...WHAT?

Are... are you seriously claiming that what he said isn't true? Are you seriously denying 100+ years of psychological research that has brought us to those kind of conclusions?

Where the fuck are you from? Where do you have to live to not hear the stories about how child molesters were often molested themselves, or how psychopaths weren't loved enough as children?

How can you deny that people might have REASONS for doing evil things?

I... I need to lie down.

Thanks. It's good to see that someone else understands that Bern's cruel, heartless actions cannot necessarily be called evil.

@CainSonozaki:

I've nearly giving up trying to sort out the swamp of possible metaphors and maze of psychological elements which makes up the Meta-world. Though briefly, here's what I've come to accept as fact, to make things easier for me. Agree and disagree at your leisure.
-Ronove and Virgillia are Yasu/Shannon/Beato's perception of Genji and Kumasawa, respectively, though this should be obvious by now.
-Gaap is an imaginary friend, much like Beato to Shannon and Shannon to Yasu, to Yasu, to deal with the cruelty of the other servants that even Shannon couldn't fix. -The Stakes are imaginary servants of Yasu/Beato, created from the stakes that Yasu/Shannon found while cleaning one day. The Siestas are the forest band, servants created jointly by Beato and Maria, but are independant of them. It's also safe to assume they represent the use of guns in murder once they appear.
From then on, Meta characters such as Bern, Lambda, Erika, Dlanor and the Inquisitors and Will approach the border of fantasy. I personally believe them to be independant of Yasu's crowded head, simply travelling people and pieces, but at that point, it's currently mostly a "choose your own perspective" sort of thing.

But then, the fact remains that Higurashi is not supposed to be directly connected to Umineko. And so far in Umineko, we had no idea what Bernkastel has been facing by herself, so it makes it quite difficult to sympathize with her until we do.

Since when was this a fact?

This is really just discourse on moral philosophy. You're asking whether a selfish person that enjoys the suffering of others is evil. (I'd say yes, even though, if Bern is who she's implied to be, I can symphatise with her.)

If it is, it means that it is impossible to read Umineko without reading Higurashi first. But Umineko is not a sequel, it is a separate story altogether. So unless Umineko is planning to elaborate on Bern's fate all over again...

I don't think we're going to get much more on Bern's past to be honest. I think Ryukishi is going to let it be up the the reader's decision as to whether or not Bern and Rika are truly related.

Though I could have sworn that one of the extra Umineko Tips was authored by Frederica Bernkastel. I think it was part of the Bernkastel's Letter Tip

I think Bernkastel, Lambda, and AuAu are shown to have a Higurashi connection, but that's just to tie similar devices together... I don't know...

Or maybe... they do have a literal connection, and the Higurashi characters like Rika, Takano, and AuAu, being in the same universe as Umineko's, are trying to figure out what happened years after the Rokkenjima incident with newly found Battler, beggining his mental battle with Beatrice in the first four games through the bottles he got from Featherine thinking they were real because he didn't understand why his family blew up. Takano provides all the facts to Featherine, while Rika reads, then they all write their own story about what happened and have sharing critique time with Ange and Battler... But they don't like that very much because Rika actually believes she was there during a boat accident. And then all of the sudden, this book critic comes a long, named Kiechii Will, to end everything thinking it's all morally stupid to guess what could of happened to actual people's lives. Then he fails cause Rika kicks him out. Ange and Battler get mad at them and Battler decides he's just going to write his own story for Ange. I guess that's my crackpot literal approach. Never mind. :heh:

EDIT: I think I edited my crackpot theory to it's finalization. XD

If that is so, why would Higurashi be a novel in Uminekoverse?

By the way, are there any translations for the EP8 screenshots?

Ahh don't ruin my theory with your facts toxins! XD

Wasn't there also a novel called Higurashi IN Higurashi or something?

XD *burns*

I want to know the truth so bad! ;_;

@Thunder: No, was there?

I view any connections between Umineko and Higurashi as bonus points. That is, Bern maybe associated with Rika and Frederica, but it has nothing to do with how she became a twisted, cruel witch, which in turn is only necessary for establishing her character for Umineko. We don't need to understand why she is like this. We can understand, as human beings, that in order for her to become like this, something inexplicably horrible must've happened to her before getting trapped in the Umineko birdcage. That's all that is necessary. She is like this, and that is why she opposes the happiness and love of Beato and Battler.
Umineko is not her story. It is not Lambda's story, nor is it AuAu's, Erika's or Will's. It is Battler and Beato's story, it is the story of the Umineko family and it's sins. They are side characters, spectators.
Regardless, I love her twisted, inhumane personality to bits, and I'd love to learn more about her. I just don't expect to within Umineko.

There are actually two different Higurashi novels in Higurashi... the actual games themselves are mentioned (in the context of them being available at the Summer '84 Comiket) and Ooishi co-authors a book with Akasaka in the Himatsubushi Chapter that shares the same name, although the content seems to be rather different (it's a history of the events leading up to the Hinamizawa Disaster).

With this in mind, I fail to see how it was a surprise that Umineko was also fictional within its own universe, but, of course, everything is clear in hindsight...

This is why people tend to disregard connections between Higurashi and Umineko as humourus fanservice. If you're familiar with most of Higurashi, you can catch plenty of silly little connections between the two series, from the Higurashi mystery novel to how Furfur and Zepar's outfits resemble the Angel Mort uniforms from Higurashi. Because there's plenty of pointless connections like these, people have are more reluctant to theorize about serious connections, like Bernkastel = Frederica and such.

They're interfering too much to be 'side characters'. XD

But I've always used to think that Bern's acting the part of the 'bad guy' on purpose, just to create a situation like in Higurashi where nobody has to blame each other anymore. O: And to let everyone else achieve a happy ending for themselves. But that possibility seems to be going down.

The Stakes, you mean. XD

Actually, those would be the Stake uniforms. They practically ARE the Angel Mort uniforms, just with a red jacket overtop.

Anyway, are there any translations for the Ep8 screenshots?

Actually, that brings up an interesting point.

If the Higurashi novel resembles what happened in Higurashi, and Battler read it, and shared it with Shannon, and Shannon is Yasu, then it stands to reason that Yasu had Angel Mort in mind when imagining the Stakes as they are to appeal to Battler's fetishes. Of course, the uniforms aren't exactly the same because Yasu doesn't have a visual to work off of, only text.

I think they call this Fridge Brilliance.

Hey, that might actually work. :D