MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
During a trial if you lose all of your life points, then everyone votes you as the blackened and you can either continue on or give up and you lose the game. But if you were to die in the first part of the first trial (When you’re Kaede) would you beat that trial since she was the blackened?
They probably just vote for Shuichi, he was the primary scapegoat.
That’d be a shame. It would be so cool to be able to win that way.
I only see the Let’s Play’s, so that’s all I have to go off of, but I’m fairly certain Var had run out of lives at one point. He didn’t win.
But he chose to keep trying. I’m pretty sure there’s an option to give up.