[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

My point was more in pointing out the deliberate separation and cherry-picking of theories depending on the situation. People seem less inclined to find one straight answer, but try to twist elements around to work out the perfect solution for one aspect of the scenario.

Hum... I think that, unless the discussion is very linear and a person wants to expose his solution of Umineko with a long essay it's pretty hard for another person to check if person X is picking theories according to the situation or merely revised a precedent theory and applied it to all the game.

After all a person can acknowledge he made a mistake in his previous theory and... well discharge it for another that, according to him, is the one stright answer.

If we never revised theories... well I don't think we would get very far and it would make discussing Umineko pretty pointless...

Originally Posted by haguruma

But wouldn't that imply that he knew the entirety of the answer from the very beginning, even if only subconsciously? And isn't that only possible if he is also the culprit? I'm against creating a clear hierarchical order of reality＞fantasy , I am for an intertwined relationship between both, in which events within our reality are at the same time occurring on the meta-plane.

I'm not sure I'm following you.

My theory is:
- Tohya solved the message bottles
- Tohya has recovered some memories of Rokkenjima and the people in it
- he used his solution, his knowledge of facts post Rokkenjima and his memories to write the tales
- it's possible that in the tales there are some facts that really happened on Rokkenjima... however I wish you good luck in figuring out which one exactly are.
- No idea how much memory Tohya recovered while writing the tales and how much in denial he is about being Battler. The Meta might imply some turning points but as this depends on how you interpret them for now I'll let this up to speculation.

So how Tohya writing forgeries based on Yasu's messages would insure he knows who the culprit in Prime is?
But Tohya as a writer knows who the culprit is in his tale... and the culprit is Yasu.

It's entirely possible that Tohya didn't wrote his tales giving at the end a straight answer so that when you read Banquet, Alliance and End you don't know who exactly the culprit is. It's possible in Banquet he tried to use the popular theory of Eva-culprit to 'cover up' his truth, so that people that read it were faced with a setting in which Eva was definitely suspicious and maybe she even killed Battler in the book too, but an Eva solution didn't solve every murder so that the fantasy of the witch is preserved unless you attack Banquet with the Yasu-culprit theory.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Let's take the TIP Witches' Tanabata as an example. Bernkastel is taking influence on Ange's attitude towards Eva by promising her mother's definite death as soon as she accepts Eva as a substitute. This tells us more than just the struggle of Touya himself, but also reveals other characters' problems.

All I can say about the meta is that it seems more focused on the psychological aspect of the characters. However I would consider Ange's meeting with Bern not meta but a fantasy scene, similar to when Shannon meets Beato in Ep 2 and Beato tells her to break the mirror in the shrine or when in Ep 5 Beato tells Natsuhi with her magic she'll resurrect Kinzo.

It's just an interpretation though. As I said I'm still considering theories over the Meta as none seems satisfactory enough as of now.

Originally Posted by haguruma

I would actually say that within the context of Umineko the gamemaster and the author are to be regarded on different levels. Some scenes simply don't make sense to me if they are simply creations of the mind, so at least to a certain degree, the metaworld is as real as the reality Touya and Ange exist in. The meta beings act out what is written but then again these changes in the metaworld influence what is written.
So the gamemaster (if not all challengers in the metaworld) is representative of the attitude and thought process with which that particular gameboard is approached. In that sense the author is more the gamemaker.

It can be that gamemaker is a better world for 'author'.
As in the Meta the gamemaster was also the one who made up the story I honestly didn't bother searching for a new definition.

Originally Posted by haguruma

It wasn't even the message bottle that gave the initial spark but Eva selling Kinzo's collection to the public. Probably, without this incentive, the fisherman would have also never come out with the story about him discovering the message bottle.
But considering that Eva did not sell the collection until she was in dire need of money, doesn't that hint towards the events of the forgery craze being even less controlled than many people seem to assume?

I like to think that the events of the forgery craze were pretty coincidental and not planned.
Sure, likely Eva had been suspected and people in her and Ange's inner circle might have continued suspecting her even without the forgery craze but, after 10 years, if it hadn't been for the forgerers and the witch hunters likely the interest of the rest of the world would have died down which probably would have been good for Ange as she wouldn't have to continuously deal with conspiration theories.

Interesting enough the fact that Eva was having financial problems might also prove she didn't receive the bank account code or refused to use it or it was only a thing presented in the games (this would imply that Ange's talking with people receiving it might have been purely fictional).

Anyone has suggestions? Theories? Whatever else?