Discussion Why I think I can prove the silent majority user is connected to pariston (kinda long)

[Aeneas]

Yeah, it's literally "target" in the original.

 

[MrBird]

Yeah, it's literally "target" in the original.

Thanks, appreciate it. But you can see the kanji words on the right that says "range"

Yeah, it is not completely clear what that means. To me, it makes sense to think about it as 'in range'. Because he chooses his targets at random, it does not make sense that people like Barrigen would be important targets to him. But as i said, i also do not believe 'range' is meant as physical range. Rather, I think he has some conditions for targets that have to be met. Elseways it does not make a lot of sense to have Myuhan assassinate when he was in another room.

After months of thinking how Silent Majority works (yes im really obsessed with the ability), this is my speculation:
(1) A person first needs to be possessed by the doll
(2) When the user activates the ability, 9 people within the range of the possessed person will be targeted (9 targets +1 possessed = 10 victims)
(3) Only the user and the possessed can see the doll (we already know that)
(4) If the victims are within the doll's range, then if one of the victims has gained the other victim's attention, then those victims can be targeted for the attack.
(5) If the victim is outside of the doll's range, he/she can be targeted for the attack.
(6) The ability is forcefully cancelled if the majority of the victims (maybe 6 is enough) are outside the range of the doll.

Point (4) makes sense for the attack in chapter 371
Point (5) makes sense for the attacks in chapter 359 (woody, then the other 4 guards) and chapter 376 (myuhan)
Point (6) makes sense for the user are afraid that the ability will be cancelled while also mentioning someone will quit the nen-training course.

Let me know what y'all think

 

[Diivil]

I believe it actually works like this:

• Possess the target.
• Activate the marionette when you're ready.
• Marionette stays active as long as you want, or until the person possessed is dead.
• You must kill at least 1 person before deactivating the marionette.
• If you fail to kill anyone the curse rebounds to you.
• Only the possessed and the user can see the doll.

Curse someone at the entrance of their prince's room.

• (2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10 - 12 - 14)

Open room assassination:
The snakes are extremely weak defensively, a regular gun is enough to kill them. Considering that, the ability is extremely risky to activate, even on regular people. One snake takes 44 seconds to suck out an entire body's blood, four snakes together take 11 seconds.

Range:
The marionette is attached to the possessed, and the snakes are conjured by the marionette. The conjured snakes have a max range they can separate themselves from the marionette. You shouldn't just attack people in an open room without having a strategy or analyzing the situation of the room before hand, you're risking the snakes being killed by guns.

Spoiler

Target:
The role of the cursed person is to be the carrier of the marionette. Once someone is possessed, you can use Silent Majority at will. The cursed target is the central hub of the ability.

Woody & Myuhan:
Kill the possessed person, because they are alone, and won't be able to receive outside help in time.

4 Wobble spy guards:
The possessed person is in proximity of 3 other non Nen users, attack all four of them with a snake each, because they can't defend themselves and it would take longer than 44 seconds for them to receive outside help.

Barrigan:
Because of presence of many normal people and Nen users, using the above strategies is borderline suicide.

So how can the user try to kill someone in a room with 16+ people?

Distraction is your best form of camouflage in this scenario.

 

[shionoro]

I think it is Mushaho now. Thinking through the ability, it is the only conclusion I can come up with.

There are two mainthoughts: How does the ability work and why would its user do the things he did? There was a lot of talk about who would benefit, but my focus here is how the ability works and thus who could be the user.

We know for a fact that mr SM chooses a witness and then a doll is summoned. Only he and the witness can see the doll, the doll then has 10 targets and can attack one or several of them via four snakes it conjures.

We do not know how a witness is chosen, we do not know how the ten targets are chosen. We also do not know when the ability starts and how long it goes (and what conditions it has).

But there are a lot of things we can reasonably assume.

• Mr SM has to be in close contact with his witness to afflict the curse. He baptizes them with the curse (see lovelly), i can hardly imagine that without him being in theh same room and fulfilling some condition. He is definitely not able to choose someone as witness who he has never seen.
• The doll can only be summoned in the same room as the witness. Elseways, why have a witness at all? Clearly, the witness is a limitation.
• The snakes can only attack after the witness alerted people about the doll. Again, the witness is a limitation. If the witness did not hav to do anything, that would mean mr SM could send an ally who never tells anyone about the doll. That would make the ability insanely powerful, you could basically assassinate everyone who is not a powerful Nenuser if the witness is in the same room with him, without anyone ever being able to see it coming.
  If witness didnt have to alert anyone, the prince/queen responsible would not curse lovely, they'd send an ally to the nentraining with the curse afflicted to them.
• The ten targets are chosen by closeness to the doll. When mr Sm attacks first time in the nentraining, Barrigen is exactly the person tenth-closest to the doll. That is not proof, but to me it is a good indication. Myuhan, who is out of range, is the farthest away from the doll.

With these, the possibilities for who mr SM is are limited. To be able to attack woble's quarters the very first time, he had to afflict someone with the curse. The only possibility to do that is to afflict a spyguard when they are with the queen. Nobody in woble's quarters alerted anyone. To me, that means that the witness was Woody.

When Woody went to the toilet, the curse started. Woody saw the doll, but since nobody was in the room, there was nobody to alert. So the snakes were summoned and killed him. Since the snakes were never killed (unlike with barrigen), they lingered and slithered around, killing four other spies and the ability (for whicever reason) concluded.

The same is true for Myuhan, he was alone on the toilet and easy prey for the ability, then it concluded (after sakata and kurapika killed all snakes).

Mr SM could afflict people with the curse in the nentraining (having an excuse to touch people there is easy, for example). However, the only way he could afflict woody with the curse is having met woody, and thus only swinko swinko's queensguards could have done it.

Only one of those is at the Nentraining, Mushaho. Saying he is doing an important mission. We know one nenuser who has not admitted it is among the people taking part in the nentraining.

Thinking through mr SM's ability lets me come to the conclusion that it can only be Mushaho.

 

[Aeneas]

Thinking through mr SM's ability lets me come to the conclusion that it can only be Mushaho.

Though what happens now after Sale-sale's death? The whole subplot would just... end?

Because it looks like he already stopped attending the classes. Everyone's there but him (from 388):

 

[shionoro]

Though what happens now after Sale-sale's death? The whole subplot would just... end?

Because it looks like he already stopped attending the classes. Everyone's there but him (from 388):

There, my crackpot theory comes into play.

Attacking WOble makes zero sense, for any prince or queen.
My reasoning goes as follows: The only people who would benefit from killing woble are the highest princes. Nobody beneath zhang Lei has any interest to do that. THe highest princes all have many resources and it would make sense to them to easily dispatch of woble in case she ever becomes a threat due to her Nenbeast. But we know that None of the top 3 is the culprit.
For any other prince, killing woble is not just neutral, it is bad. YOu make the target on your head bigger. If you are a middle or low prince, then you are glad the highest princes have to spend some resources on people that are not you. If you are sale sale, you are happy team woble managed to kill vincent, you are happy halkenburg killed some of benjamin's guards and you are happy that tuffdy killed momoze and not you. Killing lower princes would just enable higher princes to get to you faster. NObody in their right mind, queen or prince, would do that. Having your spyguard there and woble having no own guards cept hunters is basically the best case for you.

SO there has to be a more indirect reason for mr SM's action than weakening or killing woble. My idea is that pariston is involved in this. Mr SM's actions make sense if you think he wants to enhance the hunters' influence on the lower queens and princes.
Without momoze's interference, mr SM would have let to 4 hunters being around oito and only 2 guards (he might have wanted to kill these, too).

If i am right and mr SM is part of sale sale's guards, it has to be noted that tuffdy, the only other nenuser that was under a queens control, was with swinko swinko, too. It is curious that a low ranking queen has one nenguard. Two would be a huge coincidence.
ANd Tuffdy's action led to hunters gaining influence, too. After killing momoze, there are ten hunters in marayam's quarters vs 5 spies,

We know Tuffdy wanted to get the attention of higher ranking princes. Mr SM does not have that motive, at least his inner thoughts point against that.
What I think is that swinko swinko's guards are infiltrated or heavily manipulated.
I think someone convinced tuffdy killing momoze is a good plan. And I think someone convinced swinko swinko to use mr SM the way she did (or used mr SM/Mushaho directly).
For example, if Pariston or a proxy (we know pariston and beyond have two escape routes) told swinko swinko he will give her and sale sale a way to escape if she helps him to create a situation for that by using mr SM, his actions would make a lot more sense than they do now.

Now that sale sale is out, that motivation flies out of the window. But the plotline still won't be aborted, i think it will become clear once pariston makes a move.

 

[Aeneas]

Now that sale sale is out, that motivation flies out of the window. But the plotline still won't be aborted, i think it will become clear once pariston makes a move.

Yeah, I hope there's something planned (and we get to see it).

 

[Copy Panda]

haha doc why did you like that message

 

[uberfayt]

haha doc why did you like that message

Would you have preferred a hug? haha it's simply because I was about to make the same observations you did, and there they were neatly presented in your post!

Although I'm not dismissing Shio's theory, I don't think Pariston is in any way involved in the Kakin affairs. I do however agree that the user of SM could be acting on their own, most likely some royal guard with ulterior motives imo. Following the latest chapter (400), Longhi is naturally the prime suspect now for being the SM user. If it's really her, then she must be acting on her own or under some other party and not under Tsubeppa, as the latter is not after the lower princes' lives.

I'm sure we'll get some follow up on this next chapter (401), also pretty sure Kurapika will interrogate Longhi on whether she is the assassin or not and I would be surprised if he doesn't.

 

[shionoro]

Would you have preferred a hug? haha it's simply because I was about to make the same observations you did, and there they were neatly presented in your post!

Although I'm not dismissing Shio's theory, I don't think Pariston is in any way involved in the Kakin affairs. I do however agree that the user of SM could be acting on their own, most likely some royal guard with ulterior motives imo. Following the latest chapter (400), Longhi is naturally the prime suspect now for being the SM user. If it's really her, then she must be acting on her own or under some other party and not under Tsubeppa, as the latter is not after the lower princes' lives.

I'm sure we'll get some follow up on this next chapter (401), also pretty sure Kurapika will interrogate Longhi on whether she is the assassin or not and I would be surprised if he doesn't.

Longhi knowing Nen changes some things. But I am sure he is not the Sm user. Longhi was not in room 1014 when the first attack happened, so why would he be in it for the second attack?
The big question is why many guards dont tell their peinces or queens about their abilities.

Tuffdy (the guard hanzo killed) didnt tell swinko swinko.
Theta and Salkov don't tell tserriednich.
Longhi seemingly did not tell Tubeppa.

With Theta, i understand and Tuffdy seemed to have dark motives to get to a more influential queen or prince.
But Longhi seems to have negotiated with Kurapika for Tubeppa. If he is loyal, why didnt he tell tubeppa before?

My guess is still that mr SM is not in that room and that pariston has planned for many moving pieces that might offer escape routes.

 

[uberfayt]

My guess is still that mr SM is not in that room and that pariston has planned for many moving pieces that might offer escape routes.

I also think SM user was not in the room. He probably can use the doll to see around him. I said Longhi is prime suspect because even though we are pretty sure it's not her based on a number of reasons, one has to still verify to prove her innocence.

If he is loyal, why didnt he tell tubeppa before?

Maybe to not have to share it with all the members within their group, as that could lead to some people letting the power get to their heads and revolting, which would harm the "balance" of power. No matter how loyal one is, it's best to keep a supernatural power that has the potential to destroy the fine balance of society if given to the wrong hands.

 

[shionoro]

@uberfayt Yes. there are many reasons why someone might hide they have nen. One reason is not to anger the prince (if you hid Nen from the prince initially, the prince might question your loyalty if you tell him later).

That makes the pool of possible silent majority users wider, too. Because usually i assumed that it would not be a guard from a prince who does not know Nen unelss they ae not loyal.

However, thinking about this, it is an important clue. If Longhi was the SM user, i dont think he'd tell kurapika he can use Nen, that would be way too suspicious. That means mr SM is not in the room, as longhi was the only one that knew nen without us knowing (unless it is belereint or another hunter).

However, if Longhi was loyal to Tubeppa, then it would make sense that he would (if he is mr SM) kill all spies. Tubeppa tried to call Kurapika to get an alliance and learn about Nen. But on the other Hand: If Longhi knew Nen and wanted Tubeppa to learn it by allying with kurapika.. why did Longhi not tell Tubeppa about Nen himself? He couldnt know about the Nen lessons back then, so his advice would be as good as Kurapika's. That does not add up.

As it stands, i still do believe that mr SM's actions only make sense under the lense of creating a silent spot in room 1014 without too much supervision.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 28, 2022, Original Post Date: Dec 27, 2022 ---

Think about it.

1) I already talked about how his actions were suitable to create a safe house for Bill's group (that have an escape plan) in 1014. Without the Nenbeast interference and Kurapika announcing Nen, they could have silently used that room as hub, Oito would probably not refuse if they make her a good deal.

2) After that failed, mr SM attacked the Nentraining. It was not to destroy the training. it was also not to kill the victims. It was to get the maid Lovelly into Jail. Getting her jailed means Kaiser (who also works for Pariston in this theory) is allowed to supervise Seiko's quarters. Kaisers authority is so big that he can protect these quarters from outside interference, so create another safe house. Mr SM killing the other two people was either a distraction or necessary for him to suspend his ability without harm for him.

3) When melody presented a plan to escape, Kaiser jumped at the first possibility to help her, claiming he just likes her and the twins. He helped her to create an ESCAPE ROUTE, in this case for kacho and fuugetsu. This was to try out whether it works. Now he suggests doing it again to poison the princes, but what if his actual goal is to release beyond, now that he has access to an ability that can cover him?

Taken together, these actions just make a whole lot of sense, while mr SM's behavior seemed erratic at first. If you want to go even further:

4) Now Kaiser talks to Steiner to "press a button in case the first prince arrives". Steiner is a very important figure, he observes the whole journey and if beyond/kakin plays foul, steiner will tell it. If this is part of a plot to manipulate steiner or even frame him for something, that is probably part of the plan to get beyond free without any repercussions. It is definitely curious that this all adds up


Understanding mr SM's actions as a set up for Steiner to take action is an angle I did not see before.

 

[McNuss]

Is there anything that makes Belerainte free from suspicions?

 

[shionoro]

Is there anything that makes Belerainte free from suspicions?

No, but there are some things supporting it.

Firstly, Belereinte is a hunter, if my theory is somewhat correct, then that directly makes it more likely he could have contact to pariston or beyond.
He also asked to "lend bill" to talk to him in private, allegedly to give information to room 1013, but we do not know what they talked about exactly. We KNOW Bill was employed via pariston.

Secondly, he said "it was you who killed him" to Sakata, who killed the guy that was attacked by the snakes (in order to kill the snakes. In my opinion, that could point to Belereinte being mr SM who has to kill his first target, but because Sakata did it, he had to kill another. Its a strange thing to say in any case.

Also, IF mr SM is in that room, we know he is not a participant (unless it is longhi). The only people using Nen in the participant pool were lovelly (batized by mr SM), halkenburg's 2 guards (baptized by halk's beast) and longhi (for whichever reason). So the user has to be a Nenuser, and since its not logical to think it was Benjamin's guard, it would have to be Belereinte or one of the Kakin guards sent by Zhang Lei (including camilla's spyguard slacka).

Of course, if mr SM is not in that room, it cannot be Belereinte.

 

[McNuss]

No, but there are some things supporting it.

Firstly, Belereinte is a hunter, if my theory is somewhat correct, then that directly makes it more likely he could have contact to pariston or beyond.
He also asked to "lend bill" to talk to him in private, allegedly to give information to room 1013, but we do not know what they talked about exactly. We KNOW Bill was employed via pariston.

Secondly, he said "it was you who killed him" to Sakata, who killed the guy that was attacked by the snakes (in order to kill the snakes. In my opinion, that could point to Belereinte being mr SM who has to kill his first target, but because Sakata did it, he had to kill another. Its a strange thing to say in any case.

Also, IF mr SM is in that room, we know he is not a participant (unless it is longhi). The only people using Nen in the participant pool were lovelly (batized by mr SM), halkenburg's 2 guards (baptized by halk's beast) and longhi (for whichever reason). So the user has to be a Nenuser, and since its not logical to think it was Benjamin's guard, it would have to be Belereinte or one of the Kakin guards sent by Zhang Lei (including camilla's spyguard slacka).

Of course, if mr SM is not in that room, it cannot be Belereinte.

Yeah, what I think is, Pariston was very succesful in the election, so we know he has a lot of supporters within the association, especially among temp hunters.
There aren't that many real Hunters on Tier 1 and most of them are temp hunters, especially if we discount Team Kurapika...

The big problem here is, we don't even know what Pariston's plan is...
Like, the Bill trio didn't seem to have any real idea either and let's be honest neither of them is/was particularly special.

 

[shionoro]

Yeah, what I think is, Pariston was very succesful in the election, so we know he has a lot of supporters within the association, especially among temp hunters.
There aren't that many real Hunters on Tier 1 and most of them are temp hunters, especially if we discount Team Kurapika...

The big problem here is, we don't even know what Pariston's plan is...
Like, the Bill trio didn't seem to have any real idea either and let's be honest neither of them is/was particularly special.

My view is, by now, that it is all a red hering.

Pariston can guess the zodiac will guess that beyond wants to escape (because its obvious).
He has a spy in the organization, he has all kinds of escape plans installed (Bill said there were at least 3 before carton died) and everyone is guessing how he will escape.
I think beyond does not intend to escape but to basically take over the black whale and making the zodiac play along. Because they are focused on preventing his escape, they do not notice that the actual plan is unfolding right now.

They think beyond will make his move right before the reach the new continent. I think Pariston plans to create so much uprising on the lower decks that it risks to become a huge massacre. If that does not work, fine, there are escape routes installed, just in case.
But if there is a massacre and uprising so big that the zodiac and kakin cannot handle it, who is the one who can?
Beyond. All these people down there are there because beyond promised them a better life. They believe in him, he is a charismatic who can believably say that he has nothing to do with whatever the zodiac or kakin will be blamed for. He can tell people to believe into the new king of kakin (if he is there by now) and lay low. That would force the zodiac to play along and beyond would gain huge political power over them. They couldnt stop him from escaping, as he put it, they'd beg him to keep up appearance and go to the dark continent with him.

 

[McNuss]

My view is, by now, that it is all a red hering.

Pariston can guess the zodiac will guess that beyond wants to escape (because its obvious).
He has a spy in the organization, he has all kinds of escape plans installed (Bill said there were at least 3 before carton died) and everyone is guessing how he will escape.
I think beyond does not intend to escape but to basically take over the black whale and making the zodiac play along. Because they are focused on preventing his escape, they do not notice that the actual plan is unfolding right now.

They think beyond will make his move right before the reach the new continent. I think Pariston plans to create so much uprising on the lower decks that it risks to become a huge massacre. If that does not work, fine, there are escape routes installed, just in case.
But if there is a massacre and uprising so big that the zodiac and kakin cannot handle it, who is the one who can?
Beyond. All these people down there are there because beyond promised them a better life. They believe in him, he is a charismatic who can believably say that he has nothing to do with whatever the zodiac or kakin will be blamed for. He can tell people to believe into the new king of kakin (if he is there by now) and lay low. That would force the zodiac to play along and beyond would gain huge political power over them. They couldnt stop him from escaping, as he put it, they'd beg him to keep up appearance and go to the dark continent with him.

Good call. I think of something more sinister though.

Pariston loves to ruin other people's days. That's his hunt. And there could be no greater hunt than trolling the V6. Which is why I think everyone on Tiers 2-5 will die as they will sink and Beyond will use Tier 1, which conveniently already is a boat on its own to go straight to the DC, illegally.

 

[shionoro]

There is something new i thought about:

I assumed that the silent majority user is connected to the justice department and his goal in the Nentraining was to get Caesar to supervise Seiko.

For clarities sake, i will not go through all freak cases but reason my logic short and sharp. If you think I am not adressing something, feel free to ask. There is a Summary at the bottom.

These are my 2 Mainpoints:

1. Mr SM did not want to prevent the Nentraining or kill Myuhan and Barrigen as a priority.
2. Mr took actions that made Seiko being supervised very likely.

About 1)
The one fact that I and (as far as i know) most people that made theories about mr SM overlooked is how much risk his ability involves and that he seems to have shown his ability on purpose.

Think about it: Mr SM's ability is insanely useful, however, it carries a HUGE risk. If he gets countered the first time he kills, he dies. The fact that everybody knows his ability after the Nentraining means that he cannot be used as well anymore to influence the succession war, because now people will use countermeasures (go to the toilet together, move furniture so snakes cannot hide, so on). Whoever used mr SM in the Nentraining would need to have a VERY IMPORTANT GOAL TO ACCOMPLISH if he busts that kind of trumpcard for it.

But in the Nentraining, he just killed 1 (and later another) relatively low profile target and thought to himself that he deems it unlikely that this will prevent the Nentraining. If you take such a risk, this task is so important that you'd try to get higher profile targets (and there were some) or attack multiple targets for maximum carnage, even if that has a higher risk. Because you are already taking a huge risk, you would not just do it for maybe disturbing the Nentraining a little. And obviously, killing Barrigen and Myuhan is not nearly important enough to reveal such a useful ability to everybody.
It just makes no sense. You only take such a huge risk if you think it is very likely that you get a high reward in case of success and mr SM did not think that about preventing the Nentraining.

About 2)
What sometimes gets overlooked is that Mr SM is quite capable of killing in secret without revealing his ability. He killed all the spyguards without kurapika ever knowing what kind of ability it was. He also killed Myuhan in secret. So why did he kill Barrigen with a show?

Of course, it might have to do with his ability, we do not know all conditions. But he was able to kill in secret the first time he assaulted Oito's quarters, so it is certainly likely he could have waited for better conditions to kill Myuhan or somebody else alone on the toilet, just like he did with Woody. But he did not.
He chose to strike in public and have Lovelly point to the doll. That tells me that this was a priority. He did not go for a safe route here and kill someone in secret first so he would be safe, he hurried up to kill someone in broad daylight, revealing his ability (without necessarily having to do so). And of course, doing so made it all but assured that Lovelly would be jailed and Seiko would be supervised. THAT is something you CAN plan with, unlike breaking up the Nentraining. It is a very likely outcome and mr SM took risks to pursue actions (without needing to) that would make this very likely. Mr SM did not know who he would end up killing and what would happen at the Nentraining, but he knew Lovelly would be the witness and she'd be jailed if he makes her panic before a kill.

That is why it seems very clear to me that framing Seiko for the murder was his intent. The underlying reason for that was, in my opinion, because the justice department either has their own plans or works with Pariston and they want to infiltrate the succession war, just like Caesar does when he keeps tabs on Seiko and Melody.

SUMMARY:

If you assume mr SM's actions were taken to make a prince win the succession war, you will come to a contradiction because revealing his ability basically means losing a Trumpcard for any faction that controls him. The outcome of that action is far too chaotic and unreliable in its influence on the succession war to justify that risk.
-You cannot plan the targets of his attack.
-You cannot plan whether he will be able to break up the Nentraining
-You cannot plan how that reshuffles alliances (Some people think mr SM wanted to get close to Kurapika if he is used by Tubeppa, but this might just aswell have Kurapika become more careful and shut people out, you just do not know that)
-You might even lead to other factions being more careful now without any feasable gain for you.

The only very likely outcome that you can definitely plan if you attack the way mr SM did was that Lovelly would go to jail and Seiko would be supervised (even if he fails and dies, i might add).
And I think that pretty much proves that this must have been the priority for him.

After that, he chose to take a very safe, secretive kill against Myuhan again (probably as part of his condition) and then get out. Mission accomplished.

What do you think? Am i missing something?

 

[Uriel]

Think about it: Mr SM's ability is insanely useful, however, it carries a HUGE risk. If he gets countered the first time he kills, he dies. The fact that everybody knows his ability after the Nentraining means that he cannot be used as well anymore to influence the succession war, because now people will use countermeasures (go to the toilet together, move furniture so snakes cannot hide, so on). Whoever used mr SM in the Nentraining would need to have a VERY IMPORTANT GOAL TO ACCOMPLISH if he busts that kind of trumpcard for it.

This made me think that maybe the intention is to influence new Nen users to create techniques that could counter SM-like techniques. This is helpful for nobility that wants to avoid assassinations.