[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

I don't really want to find Ryukishi's heart because what I've seen of it so far suggests he's kind of an arrogant hypocritical asshole. At least Beatrice is pitiable.

That's very much how I feel, tho I don't dislike Ryuukishi's attitude I find it creepy if he's trying to represent himself a blonde caucasian witch in love with Battler.

Spoiler for haguruma:

Originally Posted by haguruma

Though your claim is that it is easier to construct a fictional author theory after EP1 than construct a reasonable theory after the gathering of the clues is over...which I (and I think others) just don't agree with. It's not that your theory has to be wrong...but I still don't see any profit for the actual whole of Umineko as a story.

Well to play Devil's advocate at least on that, from my pov it's you guys who are discarding entirely the question arcs in favor of the chiru arcs. Since in arc 5 it was stated in red that all the clues exists within arc 1-4, by Virgilia too and not some totally troll character, I believe it's a lot more reliable then most other things in the serie. I think we've been explained pretty clearly how new truths rewrite previous truths, and Ryuukishi explained himself how an author could do that using a "third arc" in the serie of Watanagashi and Maekashi as example.

Basically if you go back, mostly all information necessary to construct a reasonable theory is present after EP4. You have no verification of what is wrong and what is not...but that is basically what it is about. Truth becomes more and more subjective the more it is shared, that is basically what we can get from Umineko. The fact that there is nothing like an absolute truth...
But the basic structure that is also verified in Chiru can be constructed with most of what we get in EP1-4.

Guess I'm finding why what I'm saying is so disturbing to everyone.
Ryuukishi said it clearly, Umineko is a story about mysteries (and not strickly speaking a mystery per say). I guess this is it tho? Basically what I'm saying is that when you write a story you might have a goal, a presense, or a message to pass on. Not necessarily, but concerning the "author of the arcs" we've been told that pretty clearly I believe. Uminko is a lot more about an author and later more authors trying to find ways to pass on these messages and feelings through a story. Obviously the shape these messages can take within the given story can be altered as the story goes on. However it if contradicted itself we'd basically give up.

As thus I believe the vast majority of the information of chiru can be taken as an example of a "truth within the arcs" that would pass on these messages and intentions rather then anything absolutely and always factual about Umineko. Ryuukishi himself said in an interview that with Chiru he was "trimming the possibilities" which definitively doesn't sound like there is one clear truth to me.

Even "The culprit is Yasu" can be infered from EP3 on, because after Battler already points out that 0715 is maybe hinting towards July 15th, and thus his birthday, you can get to 1129 being November 29th, the releae date of ポートピア連続殺人事件...which is basically synonymous with 「犯人はヤス」. And because you can say that Kanon is probably the culprit, both Beatrice and Shannon had a promise with Battler and Shannon and Kanon are possibly the same person...you can easily arrive at the basic structure of the story.

"Fair play" is terribly easy to stretch as a term, I think.
Some people seem to think that he basically has to verify our ideas while we are making our theories...but where is the challenge in that? If he had told us from the beginning that he would take us by the hand and guide us to the goal once a certain date had passed and then would have delivered such a result...yes, that would have been unfair, because we would have participated under false conditions.
The story at least appears to be fair in so far, that many people arrived at the theories that were later approved within the story...so it can't be unfair only because some people didn't.

Fair play does not imply that everybody will reach the goal, just that everybody is given a chance to reach it...though of course everybody enters the game under different conditions based on knowledge, abilities, time, etc.
A person who is a nerd for Japanese mystery fiction, who immediatly connects 1129 to 犯人はヤス is in a better position than somebody who never read any mysteries in his life...but that does not make the story unfair.

As I said, I'm not dismissing your theory as inherently wrong, I just think it's fueld by the wrong ideas about the story as it is.

Fair play does however imply that we had a fricking chance to reason things out before arc 8 came out, or at least arc 7, and in my pov this is where most of your theories entirely fails. Like saying we waste our time for a year and a half before it came out.

Spoiler for Wanderer:

Originally Posted by Wanderer

@UsagiTenpura-

A question for the sake of understanding your theory better: What role does the meta-world play?

Guess it has a few uses, generally speaking any "additional level" that isn't supposed to be a reality that is directly linked to Rokkenjima I believe exists to make us think about how something like that is going on behind the scenes even when we don't see it. However since the arcs are a "finished product" I believe the meta world scenes are not "live" and generally represents what went on in the author or sometimes the detective-to-be-next-author's mind.

Basically as "author" wrote arc 2, she imagined how "reader" would react to it, what theories they'd be most likely to make on the spot and how to ensnare them into thinking a specific way. What kind of things would the reader object about, what kind of things she'd normally have to clear in an interview to reassure readers. These are things an at least semi decent writer should be thinking about when trying to be understood by their target public, this is what's being represented, mostly.

Later arcs gradually varies by finding more uses to the meta world, but generally speaking it exists to hints us as a level that exists behind the scenes. I believe we were then introduced Featherine mostly to repeat that experience since we stopped at the meta world's existence rather then getting the idea behind it.

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah, I mean you're creating one of two scenarios here:

• You actually believe this stuff you're saying in interviews, in which case you're a big-headed jerk who is full of himself.
• You're merely pretending to be a big-headed jerk who is full of himself as part of the "experience," in which case you're a pretentious tool.

Note that I'm basing my impressions on outside sources like interviews more than I am his attitude derived from his actual works. I accept that a narrator may sound condescending or something without the author intending them to. There needs to be a firm line between "this is me the author speaking in the voice of the 'character' of my narrator" and "this is just me, the author, chatting with you." If you do all your interviews in character, it stops becoming a character.

Unless it's obvious you're acting in-character, like when Daniel Handler poses as Lemony Snicket. If he's acting like Snicket, you know he's in-character. If he's just hanging out and you interview him as Daniel Handler, he'd be a dick to keep acting like Snicket.

I might heavily be wrong in that but I think Ryuukishi was too much a niche writer to ever be able to properly deal with a large audience.