Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-39718735-20200605220409/@comment-38952966-20200718102230

DirePresent wrote: It'd be impossibly contrived to do so without skipping time, Bucciarati would always notice him.

I don't really have an answer for this. It's just stupid and contrived. Lots of things in Jojo are like that.

The problem is contrived in this sense otherwise: in normal time Diavolo would tore a hole in the elevator, capture Trish and get instantly attacked by Bruno. He's never doing that succesfully without time-skip.

That fate is guided by Diavolo's will. Otherwise how would Trish reach him? How would Narancia die? It's not as if things would move by telekinesis towards him with or without time-skip. I'd say he has to do the deed personally only if he himself predicted himself doing so.

I'd say once he makes the decision to do so, and truly plans to commit to it, it becomes fated. Strong resolve controlling fate is one of Vento Aureo's major themes, after all. But that doesn't necessarily mean the act of using King Crimson is fated.

I know about that statement (erases the cause, leaves the result), yet what baffles me the most of that interpretation is that there should be a cause to erase beforehand. Otherwise you'd get like... two "Diavolos" at the same time during skipped time:

1) The "predicted" Diavolo: "the cause", who's not real and is the one who moves people undetected and interacts with things during time skip as a normal person would do, but without receiving damage.

2) The time skipping Diavolo, also intangible? You said he had to dodge the bullets, KC didn't work there in the same way it did against Risotto. Who would move around unbounded by fate.

I misspoke, perhaps. As I recall, Sex Pistols' bullets do phase through Diavolo during the SCR arc. But I'd say interpreting it as being "two" Diavolo's is actually somewhat accurate.

So you mean Diavolo could just wait next to the elevator and Trish would lose his hand out of thin air, float and come to him even if he didn't erase time then? I really think Epitaph predictions have to be tied to the use of time-skip cause otherwise they make absolutely no sense.

I think this is actually an ongoing debate within all kinds of philosophy. Is the future fated, and Epitaph merely allows Diavolo to observe it? Or is it the act of viewing the future with Epitaph what guarantees it? Effectively, it makes no difference. If Diavolo doesn't look far enough into Epitaph to see how Bruno will react to him stealing Trish, is Bruno's reaction still fated?

What's the point of a dead man retaining a memory when he's alone? I know the time-skip is great to mantain his identity in secret. Yet I don't refer to the purpose of Diavolo to use it, but to how it'd work when the foreseen fate is absurdly impossible to reach.

It's Diavolo, my guy. He'll make double-triple-extra sure that no one will learn his identity, no matter how obtuse his actions. I mean, this is the guy who had Bucciaratti escort his daughter across the country, just because he wanted to murder her himself. He's just extra like that.

I know it's a frustrating response, but the truth is we don't fully get to see Epitaph's predictions a lot of the time, so we can't say what was fated to happen. Is it contrived, ridiculous, and stupid that such a fate could be reached without erasing time? Yes, it absolutely is, but that's the truth of it.