts an artificial edible inside it so that Argit thinks he has recovered the Tiffin.
Many of the feats mentioned here overlap across various categories and subcategories, as I already mentioned. For example, Ben's plan also involves indirect manipulation and misdirection, his AQ feats imply powerful emotional regulation, and his foresight ability is also intertwined with his developed cognitive and affective theory of mind. As I said, I haven't named all the feats I know of, nor in all categories, but rather in some of the most important ones, so the post could have a continuation or could go deeper into some of the feats already mentioned.
Overall, Ben is regularly established as someone extremely cunning and insightful, although, like any young person his age, he does make mistakes and at times, due to his ego or other personality traits, may even seem foolish. However, in the series where he shows the most maturity (such as Alien Force during the first two seasons), he achieves more than impressive feats. In my opinion, he can be considered superior to characters like Light Yagami and L Lawliet from Death Note, Shuntarō Chishiya and Arisu Ryōhei from Alice in Borderland, many characters from Moriarty the Patriot such as Charles Augustus Milverton and even Sherlock Holmes, etc. That said, I hope you enjoyed the post, until next time!
So I have been getting to know the vietnamese scaling system over the past few days and I like it. I haven't seen anyone introduce it in a concrete manner here, so I'm doing it.
This is a translation of the original doc, done with claude and may have some mistakes. Their system is undergoing some modifications right now, so things will change and so will the scaling of the characters in their tier list
I will highlight the main things that are different from how we normally scale
Narrative labels are invalid in scaling, because the label would only apply to that character's universe. For eg : Being the World's Greatest Detective in your verse doesn't mean you will win against another detective from another verse
Offscreen feats are considered invalid because they lack traceable methodology
Feats that lack logical rigor or illogical are invalid in this scaling. They have to follow realistic logic
Onscreen feats with clear logical rigor and traceable methodology only are considered valid to scale on
The system assigns a point weightage based on the category being compared on. Such is given below.
2.5 Points
Strategy
Planning
Tactics
1.5 Points
FSIQ
EQ
SQ
Reasoning
Thinking
Manipulation
Mind Reading
Deception
Psychology
Information Gathering
1 Point
Creativity
Knowledge
Adaptability
Foresight
Do note there are changes going on regarding to this. The current weightage means a character is scaled higher on a tier list more easily if they have good strategy compared to having good foresight for eg..
These categories take into consideration specific subcategories mentioned in doc or can be used holistically too in certain cases
Where is the point weightage used? It is used when comparing 2 characters A and B
They are compared across each categories. Lets do this from the perspective of Character A
Based on the difficulty with which he takes a category from Character B, points are allocated to character A if he takes and Character B if they take respectively.
Let’s take a category with a base value of 2.5 points as an example, like Strategy:
Equal =: 0% of the points
Extreme aka >=: 25% of the points
Very high-extreme aka -: 50% of the points
Very high aka (-): 75% of the points
Mid-high to high: x1
mid+: x1.25
low-mid: x1.5
low: x1.75
no-low or no: x2
This means:
2.5 × 0
2.5 × 0.25
2.5 × 0.5
2.5 × 0.75
2.5 × 1
2.5 × 1.25, etc..
The same logic applies to categories with base values of 1.5 points and 1 point
So if character A takes strategy from character B with a very high diff, he gains 1.875 points while B gains 0 points.
Thus the points are added across categories
After adding points across all the categories, if character A is 4 points higher than character B, he moves one tier above character B.
The tiers range from E to SSS. E, E+, D-, D, D+... A+, S-, S, S+, SS-, SS, SSS. Note the tier list isn't complete yet and the work is ongoing
Note the realism of a feat is also given high weightage in this scaling system. And only through docs will the characters be compared so no Intuition scaling. Debunks and Anti Feats can be taken into consideration but only for the specific category it affects, and we take the strongest feat for a category. Note we don't take accumulation of feats and only the best feats are used(except for knowledge).
The system values the meticulousness of the work, the efforts an Author puts into creating logical and realistic feats. It tries to be as non-diagetic as possible.
This is just one way of scaling and comparing characters, and is automatically not superior to other methods. This scaling values the realism, logic and methodology of the feat more.
I find this method pretty fun. Tell y'all opinions
I'm gonna be engaging in some detective media for a bit and engage the reasoning side of my brain. Eventually I'll get to 18LOH, but I'm curious on everyone's assessment of him.
So I want any prominent fan to scale how he is as he goes(by chapters).
As tiering systems are subjective, here's my reference guide using characters I know.
Sora and Shiro eventually have to face the Eastern Union, a powerful nation of Werebeasts that has defeated every race that challenged it. Their game is especially mysterious because challengers seem to lose their memories of what happened, making it nearly impossible for other races to understand how the Werebeasts keep winning. Sora investigates the Eastern Union’s history, the previous king of Elkia, and the other races that challenged them, especially the Elves. He also looks into the Werebeasts’ supposed ability to read minds and tries to figure out what is really happening during their games.
The following is the reasoning sequence Sora goes through while solving the mystery:
P1: Jibril knows that Sora requires knowledge of the race and its game in order to even begin formulating a way to win, which was also why he defeated her in the first place.
P2: Jibril also knows that she herself had lost to the Werebeasts.
P3: Despite having lost to them, Jibril appears unable to say anything about the game.
C1: The Werebeasts could demand the challenger's memory of the game as part of the wager.
P4: Sora finds records about all eight games that the Old King had played with the Eastern Union.
C2: If C1 is true, P4 should not be possible, yet both are true, so Sora needs to determine how the Old King retained information about the games.
From there, he begins working backward to resolve the contradiction.
P5: The Old King was known to be a fool and was merely a human, meaning he could not present a serious threat to the Werebeasts.
P6: He possessed lands and resources that the Eastern Union desperately needed.
P7: When a casino deals with a rich fool, it has a reason to let the gambler believe that he can still win so that he keeps coming back.
C3: The Eastern Union could similarly allow the Old King to retain his memories so that he would believe he still had a chance to beat them and keep returning to wager more of his territory.
P8: The Eastern Union still could not allow the Old King to share information about their games with the rest of the world.
P9: The Old King was still able to leave that information in written form and have it discovered after his death.
C4: The Old King could have been allowed to retain his memories under a vow not to tell anyone about the games for as long as he lived.
P10: The Werebeasts are believed to possess mind-reading abilities.
P11: Yet the previous king somehow managed to trick them.
C5: Sora needs to test whether the Werebeasts truly possess mind-reading abilities.
After the test, new premises and conclusions become available.
P12: Sora placed traps to test whether the Werebeasts could read minds, and they failed to identify his real intentions.
C6: The Werebeasts do not possess true mind-reading abilities.
From there, Sora starts putting together a puzzle that he could not previously complete.
P13: The Eastern Union needs vast territories, which it obtains through games, but because it is the defending side, it needs other countries to attack it so that it can choose the game.
P14: The memory-erasing rule contradicts this purpose because if challengers cannot retain memories of the game and the game is unbeatable, there should eventually be no reason for anyone to continue challenging them.
C7: Even if the rule contradicts their objective, there must be an important reason why the Eastern Union needs memory erasure, such as the game becoming beatable if challengers could retain their memories.
Now moving onto the Elves' strange actions.
P15: Elven Gard had played and lost to the Eastern Union four times.
P16: Even if memories of the games can be erased, the results of those games still remain.
P17: Elven Gard possesses vast territories, so losing several times in order to gain information about the game would be relatively insignificant.
C8: Elven Gard could use the results of its games to gather information about the Eastern Union's game.
P18: Elves are particularly capable with magic, so after losing the first time, one possible explanation would be that the game prevented them from using magic.
C9: Elven Gard could have suspected that the game somehow annulled magic after its first loss.
P19: Although Elven Gard could not remember the game itself, the surviving result of the loss could lead them to infer that the game had somehow annulled magic.
P20: Someone outside the game could use magic while the Elves played.
C10: On the second attempt, Elven Gard could have had someone outside the game cast magic while they played.
P21: Elven Gard still lost after using this method and then challenged the Eastern Union a third time.
C11: By the third attempt, Elven Gard could have somehow uncovered the nature of the game.
P22: Elven Gard then challenged the Eastern Union a fourth time and still lost despite having uncovered the nature of the game.
C12: Understanding the nature of the game was not enough to prevent Elven Gard from losing.
This raised two questions: why did Elven Gard lose even after uncovering the game, and why did they stop after the fourth loss?
P23: Elven Gard stopped challenging after the fourth loss even though the result of losing could not be erased and the previous losses had already provided information about the game.
C13: There must be a reason why Elven Gard stopped challenging despite the information it had obtained.
P24: One possibility was that Elven Gard realized the game was theoretically impossible to win.
P25: Another possibility was that Elven Gard had figured out the game but could not figure out why they had lost.
P26: If Elven Gard had already uncovered the game by the third attempt and, through that discovery, realized that the game was theoretically impossible to win, then there would have been little reason for them to make a fourth attempt.
C14: Because Elven Gard nevertheless made a fourth attempt, its third-attempt discovery was unlikely to have established that the game was theoretically impossible to win.
P27: Elven Gard had uncovered the nature of the game, still lost on the fourth attempt, and then stopped challenging.
C15: This instead suggests that Elven Gard had understood the game itself but still could not understand why it was losing.
This created the next question: what kind of game could be understood while the reason for losing remained unexplained?
P28: The game could be understood by the challenger while the reason for the defeat remained unclear.
P29: The same game had defeated races with completely different characteristics, including the Flügel, Elves, and Immanity.
P30: The game could only be used defensively and required the opponent's memories to be erased.
P31: The game suited a technologically superior race that could not actually read minds.
P32: Sora had already recognized the television as technology familiar to him.
C16: The game is most likely video games with cheats.
The answer also explains the remaining contradictions.
P33: Other races are not familiar with the concept of video games, while memory erasure conceals the existence of the games from challengers.
P34: The Werebeasts are controlling the games.
C17: As the masters of the games, the Werebeasts can use cheats however they want without other races understanding how they are winning.
P35: The opponents would be left asking why they had lost.
P36: The Werebeasts can claim to possess the ability to read minds.
C18: The false mind-reading ability provides losing opponents with an apparent explanation for their losses while concealing the actual mechanism of the games.
P37: The Werebeasts cannot actually read minds.
P38: Their superior sight, smell, and hearing allow them to notice subtle changes in a person's body.
C19: They can detect lies through those physical changes, creating the appearance that they can read people's thoughts.
This is just a single part of the ERTK scheme and it’s as almost long as memory loss plan
CONTEXT:
Rhys, Joe’s alternative personality, needs to project false reasoning in order to frame Roald in order to get Joe to fall for a trap which will lead him to getting trapped by Rhys into being forced into a choice to either kill or not kill Roald in order to fuel his scheme. He would have made these premises with just the information of Joe looking at the people at his first time at Sundry House but wouldn’t know exactly what he’s thinking.
The following is the false reasoning sequence Rhys forces Joe to go through:
Suspect pool
P1: Only Sundry House members would know where Malcom is seen as Joe was taking him to his place.
C1: It must be a Sundry House member or at least someone who associates with Sundry House at the bare minimum.
Joe
P2: Malcom died in Joe’s apartment.
P3: Joe knows what he’s capable of.
P4: Joe sees himself as dangerous.
P5: Joe cannot rule himself out completely as Malcom insulted Marriane which could’ve given himself the motive to kill Malcolm.
C2: Joe might be a suspect.
P6: Joe receives a “text” from the Eat The Rich Killer.
C3: Joe is DEFINITELY not the suspect.
Sophie
P7: Sophie's grief is completely performative.
P8: Sophie uses death for clout; she is more focused on attention and money than anything else, even using her brother's death to promote her platform etc.
P9: Sophie shows no fear, guilt, or avoidance of the fact.
C4: Sophie is not a suspect very low on Joe's list.
Phoebe
P10: Phoebe is over medicated, fragile, overwhelmed, she is a mess mentally and emotionally unstable.
P11: Phoebe's grief is chaotic and not calculated in the slightest.
P12: Phoebe lacks the temperament for violence.
C5: Phoebe is not a suspect.
Gemma
P13: Gemma is cruel but ultimately very lazy.
P14: Gemma displays little grief.
P15: Gemma has no discipline or motive.
P16: Gemma is too self-absorbed for murder but it is plausible she is putting on a performance but again based off the other evidence the first option is more likely again a mix of laziness self centeredness lack of discipline the ambition to kill somebody and seemingly skillset needed to become a killer makes her lower on the list.
C6: Gemma is not a main suspect.
Blessing
P17: Blessing is detached and spiritual.
P18: Blessing avoids discomfort and risk.
P19: Blessing has no actual motive to kill them let alone plan it out methodically.
P20: Blessing is not violent, it's hard to see her have the nerve to kill somebody.
C7: Blessing is not definitive but also low on the list as a suspect.
Connie
P21: Connie has a direct financial connection to Malcom from horse betting owing him money later it’s shown in Malcom’s book he had a lot of bets giving him a somewhat plausible explanation for why he had conflict with Malcom.
P22: But Connie is a drug addict and alcoholic; he is impulsive and chaotic; he can barely manage his own life, let alone plan out a complex spree of murders.
P23: Connie has no full coherent motive or discipline to kill somebody or plan out something this complex.
C8: Connie is unlikely a suspect due to his poor lifestyle, his lack of full motivation to harm Malcom besides money and overall lack of discipline to commit such crimes.
Simon
P24: Simon is an artist fraud, exploitative, morally corrupt also while being snarky and entitled.
P25: Simon is capable of betrayal and exploitation as he exploited many young artists and used them for personal gain.
P26: Simon could be tied to Malcolm’s blackmail world as a motive to kill him.
C9: Simon might be the killer and Joe does intentionally think Simon is the killer wanting to expose him.
P27: Simon is killed by the Eat The Rick Killer
C10: Simon is DEFINITELY not a suspect.
Victor
P29: Victor is Phoebe's bodyguard and is usually the one with her at most of these events .
P30: Victor's role as a bodyguard does grant him access to the scenes but since he is with Adam or Phoebe it limits his mobility.
P31: Victor has no clear motivation or ties to most of the victims, his only plausible motive is jealousy against the rich while he does have the physical ability or skillset to commit these acts of violence but maybe not the organization or planning skills to.
P32: Victor is more of an observer than a participant which further suggests he lacks the personal connection or resentment to the victims which makes it harder to establish a strong motivation to kill them.
C11: Victor is not high on the list; he is on the lower-middle end of it.
P33: Victor is killed by Joe.
P34: Joe receives the message from the Eat The Rich Killer Joe acknowledges the killer wanted Vic to find Malcom’s ring so Joe could kill him.
C12: Victor is DEFINITELY not a suspect.
Kate
P35: Kate’s grief is genuine; she was genuinely grieving ver Malcom’s death and also when Malcom died she was sending him a voice message sounding angry at him implying she still thought Malcom was alive but also she might’ve kept that as a recording if she was a smart murderer and trying to conceal her acts.
P36: Kate is trustworthy despite showing a rough personality. She is kind by helping blue by paying for her rehab. She's hiding the fact that she isn't a completely terrible person which is in contrast to the other elites of the group who publicly show their philanthropy.
C13: Kate is not a suspect due to her more genuine behaviors and the fact she even reported Joe to the authorities she is willing to involve law enforcement which makes it less likely she’s the killer.
Adam
P37: Adam is deceptive.
P38: Adam shows ambiguous grief.
P39: Adam is very much capable of hiding wrongdoing due to him being arrested before and having a past experience with crime.
P40: Adam has a motive for secrets as he was in Malcom’s notes for blackmail as Louis the son king, but not for murder he is more self centered money hungry and his family's disappointment/embarrassment then a killer.
P41: Joe sees Adam as capable of framing someone but not killing them. Adam also warned Joe that Malcolm might blackmail him if Adam was the killer it would be more likely he would avoid the topic not actively warn Joe of Malcom’s blackmail
C14: Adam is likely not a main suspect; he remains in the middle of the list.
Rhys
P42: Rhys is running for mayor soon.
P43: Rhys's public crying could be genuine or manipulative.
P44: Rhys's travel references imply mobility.
P45: Rhys's public role complicates killing.
C15: Rhys is not a major suspect there’s no known motive for now.
Roald
P46: Roald has no fear shown at the funeral.
P47: Roald's is showing arrogance, and not sadness.
P48: Roald comforts Kate possessively.
P49: Roald is being territorial.
P50: Roald has a documented history of violence.
P51: Roald has threatened Joe before even attacking him physically and held Joe at gunpoint twice.
P52: Roald is obsessed with Kate.
P53: Roald has clear motives: jealousy, rivalry, and obsession for hating Malcolm for dating Kate Simon for taking up time and potentially putting her at risk and Gemma for constantly upsetting her.
P54: Roald had access to every single crime scene as well as an alarming amount of weapons including a knife collection which could imply he has the tools to kill people as well.
P55: Roald invited Joe to Hampshire.
P56: Roald's arrogance looks to be predatory confidence.
C16: Roald is most likely the suspect.
P57: Roald accuses Joe of being the eat the rich killer and being obsessed with Kate
P58: Roald also uses this to sentence Joe to death and actively hunt him
P59: if Roald is the most likely suspect then he is actively trying to pin his crimes on somebody else and he already hated Joe so he has them to kill him as he was the one getting closer to kate
C17: Roald is trying to frame Joe for being the eat the rich killer due to being close to kate and framing Joe with his own motives
The killer would have to be someone close to or at least related to the group. Roald resented both Simon and Malcolm and openly admitted distasteful behavior of them Roald had previously been notably aggressive with people close to Kate and has shown he has been obsessed with her for a long period of time even having pictures of her in his camera Roald has a large concerning knife collection that can be used to kill people and he has shown violent behaviors like trying to harm others close to Kate even threatening Joe at gunpoint twice. Roald is the perfect suspect killing those close to Kate for his own personal benefit and obsession. It looks like that Roald was trying to frame Joe for killing Gemma and claiming Joe is obsessed with Kate when in reality it’s Roald with the obsession Roald was notably aggressive and often angry. He has a motive/connection for to the killings. The killer would have to be someone with access to the rich group or atleast be connected to it in some way to make it to events like Simon’s gallery or the castle the killer likely has some connection to the group. Roald had acted aggressively towards people becoming either close to Kate or threatening Kate’s interest before, and now they are all ending up dead. He had acted hostile towards Joe whom was becoming close with Kate
Roald was the one who proposed the idea of the killer being Joe and that Joe's motivation was Joe was killing people to get closer to Kate and cause he has resentment towards the rich it would seem from the police’s/Groups POV that Roald proposed this to lay the groundwork to frame Jonathan/Joe with his own motivation (that being obsessively in love with Kate). Roald also has multiple different pictures of Kate, some even being explicit or perverse he also has an alarming knife collection. Roald has the motivation. He also has a personal connection to the group. Joe is getting closer to Kate and Roald always wanted to be with her, Roald might have killed Malcolm because he was with Kate rather than him, and he might have killed Simon because he was a threat to Kate’s career, finally, Roald might have invited Joe to Hampshire to kill him and frame him.
Many people aren't ready to read thousands of chapters of Reverend Insanity and therefore don't scale Gu Yue Fang Yuan. But today I'll debunk this myth that you need to read. I'll scale it using just one chapter. Narrative scaling will be used.
What Fang Yuan has in Chapter 1:
Spring and Autumn Cicada:
Can travel back in time by instantly exploding himself, using only a thought. This allowed him to travel back 500 years—an insane amount of time to prepare and know what would happen in the future, right up until the moment of detonation.
Many enemies, including strong, experienced, and intelligent ones:
He survived, traveled, and fought in this cruel world for 500 years. These are insain feats.
Calmness in a difficult, life-or-death situation:
He fought in a deadly battle for several hours and could still think coolly and even joke. He is wounded and fights against many experienced opponents, and they fear him. This is his excellent battle IQ and focus.
Real-world experience + 500 years of experience in the Gu world:
He was a scholar on Earth. This represents decades of modern Earth experience and knowledge of the sciences. 500 years of experience in the Gu world, where he suffered for 300 years, starting from the bottom, but became successful and reached the point of being a threat.
Young genius:
He has the body of a teenager under 15, which leads to him being underestimated. He began talking at 3 months and walking at 4 months. He gives the impression of a genius, and the elders praise him.
What Baku and Hal have:
idk. just gamblers.
Comparison
About life experience:
Let's say Fang Yuan has lived on earth for at least 30 years. That's 530 years of experience. Typically, people live to 70 (I think Baku and Hal are younger than 70, but I'll give them some allowance). 530/70 = 7.5, meaning he's at least 7.5 times smarter than the average person. 7.5/2 = 3.75, divided by 2 because Baku and Hal are two people. So, he's already at least 3.75 times smarter than both of them thanks to his more than 500 years of experience, not to mention his intelligence as a scholar and his experience of two worlds, one of which is very dangerous.
Cicada:
Fy can travel back in time 500 years, and this ability is triggered instantly with just a thought. I don't think there's any point in explaining why this leads to a crazy outsmarting.
Conclusion
I could do a more detailed analysis, but if your IQ is above 76, then it is already clear that FY is low diffed them.
Afterword
I know there are a lot of haters here, and they don't see the obvious. Often, talking to people is like talking to a wall. But I still hope some people got some intellectual enjoyment out of it.
Some people got the real problems Some people out of luck Gu Yue Fang Yuan after all Gu Yue Fang Yuan after all
LOE- Very High+++ (Self explanatory, Demon/Nonexistence narrative-i.e Munich)
Info.U- Med/High (There's quite a lot of misinformation especially regarding motive and identity in the Monster case, but the main objective is the elimination of all information rather than corruption)
Scope- Very High+ (Economic collapse, large scale corruption, possible worldwide-level nuclear war, biblical apocalypse narrative)
Suspect Narrowing- High+ (Richard was a planned victim from the start with inner connections, narrowing to the actual "Johan" is extremely difficult in any other scenario, all crimes and murders are executed with extreme calculatios, delays, influence etc)
Crime Reconstruction- High+ (Retrospectively the Monster case is a combination of super random and unrelated murders and other crimes, refer to ep.63 for an example)
Misdirection- Very High (Red Mansion, Heidelberg, Tenma framing etc)
I.I- Very High+ (Johan is obsessed with destroying all semblance of information of evidence on the investigation, i.e-Murer case, then Library Fire for investigation stalling, ruining and isolating Detective Lunge's life, Richard etc)
Danger- Very High+ (Besides Reichwein and Gillen who were spared due to their connection with Tenma, investigating the Monster Case will instantly get you under Johan's radar i.e, Richard, Murer, Murer's detective, etc)
Detective Resources- High (Schubert, BKA, and whatever department Gillen is)
Culprit Resources- Very High++ (Undergound Bank, Neo-Nazi association, Schubert, Massive Influence, money etc)
Police Cooperation- Low-Medium (Due to Johan's isolation of the detectives and control over Law Enforcement in general)
This is going to be my longest analysis yet—perhaps even longer than all of my other ones combined.
It dives really deep into the narrative and lore of Beyblade Burst, as well as the writing and development of several characters.
Spoiler Warning: This analysis contains heavy spoilers for Beyblade Burst as a whole, up through Beyblade Burst Rise (GT).
I go into deep detail about three or more major characters—one of them naturally being Delta.
To anyone who reads this fully: I appreciate you, because it is extremely long!
I wrote the bulk of this a long time ago, and I've only just finished adding all the final details so it's kinda messy a little.
Beyblade Burst is easily one of my favorite shows—it's firmly in my top two anime of all time.
Anyway, I'm yapping too much. Let me just get straight to the point.
-______________________________________-
Delta's narrative is shown on multiple occasions to draw comparisons between him and the Devil.
These comparisons are not limited to his personality, behavior, or the way other characters perceive him.
They extend to the symbolism surrounding his Bey, Diabolos, the imagery associated with his character, and the deeper implications of the relationship between a Blader and their Bey.
When all of these elements are examined together, a consistent pattern begins to emerge: Delta is repeatedly associated with the concept of Satan, or Lucifer, and the symbolism surrounding the Devil's fall from grace.
However, to properly understand the implications of this association, we first need to examine the symbolism behind Diabolos itself, the religious and mythological references connected to its design, and how these elements contribute to the characterization of Delta Akane.
After establishing this foundation, we can then explore the implications of Delta's conceptual identity for his cognitive abilities, particularly when considering his interactions with Blind, whose ability to perceive the darkness within Delta provides further evidence for the analysis I am about to present.
Delta's association with the Devil is established through multiple aspects of his character, with the most immediately apparent example being his Bey, Diabolos.
The name Diabolos itself is derived from the Greek word diábolos (διάβολος), a term associated with the Devil, an accuser, or a slanderer. It is also used in the Greek New Testament to refer to Satan.
The name of Delta's Bey already establishes a direct association with the Devil.
This is not simply a connection that needs to be inferred from an obscure detail in its design; the name itself carries the relevant meaning.
However, the symbolism becomes more interesting when we examine the other references associated with Delta and Diabolos.
Rather than relying exclusively on the name, the narrative repeatedly incorporates imagery associated with Satan, Lucifer, darkness, light, and the idea of obtaining greater power by consuming or surpassing others.
These details reinforce one another, creating a characterization that can be interpreted through the broader concept of the Devil.
One of the most important references to consider is Lucifer.
Although Lucifer is commonly treated as another name for Satan in later Christian tradition, the Latin word lucifer literally means "light-bringer" or "light-bearer." It is derived from lux, meaning "light," and ferre, meaning "to bring" or "to carry."
The word was also used in Latin to refer to the planet Venus, particularly when it appeared as the morning star.
Venus is exceptionally bright when viewed from Earth, making it one of the most conspicuous objects in the sky apart from the Sun and Moon.
Because it is frequently visible shortly before sunrise, it became associated with the morning star and, through its Latin name, with the concept of a celestial light-bringer.
This astronomical association is important because the imagery surrounding Lucifer's fall from Heaven developed into a powerful symbol of pride, ambition, and the loss of a formerly exalted position.
In later Christian interpretations, Lucifer is associated with an exceptionally glorious angel who fell from grace because of pride and the desire to exalt himself beyond his proper position.
Although the precise relationship between the biblical passages about the morning star and the later Satan tradition is more complicated than this popular account suggests, the symbolism itself is well established in religious and literary tradition.
The image of a brilliant celestial figure being cast down from Heaven is particularly relevant here.
Lucifer's light represents his former glory, his elevated status, and the extraordinary position he once occupied.
His fall, conversely, represents the consequences of his pride and his desire for greater power.
In this interpretation, the light that once distinguished Lucifer becomes inseparable from the story of his downfall.
The morning star, therefore, serves as a symbol of both extraordinary brilliance and the hubris that leads to a fall from grace.
This is significant when examining Delta because the symbolism surrounding Diabolos repeatedly returns to the concept of light.
The connection between Diabolos and Lucifer does not stop at the Devil's name or the imagery associated with celestial light.
Diabolos is also associated with the desire to consume the light of others in order to make itself shine more brightly.
This is a particularly important detail because it transforms light from a simple visual motif into something that represents power, superiority, and the ability to distinguish oneself from others.
Consider what this implies.
If light represents brilliance, glory, or a position of superiority, then the desire to devour another person's light suggests a willingness to obtain greater brilliance by taking it from someone else.
Rather than simply possessing its own light, Diabolos seeks to consume the light of others to increase its own radiance.
This creates an interesting parallel with the traditional characterization of Lucifer as a figure whose desire for greater power and exaltation ultimately leads to his downfall.
The important distinction is that the symbolism does not need to depict the two figures performing precisely the same actions.
Instead, the connection emerges through their shared conceptual themes: light, power, superiority, and the desire to rise above others.
Diabolos's desire to consume light can, therefore, be interpreted as an extension of the Luciferian symbolism surrounding Delta.
It presents the pursuit of greater power not merely as a desire to become stronger, but as a desire to elevate oneself by surpassing or consuming what others possess.
When this is considered alongside Diabolos's name, the association becomes considerably more compelling and further reinforces the narrative's recurring symbolism.
We have a Bey explicitly named after the Devil, a character repeatedly connected to satanic imagery, and a motif involving the consumption of light to increase one's own brilliance.
Taken together, these details establish a consistent thematic relationship between Delta and the traditional symbolism of Lucifer.
Another important detail is the name of Diabolos's primary frame: Venom.
At first glance, this may appear to be a relatively straightforward name intended to communicate danger, hostility, or a destructive nature.
However, when examined alongside the religious symbolism already associated with Diabolos, the name introduces another relevant connection.
That connection is Samael.
Samael is a figure appearing in various Jewish religious and mystical traditions, with different texts attributing different roles and characteristics to him.
Depending on the source, he may be associated with accusation, temptation, destruction, death, or the angelic and demonic realms.
In some later traditions and interpretations, Samael is identified with or associated with Satan, although these figures are not treated as identical in every religious source.
One particularly relevant aspect of this association is the interpretation of Samael's name.
The name is traditionally explained in some sources as meaning "Venom of God" or "Poison of God," although its etymology and translation are not entirely settled.
This creates a notable connection between Diabolos's Venom frame and the symbolism associated with Samael.
Consider the accumulation of these references:
Diabolos directly invokes the Devil through its name.
Lucifer introduces the symbolism of the light-bringer, the morning star, and the fall from grace.
Venom introduces a possible connection to Samael, a figure associated with Satan and destructive or adversarial roles in certain traditions.
The consumption of light reinforces the broader themes of power, superiority, and the desire to increase one's own brilliance at the expense of others.
Each individual reference can be examined independently, but their combined significance lies in how they reinforce one another.
Rather than being limited to one isolated name, the symbolism surrounding Diabolos draws upon multiple concepts associated with the Devil and figures connected to him in various religious traditions.
It is worth distinguishing between an established etymological fact and an interpretive connection: the meaning of Diabolos provides a direct linguistic association with the Devil, while the Venom–Samael connection is a more indirect symbolic parallel.
Nevertheless, within the context of this analysis, the latter remains relevant because it contributes to the larger pattern of imagery surrounding Delta.
The point is not that every reference independently proves Delta is Satan, but that the references collectively reinforce the same conceptual association.
Delta is also shown making a particular gesture with his hands.
The gesture is notable because of its resemblance to the hand positioning associated with Baphomet in Éliphas Lévi's famous illustration of the Sabbatic Goat.
In Lévi's depiction, Baphomet raises one hand while lowering the other. This arrangement is associated with the expression "as above, so below," alongside the figure's broader symbolism involving opposites, correspondences, and the relationship between different planes of existence.
Delta's gesture closely resembles this imagery, particularly in the positioning of his arms and the arrangement of his fingers.
His right arm is bent while his left arm is held straight, producing a visual similarity to the hand positioning in the Sabbatic Goat illustration.
This matters because Baphomet has become widely associated with occult and satanic imagery in popular culture, even though its historical meaning is more complicated than simply being another name for Satan.
The resemblance, therefore, adds another visual element to the satanic interpretation of Delta.
We already have Diabolos's name, the Luciferian symbolism surrounding light, the possible Samael connection through Venom, and now a gesture resembling imagery associated with Baphomet.
The significance lies in the cumulative pattern: Delta's characterization repeatedly lends itself to interpretation through the imagery and concepts associated with the Devil.
There is also an additional layer to consider.
The gesture associated with Baphomet is a representation of opposing forces and their relationship to one another.
In the context of Delta, that symbolism can be examined alongside the relationship between light and darkness that appears throughout Diabolos's characterization.
Now that the symbolism surrounding Delta and Diabolos has been established, we can move on to the most important part of this.
Up until this point, I have primarily been examining the imagery associated with Delta's character.
However, the implications become considerably more significant when we consider the relationship between a Blader and their Bey.
In Beyblade Burst, a Bey is not just a physical object that its owner uses to compete against other Bladers.
The series repeatedly presents the relationship between a Blader and their Bey as something that expresses a much deeper connection involving the Blader's mind, spirit, and personal identity.
A particularly relevant example is Gwyn Reynolds. (My Goat.)
When Gwyn creates his Bey, he refers to it as his own creation.
More importantly, however, the process through which this creation takes shape is portrayed in a manner that connects the resulting Bey to Gwyn himself.
Before the Bey assumes its recognizable form, it is represented as pure light, with that light taking on a shape corresponding to Gwyn.
In other words, the visual sequence presents the Bey's formation as an extension of its creator, with the light serving as the medium through which his creation takes shape.
This is significant because the Bey is not presented as something entirely disconnected from its creator.
Instead, its formation is associated with Gwyn's own existence, his mind, and the process through which his creation acquires a distinct identity.
The resulting interpretation is that the Bey functions as a manifestation of something that originates within the Blader.
This is further relevant to the way Bey avatars are portrayed in Beyblade Burst GT, also known as Gachi.
They are presented as meaningful manifestations of the relationship between the Blader and their Bey, reflecting aspects of the Blader's mind, identity, or inner self.
Consequently, an avatar can be interpreted as a visual or semi-physical representation of the Blader's inner world.
The important point is that the series establishes a meaningful connection between the Blader, their Bey, and the personal qualities represented through their bond.
With that in mind, we can return to Delta.
If Gwyn's creation of his Bey establishes that a Blader's inner self can be expressed through the formation of their Bey, then the same general principle becomes relevant when examining Delta and Diabolos.
Delta's Bey is Diabolos.
Diabolos is repeatedly associated with the Devil through its name, its light-related symbolism, and the other imagery discussed previously.
If Diabolos represents an aspect of Delta's own identity, then the symbolism surrounding the Bey becomes relevant to the interpretation of Delta himself.
Thus, the information discussed so far can be expressed as follows:
The series portrays a meaningful connection between a Blader and their Bey, with the Bey capable of expressing aspects of the Blader's inner self.
Gwyn's creation of his Bey provides an example of a Bey taking shape through a process visually connected to its creator.
Bey avatars are representations of a Blader's inner identity, mind, or subconscious.
Diabolos is repeatedly associated with Satan, Lucifer, and the broader concept of the Devil.
Therefore, the satanic symbolism associated with Diabolos is reflecting Delta's own conceptual identity.
If Diabolos expresses Delta's inner self, then the association between Diabolos and the Devil is not necessarily limited to the Bey itself.
It also extends to the character whose identity the Bey represents.
In that sense, the relationship between Delta and Diabolos provides a foundation for interpreting Delta through the concept of Satan or Lucifer.
This establishes a broader interpretive principle: a Bey's symbolism is relevant to understanding its Blader, particularly when the narrative repeatedly connects the two.
There is another visual detail worth considering.
Delta is also depicted in scenes with flames surrounding him.
Flames are not exclusively associated with Satan, of course.
They can symbolize anger, passion, destruction, determination, or overwhelming power.
Their significance depends on the context in which they appear.
However, alongside the symbolism already established in his characterization, the flames provide yet another relevant component of Delta's imagery.
Fire is commonly associated with infernal imagery in popular depictions of the Devil and Hell.
It is also associated with destruction and the dangerous consequences of unchecked ambition.
Therefore, when Delta is surrounded by flames while his Bey is already associated with Diabolos, Lucifer, and the consumption of light, the imagery once again reinforces the interpretation I have been presenting.
The next part of this analysis concerns a statement attributed to Hiro: characters are the embodiments of their respective concepts.
This provides a framework for interpreting characterization beyond a strictly literal reading and examining how it affects the story.
To understand what this means, consider Gwyn Reynolds.
Gwyn's narrative is built around the idea that everything can be explained through numbers.
This is not simply a passing statement that describes his interests. It is a principle that defines the way he interacts with the world.
His characterization reflects this concept through his ability to instantly identify and quantify any phenomena.
Rather than treating events as things that can only be understood intuitively, Gwyn approaches them as systems that can be analyzed, measured, and explained.
The concept of numerical understanding is therefore expressed through his abilities, his thought process, and the way the narrative portrays his intelligence.
In other words, the concept is not merely something Gwyn believes in.
It is a defining element of his characterization.
This distinction matters.
A character who enjoys mathematics is not necessarily an embodiment of the idea that everything can be explained by numbers.
Gwyn's characterization goes further because the concept is repeatedly reflected in the way he understands and interacts with the world.
His narrative, abilities, and personal philosophy reinforce one another.
So, if Gwyn's defining concept is the quantification and explanation of phenomena, and his narrative consistently reflects that concept, then Delta's repeated association with Satan and Lucifer can likewise be understood as a defining component of his characterization.
The relevant distinction is between being a literal embodiment of a concept and being narratively defined by that concept. (In this case, Delta does both.)
With all of the previously discussed evidence taken into account, Delta's defining concept is associated with Satan or Lucifer.
His Bey is named Diabolos, a word associated with the Devil.
Diabolos incorporates imagery involving light and the desire to consume the light of others, creating parallels with the symbolism surrounding Lucifer and the pursuit of greater power.
Its Venom frame introduces a possible connection to Samael, while Delta's hand gesture resembles the imagery of Baphomet.
The relationship between a Blader and their Bey provides a framework through which the symbolism surrounding Diabolos is reflecting Delta's own identity.
Finally, the framework of characters embodying their concepts provides a way to understand these details as part of a broader narrative pattern.
Therefore, Delta can be interpreted as a narrative embodiment of the concept of Satan or Lucifer, even if he is not literally the Devil himself.
Delta is consistently characterized through the concept of Lucifer. Thus, the implications of that conceptual identity can be explored by examining the religious material associated with Lucifer and angels.
This brings us to the next part of my analysis.
"Satan Himself Masquerades as an Angel of Light"
Now that the association between Delta and Lucifer has been established, we can discuss the implications of the biblical material connected to this figure.
The first passage I want to discuss comes from 2 Corinthians 11:14–15:
"And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light."
The passage continues by comparing Satan's servants to servants of righteousness, emphasizing the contrast between outward appearances and the nature of the person or entity beneath them.
This verse is relevant to the interpretation of Lucifer because it explicitly connects Satan with the imagery of an angel of light.
That imagery is particularly appropriate given the symbolism already discussed.
Lucifer is associated with the light-bringer, the morning star, and the figure whose former glory becomes part of the story of his fall.
The passage from 2 Corinthians adds another dimension to this symbolism by presenting the appearance of light as something that can conceal a darker reality.
In other words, light is not necessarily a guarantee of goodness or righteousness.
Something can appear radiant, glorious, or virtuous while concealing a fundamentally different nature.
When interpreted alongside Delta's characterization, this creates a connection that leads into the next part of this analysis.
Diabolos's relationship with light is not simply about possessing brilliance.
It involves the desire to consume the light of others, making the symbolism more complicated than a straightforward association with goodness or purity.
The same light that represents glory can also become associated with deception, pride, and the pursuit of superiority. This is consistent with the broader Luciferian interpretation of Delta.
The next passage comes from Psalm 8:4–5, which states, in a common English translation:
"What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor."
The precise wording differs between Bible translations, with some translations rendering the relevant term as "angels" and others as "heavenly beings."
Regardless of the translation, the passage establishes a comparison between humanity and beings occupying a higher or more exalted position in the heavenly order.
The distinction is important because it provides the basis for the next part.
If angels occupy a position above humanity within the relevant religious framework, then they belong to a higher order of existence.
Since Delta is interpreted as embodying Lucifer, and Lucifer is understood through the tradition that identifies him as a fallen angel, this provides a basis for interpreting Delta's characterization as transcending ordinary humanity.
Now, this is where Blind becomes particularly important, and I can begin analyzing his feat.
AKA, Blind's Ability to Perceive the Darkness Within Delta
One of the most important details is Blind's ability to perceive the darkness within Delta.
Blind is not simply reacting to Delta's outward appearance or making a judgment based on his reputation.
His perception extends into something deeper, allowing him to recognize an aspect of Delta that is not visible to ordinary observers.
This becomes particularly relevant when considering the relationship between a Blader and their Bey.
As discussed earlier, Bey avatars are manifestations of a Blader's inner self, reflecting aspects of their identity, mind, or subconscious.
If an avatar expresses something about the Blader's internal world, then perceiving that avatar provides information about the Blader themselves. (Consider what happens when Bladers enter True Resonance and see one another's Bey avatars, or when Phi sees Achilles.)
This is the foundation for the information concerning Blind.
Blind is shown to possess a level of perception that allows him to interpret the resonance between a Blader and their Bey in considerable detail.
His ability is especially notable because he can perceive enough information about this resonance to produce a depiction of a Bey avatar without having previously seen that avatar.
In the case of Delta, this becomes an even more impressive feat.
Blind is able to perceive and draw Diabolos despite not having encountered Delta before their initial meeting and not having previously seen Diabolos's avatar.
This means that his perception is not limited to identifying something that is already physically present before him.
Instead, he appears capable of obtaining information about a Blader and their Bey through a more indirect process.
This becomes considerably more interesting when we consider what this information represents.
Since a Bey avatar reflects the Blader's inner self, Blind's ability to perceive Diabolos suggests and is practically stated that he can perceive information associated with Delta's mind or soul.
This is especially relevant given the darkness that Blind recognizes within Delta.
Rather than merely observing the exterior of Delta's character, Blind appears to identify something deeper, something connected to the relationship between Delta and Diabolos.
The significance of this feat is that Blind's capable of perceiving an aspect of Delta's inner identity that is not readily accessible through ordinary observation.
The series supports the idea that only Blind can perceive and interpret information associated with Delta and Diabolos. (With the sole-exception of Gwyn Reynolds of course, but I'll get to that on my Analysis of his replications later)
With that distinction in mind, the circumstances surrounding Blind's painting make the feat even wilder.
When Delta enters the room, Blind has already produced a painting of Diabolos.
This is significant because Blind has not simply observed Delta and then reproduced an avatar he saw during a battle.
Instead, the painting exists before the encounter in which Delta appears before him.
The feat, therefore, involves several distinct components:
Blind must obtain information about Diabolos without having previously seen its avatar.
He must interpret that information sufficiently well to produce a recognizable and perfect depiction.
He must connect the information represented by the image to the individual associated with it.
Finally, he must interpret the significance of what he has perceived.
The first component concerns Blind's ability to perceive Diabolos in the first place.
Ordinarily, if someone were asked to draw someone's Bey avatar accurately, they would need some source of visual information. (Consider the examples I mentioned earlier.)
They might have seen the avatar previously, received a detailed description, or been provided with a reference image.
Blind, however, is shown to obtain the relevant information through his own perception.
He is able to create a depiction of Diabolos without having previously seen its avatar.
Given the relationship between a Blader and their Bey, this means that Blind's ability can provide information about something that has not been directly presented to his ordinary senses, giving him a glimpse into the minds of others.
This is what makes the feat particularly relevant to the broader discussion of his perceptive abilities.
Blind does not simply recognize an existing image; he is capable of reconstructing one through information obtained from the Blader–Bey connection.
The next detail is Blind's statement:
"The wait has filled me with inspiration."
This line is important because it shows that the painting was not produced instantaneously at the exact moment Delta entered the room.
Instead, Blind's wording implies a period of waiting during which he was able to work on and develop the image that inspired him.
The fact that he is practically finished with the painting when Delta arrives further supports the idea that the process began before their face-to-face encounter.
This means that the information Blind used to create the painting must have been obtained earlier, rather than simply being the result of seeing Delta standing in front of him.
This makes the feat more impressive because it introduces a temporal separation between perception and confirmation.
Blind acquired the relevant information before Delta's arrival, then used that information to produce the painting in advance.
The exact amount of time involved is not explicitly established by the dialogue alone, so we cannot definitively quantify how many hours passed.
Nevertheless, the scene supports the conclusion that the painting was already being developed before Delta entered the room or even the mansion.
Blind's feat is not simply a matter of reacting to something he can currently see.
It involves acquiring and interpreting information about an individual who is not yet physically present before him.
The next component is even more important to the matter at hand.
Blind does not simply produce a painting and leave it at that.
When Delta arrives, Blind addresses him directly:
"I've been waiting for you, Delta Akane."
This means that Blind was not expecting some unknown individual to appear.
He identifies Delta by name and connects his arrival to the painting he has already created.
This shows that Blind understands the image well enough to associate it with the specific person who will eventually appear before him.
This is particularly notable because, according to the circumstances described, Blind had not personally encountered Delta before this meeting and wasn't told he would be coming in advance.
His identification cannot simply be attributed to familiarity gained through previous face-to-face interactions.
This implies that he was able to connect the information he perceived through the image to Delta's identity.
This involves more than visual reconstruction.
Blind must interpret the information he has obtained, determine what it represents, and connect it to the correct individual.
And that brings us to the next point.
One of the most important aspects of this feat is that Blind must interpret the image he perceives.
He is not given a complete explanation of everything the image represents.
Instead, he must make sense of the information himself.
This is a crucial distinction because obtaining information and understanding information are two different processes.
A person may receive a large amount of information without understanding its significance.
They may recognize certain details without understanding how those details relate to one another, or they may identify a pattern without being able to determine what it means.
Blind's feat, however, shows that he is able to interpret what he has perceived sufficiently well enough to understand its relationship to Delta.
This is particularly relevant because Delta and Diabolos are two distinct entities.
Delta is the human Blader, while Diabolos is the Bey avatar associated with him.
Although the two are connected, they are not simply interchangeable in the context of the scene.
Blind must therefore interpret the relationship between the image of Diabolos and the individual who appears before him.
He must understand that the avatar represents something connected to Delta, rather than treating the painting as an isolated image of an unrelated entity.
This introduces another layer of inference.
Blind's feat is not simply that he can perceive a Bey avatar without seeing it.
It is that he can use the information obtained through that perception to identify and understand the person connected to the avatar.
In other words, the feat involves a progression from
Perception to interpretation,
and then from
Interpretation to identification.
This becomes particularly significant when considered alongside the proposed connection between Delta and the concept of Lucifer.
Since Diabolos expresses aspects of Delta's inner identity, then an accurate perception of Diabolos could provide Blind with information about Delta himself.
Blind would not necessarily need to observe Delta's behavior over an extended period to begin forming an understanding of him.
Instead, the image provides information about the relationship between Delta's outward identity and his inner self.
The painting would therefore function as more than a visual representation of a Bey.
It would also represent a glimpse into the psychological or symbolic identity of the person associated with that Bey.
As a result, Blind's understanding of Delta begins before their direct interaction.
"I've been waiting for you, Delta Akane."
This line itself reinforces the interpretation that Blind anticipated Delta's arrival.
The painting was already practically finished when Delta entered the room, and Blind speaks as though the encounter is something he has been expecting.
This shows that his perception of the image did not end with the identification of Diabolos.
Instead, he connected the image to an anticipated encounter with the person associated with it.
However, he also appears to have done two different things at the same time.
The first is that Blind inferred Delta's identity and based on the information he obtained from the image alone.
The second is that Blind foresaw and anticipated Delta's arrival in advance, including when he would arrive.
Blind had only heard of Delta before this encounter, meaning he would have had limited firsthand information about him.
Yet he was able to create the painting in advance, identify the individual connected to it, and greet Delta as someone whose arrival he had anticipated.
The final aspect of Blind's feat concerns his ability to depict the image he perceived in a way that reflects Delta's emotional state.
This is important because the painting is not simply a static representation of Diabolos.
Blind was able to capture an image associated with Delta and Diabolos before their encounter, using a depiction that only appears when they finally battle.
He then interpreted that image in a way that corresponded to Delta's state when he eventually appeared at that very moment.
In other words, Blind appears capable of perceiving information connected to the emotional or psychological qualities represented through the avatar.
Emotional states are not always directly observable.
A person's outward appearance may conceal their feelings, while their behavior may not provide enough information to determine precisely what they are experiencing internally.
Even someone who is skilled at reading body language and facial expressions must interpret those signals, and their conclusions can still be mistaken.
Blind's feat is notable because the information he obtains comes from his perception of the image rather than from an extended period of observing Delta's behavior.
The image provides him with information that he can use to understand the emotional or symbolic state associated with Delta.
To understand why this matters, consider the different processes involved:
Blind perceives information associated with Diabolos.
He reconstructs that information through the painting.
He interprets what the image represents.
He connects the image to Delta, the individual associated with Diabolos.
He appears to understand enough about the significance of the image to anticipate and recognize the encounter.
The image depicts a state that Delta only enters later, when they are battling.
This means that Blind effectively perceived Delta's future emotional state despite never having met him.
Now we can bring the different parts of this together.
The first part establishes the association between Delta and the Devil.
Diabolos's name directly evokes the Devil, while its relationship with light introduces parallels with Lucifer, the morning star, and the traditional symbolism surrounding the fall from grace.
The Venom frame adds a connection to Samael, while Delta's hand gesture resembles the imagery associated with Baphomet.
His Bey's relationship with its Blader provides a framework through which Diabolos's symbolism is reflecting Delta's own identity.
Finally, the idea of characters embodying their concepts allows these references to be examined as a unified aspect of Delta's narrative.
From there, the biblical passages provide a conceptual framework for examining the idea of Lucifer as a fallen angel.
Psalm 8:4–5 establishes a comparison between humanity and heavenly beings, while 2 Corinthians 11:14 introduces the image of Satan masquerading as an angel of light.
These passages contribute to the religious and symbolic context surrounding the interpretation of Delta.
However, the most direct evidence for Delta's cognitive scaling does not come from the biblical passages themselves.
It comes from the feats involving Blind.
Blind is able to perceive information associated with Diabolos without having previously seen its avatar. He creates a painting before Delta's arrival, interprets the significance of the image, identifies Delta as the individual associated with it, and appears to anticipate their encounter in advance.
Given the connection between a Blader and their Bey, Blind is capable of perceiving information connected to Delta's inner identity.
I mentioned this feat briefly in my updated take between TP vs Baku and this post will be dedicated to explaining the feat in more detail. This feat will also be one of many more new feats that will be added to The Protagonist's doc revamp in the near future (probably, I'm procrastinating it heavily).
During the preparation for the Stalsk-12 battle, Priya informs The Protagonist of a rally point at Trondheim where the paramilitary of Tenet + TP and co will board a ship (EDIT: I previously said the ship itself was inverted when it wasn't, just people on it were, oopsie daises). On this ship, we get a glance at the gigantic Turnstile that was built into the ship itself that allowed for the entire Tenet paramilitary to invert quickly and seamlessly [Image 1]. We don't see TP himself go through this Turnstile, but we know that he would've had to at some point because he was uninverted during the Stalsk-12 battle but inverted while on the ship.
The feat in question arises when you ask yourself: How exactly did Tenet build this Turnstile? As we know, The Protagonist's own future self is the founder and leader of the Tenet organization, so that means the construction of this Turnstile would've been his responsibility and ultimately, it was him and no one else who constructed this machine. But...how?
Previously, I was under the impression that The Protagonist's possibly just stole some blueprints for Turnstile designs. Priya confirms in an earlier scene that such blueprints exist, although we don't know where they are, we just know Sator was given them by Posterity. However, this means my previous assertion that "TP went back after sliming Priya and stole the blueprints off Sator's yacht" makes no sense because.
1: There's literally no reason for the aforementioned blueprints to be on the yacht since Sator had already built every Turnstile well before that point
2: After the ending of the film, TP had exactly 0 resources. He'd have no way of even getting to the boat and it's also highly unlikely that they just left it sitting there after Sator's "disappearance"
So with that, all evidence points towards an extremely unrealistic interpretation: TP built the Boat Turnstile using nothing but sheer Learning Ability and Reasoning.
How he did it:
Throughout the film, TP gets a good look and even goes inside multiple Turnstiles himself. In order, his experience with Turnstiles is:
1: Seeing the Oslo Turnstile and fighting his inverted counterpart that came out of it [Image 2]
2: Seeing the Tallinn Turnstile, going through the inverted interrogation and then going through it himself, getting a look at the inside of a Turnstile for the first time [Image 3] (the inside of a turnstile is just an empty room btw, nothing interesting)
3: Going through the Oslo Turnstile again, this time as the inverted counterpart his previous self was fighting.
4: Seeing and then going through the Boat Turnstile [Image 1].
And that's it. The total amount of information that TP knows about Turnstiles is literally the exact same as we the viewers get to know about them. If you were to watch Tenet a single time, you'd know equally as much about Turnstiles as TP did.
Meaning, just via a few glances at a couple of turnstiles, the majority of which looked and operated VASTLY differently from his own boat Turnstile. TP was able to deduce the method of constructing a Turnstile based solely on that.
What this means:
Turnstiles are a device for inverting people and objects entropy's, thereby making them move backwards in time. Turnstiles were invented by Posterity, to which I estimated that, at a lower bound, they're 150 years ahead 2019. Somewhere around the year 2169+ (could be a lot higher).
This means that TP, armed with only basic knowledge of inversion, turnstiles and a very limiting background in any scientific field (his role in the CIA involved nuclear containment), TP was able to completely break the modern understanding of physics, thermodynamics, entropy and time itself 150+ years ahead of time. Using nothing but his own brain power and logical reasoning.
Imagine someone from 1876 being able to design and construct a rocket ship, the first iPhone and invent the modern understanding of quantum mechanics all at the same time using nothing but brain power while having next to zero scientific background. That's essentially what TP did, if not even better than that.
Timeframe:
The only real downside to this feat is that The Protagonist would've had quite some time in order to perform it. After the end of the film, TP inverts back from 2019 to 2008, spending 11 years while inverted before finally making it to 2008 where the Tenet operation truly began.
This means that TP effectively had 11 years in order to learn what was required and perform this feat. It's still an insane feat even with 11 years worth of prep time, but still, 11 years is quite a long time for an LA feat.
The thing is though, TP did not have 11 full years in order to build this. There was still a great number of things he necessarily needed to do before he could even start to perform this feat. In this section, I'll try to build a conservative estimate of the timeframe TP had to break science entirely.
Step 1: Use his paramilitary to overtake a Russian nuclear test site and steal the Plutonium 241 (the last piece of The Algorithm).
Estimated time frame this would take: 1 month of prep + 1 week to execute it (TP: "The station was held for a week")
Step 2: After the paramilitary that helped him steal the Plutonium is gone in order to keep the secret, TP would've needed to build up Tenet's considerable wealth all in secret while leaving no trace. Tenet is quite rich, being able to afford it's own large paramilitary, scientists, medical staff, intelligence agents, arms dealers, and their own large vehicles/buildings such as the Boat that the Boat Turnstile is on. At a rough estimate, 1 billion dollars of wealth should be enough to cover the cost of operating Tenet and TP had to generate this all in secrecy.
Estimated time frame this would take: 2 years, 1 billion dollars is a lot of money
Step 3: During Step 2 after even after it's done, TP would've been recruiting each and every single member of Tenet, including those that would eventually help him build the Boat Turnstile. This means that every single member of Tenet we see in the film (Neil, Priya, Ives, Crosby, the paramilitary etc etc) would've had to be recruited during this time. As well as setting up their qualification for the mission in the case of Neil (getting him a Masters in Physics, weapons training etc)
Estimated time frame this would take: 1 year at the lowest balling of it.
Then after this, TP would be left with nothing but time. Waiting for all the pieces to come together all in order to finally begin the mission on May 14th 2019, where he recruits his past self into the organization. It is only right here that TP could've begun building the Boat Turnstile.
Final amount of time TP would've had in order to start, build and finish the Boat Turnstile: 7.9 years at the most conservative estimate possible.
Yes, it's still quite a lot of time. But don't be mistaken, pran (yes pran I'm talking to YOU in particular). TP did NOT have 11 full years just to build one device. Even during these 7.9 years, TP's focus would've been split among a SHIT ton of other tasks while he set up everything so the mission goes perfectly. This isn't even accounting for the "stuff" TP and Neil got up to according to Neil at the end of the film, which would've also eaten up the time TP had in order to build this.
Conclusion:
The Protagonist, using nothing but his Learning Ability, Logical Reasoning and ungodly levels of General Intelligence, was able to build a Turnstile remarkably superior to Sator's and possibly even Posterity itself 150 years before humanity as a whole discovered how to make them. This involved completely breaking the modern understanding of several fields of science while having next to no knowledge on any of it prior to this himself. All the while his attention was split between many, many different objectives and tasks while he set up the entire Tenet mission/operation.
Yes Neil using his Masters degree in physics could've theoretically helped but we have no idea when exactly Neil was recruited and also, a modern degree in physics would not help AT ALL in understanding physics that's 150+ years in the future from when they are now.
Basically, The Protagonist >>> CTW L, WJM, Ayanokoji and the Usogui Duo in Intelligence, Reasoning and Learning Ability.
I was recently rewatching Kaiji and realized that his strategy in Chinchiro is pretty underrated so I decided to break it down cuz m truly a jobless mf.
Overview
Kaiji is trapped in an underground facility where he is forced to stay and work off his debt of 10 million yen, due to which he will be trapped in there for roughly 15 years.
The people in the underground facility are paid 91000 of a currency named perica which is 1/10th the value of a yen.
Kaiji after losing money in a game of chinchiro to the foreman only receives half his salary 45,000 perica due to him having to pay off his heavy losses in the gamble.
Chinchiro is a gambling game where u play with 3 die against a single dealer and attempt to beat the score he gets. (scoring chart in image 2)
A few extra rules are present such as the dealer has to deal 2 times in a row if they accept the position, and that there is a betting limit of 20,000 perica.
The company does provide some incentives for the workers one of which is the provision of a day outside pass which costs 500,000 perica (something Kaiji plans to target)
Fake dice Induction
After going through Miyoshi’s notes regarding Kaiji is able figure out Otsuki(the foreman)’s scheme via cross referencing the following
Special rule The chinchiro game underground has a special rule where the dealer advantage is negated (In normal chinchiro if the dealer rolls a (4 5 6) a triple or 6 they automatically win) and the players can roll regardless of the dealer's value, seemingly in order to increase fairplay.
Foreman’s playstyle The Foreman has a tendency to win big by rolling numbers like (4,5,6) when there is heavy action (HIgh bets have been made) which often happens during his play due to the removal of the betting limit when he is the dealer. Whenever the foreman wins big he is always sitting in between 2 of his henchman who can pick up the dice as soon as he has finished his roll. The foreman doesn’t always win every high action games and still loses money from time to time (example his first lose to kaiji in chinchiro)
External factors Dice are cubic structures which generally make it quite difficult to see more than 3 faces of a dice especially when they are rolled into a bowl as in chinchiro. The room is extremely dark causing low visibility.
From the above information Kaiji is able to come up with the hypothesis that the foreman uses a fake dice that has 4,5,6 repeating twice instead of having 1,2,3 like a normal dice would have.
This is able to perfectly explain the following:
The special rule is merely a disguise to make it look like the foreman is being nice while his real intention is to conceal the 4,5,6 dice since as soon as the roll is done his henchman will pick up the dice and switch it out for the real one to give to the others to roll their dice
The foreman isn’t guaranteed victory in every game due to the fact that even with the 4,5,6 dice he can get 4s or 5s which give the opponents a chance at victory acting as a camouflage for his cheating.
Note: Kaiji was able to induce all of this by looking at a table made by miyoshi so he had to individually focus on the data sets in order to extract a pattern showing good pattern recognition and information filtering
Snake eyes strategy
After reasoning out the trick used by the Foreman, Kaiji comes up with his own strategy to exploit the system and get his revenge on the Foreman.
First he goes up to the 45ers (ppl who are also stuck in debt like him) and gives them a speech to gain their support before telling them that they can turn their situation around by supporting him He calls a 4,5,6 for a roll that the foreman would make in order to prove to the 45ers that the foreman is cheating >Given the system used by the foreman Kaiji knows that he would only roll 4s, 5s or 6s and decides to take a guess noting that there is a very high chance that the numbers would be in the given ballpark noting that it would be enough to cement the 45ers belief that he is cheating.
Then he sets up an abstinence system in order to save up enough funds for a later gamble. So Kaiji basically designs a system where all of the 45ers pool their money in together and each person handles a specific aspect of their finances and they ration all of their items together and have, allowing them to accumulate their full income after 3 months in order to take on the Foreman.
This frames the situation as if their group is forming some sort of rebellion catching The Foreman's eye, resulting in him deciding to personally crush their group.
Next throughout the 3 month period Kaiji goes out of his way to go after the Foreman and annoy him in order to set the stage for a grudge match between the 2 of them He does so by “biting the hand that was feeding him” by taking a glass of beer offered to him by the foreman(The foreman was trying to destroy their abstinence by tempting them to return) and throwing it in his face, publicly disrespecting him. This also results in the 45ers getting targeted more viciously by the leader resulting in them getting made to do the more difficult work, destruction of belongings and being bullied while working This keeps the conflict alive between the 2 groups making sure that the 45ers also do whatever it takes to aid kaiji in order to destroy The Foreman. He also further baits him when the foreman is attempting to give him his salary openly calling the Foreman a thief and counting his money.
During the time of the gamble Kaij enters the battle alone and asks The Foreman to remove the betting limit of 20,000 to truly settle their grudge match. If you think about it this move doesn’t directly facilitate his strategy since his actual goal was to corner the Foreman while he was the dealer and the Foreman accepts any bets He actually had 2 reason to raise the betting limits:
to test his hypothesis of the trick, he purposefully inserted himself into the game after the Foreman dealt making Numakawa (The foreman’s lackey) the dealer Kaiji knows that according to his hypothesis Numakawa cannot use the trick dice because the person after him is not an ally of The Foreman preventing them from being able to conceal the fake dice.
His next goal was to create a hype causing a lot of people to come in and spectate the match for entertainment. Due to their being a large number of people spectating this will help him pressure The Foreman later on.
After Numakawa passes as per Kaiji’s prediction every other player leaves the game due to the removal of betting limits this passes on the dealer position to Kaiji who in turn passes as well and uses the crowds cheering to pressure isawa (The foreman’s other henchman) to be the dealer. With Isawa as the dealer Kaiji bets 20,000 perica a pretty high amount to test verify weather he uses the 4,5,6 dice which isawa does resulting in him rolling a 4,5,6 getting double payout. Kaiji then bets 1000 perica in Isawa’s next round here Isawa doesn’t use the cheat dice because of the small amount resulting in Kaiji winning this hand and getting only 1000.
When The Foreman becomes the Dealer, Kaiji makes his move by betting all of his money( 52,000 perica) and gathers his 5 remaining 45ers and has them bet all their money (91,000 perica). Further claiming that he will take down the leader to further instigate him into using the fake dice to crush Kaiji and the 45ers, so that he can reveal his trick to everyone.
However the All in makes the foreman suspicious about kaiji because it makes no sense to go all in in chinchiro unless you are guaranteed victory cuz there are chances of having to lose double or triple of what you bet, this results in the foreman begrudgingly using the normal dice instead of the fake dice During the foreman’s First and Second Roll, Kaiji notices something off, instead of looking at the dice like normal people do in a game like chinchiro The foreman was intently staring at Kaiji as if anticipating that Kaiji intends to reveal his trick, due to this Kaiji decides to stay completely still.
Before making his 3rd roll The foreman is shocked at Kaiji not making a move to take reveal the dice and by also noting the fact that the remaining 45er’s are glad that The foreman didn't roll a good number causing The foreman to doubt whether Kaiji knew about his trick to begin with and given his vendetta against Kaiji He decides to use the 4,5,6 dice in his 3rd round.
The boss and his teammates are still cautious of Kaiji and are prepared to immediately snatch up the dice the second they see Kaiji moving towards it, Kaiji notes this and decides to precisely wait until the last dice is about to stop knowing that this moment creates a psychological blindspot due to the anticipation of the roll, this allows him to get a split second advantage allowing him to grab the dice and show that The foreman had been cheating everyone, he also purposefully decided to pick up the dice before the roll was complete to make it a no count.
Kaiji’s revelation of the Foreman’s trick results in the entire crowd getting pissed off at the Foreman for cheating them out of their money so many times resulting in him being heavily chastised by the crowd.
However due to the fact that the Kaiji stopped the roll before it was complete which means that the roll didn’t count and that The foreman Technically didn’t cheat in this game yet resulting in him pushing for a reroll. Kaiji accepts the foreman’s argument but decides that they will continue playing with a few conditions.
The Foreman will be saddled with the worst roll with the 4,5,6 dice a 4 for 1 round
Since the Foreman and his crew has always been playing with a custom dice that they had prepared in advance that they shared only among themselves, the same rules the 45ers
The Foreman accepts these terms with no qualms because he believes it is much better than alternatives like returning all the money he ripped all the players off, not to mention the specific wording makes it seem like they will all use 4,5,6 dice due to his lack of knowledge of Kaiji’s dice.
With this Kaiji rolls a dice revealing a (1,1,1) called as snake eyes in chinchiro, The foreman in shock decides to check the dice seeing that every face of the dice is has 1 red dot on it, when questioned about it Kaiji reveals the true reason for his verbal trap highlighting that The foreman realizing that the roll didn’t count and trying to use that to weasel out was the very thing that tied the noose around his neck. With this all the 45ers take the (1,1,1) and roll it resulting in them winning a 5x payout on their original amount which is roughly 3 million Perica. Kaiji had made the (1,1,1) dice by himself by taking the bone of the T-Bone steaks that the foreman used to eat and whittling it down to the shape of a dice with his teeth over the process of 3 months and using his blood to make the read dots.
Just as the foreman is forced to pay Kaiji the 3 million perica winnings and is about to leave Kaiji calls him back once more reminding him that the dealer must play 2 rounds in a row and can only quit if he rolls a 1,2,3 pisser which The foreman didn’t roll before. And that they would play again with the same rules. It is important to note here that when Kaiji made the deal with the foreman his exact verbatim was that both side would only be able to share a dice among themselves that they had prepared in advance so the Foreman wouldn't be able to use the (1,1,1) dice to attempt to force a draw in the last round since he hadn’t prepared the dice.
The foreman with no other options rolls with the normal dice hoping for a (1,1,1) in order to force a draw which he fails to get allowing the 45ers to win 5x over his 3 million perica giving them a grand total of around 18 million perica, completely bankrupting The foreman and generating enough income to get an outpass for multiple days.
TLDR: The so to simplify the strategy it went something like this: Group formation + abstinence of pleasures > Foreman manipulation and baiting+ dice creation> Limits removal to gather a crowd >All in + misdirection of foreman via team’s reactions > Exposing the foreman before he finishes his roll > The game continuing because of the no count loophole which allow kaiji to enforce his own conditions> The snake eyes dice throw to significantly multiply his earnings.
Feel free to tell me what yall think or point out any inconsistencies, any input is appreciated.
The Y1V3 island exam is one of the most well known and most analyzed arc of COTE.
However, some aspects of it are sometimes misunderstood. So, in this post I will try and offer some insights into the Y1V3 strategy and also how it affects the future volumes as well.
The first thing, is that people often assume Kiyotaka got lucky throughout the volume. Such as when he encountered Katsuragi and Yahiko coming from the cave spot, which allowed him to identify Class A's leader. While, you can make an argument that the timing was a bit too convenient, chalking up the whole thing to luck isn't completely correct either.
Because, Kiyotaka had also picked up on the clues the school had given and made his way to the cave spot almost immediately after Class D had decided on searching the island. This is also shown in the volume itself -
“Yeah. First of all, I volunteered to join the search for the base camp. Able to move freely, I planned to search out spot locations ahead of everyone else.”
The timing might have been too convenient, but it makes complete logical sense, since both Katsuragi and Kiyotaka identified the importance of the cave spot and made their way to it as quickly as possible. So, it would only make sense if they ended up encountering each other, which was exactly what ended up happening.
Another thing that was often seen as something Kiyotaka lucked out on, was Horikita getting sick. Kiyotaka had planned on swapping out the leader by having Horikita retire from the exam. This happened because Horikita was too sick, and after her fight with Ibuki, was so exhausted to the point of collapsing unconscious.
But is that really the case? We know that retirement doesn't necessarily have to happen because the person is sick. Koenji retired even though he was fine. Ryuen's entire class retired, even though they were partying about. So, a student can retire, even if they are completely fine.
This might seem a bit too lenient. However, the LN clearly points out that the theme of the exam is freedom. The only restriction was the 30 point penalty applied to the class. This would be more than enough of a deterrent. But, it ultimately depends on the students. If they want to retire, they have the freedom to do so. If they don't want to retire, they also have the freedom to do so.
So, Kiyotaka can still make Horikita retire, even if she wasn't sick. Which means Horikita being sick or not doesn't affect the success rate of the actual strategy.
And, this is where we get to the most overlooked part of the Y1V3 strategy (imo at least). Kiyotaka had around 3 ways to take first place by an overwhelming margin.
1)The first method was what he did in the canon. He allowed Ibuki to find Horikita's leader identity, provided her with the opportunity to both steal the key card and escape. Horikita, in turn, chased after Ibuki. But due to her condition, she ended up collapsing at the end, allowing for Kiyotaka to retire her from the exam.
This method allows for Horikita's growth. Horikita, till this volume, believed that her placement in Class D was a mistake and that she was a superior student who didn't need others. That was why she never admitted the fact that she was sick to anyone - because she believed she can win on her own and didn't need anybody else. That was also why she didn't entrust the key card to anybody else while taking a shower in the river. And why she ran after Ibuki on her own to "rectify" the mistake she believed she had committed.
So, when Horikita ultimately failed, she would start to realize her flaw. That perhaps if she had someone to depend on, this whole situation could have been avoided. However, despite this realization, Horikita was entirely uncertain on how to make allies. That's why Kiyotaka had reached out to her, offering to be her first ally, allowing her to grow by guiding her.
“That’s difficult advice... No one would want to be with me.” It sounded like she’d resigned herself to unhappiness. Perhaps there was a trace of masochism in her. I laughed.
I looked down at Horikita, who lightly groaned against my chest. “If you can’t fight by yourself, it’s better to fight with a partner. I’ll lend you a hand.”
However, this method also results in an issue. This issue being the fact that it gives Ryuen enough evidence to conclude with high possibility the existence of an mastermind behind Class D.
How? Because, Ryuen saw with his own two eyes that Horikita was the leader of Class D. However, the results show that Class D had come out on top by an overwhelming margin, while both Class A and Class C had done far more poorly than anticipated. So, Class D's leader must have been changed sometime before the exam had ended.
With how everyone is praising Horikita and crediting her with the victory, the obvious conclusion is that Horikita is the one who came up with the idea to perform a leader swap. But, Ryuen noticed many things that conflict with this idea -
If Horikita was aware of the leader swap, then why would she chase after Ibuki and put herself in such a dangerous situation? If she wanted to deceive Ibuki into thinking she had pulled one over Class D, then merely chasing after her for a while and pretending to lose track of her would be enough. Especially given the weather conditions and environment. So, if Horikita was aware of the leader swap, she put herself in danger for absolutely no reason.
Also, Horikita due to putting herself in danger had ended up collapsing. But to retire, at the very least she had to go back to the base camp to inform Chabashira or directly go to the starting point. However, in her physical condition, that would practically be impossible. She would need the assistance of someone else. If Horikita really did come up with the leader swap, why would she put herself in such a horrendous position, where she needs someone else to help her retire in the first place.
Finally, when Horikita was chasing after Ibuki, she didn't immediately address the fact that Ibuki stole the key card. This was because Horikita wasn't a 100% certain Ibuki was the thief. Because, if she was, why would she need to steal the key card? Just taking a peek would be enough. Besides stealing is an heavily punishable offense and would immediately alert Class D. Also, when the manual was burnt, Ibuki was just as surprised at the fire. If she set it up, there would be no reason to continue staying there. Due to these reasons, Horikita wasn't completely sure Ibuki stole the key card. So, she kept it vague, asking for Ibuki to return what she stole, instead of specifying what she stole.
Ryuen knows that he was guessed as the leader of his class, because his class ended up with 0 points. And since Class D came out on top, they must have guessed him as the leader. Since, Ryuen kept himself hidden on the island extremely well, the only way they could have known he was the leader, is if they knew Ibuki was a spy. After all, Ibuki was in contact with Ryuen the whole time. So, whoever was behind Class D's win, knew Ibuki was a spy far ahead of time and intentionally set that fire to help her escape. But, Horikita wasn't certain Ibuki was the spy until Ibuki slipped up and admitted to stealing the key card.
From the above points we can see that the main reason for Ryuen suspecting the existence of a mastermind behind Class D, was because Horikita chasing after Ibuki makes absolutely 0 sense if she was indeed the mastermind.
So, this first method allows for Horikita's growth, but allows Ryuen to identify the existence of the mastermind.
2)The second method was to simply NOT let Horikita chase after Ibuki. Kiyotaka would have to convince Horikita ahead of time, which can be done easily. For instance, he can bring Horikita to the place where Ibuki had hidden the walkie-talkie or even lay out the idea behind the leader swap. At this point in time, Horikita was already aware that Kiyotaka was quite competent. So, with enough evidence he can easily convince Horikita not to chase after Ibuki.
As established before, a person can retire from the exam even without needing a genuine reason. So, Horikita's condition doesn't even have to be severe enough to retire.
What changes would happen, if Kiyotaka had followed this method over the canon first method? The first method would have be far more effective to help Horikita grow compared to this one. However, a big change would be, Ryuen finding it far more difficult to identify the existence of a mastermind.
He wouldn't have had the necessary clues/evidence to conclude whether a mastermind was behind Horikita or not. He would have no reason to think Horikita couldn't have come up with the leader swap. Especially, since from his perspective she was also the person that came up with the fake camera move to force his class to back off during the Sudo trial in Y1V2.
3)The third method would have been to NEVER even let Ibuki find out who the leader was. The entire reason why Ibuki found out Horikita was the leader, was because Kiyotaka intentionally dropped the card, catching her attention. If he had NOT done that, Ibuki wouldn't have been able to identify Class D's leader.
What would be the results in this case? Since Ryuen wouldn't have never learnt Class D's leader identity, he wouldn't have incorrectly guessed Horikita. The same applies to Katsuragi. So, both Class A and C gain +50 points. However, Horikita wouldn't have had to retire either, so +30 points. Besides, Kiyotaka had to miss the roll call at 8PM in the canon, due to having to retire Horikita. This wouldn't have happened here, which means the penalty would never have happened, so +5 points.
Ultimately, the results would have been -
Class A - 170 points
Class B - 140 points
Class C - 50 points
Class D - 260 points.
In the canon, the results were -
Class A - 120 points
Class B - 140 points
Class C - 0 points
Class D - 225 points.
Class's A and C only close the gap with Class D by a mere +15 points in this third method. While, Class D would have gained more class points in general and would have had a more dominating win too (with a 90 point difference with the 2nd place compared to 85 point difference in the canon). So, Chabashira would have pretty much just as, if not more, impressed with Kiyotaka.
Another benefit, besides not changing the class point results all that much, is that Ryuen wouldn't have been able to detect the presence of Kiyotaka. Since he wouldn't have had the necessary clues to conclude the possibility of an hidden mastermind.
But, in this method, again Horikita wouldn't grow as much.
Of course, this is assuming that Kiyotaka would have been able to convince Horikita regarding his knowledge of the leader's of Classes A and C. But, I believe he can pretty easily do that. Because, Sakura had been at the cave spot alongside Kiyotaka, to verify his story (though their conclusions were different). Besides, Kiyotaka can still show the walkie-talkie that Ibuki was hiding or even the camera in her bag. So, convincing Horikita would be easy enough.
So, from this analysis we can see that the 1st method's main gain is making Horikita grow. While the 2nd and the 3rd method, would have be better in hiding the existence of a secret mastermind. However, an argument can be made that both the 2nd and the 3rd methods are superior because making Horikita grow could happen even in the future and through various other means aside from just breaking her down. While, the moment Ryuen grew suspicious, reversing his suspicions would have be very difficult, if not impossible.
Now, why did I do all this yap for? To show that Kiyotaka had other methods, arguably better methods, he could have used? Is this a Kiyotaka downscale? Actually, no. It is the opposite.
Because, there is a bigger picture at play here - the X strategy. The basic idea of X strategy was to paint the idea that the mastermind is extremely paranoid and avoids any level of attention. By planting this idea in Ryuen, Kiyotaka can make him use some wacked up strategies (like the rooftop), which would have been effective against the mastermind (based on the idea that Ryuen had), while actually not so effective against Kiyotaka.
But to achieve this, first Kiyotaka has to make sure Ryuen even knows a mastermind exists. The 2nd and 3rd methods, prevent that from happening. So, for the X strategy to work as effectively as it did, the 1st method is the ideal method to follow. It makes Ryuen realize a mastermind exists, creates the idea that they dislike attention (which is developed upon in the future volumes) and also aids Horikita's growth, all in one go.
This, in turn means, the UIE is part of the X strategy. In other words, contrary to what most people think, X strategy actually begins from Y1V3, not Y1V4.
Another bonus of following the 1st method is that it causes a lot of problems to Class D (on the surface), like the manual burning incident or Horikita's retirement. These issues had caused Hirata to grow very disoriented, seeing Class D unravel right in front of his eyes.
This is important. Because, once the exam ends and the results are revealed, Hirata realizes that Class D came out on top solely because of Horikita (from his POV). So, this would make him realize that getting Horikita on his side, as one of the leaders of Class D, is the only way forward to keep Class D afloat.
Since Kiyotaka had planned on making Horikita grow, which includes getting her more allies (like previously mentioned above), getting Hirata to work together with Horikita achieves that goal. This is why we see at the start of Y1V4, Hirata wants to immediately get Horikita on his side.
First of all I wanna point out a that L's conterplan against memory loss plan is bad and works only because of a plot hole.
"If a god of death decides to use the DEATH NOTE to kill the assassin of an individual he favours, the individual's life will be extended, but the god of death will die."
See the issue? No?
Then here it is:
Rem should not perish after she writes down L's name. Since L wrote his name with the future date Rem's note can't kill L to extend Misa's life. L is not even an assassin cause "Light Up the New world" confirms she is alive after the events of this movie. Light sees Rem's ashes, so if the ending followed the note's rules Light would see Rem and be confused then he would change plans and L's trap wouldn't work.
But let's ignore that, LUTNW takes place 10 Years after "Last Name" and the whole movie is planned out by Light, so I conclude that losing to L was the plan the entire time to win in the long run.
Before "falling" into L's trap Light makes a kid, Hikari and records him a message, he gives both to Ryuk and tells him to give them to Hikari when he's 10. He chooses Teru Mikami as it's guardian and proceeds with the "Last Name's" plotline, we can safely conclude that the child isn't Misa's cause it would probably go to her.
10 years Later Hikari gets the note and starts acting as a new Kira, Hikari obviously goes insane and much more narcissistic than Light to the point he treats Mikami as a slave. Light predicted that Hikari would go crazy and that Mikami would have to kill him with the note and that the detective Mishima (Ryo Nakagami) would track down Hikari and Mikami and kill Mikami after he killed Hikari, Mishima takes the note along with the message from Light to Hikari and becomes Neo-Kira his goal being surpassing Light. He uses cyber terrorist in order to negotiate with the countries and when he hears Ryuzaki, L's successor is joining the investigation, he uses Shinigami eyes to get his name and scheduales his death on 25th of December. Then he decides to give away his Note and pass it onto the cyberterrorist along with a message from Light he modified to manipulate him to gather all Death Notes.
Mishima takes part in the Death Note homocide case with Ryuzaki and the rest of the Taskforce, taskforce manages to find only 1 out of 6 Notes while Shien (the Cyberterrorist) finds 3 out of 6 (he also has the one Mishima passed onto him, so 4 in total). The last one is in Ryuzaki's possession. Ryuzaki comes in contact with Shien as Neo-Kira via a voice chat, by putting on a TV a message with original L's real face (proving he's the real deal) and encoding a hidden message "I own the last Death Note". Police tracks down the signal only to find a piece of the note saying that Matsuda will shoot himself with a smile. The taskforce is disbanded and Mishima finds the encoded message. He confronts Ryuzaki in his house and Ryuzaki manages to convince Mishima to calm down and leave, then Mishima meets the police outside. They take him to the station and state they have proof that Mishima decieved a lie detector test and tracked down Mikami while hiding from the force existance of Hikari. Mishima is imprisoned and Ryuzaki breaks in, to threaten Mishima with a gun to open the vault and give him the last Note. Ryuzaki changes his mind on putting Mishima back in his cell and decides to share the plan with him.
Ryuzaki arranged the meeting with Neo-Kira, both bring all the notes and after confirming that Notes from both sides are real Shien shows up with Misa who he convinced to take the Shinigami eyes in order to kill Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki falls to the ground and Shien takes away his notes and runs away while Misa kills few members of the taskforce who went freelancer and then she kills herself.
Shien goes where he was told in a modified message true Kira would meet him, there he meets Mishima and Ryuzaki soon walks in quickly deducing that somebody wrote his name down with a future date and that Mishima must be Neo-Kira who gave up ownership. Ryuzaki tells Mishima at gunpoint to touch the Note and he gets back his memories and everybody gets a confirmation from Ryuk who said "Welcome back, Mishima". Shien tries to kill Mishima with a piece of the note hidden in his watch and Shinigami eyes for which he made a deal before Mishima arrived, but he gets interrupted by the police chopper trying to kill them, so they stop fighting against each other. Shien starts killing the police with a whole page of "... Sudden Death" and Ryuk pulling off police's helmets and when he dies he gives Mishima all 4 of his notes.
Ryuzaki and Mishima run away through the sewers where they meet one of the taskforce members whose brother was killed by Kira, she tries to shoot them starting from Mishima but Ryuzaki's Shinigami saves them and dies.
They leave the sewers, surrender to the police, Ryuzaki evades justice and when Mishima is transported to prison he learns that 4 out of 6 notes got destroyed and 2 of them got siezed by the terrorists. Ryuzaki deduces that he is going to die and gives Mishima a chance to redeem himself by taking his place as Ryuzaki while he took Mishima's place in prison.
In the post credit scene we get the last message from Light: "Keikaku Doori"
Now I ask, how is L scaled above Light in SCD when Light has this insane feat of Foresight, Planning, EQ and possibly more cats?
