[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Problem #1: If we accept this, they're woefully incomplete.

BATTLER has no obligation to provide fantasy narrative. In terms of precedent, we're given no magical explanation for Maria, Kumasawa, and Gohda's deaths in Alliance; no magical explanation for any deaths in End; no magical explanation for spontaneously materializing letters in several episodes; no magical explanation for why Nanjo and Kumasawa's corpses disappear from the kitchen in Turn; ect. ect.

It is notable that only Battler's explanation was left out of a set of related deaths; however, I believe that was intentional by our storyteller, BATTLER. Battler's "death" is already odd from a purely mystery standpoint as being the only male victim, and also strange from the standpoint that he has never died in any twilight of any story before. It also makes sense that BATTLER would want to draw Erika's attention to Battler if we are to follow the Genius Battler Theory. In the end, I don't think he's trying to weave an interesting mystery so much as he's trying to convey a message using the mystery/fantasy context, and leaving Battler's "death" unexplained is somehow intended to further this goal. Although Erika fails to get anything because she just tunnel-visions on the mystery.

Originally Posted by Renall

Problem #2: Chick-Beato's existence makes no sense in the story outside of a meta context.

Having scenes that come out of nowhere has already happened before, numerous times. Remember when Kanon suddenly had a lightsaber arm?

Assuming my viewpoint is true (magic written, meta not), it is interesting to imagine what the reader is actually getting; imagine if all that we were presented with in episode 6 was the meta-discussions Erika was involved in plus anything that occurs in a Rokkenjima setting, with none of the love duel stuff and none of BATTLER's discussions in his meta-staffroom. What we get is kind of like Turn, isn't it? You know, what with the out of context and out of nowhere magical scenes... and then the trick to get out of the logic error is a lot like Banquet's trick to kill Nanjo. Except that now we get to see how these strange things happen from the gamemaster's standpoint.

Originally Posted by Renall

Problem #3: The setup of the First Twilight in ep6 seems to present a narrative puzzle that is more impactful if the successive discovery of the bodies hits the reader just as suddenly as it hits the characters.

Like you said, it has precedent; and each time there's a fantasy aspect to the narrative it diminishes the impact of the mystery aspect. Although I have often been displeased with it myself, I think that the fantasy narratives have been presented as more or less equally important as the mystery narratives (it varies depending on the episode). And from a fantasy standpoint, wasn't it just cooler that George was fighting EVA outside in the rain? They need their space to maneuver, you know.

Originally Posted by Renall

It's a valid question. I think it's reasonable to assume that magic scenes probably do show up in the text (I usually lean that way), but there are a lot of problems with that hypothesis even now. For example, explaining why Legend wouldn't have them when Turn does. Had the magic stuff started in Banquet, at least we'd have a different-author excuse.

Originally Posted by Renall

The only other solution is that Legend did have magic scenes, and the story skipped them (as when Shannon sees the butterflies and the story immediately cuts away) or edited them (like Kanon's death scene, which perhaps could have been longer originally).

The Legend to Turn transition is a problem. Although, saying that fantasy scenes are all meta-projections doesn't completely solve it either. You still have to deal with the reader's rather strikingly different interpretation of Turn. Or, as you describe we can take things to Ryuukishi meta-level, but I am pretty loathe to do that here.

Originally Posted by Renall

On the other hand, if the magic stuff is fundamental to the narrative, we run into problems with Legend, Banquet, and End, where you could strip out the magical narrative and retain the mystery more or less intact (as opposed to Turn and Alliance, where you really can't).

Hmm... I don't agree at all for Turn. if all you do is follow Battler's direct experience, then it's totally a mystery, complete with mysterious crime scenes, closed rooms, and false witnesses (a ShKanon-Gohda-Genji-Rosa explanation works quite nicely). As for Alliance, well, you could make a story with just Battler in the cousin's room (almost) the whole time. There'd be no way to solve it though; it would just be a weird psychological horror story.

Originally Posted by Renall

Remember, we can't simply say Legend is an establishing story with magic scenes to come in later works, because:

• We have no idea if it was the first message bottle story written, located, or publicized, and much more important...
• The author had no way of knowing that Legend would be found first or found at all.

Unless, of course, the author of the message bottles had very strict control over which stories actually got published and could therefore both ensure Legend survived and was the first to get out.

Hmm... well iirc, Legend was not found first. Turn was actually the novel said to have been discovered by the authorities right after the Rokkenjima incident, and it was Legend that was discovered 4 years later. Also, the first discovered novel (Turn) wasn't taken seriously until the second novel was discovered.

Actually... wow, this all makes sense. People did find Turn first, but considered it nonsense because of all the magical bullshit. Then they found Legend, which could be taken seriously by itself, and realized it was the same author, which made people take another look at Turn. In other words, as long as Legend is actually found, it doesn't matter what order they were discovered, because the fact that Legend is the foundation story is clearly self-evident.

As far as the author's delivery method ensuring that Legend be found... well for 4 years it wasn't found. If we're already willing to accept the idea that Yasu dropped her stories into the water with no guarantees that they would discovered, then it's no big change to imagine one story to be more important than the others.

Originally Posted by Renall

I don't think you want to take anything the meta characters say about the content of the fiction too authoritatively.

Well, yes. I'm hesitant to do so, but I also think that episode 6's Ange-level meta shouldn't be ignored completely as a source for hints either. Basically, I think there are two forms of discussion happening there: one is an Umineko meta-level discussion between meta-Ange and Auau/Ikuko and the other is true-meta level discussion between us readers (represented by Ange) and Ryuukishi (represented by Auaukuko). So, when Ange speaks indignantly about having been killed once before in the fictions, I think she's speaking for herself as Ange to "Hachijou Touya" and not as a representation of us readers to Ryuukishi.