[AuraTwilight]

I was talking about fake plot holes. You've been taking a plot thread that has an established explanation. And then you create new theories and find a ton of new things that don't make sense. There are less plot holes if you don't make up unnecessary things then if you do. A lot of the plot holes discussed here weren't there until you analyzed it over and over.

What plot thread are you even talking about here? I'm not even sure if you're talking to the right person because I haven't really been talking about many non-canonical things recently.

The thought experiment you've been invoking is a slipper slope fallacy

And those plot holes are insignificant. They're not addressed because they don't have to do with "core" of the story. Except in the case with episode 3, which was addressed outside of the novel.

Uh, no. You're invoking the Slippery Slope Fallacy incorrectly, because in cases like Personality Death or Cheating With the Red it's an 100% valid criticism.

The plot holes not being 'core' are irrelevant. They damage the suspension of disbelief in the narrative and undermine a lot of its core precepts. Like Renall put it very well, "Why the hell are miracles so special if they're all over the place?"

Umineko is a story that puts thematics over realism, and I'm cool with that. I don't even mind Shkanon at all, I've made this clear. But in many important ways Ryukishi bungles thematic information as well, which is even more true than the red.

The fact that he doesn't address these in the core isn't an excuse. That's just Ryukishi deciding "Fuck it, it's not important" and hoping no one calls him on it. That's a faux pas in the professional writing world.

You know, those of us who have editors.

I said you're not "open to it" You think he's trying to trick you and that it's someone else. I think The "trick" ending is a metaphor saying that you're not supposed see it that way.

If anything, I'm being extremely Pro-Magic here, not Pro-Trick, since I'm having absolute faith in Yasu's characterization as given and finding her personality incompatible with the idea of her being a mass murderer to any degree except perhaps accidental.

Shannon and Kanon are the only characters that are hinted to be effected by personality death in every episode. Touya is Physically Battler, but at the same time he isn't the same person at all. The old battler doesn't exist anymore. That is how you explain how is personality is "dead".

...Which is exactly what Renall and I were talking about. Two entirely different things qualify as "Personality Death", and they have no non-superficial things in common. Which means you can make almost any sort of shenanigans into "Personality Death."

The problem with that is not even the Red Truth can put a stop to this by the very nature of it, so there's no way to deny Personality Truth except author fiat with no basis in logic. Ryukishi has to just use "because I say so" without any concrete logic behind it.

Why is this bad? Because Umineko was a novel to understand his universe and the thought processes at work behind himself and the characters. Personality Death and it's implications (and why Ryukishi didn't mean certain implications) can only be understood in RETROSPECT.

He cheated.

These characters are given the most weight in the story for having personality death. It doesn't matter if it's possible to create a theory with another character. Because none of those character are actually being used that way in the story. There is no need to prove they're not. They're just not.

Evatrice says hi.

If the theory doesn't fit in the gaps of logic that just means it doesn't fit. The explanation you're leading people away from might be dumb, but at least it fits with what the story says, and doesn't go into unnecessary things.

I don't care what people decide to believe in otherwise; that's their personal business. I'm just pointing out that Ryukishi basically cheated and failed in accomplishing his goals with his novel as a consequence.

I've read this before. I don't recall what Ryukishi said about it. And could take another look. But I think he's referring to how people invoke it.

He invokes it in an interview when he says anyone else's truth is as valid as his own, and makes the same sort of statements in EP5 and EP8. It's almost one of the significant themes of Chiru, to his credit.

If he really did intend for Death of the Author, I can forgive a lot more; but it also means he has much less authoritative weight about 'what really happened'.

He didn't though. He gave a solution.

What is it, then? It's not "Yasu did it", because EP8's ending. It's not "Kyrie did it", Bernkastel herself josses that one and jossing it is one of EP8's turning points.

So who killed everyone, and why, and how? Those are your three questions you have to answer for Umineko to be a suitable mystery. And he did advertise Umineko as a mystery, so it has to be judged by the standards of one, or, again, he's cheating and taking his ball to go home in order to have his cake and eat it too.

But the things he didn't answer are always things only the culprit would know or things that don't have any relevance to the mystery. You wouldn't normally be able to figure out these things unless you were on Rokkenjima at the time. And I don't think any of us will ever visit Rokkenjima.

So then why did he say that our goal was to solve for these things? If he didn't intend for us to answer them, he shouldn't of invested so much time on them to the detriment to the actual themes of his novel. And you can't deny that he did so, given that he rewrote entire episodes to keep the speculating fandom on it's toes on the mystery aspect.

It boils down to two things:

1) Either Umineko is meant to be treated as a mystery, in which it is a failure by any literary standard, or

2) Umineko is not really a mystery, or the mystery is not important, then he has suffocated and harmed his true message by putting too much focus on the 'unimportant' mystery.

There is no middle ground, here. It is a binary switch. There's nothing wrong with liking Umineko despite it's flaws; I still love the shit out of it and re-read it every few months. But stop pretending these flaws don't exist.