Analyzing the transference phenomenon in Remember11

Now that fellow Let's Player Shook50 is finishing the second route of the visual novel Remember11: The Age of Infinity, I thought I would do an analysis of the main gimmick of this story, namely the transference phenomenon, to help with understanding it.

Spoiler warning: If you haven't read this story, and think you might want to, I advise you not to read this, as it is a major spoiler that assumes you have read up to at least the end of Satoru's route!

Background

Before getting into the analysis, let's review the basic facts:

• There are three locations, each in a different time period: Mount Akakura, January 11­–17, 2011; Hotarubi Mine in southwest Hokkaido (aka the Third Location), July 12–18, 2011; and Aosagi island several miles west of Rebun Island off the northwest coast of Hokkaido, January 11–17, 2012. (The first one actually exists; the other two are fictional, although the coordinates given for the second location are actually on Hokkaido.)
• Within each location, there is an "area", namely a sphere of radius 110 meters (also called "the circle"), which is involved in the transfer: an emergency shelter cabin on Akakura, a "Third Area" in Hotarubi Mine, and a mental facility called "SPHIA" on Aosagi island.
• At semi-random times, all of the matter comprising each of the three areas is transferred into the space occupied by one of the other areas, in such a way as to make seamless replacements within all of the locations. This happens at parallel points in time. For instance, the transfers in one location happen exactly one year after those of another, and a third location has transfers exactly between the other two in time. The areas are always permuted in the same way: whatever is at Akakura is moved into Hotarubi, whatever is in Hotarubi is moved into Aosagi, and whatever is in Aosagi is moved into Akakura.
• 33 minutes after each semi-random transfer, another transfer takes place, in the same "direction" as the first. And then another 33 minutes later, yet another transfer occurs, so as to return the areas to their proper locations/times.
• Normally, anyone within one of these areas is carried along with it during a transfer, so they end up in another time and location.
• However, there are two groups of three people who have a strange quantum-like entanglement with each other, such that their minds stay attached to their respective locations, and they trade bodies (the "personality transfer"). These groups are: Yukidoh Satoru on Aosagi Island, Fuyukawa Kokoro on Akakura, and α (aka the Third Personality) in Hotarubi Mine; Inubushi Keiko on Aosagi Island, Suzukage Hotori on Akakura, and another third personality that will be known as β in Hotarubi Mine.

Visualizing

With the above information, let's diagram what's happening:

This is the normal state of affairs. The arrows in the inner loop represent the way in which the areas will be moved when a transfer happens. Note that there is no geographical significance here (the areas are in fact lined up along a single longitudinal meridian, though at different altitudes).

I have also noted the relation between the six entangled people and their bodies. Their bodies are shown inside the inner loop, because those are carried along in the transfer. However, their minds (written simply as their names) are between the inner and outer loops, even though their bodies are within the areas rather than the surrounding space; in fact, if anyone is outside the circle when a transfer occurs, the personality transfer is broken and any "partnered" minds are then carried along with the bodies they are in. I will explain my reason for writing them that way later on.

Now let us see what happens in a transfer:

The locations of the areas have been rotated. Now SPHIA is at Akakura, the shelter cabin in Hotarubi, and the Third Area on Aosagi. The six entangled minds stay at their locations and enter their partnered bodies.

Incidentally, looked at from the perspective inside one of these areas, it appears as though everything else outside the circle has changed, in an opposite sense to what one would observe from the outside. This is represented by the dashed arrows forming the outer loop.

And there's the situation after another transfer. A third transfer puts everything and everyone back where they were, assuming no one left the circles.

A rescue across time and space

Of course, people do leave the circle at various points of the story. The first time is during a long gap between transfer cycles, but the people involved return before anything strange can happen. However, the next time it is specifically to take advantage of the transfers.

At this point, Yomogi Seiji, one of the refugees at the shelter cabin, has through some unfortunate misunderstandings wandered out of the circle and been left behind on the snowy mountain. At a parallel time, Satoru has left the Aosagi circle in order to attempt a rescue of those refugees. It's also worth noting that, for reasons I will explain shortly, α and β must have been moved out of the Third Area. Thus, all entanglements are broken.

In the above diagram, I have written the names of all of the characters where I believe they are at any given time. Yuni, of course, is present in two places and times; the older one I wrote as Yuni′ ("Yuni prime"), borrowing from mathematical practice. Those inside the inner loop are within their respective circle. Those outside the outer loop are outside their respective circle.

And now you may see why I put the minds between the loops before: because they were in a special "in-between" state, spatially inside the circle, but bound to the surrounding location.

One transfer has taken place. The Third Area is now at Aosagi. I glossed over it in the diagrams, but of course Satoru enters the Third Area for half an hour. At this point, choosing to open the door to the white room, or having failed to properly deduce the nature of the transfer, leads to Satoru getting stuck and then killed—a bad ending. But in the good ending, he leaves again before the next transfer.

This also demonstrates why one can deduce at this point that α and β have gone away between this transfer and the previous one. If they were still there, Satoru should have seen them when he entered the circle, but he didn't. On the other hand, if they had left sooner, they would have broken the personality transfer.

Unfortunately, in his haste to get out of SPHIA, Satoru got his ID card stuck in the reader at the gate and had to leave it behind, resulting in the gate being left open. For various reasons, everyone left in SPHIA discovers this and walks out, right into the blizzard on Mount Akakura.

Another transfer, and...

...the remaining refugees leave the circle and meet Satoru. After learning of Yomogi's predicament, Satoru tries to go to the cabin in order to reach him. However...

...it's not meant to be. Before he reaches the boundary, the cycle completes itself...

...and Kokoro follows him into SPHIA. Yuni keeps Mayuzumi on the beach. (I can just imagine how much "fun" he must have, with only her to keep him company for a while. And why did she cooperate, after being such a nuisance up to that point? Maybe it was exhaustion.)

Skip forward a while, and Satoru has brought Kokoro up to speed on events. They then decide to go outside, and...

...a transfer occurs at just that moment. Both are carried to Akakura, where they...

...immediately set out to find the others in order to guide them back to SPHIA.

Meanwhile, the cycle completes. As the party is on its way back...

...Yuni enters the circle...

...and is carried away by another transfer.

The rest go to SPHIA, which has appeared in front of them.

Finally, the last cycle finishes, with the party ending up on Aosagi island in 2012.

Keiko and Hotori

At the end of Satoru's route, he theorizes that, after switching bodies with her for several days, Keiko finally "settled" in Hotori's body, where she died of exposure on Mount Akakura. However, Kokoro feels that there is something wrong with this theory, and I have to agree.

You see, Satoru was conveniently forgetting one of the basic rules of the personality transfer he had learned: each mind is bound to its respective location, e.g. Satoru on Aosagi, Kokoro on Akakura, and α in Hotarubi. They cannot leave those places unless the entanglement is broken.

Thus there are only two possibilities: either Hotori's body somehow survived at least through that last transfer before the rescue, in which case Keiko's mind must still be at Aosagi, or Hotori's body died earlier, in which case Keiko should have died as well (the same thing is seen to happen to Kokoro when Satoru dies). Since Keiko seems to be alive and well even on the 17th, we can eliminate the second possibility. As far-fetched as it seems, we must conclude that Hotori's body tenaciously clung to life for days. Besides, we saw it move, even if Kokoro and Satoru failed to notice.

Is it possible the two made one last personality transfer in the above sequence, contrary to what I diagrammed? No, because β was already out of the picture. The only conclusion I can make is that Keiko was in her own body in the end.