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Old 2011-09-08, 09:02   Link #24287
Renall
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Join Date: May 2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
And why the messages can't be meant for a second-best option?
I thought her main plan was to make Battler realize the truth directly.
AT's point is quite self-evident. Your idea that Beatrice wouldn't care about someone else finding her heart is denied directly in the game.
Well then it sure is a good thing you're the one who said that, because I didn't. I said it was directed to Battler. Maybe I shouldn't have called it "pointless" as an exercise otherwise, but I find it hard to believe she'd just do that on a lark, with the chance nothing would ever come of it, so maybe someone somewhere would eventually get the message too.

The bottles have to have a higher purpose in mind than just random information tossed to the tides. Besides, the same objection applies: If she just wanted someone generally to read and comprehend, what was supposed to happen if some or all of the bottles were lost? How can she both care about being understood and not care? Why would anyone behave in a completely self-defeating and apparently random (remember, Beatrice is not actually random in her behavior at all) fashion about something they purport to care deeply about? It's not as if Claire was like "Ehn, thanks I guess" when Will finished up with her. That's not the behavior of somebody who doesn't care.
Quote:
Your idea that the messages were meant for Battler simply cannot stand. Because she had better and more direct means for that. A message in a bottle can only be meant for a random person in the world.
Unless, you know, for some reason something happened on R-Prime that prevented her from doing it directly. Like maybe a murder spree or something? I dunno, just one of those things that's hinted at. How many times did Beatrice even get to confront Battler on the topic in a story? Once? One time? In Alliance, a game that wasn't even written by the message bottle author? If a meeting like that was the extent of the R-Prime interaction between "Beatrice" and Battler, it's no surprise she didn't get everything she needed to say said.

And if, hypothetically, at the end of it all she was alive and didn't know if Battler was (but knew he wasn't clearly dead; see ep4), how else could she reach him? She's supposed to be dead, so she can't use her old identity. He's missing, so he's clearly not using his. So a legally dead person whom Battler can't possibly identify (outside of meeting her, assuming he can recognize her) is looking for a person she can't easily find. You'd need to cast a wide net. How would you do that? Perhaps something that is a gigantic in-joke between you and him, popularized by a group of impressionable people who will generally miss the point? And on the off chance one of those people actually gets the joke too, well, that's some measure of satisfaction at least. If you never find the guy, at least you weren't wasting your time.

The notion that a message in a bottle has to be written for "a random person in the world" is exactly the trap that Wanderer was describing previously. We accept that, logically, your reasoning must be correct. If a person tosses a message in a bottle randomly out to sea, they must merely be hoping that somebody finds it. The stranded castaway just wants someone to be aware of his predicament, he doesn't care who rescues him. The confessing killer just wants his crime to be known. That's precisely the attitude you'd have about the message bottles...

...IF they were actually randomly tossed out to sea. That's what Wanderer is saying: That fundamental premise is entirely questionable for reasons I've raised over and over again, and for the thematic reasons he described.

Granted, if Yasu were Ikuko I guess she did find him pretty easily, unless that was a metaphor of sorts and it actually took a while. Not really the point though.

So yeah, I wouldn't be so quick to disclaim things. You do that a lot though, usually to your detriment. Just consider it for a bit. You don't have to agree, but it is an entirely plausible motivation. More plausible than "lololol I'mma release these bottles and maybe no one will ever find them and if they do maybe no one will ever understand them but if they do I'll be happy but if they don't I don't give a damn."

Also it's pretty funny that you'd say Yasu has a more direct method when this is a girl who apparently can't make a freaking phone call to a guy. She may have had a more direct method, but she's characterized as actually taking ridiculously circuitous ones. She likes to take people down a peg by making their stuff disappear or scaring them. She has a "more direct" method: Kicking their ass. That just doesn't seem to be what she considers fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
But I don't even understand why there should be disbelief about a message in a bottle.
There have been several cases of those reported in the real world.
In most of those cases the reason behind them was simply for fun, and for the idea that someone somewhere would find the message, without an expectation that it would definitely happen or that the sender would ever know.
There are reports of messages having been found several years later even decades.
Yeah, and that's exactly the sort of thing Beatrice would want people to rely on in believing in the authenticity of her messages. Wanderer went over this. It's the perfect trick: A message bottle, the ultimate random-chance message to no one in particular, is actually a targeted love letter directed at a single person, and it freaking works. Let's not forget that part. It works.

You even point out the implausibility of it yourself: It could be decades before a message bottle is found, and the sender might never know. Yet there's an entirely plausible set of reasons within Umineko itself why the timetable needs to be sped up:
  • If the message bottles aren't found for decades, do the Witch Hunters kick into high gear? Probably not.
  • If the sender actually did care about someone finding them, why chance them not being found in her lifetime?
Basically, if you automatically make the assumption that the message bottle sender died the weekend of Oct. 4/5 1986, then your claim might perhaps be more rational. But... we don't really have any reason to believe that, and there's an awful lot of strangeness surrounding the situation which would make me think otherwise.

I mean hell, Maria's diary. I've always had questions about that thing. How'd it survive? If Maria left it at home, why would she if that's so important and her handbag has infinite storage space? Why was it, like the Stake of Mammon, not considered evidence by the police? How did it just happen to get into Ange's hands (let's assume for a moment it actually did and wasn't just made up, which is also possible I guess)?

Yet we know it's authentic in authorship to Beatrice; Ootsuki confirms that. What else do we know about it? Precious little, except a remarkably implausible story told to us from someone who was six years old and traumatized at the time she received the diary.

If you insist that Beatrice must not have survived the incident, then we just have to swallow that story. How else could the handwriting appear? It's an unsatisfying taste to leave in the mouth, to say the least. Ange just got it by random chance. Just got this book that's incredibly comforting and helpful to her. By chance. Total luck. Might never've happened if some cop decided to retain it for possible investigation.

Or......... you know, it was intentionally given to her. Suddenly everything makes a whole lot more sense! The police never saw the stake and diary, so they were never considered evidence. If it was on the island, it was carried to safety by a survivor. If it was reconstructed later to give Ange comfort, its authenticity can be explained. For a theory you seem to dismiss as absurd, it sure makes a whole lot of sense.
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Redaction of the Golden Witch
I submit that a murder was committed in 1996.
This murder was a "copycat" crime inspired by our tales of 1986.
This story is a redacted confession.

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