Akselziys said:
Actually, the funny thing about that is the original Japanese puzzle had the katakana for "Aka" and "Aoi" (instead of the colored shapes), but the text color for each was the opposite color (i.e. Aoi was written in red and Aka in blue)
The codename for Akane in the original Japanese version was also Murasaki (purple) rather than June, right? It would be amusing if there was a hint even there (red+blue) as well.
Gunloc said:
My favorite(?) hint is Cap's bracelet.
"0"=6
Zero=Akane
I know it's supposed to be an O, but I think it works nonetheless.
To be honest, I was more surprised that this wound up being the case (personally, I thought it was a bit too obvious, especially when there was still nothing to steer toward her rather than Santa until the very end). It was the numbering of the bracelets worn by the other three Cradle representatives that allowed me to determine who was whom before the game confirmed it, though.
2 =
Nijisaki
6 =
Musashidou
9 =
Kubota
Still, there are a few other things I've been thinking about...
1./The easiest explanation for what happened to Akane nine years ago seems that she was essentially living on borrowed time. She may have been able to successfully make contact with Junpei nine years into the future, but there was no guarantee that that future would be the one to happen (just another possibility viewed through the morphogenetic field, much like all of the endings we viewed were alternate possibilities). Therefore, she had to see to it that the future she connected with was the one that actually happened in order to stabilize her continued existence, with her fevers representing the consequence of any event potentially compromising her achievement of that objective.
2./To be honest, I do wonder to what degree Akane's reactions were genuine. Considering the fact that the purpose of the Nonary Game was to allow for all participants to potentially survive, it doesn't seem like manipulating Ace to cause the deaths of the 9th Man, Nijisaki, or Musashidou was necessarily what she wanted so much as alterations to the plan by Aoi to insure that the game would conclude and she would be saved. I suppose the idea of her faking horror at the gruesome sights of what happened to the 9th Man and Nijisaki just bothers me (true identity as Zero or not, it just doesn't seem like her).
3./I'm still not sure as to why Snake would say that Akane died nine years ago when he already revealed to Junpei that the only reason he refused to discuss the events of the past was Zero's (ultimately idle) threat that Clover would die if he did. It's not like anyone other than Seven was in on Aoi and Akane's plans, hence why Snake was mistaken in believing that Santa specifically was Zero.
I'm not sure how much sense any of this makes (I've been considering playing through the true and safe endings again for the sake of clarification), but it's been on my mind for some time now, and makes me regret having missed the window for the developer Q&A.