Since there are still someone here, I want to talk a little about some of my random thoughts about Umineko. But this a HUGE post written by someone with an english on the same level as Battler's so take in consideration that it's IMPOSSIBURU for this to be PERFECTO.
From the first time that I was reading Umineko I found Dlanor's weapons really strange. The definition of what they do is ridiculous and not even really used on the story. During the fight of Dlanor with some characters they always do something like block or dodge her attack while the weapon's description says that it is impossible to do that. Of course, on Umineko world how powerful a character is will dependent more on how much intelligent he is, but if it's like that what even is the point of writing all that ? And for some reason it appears on the tips, who should serve to have an easy look on some important points of the story.
But thinking on the tohya's forgeries as something he wrote to pass a message to Ange I come of a kind of interpretation.
First, as we know, Dlanor isn't the writer Ronald A. Knox, but the personification of the Decalogue, who is introduced as the "way" to solve the mystery. Of course you can debate about how much the gameboard really follow the decalogue, but is a fact that Battler solved the game using the Decalogue as a base to his reasoning. After that we need to remember the names of her weapons: Red key and Blue key.
That "key" part on the name is kind of strange for a random weapon. But if we think as the decalogue as a way to "open" the cat box, it appears to have some importance.
We then have 2 keys who are able to open the cat box, each of them with a different definition. The red key is also called The red key of "judgment" and it's definition give an image of death, destruction and hopelessness.
The other one is the blue key who is also called The Blue key of "reflection", and that already give the overall image that I have about this weapon. Something that make someone able to "renew" oneself, it's the auto-reflection.
What I think about those weapons is that each of them represent a different disposition of the person solving the case. The why this person is try to understand what happened, what they are trying to attain with that. If we thing about the description as something referring to Ange, the red key "of judgment" would be doing that for "revenge" or even with no specific porosity, just judging who is right and who is wrong, while the blue key "of reflection", gives some true meaning to the objective of solving the case, as an important process to knowing oneself, and reflect about one's life.
What I find interesting when I think about that is that on EP8, on Ange's choice about trick or magic, Battler shows to Ange 2 DOORS and depending of hers conclusion she will pass through one of the doors. On the trick ending, the door that I think that is open with the "red key", Ange kills Amakusa and even Kawabata and what happened to her is unknown. On the magic end, she reflects about herself, about how she lived her life, and how she will live from now on. It's interesting that while the red key is defined as "denying the concept of things", the blue key definition it's said about a reflection achieved through "self-doubting" and denying themselves. On the trick end Ange, more or less, deny everything that Battler was trying to teach her and kill Amakusa and Kawabata, in other words this too could be referred as "denying their existence". On the magic end Ange understand and accept what Battler was trying to convey, and "denied" herself, as we know that she killed her identity as Ushiromiya Ange and "renew" herself as Kotobuki Yukari.
Another point is about Erika as a representation of what Ange could become, something that was already talked sometime ago. It's interesting that Amakusa analogy about the children soldiers and that Ange could become that, is more or less the base to Erika's character. She even calls herself an intellectual rapist because what she likes to do is just reveal people's secret. Referring to Ange would mean her solving things with no goal in mind, and this is more or less what Erika does every time. On episode 6 when Ange becomes the "miko" of Featherine, in other words the reader, is the episode where Battler is the GM(writer), and we have Erika on the position of "reader", trying to solve the case. So on a way we can thing that the reader and the writer of the episode overlaps.
Well thinking on Erika as a representation of the "bad" Ange gives some kind of interesting interpretation.
First when you think that when Erika started to try to solve the murders on episode 5, she summoned Dlanor( and as much, her weapons), which is kind of interesting when you thing about what I said before about what they can represent and that her weapons were written with Ange in mind. So is kind of interesting to have the two of them as partners.
Then thinking about the ends there is a lot of difference concerning Erika there, the most interesting is Ange acting like Erika on the trick end and then she appears, almost as a ghost. I think that it's even possible to make a parallel between Ange/Erika on the trick end and Tohya/Battler on the magic end. On the magic End, Tohya goes to the Fukuin house, now similar to Rokkenjima. It's kind of important to think that "Ushiromiya Battler" "died" on rokkenjima and comes back (at least metaphorically) when his other identity, Tohya, kind of comes back to Rokkenjima's equivalent here, the Fukuin house. On the Trick end, after Ange kills Amakusa and Kawabata, Erika come back, on a place similar to where the true Furudo Erika died,on a boat near Rokkenjima. And the one there is Ange. So we can think that on both ends there is someone who dies on a place and come back when his other identity arrives there, connecting death and rebirth.
For me it kind of make sense because the trick end is the end where Ange doesn't really reflect about herself and just go down the road Amakusa feared on episode 4. On the magic end, Erika is not more with Ange because she passed through all of that proccess of auto-reflection, and as the blue key says "denied herself"(Erika), purging Erika's character from her. Again, it's interesting to take in consideration that on that end Erika is with Bern and Lambda.
While the relationship between Bern with rika and Lambda with takano is still something to debate, Bern is a lot of times thought as someone that was purged out of Rika, and we can kind of say the same about Lambda. So Bern was purged out of Rika, Lambda out of Takano and Erika was on that end, after Ange reflect about herself and "purging" out of her everything that represents Erika, together with the other two who are similar to her.
Another thing that I find interesting if we look with all of that in mind is that there are 3 main "groups" of characters on Umineko: The 7 sisters of purgatory, The chiesters and the Eiserne jungfrau. The interesting part is that each of them could have a direct relation to each of the members of Mariage sorciere. The 7 sisters of purgatory being based of the other servants of the fukuin house that Yasu met; the chiesters, while they can refer to the winchiesters, they can represent maria's ceramic bunnies too; and dlanor( and erika) representing some aspect from Ange. I think that is possible that Cornelia and Gertrude have they own "role" about Ange, but never thought too deep about that. I need to reread Umineko before talking about anything of the sort, but I kind of remember that almost all the scenes with them, they are interacting between themselves, dlanor and Erika, with the only exception being the party on ep8. The first thing that I thought was a talk between Maria and Beato were she says:
Quote:
Maria: "You're right... There are some magics that we can only see when we're kids... There are some that only adults can understand. Right now, Ange is between the two of those.
Beatrice: "She's lost the magic of children, and yet, she has yet to understand the magic of adults. The most painful period of one's life"
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Looking by that perspective I kind of thought about Cornelia representing the child and Gertrude as the adult side. On the party of ep8 Gertrude is talking with Will, Nanjo and Genji about mystery books, and how things change with time. Cornelia on the other hand is talking with Rudolf, Krauss and Lucifer and the main point about the conversation is that Cornelia is still a KID because she still doesn't understand that rules are just guidelines and that she will be forever a "newcomer" if she doesn't learn how and when to work around them. While I don't have any kind of interpretation to the "rules" part, there's the fact that both of them have something to do with maturing.
On Gertrude case is referring more to mystery books and entertainment, while on Cornelia is more about a "newcomer" on an organization. I like the fact that Gertrude is the experienced member of Eiserne Jungfrau while Cornelia is the newcomer, to represent that point about the child and the adult. We could even interpret that Erika "Bullying" Cornelia as Ange denying her child like self.
But is still not a theory that I find solid enough, I mean, even Dlanor is said to be a child thousand of times, so it kind of lose the point of Cornelia being the child here.
Anyway it’s “just” that and sorry if something is difficult to understand (probably is), I usually don’t write anything in English.