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sirenjose · 1 year ago

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Season 12 Essence 2 (Checkmate) Analysis

Skins: Analysis

Checkmate

What seems most important from this description is the term “castling”.

Castling is a special move in chess to protect your king and activate one of your rooks. This is the only time in chess where you can move 2 pieces in one move.

During this move, you can either perform “Kingside Castle” or “Queenside Castle”. This basically refers to which direction the King moves and which rook is involved. “Kingside” means the King moves to the right, while “Queenside” means the King moves to the left side, the side the Queen on. No matter which direction the King goes, he will King move 2 spaces to the right or left and the rook on that side will move directly to the other side of the king. Essentially establishing a “castle”, as this move is usually done with pawns on one side (facing the opposite side of the board where the opponents’ pieces are) and the Rook blocking the 1 space entrance to the King. As a result, the King is now defended from attacks from your opponent.

There are several conditions to this move. First, you can only perform castling if neither the rook (the one being used) nor the King have moved up until this point. Second, there can be no pieces in the way (between the king and the rook). The last condition has to do with being in check. You cannot perform this move when in check, into check (aka, the spot the king would move to is in the line of attack of an enemy piece, and going there would put you in check), or through check (meaning if 1 of the spaces the King has to move through is in the line of attack of one of your opponent’s pieces, even if the King isn’t going to stop in that spot).

Lastly, it is uncommon, but it is actually possible (in a game of chess) to perform castling and put your opponent in checkmate as a result.

Re-Swim

A “re-swim” is something offered to any swimmer (in competitions) who cannot compete in a race due to weather, or if the actions of an official, spectator, or another swimmer affects a swimmer’s performance. One example is in the case of a different swimmer being charged with a false start (aka, beginning before the starting signal goes off), or if the power/lights at the pool where the competition is at shut off.

En Ligne

The name “En Ligne” means “In Line”. Combined with one of the official twitter posts (https://twitter.com/GameIdentityV/status/1288777604355330048), I believe this name is referring to a fencing term called “Point-in-line”. Before we explain that, we need to establish some of the basics of fencing.

Fencing is the 2nd fastest sport at the Olympics behind rifle/marksman shooting.

The term “line” is used to describe the direction of the attack (as in high vs. low, inside vs outside, etc…).

In fencing, there are 3 styles with 3 different weapons: the foil, the épée, and the sabre. As Joseph appears to be using a sabre, I will focus on that one. Each style is slightly different from each other, for reasons such as some styles use the “Right of Way” rule, or another reason such as what counts as the “target area”.

With the sabre, the target area is anything above the waist, including arms and head. In comparison, the foil’s target area is the back and front, while the épée is the whole body. Unlike the other 2 styles, where the only allowed method of getting points is by hitting your opponent with the tip of your weapon, the sabre style is allowed to acquire points by slashing/cutting as well as thrusting. This means the edge as well as the tip of your weapon can be used.

As a result, the sabre ends up being the fastest and most aggressive of the 3 styles (and requires the quickest reactions and ability to make split-second decisions).

The sabre style is one of the 2 styles that are governed by the “Right of Way” rule (the épée is the style that doesn’t). This rule is used to decide who gets a point in fencing. Priority is given to the person who attacks first. This means that the other person has to parry or evade the attacker first, causing their attacker to lose “priority”, before they themselves can be given “priority” (and thus allowed to acquire points themselves). Any attack made when a person doesn’t have priority has their “touch” annulled by the referee (aka, it won’t count).

“Point-in-line” is an action/stance in which the fencer, generally out of attacking range, points their weapon at their opponent (at their “target area”) with their arm fully extended as straight as possible (before their opponent can establish an attack). In this stance, the fencer’s weapon continually threatens the opponent’s target area.

It is a static threat. The fencer is essentially threatening their opponent with the potential for them (the opponent) to impale themselves on the fencer’s blade if they attempt to go in for an attack or move towards the fencer. It is like a spear sticking out of the ground. If you throw yourself upon it, you only have yourself to blame.

The fencer’s arm must be straight and “in line” with his weapon, usually pointed at the opponent’s chest. This gives the fencer executing “Point in Line” the Right of Way, and they can move forward, backward, and even lunge with the line as long as they don’t twist or bend their arm. If the arm is no longer in a straight line, or if the fencer moved to parry or dodge, they are declared to no longer be in/have Point in Line (and thus no longer have priority aka Right of Way).

In this situation, the opponent must cause the fencer with Point in Line to break line (by deflecting or making the fencer move their hand out of line), causing them to break the attack (giving the opponent the chance to attack).

As an added note, I happened to notice the card/picture Joseph holds in his En Ligne skin has a 5 on one side and a 15 on the other. You only seem to get a clear shot of the 15 during his idle animation or in a game when Joseph activates the camera world (you can see it upside down while in the waiting room as well). These have to do with fencing as well and are also brought up in the Season 12 Essence 2 Design & Planning notes by the developers.

In fencing, bouts can go to 5 points or 15 points. 5 point bouts last 3 minutes, while 15 point bouts go for 9 minutes with 1 minute breaks for every 3 minute intervals. For both, if neither fencer reaches 5 or 15 points after the time limit, the fencer with the most points wins. If there’s a tie, an official will randomly determine who gets priority, and the fencers will go for 1 minute. If neither fencer gets a point in that time, then the fencer with priority (at the end I think) wins. With competitive fencing, preliminary rounds will be 5-point bouts. Direct Elimination rounds, which consists of a bracket of fencers competing against each other, will be 15-point bouts (3 periods of 3 minutes each). The 5 and 15 on Joseph’s card means that he won both his preliminary match and likely main part of the games as well.

The Final

The name is obviously referring to the last day of the competition, when the winner will be decided and victory will be awarded.

As a side note, Lucky has the numbers 6 and 8 on him, both of which are considered lucky in China (which goes along with this being “Lucky Guy” and him relating to the Finals, aka the winners of the games).

I’ll discuss the part about the “goddess of victory later”.

Critical Move

Not much to say here. The “invisible” hand is obviously related to the story, and I’ll talk about it later.

Straight Punch

The “straight punch” (also called a “cross”) is a term in boxing referring to a punch thrown in a straight line with the dominant hand (which “crosses” from the back of your body to the front). It is the 2nd most used punch after the jab, which is a good set up/lead up to the straight punch (ever heard of the classic “one-two” combo? One refers to a jab, while two refers to a straight punch). After executing the punch, the hand is retracted quickly, and the guard position is resumed.

It is one of the basic punches in boxing. It is also a power punch (the uppercut and hook are power punches too) and is best used for mid to long range. A straight punch is a quick way to reach your opponent with a power punch when you’re not on the inside. It’s easy to throw and set up, or can be thrown independently just as easily, and leaves you in a good position to follow up with other punches.

The jab, in comparison, is a shorter, quicker punch delivered from medium range. The straight punch on the other hand is a slower punch.

Colorful Lights

The game here is a Japanese one called Hanafuda, which translates to “flower cards”. It is played with a deck of 48 cards divided into 12 suits of 4 cards in each suit (they display a panorama when put together). Each suit is named after a month of the year. Each card had a picture of a seasonal Japanese flower or plant on it (that matched with month/suit that card belonged to).

The 12 suits were:

January – Matsu (pine)

February – Ume (plum blossom)

March – Sakura (cherry blossom)

April – Fuji (wisteria)

May – Ayame (iris)

June – Botan (peony)

July – Hagi (bush clover)

August – Susuki (Susuki grass) (this is the “Zebra grass” from the description)

September – Kiku (chrysanthemum)

October – Momiji (maple)

November – Yanagi (willow)

December – Kiri (paulownia)

Each suit contains a combination of regular cards and special cards, which vary from suit to suit. Special cards are assigned different point values, but this was mainly irrelevant, as what mattered were specific card combinations (and these combinations gave you points depending on what it was).

The goal of the game was to earn points by making sets as fast as you could and ending the round before your opponent. Long games consist of 12 rounds, while short games are 6 rounds. Whoever had the most points after all the rounds were over was the winner.

In most suits, the first 2 cards only showed a plain representation of the identifying flower, which were worth 1 point. The next rank in the suit added a ribbon to the card (which was a picture of a sheet of paper for poetry writing) and was worth 5 points. After that were the animal cards (which had the picture of an animal, like a bird, on it). The last rank was worth the most points, but only 5 suits had this type of rank (January/Pine, March/Cherry Blossom, August/Sasuki or Zebra grass, November/Willow, and December/Paulownia), which meant there were only 5 of this type of card.

For simplicity, the 4 types of cards found in the deck are:

Brights/Lights (20 points)

Animals (10 points)

Ribbons (5 points)

Normals/Junk (1 point)

When it came to scoring, combinations made with the 20 point cards were worth the most. These specific combinations were:

Gokō – Five Brights – 10 points

Shikō – “Dry” Four Brights – 8 points

Ame-Shikō – Rainy Four Brights – 7 points

Sankō – “Dry” Three Brights – 6 points

From the description for this skin, we know that this is the sort of combination that Michiko had. I believe it is more specifically said in the Chinese version of the name for this skin, which may be Five Lights, but Michiko seems to have gotten all 5 of the 20 point cards.

Wild Pitch

The official definition of a wild pitch in baseball is: “A pitcher is charged with a wild pitch when his pitch is so errant that the catcher is unable to control it and, as a result, baserunner(s) advance.”

For a bit more detail, here’s another entry in the official rulebook:

10.13 Wild Pitches And Passed Balls (a) The official scorer shall charge a pitcher with a wild pitch when a legally delivered ball is so high, so wide or so low that the catcher does not stop and control the ball by ordinary effort, thereby permitting a runner or runners to advance. The official scorer shall charge a pitcher with a wild pitch when a legally delivered ball touches the ground or home plate before reaching the catcher and is not handled by the catcher, thereby permitting a runner or runners to advance. When the third strike is a wild pitch, permitting the batter to reach first base, the official scorer shall score a strikeout and a wild pitch.

Wild pitches are considered to be the fault of the pitcher, and a pitcher is only charged with one if a runner moves up a base. They cannot be charged with one if no one is on a base, unless it allows the batter to reach 1st base on a 3rd strike.

That latter bit has to do with a rule called the Uncaught Third Strike Rule. In MLB (Major League Baseball), if a catcher drops or misses the third pitched strike, the batter becomes a runner and can attempt to reach first base before tagged out or forced out at first.

6.09 The batter becomes a runner when -- (a) He hits a fair ball; (b) The third strike called by the umpire is not caught, providing (1) first base is unoccupied, or (2) first base is occupied with two outs

This basically means a batter can make a run for 1st base if the catcher fails to catch the ball that would’ve been the batter’s 3rd strike, and only if 1st base is unoccupied or if there are 2 outs.

In baseball, when a batter gets 3 strikes (by failing to hit 3 balls), they are out. When the batting team gets 3 outs from 3 of its members each getting 3 strikes, then that half of the inning is over and the teams switch, at which point the opposite team gets to bat.

Relating this back to a wild pitch, according to the official rules again:

“When the third strike is a wild pitch, permitting the batter to reach first base, the official scorer shall score a strikeout and a wild pitch.”

This means that a pitcher can technically “strikeout” more than 3 people in an inning (when normally that shouldn’t be possible) due to the Uncaught Third Strike Rule.

Now I’d like to point out that, just because a pitcher threw a wild pitch during the 9th inning, that doesn’t mean that they (their team) necessarily lost the game.

It is possible to get a wild pitch and a (real) strikeout at the same time (as in, the other team gets 3 outs, rather than the batter being safe and so on).

First off, a batter could have gotten a 3rd strike after trying to swing at a horrible pitch (a pitch that was out of the zone, aka a wild pitch), missed, and gotten himself out. Or maybe the batter attempted to make a run for 1st base due to the Uncaught Third Strike Rule but failed when the other team managed to tag him out before he was safe.

Secondly, it’s also possible a wild pitch could hit a batter’s bat (maybe the batter tried to dodge a wild pitch but forgot to move the bat out of the way when he did so, resulting in it getting hit). At this point, if the ball falls in the foul area, it’s a strike, but if it falls in the fair area, then it’s a live ball and the batter had better run to first base fast or else he’ll get tagged out quickly (since the ball will be fairly close to him after it fell to the ground).

Looking at a different possibility regarding wild pitches (regarding possibilities of what could have happened in the game in the essence), it’s also possible a batter or someone could get injured by a wild pitch.

Point being, it is possible to win even if he threw a wild pitch.

Moving on, next is the description, which mentions “Bottom of the ninth”. These same words can also be found on one side of Norton’s hat.

Typically, baseball games (in the MLB at least) have 9 innings, with each inning split into the “top” half and the “bottom” half. If the home team is leading after the top of the ninth, the game is over and the home team wins (and the 2nd half of the inning isn’t played). If the road team is leading at the end of the ninth, the game is over and the road team wins. If the home team gains the lead during the bottom of the ninth, the game ends immediately and the home team wins. If the game is tied at the end of the ninth, the game goes into extra innings. A game in extra innings ends when the road team leads at the end of an inning, or when the home team takes the lead.

Basically, the 9th inning is really important (and decides the game). It is possible in this inning for a losing team to get lucky and turn things around for a comeback and a surprising win.

Bottom of the Ninth can also have meaning outside of baseball, as it can mean “last chance”, “final opportunity” or “there isn’t much time left to turn things around”.

Quickstep

Jose is obviously participating in Equestrian sport events. Regarding what specifically, I’m going to look at the Olympics for an idea. The 3 equestrian events that take place at the Olympics are: Dressage, Eventing, and Show jumping. Based on the name Quickstep, which sounds like a trot, I’m assuming he’s at least part of the Dressage event, but I’ll describe all 3 anyways.

Dressage tests the horse’s obedience and ability to carry its rider with ease and grace. It is often compared to ballet on horseback. During the test, you will see the horse ridden at different paces and different speeds within those paces. These speeds include the walk, trot, and canter. The horses will be asked to fluidly move in straight lines and circles. The horses will also be asked to move smoothly and obediently sideways, diagonally, and in place. You will see horses in "collection" where the horse is moving with a higher elevation of back and legs, and "extension" where the horse is reaching further with its legs while still carrying its neck and back in an elevated frame. Performance is judged on a point system from 0 to 6 points for each required gait. “General impression” is also judged, and points are deducted for performing the movements in the wrong order.

Eventing is a test of the skill, versatility, courage, and endurance of horse and rider, as well as tests the trust between horse and rider as well as their adaptability in different situations. Eventing is a 3 day competition that consists of: cross country jumping, dressage and showjumping. The cross-country phase takes place over a course of natural and man-made objects. There can be up to 40 obstacles that horses must jump or go through. The course is up to four miles long. Scores are based on refusals, coming in under or over a set time, and falls of the rider.

Show Jumping tests the agility and reaction of a horse by having them jump over a series of obstacles inside a riding ring. Courses are designed with many tricky turns and colorful obstacles challenging both the mental and physical agility of horse and rider. The horse/rider teams must finish within a set time and penalties are given for knocking down rails and other faults. Scores are based on the number of jumps knocked down, falls, touches, refusals to jump and time penalties. The rider with the fewest penalties wins. Ties are broken by jump-offs with penalties and the fastest times used to break the tie.

Gymnast

This skin seems to involve Rhythmic gymnastics, which was a women-only event where gymnasts perform on a floor with a rope, hoop, ball, clubs, or ribbon accompanied by music, in individual or group events.

Rhythmic gymnastics is different from normal gymnastics. There were no flips or tumbles, no bars or balance beams. In this type of gymnastics, the gymnast leaps, turns, contorts, and dances, all while manipulating and tossing different apparatuses to the beat of the music. A great amount of flexibility and grace was required here.

As Gymnast appears to have a ribbon at her hip, that’s what I’m going to go with.

The ribbon in these competitions must constantly be in motion. Compulsory elements for the ribbon include flicks, circles, snakes and spirals, and throws. A high degree of coordination was required to form the spirals and circles, as any knots which may accidentally form in the ribbon are penalized against the gymnast.

ACE

The mention of “tiebreaker”, combined with the skin name and relation to tennis, is a tennis term with a specific set of rules.

In tennis, you have games, sets, and matches.

To win a game, you must score four points and have a two-point lead.

To win a set, you must win six or more games and have a two-game lead.

To win the match, you must win the best of three sets or the best of five sets depending on where you’re playing.

Another thing about tennis is that there are no ties. When both sides are tied at 6 games apiece, a tiebreaker game takes place to decide the winner of a set. To win a tiebreaker, you had to be the first to score 7 points, as well as have a 2-point lead over your opponent. When one side reached 6 points, the other side had one last chance to even the score and tie the game. If both sides managed to get 6 points, this is when the 2nd rule comes in. A game won’t end when someone reaches 7 points if the other side has 6. The game would continue until one player could gain a 2-point lead over the other.

Pawn

This skin potentially brings up pawn promotion. This is another chess term for something that could happen in chess when a pawn manages to reach the other side of the board (aka, the side where your opponent started out on). If a pawn was successful in reaching the other side, that player could choose to turn that piece into a bishop, knight, rook, or queen (you can’t replace the pawn with another pawn or a king).

Normally with pawn promotion, most people promote a pawn to a queen as the queen is the most powerful piece with the highest movement ability. Promoting to any other piece than a queen is called an underpromotion. Reasons for underpromoting include when promoting to a queen would still leave your opponent in the lead, in cases of defense for something like preventing a checkmate, or sometimes to avoid situations where promoting to a queen would cause a stalemate (aka, no one wins).

The most common type of underpromotion is underpromotion to a knight, as a knight moves in a way that the queen cannot.

Story: News Articles

Also important for the story are the news articles that came with the relay race pre-event.

Story: Analysis

I’ll begin by bringing up the design notes (https://weibo.com/6140485374/JgFfWDqSv?from=page_1006066140485374_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment#_rnd1597979158845).

They state how they wanted to include more than just happiness, sunshine, and people playing a sport. They wanted the pain, losses, and injuries that can occur as well. To show this, they gave clues to what each character “regrets” in/from their sports career. They also specifically state exactly what happened to some people in their pasts.

For Galatea, they first comment on her inability to move freely (as she is stuck in a wheelchair). This could relate to the Chinese version of the description for Galatea’s Pawn skin.

“The next move... Will I become a knight? Or a sacrificial pawn?”

It mentioned possibly becoming a knight, which could relate to Galatea dreaming of once again having that freedom of movement. This dream relates to a knight due to its ability to move well is represented in how a knight piece has the image of a horse, from the idea of a medieval knight on a horse or simply someone in the calvary, as well as the knight piece’s ability to jump around unlike all the other pieces. Due to her wheelchair, that is something she’s never going to be able to do.

A quick note about this, oddly enough the English version does not bring up knights in its description. Instead, it says:

"To checkmate or to be sacrificed? That is the question."

That may be a play off of the quote “To be, or not to be, that is the question”, which comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I am not quite sure if Hamlet relates at all to this, as chess is never mentioned in the play to my knowledge (but I only did a bit of quick research, so I could be wrong. I think the play The Tempest is the only one that directly mentions chess).

This comes from when Hamlet is thinking about life and death, pondering a state of being versus a state of not being. He’s reflecting on whether it’s better to be alive or dead (not necessarily contemplating suicide). Life was burdensome and devoid of power, and in the rest of the speech he lists off several things that annoy him about life. He also goes into how even though he’s frustrated over how bad life is, no matter how bad it is we’re prevented from doing anything about it due to fear of the unknown. Dying is like crossing the border between the known and unknown, the idea is that there may be unimaginable horrors in this new land. Even if life is unfair, the alternative might be worse. Fear of the unknown after death. This is not just about killing himself, but also about his mission to avenge his father’s death. Before now, he’s made excuses for not killing his father’s murderer. Convention demands he kill him, but murder is a sin, so that’s the conflict at the core of the play. He ends by pulling himself out of this reflection, as too much thinking is what will prevent the action he has to rise to.

Back to Galatea, they describe her as a former genius chess player that became pathologically paranoid after a career-related loss. This part shows that Galatea, like the others in the games, also suffered a loss in the past that she’s trying to amend with the help of these games. Continuing on, they discuss how she had hoped to turn everyone into (chess) pieces that she could use at will to complete the game she could not in the past, which is likely why she is described as becoming a control freak.

As another bonus, her desire to turn everyone into pieces and control them can go back to her skin description. Remember how I said castling involves a king and a rook? Well rooks can possibly be derived from the word “rookie” (and vice versa). This is because rooks, like rookies, only come into play later, and they are (one of) the last to see action in a game compared to the other pieces on the board. Rooks aka “rookies” in this way could be referring to any and/or all of the participants in the games. Another interesting note about the word “rook” is that it can also be used as a verb that means “to defraud by cheating or swindling”. This sounds a bit to me like what Galatea might be doing as the “invisible hand” controlling the entirety of the games.

Her wanting to control everyone and basically turn them into pieces relates to her being a sculptor and even turning someone into a sculpture. Checkmate being someone who wants to manipulate everyone relates to what she does in her story to those around her, namely Helena in her game (as we see via the letters), and potentially Lily as well based on Lily’s backstory video.

This aspect about her being a “control freak” may also imply she is the “invisible hand” supposedly controlling the entire competition based on both the relay race news articles and the hints given from Freddy’s and Lucky’s descriptions. As to her exact goals, it says she wanted to essentially finish the game she had been unable to complete, though the specifics about what that means are unclear.

One thought regarding the specific accident mentioned in one of the chess articles, about someone being injured after one of the preliminaries even though nothing nearby could’ve caused the injury, this could relate to Galatea recreating her past. Maybe after she beat one of her opponents in a preliminary match (in a different competition, not the Sports Fest), the loser was unhappy at their loss, and as a result injured Galatea or got her involved in some accident. This could be why she is stuck in a wheelchair in this Essence’s story. This may also be a way of her getting revenge on the culprit (by her injuring someone after the preliminaries of the Sports Fest).

There’s also how many of the participants are in tough positions or hurt.

For example, Michiko has at least 4 cards, but the question is if she manages to get the 5th, as well as even if she can get a good hand in 1 round, it still depends on how well the other rounds go for her (Hanafuda does comprise of more than 1 round).

To go into the others, Re-Swim is injured, the swimming arena was “closed”, her name may indicate she had to swim twice even though she’s injured, or as swimming is like a race, there’s no guarantee she’s got a comfortable lead in front of the other swimmers.

En Ligne and Straight Punch both involve fighting (meaning not every opponent will be a pushover), and En Ligne’s broken sword and Fighting’s broken belt could indicate they were hurt or having trouble.

Quickstep, just like Re-Swim, is already mentioned to be injured (from the news articles).

Wild Pitch and Ace are both mentioned to be at a point near the end of the game where they are fighting to get in the lead over their opponents.

Galatea in the design notes is mentioned to be obsessive, paranoid, not quite in control of her emotions, and is unable to face the fact she lost or face her own regret of losing. She is also said to get energy from her fantasies (likely fantasies of her winning that one game she lost in the past) all the time. To go along with this, it’s been stated that she was the one who made the golden badge necklace thing around her neck, which is a way to show the character’s confidence and paranoia over winning. She also dressed herself up like a Queen and is sitting in a wheelchair that looks like a throne to further show this. The bird cage on her chair is another representation of her obsession, as the cage symbolizes (is made of) her obsession while Galatea would be the bird trapped inside it. Also, apparently her paranoia makes her aggressive (as proof of her at least somewhat lack of control of her emotions), so that’s another interesting note.

Then there’s how I’m pretty sure the design notes on Galatea herself by the developers mentions she’s a perfectionist. This could explain why she gets aggressive, why she’s so upset at her loss, and why she refuses to acknowledge her loss and her regret over it.

Galatea right now may not be a participant, as neither Checkmate nor Pawn have the green ribbon everyone else is wearing. This ribbon shows up in the trailer, and as Freddy and Lucky (who are more like staff for the competitions than actual participants) are wearing them too, it’s likely not a ribbon strictly for winners.

There’s also how her skin mentions castling. Maybe she is doing this as a defense against whatever caused her to lose in the past and in general against others.

If Galatea can’t accept her loss or even her own regret over it, to the point she makes a golden badge for herself to wear, dresses up like a queen, and sits on a throne, not to mention her name is Checkmate, I think that more likely means she already sees herself as being a winner. I think competing as a participant would mean accepting the fact she lost, her regret over it, and the fact she would be there to win the prize of having your regrets erased. Wanting them erased means you know you feel regret, and she is already mentioned to be unable to face that reality. All she wants is to complete the game she lost before, and she seems to be going about that by controlling the entirety of the games and thus seeing everyone as pieces on a chessboard. She’s trying to deal with her loss and regret over losing without having to acknowledge it and say she wants her regret erased. It’s like when a person needs help, but they refuse to ask for help, and try to go about doing whatever they need to do without anyone else’s aid.

It's possible, rather than her participating and trying to win herself, she’s trying to manipulate the others, have them in a position like the one she was in, but ensure they manage to win anyways, to represent her winning as well. That could match with how her b-tier is called “Pawn”.

Next I’ll bring up Joseph. The beginning of the design notes mentions that his dominant hand was damaged. There was an accident that resulted in his hand either breaking or him getting wounded with the opponent’s sword, and as a result this caused him to lose. Regarding his dominant hand, we see that Joseph is left-handed, as that’s the hand he uses his sword with even when not using his En Ligne skin. Looking at his En Ligne skin, his left side has a bit extra to it compared to his right side, specifically what looks kind of like an armlet around his wrist. This might be there after it received a bad hit, one that was strong enough to break the sword he was using, as well as injure his hand, arm, and/or wrist as a result, thus causing his loss. He may have the extra bit around his left hand/wrist because he is protecting it and keeping it from being hurt a second time.

As a random note, I think the injury to his dominant hand could possibly be why his animation in the appearance area has him holding his weapon in his right hand. Basically, he might be ambidextrous. After the injury to his left hand caused him to lose that match in the past, he sought to prevent that from happening again. One way is with the extra guard on his left hand. The other way might be that he taught himself to use his other hand almost as well as his left. That way, if his left or even his right hand were ever injured in a match again, he could easily switch to the other (possibly during an interlude or one of the breaks) and still have a chance of winning.

The design notes also mention you can see where the sword broke and where it was repaired, which is that mark in the middle of the blade (not the viney parts near the handle). This also means he’s using the sword that broke in the past, the one he referred to as a memento, so that’s interesting.

I think that the news articles from the relay race pre-event were written during the preliminary/beginner rounds of the games. This is based on the one article that mentioned the chess person getting injured after a preliminary match, from the article about Jose that mentions the horses had only just arrived, from the article about Norton which mentions gatherings and interviews (which would likely occur during breaks or at least sometime before the finals), from the article about Naib since the boxing match is stated to not have even started yet, while Joseph’s article also seems to mention the fencing match is about to start but hasn’t happened yet, and then there’s Tracy’s which sounds like it’s at least still ongoing as it mentions a “next” match.

After that, I think the skin descriptions more refer to the finals or deciding rounds for each sports competition, or at least other hints such as Joseph’s 15 refers to the score he got in the finals of the fencing competition rather than just a random match before this point (that would be kind of disappointing and would kill the suspense and/or meaning behind it, since if it’s not the finals, he could still lose in the next match up).

Finally, I’m going to assume either each separate sports competition of the games can have a winner, or there’s some large team encompassing each of the different sports (maybe like a Team Oletus, as Oletus is what the front of Norton’s baseball shirt says) and the winner is decided in a fashion similar to what people do during the Olympics when they compare who has the most medals or specifically who has the most gold medals.

There isn’t a whole lot for Tracy and Re-Swim, despite being an A-tier, though the beginning part does mention muscle strain, which is a common injury with swimming. All the arm movement involved in most swimming techniques can cause significant strain on the arm and shoulder muscles. Neck strain is primarily due to the act of having to keep the head above water or rotating it to breath (such as during the freestyle stroke). The lower part of the body can become strained as well, like the knees for example from a lot of kicking motions (such as during the breaststroke).

There isn’t a lot on the others. Michiko’s regret and thus loss seems to come from her possibly attempting to acquire the 5 20-point cards in Hanafuda but failing.

There’s nothing on Jose, but from how everyone else is, I assume he fell off his horse during a past competition which impacted his score and caused him to lose.

Naib also has nothing about what exactly caused him to lose. He is mentioned to be wearing a “broken belt” with a “hidden past”. This could be a champion’s belt, showing how he may have lost in the past and thus lost the belt. (Another wild theory is that someone attempted to injure Naib as well, but the belt protected him somehow, causing it to become “broken” as a way to show more possible foul play.)

Gymnast and Ace, like Naib, don’t really have anything. Maybe Ace ended up in a tiebreaker in the past and ended up losing it, that way his current predicament based on his skin description would parallel with his past. Gymnast may have done a leap or something bad, and hurt herself, or she got her ribbon tangled, which resulted in a loss. At least for Ace, we do see his hat has the word “Champion” on it, which could mean he was like Naib in being a former champion who lost his title at some point (after losing in the tiebreaker I mentioned, since his description does say “this time” he might win, which means “last time” he had lost).

Lastly is Norton. Just like the other participants in this essence, where they were in tough situations but managed to win in the end anyways, I think the same is true for Norton as Wild Pitch. (Maybe 5-9 is a score for a past game he lost, but he manages to win this time and reverse it.)

Based on the less than 1 sentence of him we got in the beginning section of the notes, I think we can assume Norton, in the past and now, is a pitcher, at least during the crucial moment of the game that decides his victory or loss. I’m specifically referring to the 2nd half of the ninth inning, which is mentioned in his skin description and the design notes. The notes basically mention “starting pitcher” in the 2nd half of the ninth inning.

So, what does it mean?

Let’s start with what a “starting pitcher” is. Here’s a section from the official MLB glossary:

“Starting pitchers, as the position name indicates, are the pitchers that begin each game on the mound for a team. Starters were long asked to pitch as deep into games as possible, although many clubs in modern baseball employ pitch counts and will not let starting pitchers throw many more than 100 pitches in a start. This is done in an effort to preserve pitchers' health.” “Teams in today's game typically rotate between five starting pitchers, meaning starters usually have four to five days off between trips to the mound.”

So, starting pitchers are a type of pitcher that is expected to pitch for the 1st 6 innings of the game, and will throw close to 100 pitches before wearing down and being taken out of a game. Afterwards, they get a break for about 4 or 5 days. That’s how harsh the job is on their bodies. It’s even worse if they have to wait those 4 or 5 days after a bad outing or game is stuck in their mind.

To compare, other types of pitchers other than Starters include Middle Relievers, who take over for a starting pitcher when they need to be substituted before the 8th inning, and Closers, who come in to “close out” a game in the 9th inning when their team is ahead. Also, once a pitcher has been replaced, he cannot then return to the game.

Starters and Closers are very different. Starters need to know probably at least 3 or 4 different types of pitches (such as a fastball, curveball, sinker, and cutter), while the Relievers and Closers only really need maybe a good fastball and a 2nd pitch for a change of pace and keep the hitters guessing. Then there’s how the Starting Pitcher needs far more stamina/endurance than the other types, as Starters go at least for about 5-6 (or even 5-8) innings and about 100 pitches or somewhere in the range of 90-120 pitches before his manager removes him from a game. Closers on the other hand pretty much go all-out for 1 inning, and thus Starters need more arm strength as well. As an added note, as they go mostly all out in 1 inning, they also work more often than a Starter does, possibly 3 or 4 times a week, and it’s unlikely they’ll go more than 3 straight days without work. It’s also unlikely they’ll work more than 3 days in a row. Another comparison, where a Starter is stuck thinking over a bad game for 4 or 5 days, Closers need to be able to bounce back and return tomorrow even if they did bad.

So one of the points I’m trying to make is that it’s noteworthy and rare nowadays for a pitcher to do a complete game. To further make my point about why exactly that is, here’s another detail I found:

“…nine-plus-inning starts have taken a nosedive. In fact, since the start of the Wild Card Era in 1995, MLB has seen a pitcher get an out in the 10th inning or later just 13 times (by 12 different hurlers). On Aug. 23, 2017, former Dodgers lefty Rich Hill showed just how hard it can be to get outs past the ninth. Hill carried a no-hitter into the 10th that night, only to watch the Pirates' Josh Harrison hit a walk-off homer in the first at-bat of the inning.”

Again, this is going back to how harsh it is and how much of a toll being a starter puts on the pitcher’s body, which only increases the deeper a starter goes into a game and the more innings they play in.

What am I trying to say?

I believe that the design notes are trying to say that Norton was overworked and the reason he lost in the past is because he was too worn out by the time the 2nd half of the ninth inning rolled around. I think the “5-9” on his hat is referring to the score he received in the game he lost in the past (as a result of being overworked). If this is what the 5-9 means, that would make the “bottom of the 9th” on the other side of his hat make sense. Both things on his hat serve as reminders of (to never forget) his loss as well as motivate himself to do better from now on.

It may have been in part because Norton is a workaholic, but it’s also partially the fault of whoever his manager was. There’s no way Norton hasn’t pitched 100 or 120 balls yet if it’s the 2nd half of the ninth inning, and then by the eighth his manager definitely should have taken him out already. So that basically means the loss wasn’t entirely his fault, as his manager should’ve cared more or paid more attention to how he was doing.

So, if he was overworked and worn out, that results in him not pitching as well, and thus could be where his name Wild Pitch comes from, as he could’ve thrown a bad pitch as a result of the strain on his body from pitching for so long, and thus why he could’ve thrown a wild pitch that resulted in his team losing. That might be paralleled in the current games, as he is likely the pitcher for the 2nd half of the ninth inning to match the game he lost in the past. I don’t know if he’s still a Starting pitcher, as maybe this time he could just be a Closer, but he also could be starting again as a way of recreating the past (like the other players seem to also be experiencing I think). He may throw another wild pitch, but I think this time his luck would kick in (or from Galatea’s manipulation) I think it doesn’t cause him and his team to lose, and instead they manage to win in the end (I already mentioned possible scenarios where a wild pitch could still result in a win, so I’m not going to repeat myself).

As an added note about how Wild Pitch’s manager should’ve cared more about Norton and paid more attention to him (and how he was overworking himself to way past exhaustion), relates back to Norton’s story again. Norton was a miner, and miners back in that day were pretty much treated like slaves by their employers, who didn’t care about the health and safety of their workers. All they wanted was to profit and wanted as cheap of a workforce to earn profit as was possible. That was why conditions were so unsafe and hazardous for miners, as mine owners/managers didn’t want to have to pay extra to make the mine and everything else safer.

Wild Pitch’s manager’s treatment of Norton might also relate to how Norton worked so hard to change his fate and escape poverty that it actually intimidated people, as well as later how people didn’t care or comfort him when he was in the hospital after the accident and even specifically avoided him.

Finally, Norton’s “regrets” that he might be trying to erase likely has to do with his regrets over getting the other miners killed, and all his other actions while at Golden Cave, or maybe his “regrets” might just be Norton going to Golden Cave at all, and maybe Norton wishes he had never gone there. It’s also possible that one of his regrets might be Norton not being able to get the gold in Golden Cave, but based on Norton’s backstory, and the context of “regrets” regarding this competition, I personally think the former idea (about regretting his actions and getting the other miners killed) makes more sense, especially when you think about how Norton’s S-Tier skin, Soul Catcher, which has a similar theme/meaning to it.

Before I get to the end, I’ll briefly bring up Freddy and Lucky. Even if Galatea isn’t their boss, they could still be on her side. Galatea already mentioned she’s controlling everyone, so there’s that. But to go a bit more into it, Freddy still seems to be aware of the “invisible hand”. Him simply being aware, as well as factoring it into what could affect the outcome of a match, seems to me that he knows someone’s manipulating the games but doesn’t do anything about it. I think being aware of the hand’s existence, especially when the hand is obviously involved in fishy business, is enough to call him an accomplice in a way possibly.

If this were true, I think part of the reason could be due to Freddy’s background. In his deductions, Freddy gets jealous at Leo since even though Leo was a lower class than Freddy initially, Leo managed to move up as well as have better luck and a happier life than Freddy. This could relate to how Freddy may be jealous in the same way at the other sports competitors for their ability to do everything they do in the games and might let the hand manipulate the games the same way he manipulated Leo in his deductions.

With Lucky, the way I think of why he might be helping out Galatea again relates to how he is in the game. In the game, he is just a deduction substitute. He is someone Orpheus creates and uses to figure out/imagine how the manor games work. This could parallel the essence story as Galatea may be using him for her goals just like how Orpheus uses Lucky for his own purposes. Just a thought.

Now that I’ve gone over each of the participants at least briefly, I want to bring up another curious bit in the character design notes. It specifically mentions that Joseph was “framed”. The term used for Joseph also possibly could mean backstabbed, aka he was betrayed, or just fell into a trap or was part of someone’s plan. It may also say later that his hand was injured accidently, which is likely related to when his sword broke. As a result, he ended up losing as a result.

His hand was likely injured due to the blow that broke his sword. It was likely strong enough to impact his hand as well, or maybe whatever the hit was maybe twisted it or something in a way that hurt it.

Regarding being framed, the only option that makes sense is that something happened to Joseph’s opponent and he was blamed for it. Maybe his opponent was injured and/or taken out of the match in some way for some reason. Or maybe Joseph was accused of cheating. Either way, from the wording, it sounds like he was framed during the finals of whatever competition this was for and this act of him being framed appears to happen before Joseph’s hand is injured and his sword breaks.

One issue with this is that if he were framed for something, possibly either injuring his opponent or accused of cheating, normally I’d think that’d be enough grounds to have him dropped from the competition right then. But the wording seems to say he lost as a result of his hand being injured and his sword breaking. If the “accident” refers to whatever hurt his hand and broke his sword, maybe this “accident” also happens at the same time as or is the cause of whatever Joseph is getting framed for.

The fact he was “framed” (and various other reasons) shows Joseph wasn’t actually guilty of whatever he’s being accused of. Being “framed” means someone else (other than Joseph) is the guilty party, which hints towards manipulation (of Joseph and the match itself). Whatever this person did caused Joseph’s sword to possibly hurt his opponent as well as resulted in his sword breaking and his hand being injured. Maybe this person messed with the fencing weapons or the equipment they wore (or something else about the competition such as maybe the area the match was taking place in).

Finally, there’s the part about backstabbing. This seems to imply that whoever backstabbed him was someone he trusted. The betrayal came from someone Joseph thought was on his side. The question is who exactly was this? I doubt it’s whoever Joseph’s opponent was, as it doesn’t make sense that someone would “trust” the person they’re competing against. Maybe it was whoever Joseph’s coach or manager was. I had a thought that maybe the coach possibly trained whoever the opponent was, and maybe he wanted Joseph to lose so the other person could win because maybe he cared or liked the other person better, but this doesn’t quite make sense. Joseph being “framed” implies that something likely happened to Joseph’s opponent, and I doubt the coach/manager would hurt the person he wants to win against Joseph. I mean, maybe getting Joseph disqualified would automatically give the other guy the win, but I don’t know.

To me, it sounds like whoever framed Joseph was specifically targeted, as in the goal was to get Joseph to lose, rather than the goal being to get someone else to win.

The only other idea I had, that still doesn’t quite make sense, is that Galatea was involved. Galatea was mentioned wanting to control everyone like chess pieces, as well as wanted to complete the game she couldn’t finish. So maybe this included going around to other sports competitions, got people to lose and/or get hurt, and then had them come to the games so she could manipulate things so all of them, and thus herself by extension, could win.

If Galatea got these people to lose during some competition, she’d have had to screw with them before the games started, as people only participate in these specific games to have their “regrets erased”. But it never did make a whole lot of sense why Galatea would go and manipulate everyone if she just wants to complete the (chess) game she lost as that would only have to do with chess. Maybe if it’s everyone, she might essentially be trying to recreate her own situation many times over. By “completing” each one of their games and getting them to win, this may be a way of showing both her obsession and paranoia over winning, a way of showing her denial of her own loss in an excessive way that fits her paranoia and madness (it’s kind of like saying “See? Look at me winning! Look at how many times and ways I can win! I’m a winner! I never lost! That’s not possible!”), and also a way to show her dominance and prove she can win, to fit with her whole Queen and winner theme she has going on.

Also, maybe the reward and/or the games could still have been set up by her.

Maybe she messed with and manipulated each of the participants we see in this essence. As a possible example, maybe she screwed with Michiko by messing with the deck and/or cards. Maybe with Norton she somehow either messed with his manager (get him not to pull Norton out of the game when he should have) and/or influenced Norton himself by getting or convincing him to pitch longer than he should despite his exhaustion. For Quickstep, Gymnast, and Re-Swim, maybe she either got them to perform in a certain way or use certain techniques that caused them to get hurt, or possibly she messed with their equipment (at least for Jose it could be the equipment he needs when riding the horse or the obstacles on the field, and for Margaretha it could be her ribbon, her clothes, or the area she’s dancing around in). For Ace, maybe he was manipulated and messed with in a way similar to Joseph. Maybe his racket or the ball were tampered with, or somehow she got another accident to happen.

After possibly manipulating all these people, she’s going to ensure they’re left with “regrets” (as she’s trying to essentially recreate her own game and pretend each of these people are her when she lost her chess competition). My point is that what if the “reward” of having the winner’s regrets erased is basically referring to how she hopes to erase her own regrets of losing in the chess competition? The fact she’s not an actual participant in the games is a way to erase her regrets without actually acknowledging them. To put it another way, erasing everyone else’s regrets translates to Galatea erasing her own (since she’s essentially pretending she is each of the participants and recreating her own game via their games, and getting herself to win by having each of them win).

In summary: Galatea may be the cause for each of the participants losses in the past, as well as manipulated them to show up at the games to have their regrets erased as a way of dealing with her own without admitting them.

Regarding whether or not she succeeded or what happens to her at the end, I want to bring up one last crack theory.

It involves the Chinese version of Pawn’s description which mentions a knight. I find it interesting that the official twitter also refers to Joseph as a “white knight”. We can also see on Galatea’s board in her Checkmate skin that there is a white knight on it (and one of the other pieces on the board is a black king, and I’ve already said Galatea could be and is similar to a king, even though the design notes refer to her as a Queen). From Joseph’s description, he mentions “piercing the illusion”, which could refer to the games themselves, the reward, or to Galatea as she is controlling things from the background trying not to let anyone know what she’s doing. If Galatea is the reason for Joseph’s (and everyone else’s) losses, maybe Joseph finds out somehow and gets revenge by dealing with her. Joseph describes his broken sword as a “memento”, which is something that serves to remind someone of a person, past event, etc… But it can also serve as a reminder or “warning” (one of the earliest definitions of memento was “something that serves to warn”). This “warning” could, going back to my discussion of Joseph’s past, refer to how he was framed and maybe help remind him he wants to find the person who framed him and thus caused his loss. By extension, the warning would also refer to Galatea herself, as the person who is the actual guilty party, or to the games and the reward, as erasing regrets could have been something set up by Galatea for herself as well as all their own regrets were all caused by Galatea in the first place anyways. Joseph is described as being “determined” in the articles. Maybe this could extend to his determination to find out who framed him and get revenge? Galatea might be dealt with or revealed by Joseph. Maybe the “sacrifice” mentioned by the Pawn skin is referring to this and/or her “loss”. Her loss could also be caused by her paranoia, as she is unable to accept the fact she lost in the past or accept her regret over it. Joseph may not like the idea of being manipulated (not to mention being mad someone screwed with him to cause him to lose in the past) and thus deals with her somehow.

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