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> ともあれ、ここが自宅でよかった。もしこんなところを誰かに見られていたなら、狂三は絶対にバレない死体の処理方法を調べねばならなく **なるところだった**
> 。

狂三 doesn’t want others to see her wearing Lolita dress. (The following text
says 士道 accidentally opens the door to her room and sees 狂三 dressed in Lolita
fashion)

I was taught that both 「たら……るところだった」and 「たら……たところだ」are fixed constructions
expressing counterfactual situations. So can we change the bold part to
なったところだ or なっていたところだ? If we can, what would be the difference between るところだった
and たところだ?

The previous
[link](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/82487/difference-
between-%E3%82%8B%E3%81%A8%E3%81%93%E3%82%8D%E3%81%A0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F-and-%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A8%E3%81%93%E3%82%8D%E3%81%A0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F?r=SearchResults)
doesn’t quite answer my question because the answer there isn’t about
counterfactual conditionals.
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question
grammar
「Condition...るところだった」vs「Condition... たところだ」difference?
Let’s first compare three sentences without ところだ or ところだった.

> 狂三は死体の処理方法を調べねばならなくな **る** 。  
>  It will become necessary for Kurumi to search for how to get rid of a
> corpse.  
>  (Kurumi will have to search for how to get rid of a corpse in the future.)

> 狂三は死体の処理方法を調べねばならなくなっ **た** 。  
>  It has (just) become necessary for Kurumi to search for how to get rid of a
> corpse.  
>  (Kurumi now has to search for how to get rid of a corpse because of a
> recent change in the situation.)

> 狂三は死体の処理方法を調べねばならなくなっ **ていた** 。  
>  It had (already) become necessary for Kurumi to search for how to get rid
> of a corpse.  
>  (Kurumi was already in a situation where she had to search for how to get
> rid of a corpse because of an earlier change in the situation.)

They were a bit hard to translate because of なる. I resorted to beginning each
sentence with “it” so the verb “become” would fit well to express a change in
the situation at various points in time. The translations may look awkward as
a result.

Anyway, these are precisely the situations Kurumi would have found herself in
if someone had seen her, as described from a third person’s perspective at the
time of the event. This should make sense because if ところ means anything, it is
“situation” or “circumstance”, and the part before it describes what kind of
situation or circumstance it is. (We had a similar discussion about つもり
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/86548/43676).)

Conceptually speaking, adding ところ **だった** at the end of each Japanese sentence
would be like adding “The situation **would have been** such that …” at the
beginning of its English translation and back-shifting the tenses inside the
_that_ -clause, whereas adding ところ **だ** would correspond to beginning the
English sentence with “The situation **would be** such that …” The former is
used to look back at a counterfactual situation in the past, while the latter
describes one in the present. (The past tense may also be used to describe a
present situation, but let’s leave it aside here.)

The distinction between 〜 **る** ところ **だった** and 〜 **た** ところ **だ** seems to get
blurred when the part before ところだ describes a state, rather than an action or
a change of state, that would have resulted from said counterfactual
condition, and that’s usually the case when 〜 **ていた** ところだ is used. The reason
the distinction gets blurred could be because the same state would have
continued till the present, making it unimportant whether the reference point
is set at a past time or in the present.

> 狂三は死体の処理方法を調べねばならなくな **る** ところ **だった** 。  
>  The situation would have been such that Kurumi now had to search for how to
> get rid of a corpse.  
>  (Kurumi would have had to begin to search for how to get rid of a corpse.)

> 狂三は死体の処理方法を調べねばならなくなっ **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  The situation would be such that Kurumi was already in a situation where
> she had to search for how to get rid of a corpse.  
>  (Kurumi would have already had to search for how to get rid of a corpse.)

Although we haven’t considered it so far, 調べねばならなくなっ **ている** ところ **だった** also
works fine. Actually, this is the direct result of swapping the position of
the tense marker on 調べねばならなくなっ **ていた** ところ **だ**.

While 調べねばならなくなっ **た** ところ **だ** may not be totally unacceptable, it doesn’t
seem to work so well as the other options probably because 調べねばならなくなっ **た** is
more naturally understood as describing a past change than its resulting
state, and therefore, it doesn’t sound like referring to a counterfactual
situation that would have lasted till the present as much as 調べねばならなくなっ
**ていた** does. It sounds more like a normal expression of aspect.

I guess 空に飛ばしてやっ **た** ところだ in one of your comments is OK because its focus is
not so much on a past act of throwing as it is on its result. The person in
question would be in the sky by now.

In general, I would say 〜 **ていた** ところだ sounds more natural than simple 〜 **た**
ところだ when expressing a counterfactual situation. In the
[link](https://nihongonosensei.net/?p=18734) you provided, every example that
matches 〜 **た** ところだ also matches 〜 **ていた** ところだ, and they can be rephrased
using 〜 **ている** ところ **だった** without changing their meanings much.

> 父が生きていたら、一緒にテーブルを囲んで料理を食べ **ていた** ところ **だ** ろう。  
>  父が生きていたら、一緒にテーブルを囲んで料理を食べ **ている** ところ **だった** ろう。

> 手伝ってくれなければ、とっくに諦め **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  手伝ってくれなければ、とっくに諦め **ている** ところ **だった** 。

> 落とした財布を届けてくれなかったら、今頃途方に暮れ **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  落とした財布を届けてくれなかったら、今頃途方に暮れ **ている** ところ **だった** 。

> 秘密がバレたら大喧嘩になっ **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  秘密がバレたら大喧嘩になっ **ている** ところ **だった** 。

> アドバイスをくれなければ逃げ出し **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  アドバイスをくれなければ逃げ出し **ている** ところ **だった** 。

> パソコン修理してくれなかったら今頃買い替え **ていた** ところ **だ** 。  
>  パソコン修理してくれなかったら今頃買い替え **ている** ところ **だった** 。
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answer