2012-12-20, 20:38 | Link #31461 | |
Endless Sorceror
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Wisconsin
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As Kanon's character is defined, there should be no reason to him to have any reaction to Battler at all, other than the basic indifference he treats everyone else with. Just some kid he doesn't know and has absolutely no prior history or interaction with Battler whatsoever. But Kanon still couldn't keep it together.
Likely, Yasu went out with Kanon first to test the waters for herself and others, to meet the cousins using the persona with no history or baggage attached to it. And all things considered, it helped her re-prepare herself to deal with him as Shannon afterwords. (And even then was still pretty flustered.) Quote:
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2012-12-20, 21:14 | Link #31462 | |
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Apart from maybe her witch obsession she doesn't seem out of the ordinary, especially to George who's not exactly experienced. So, although he's a self centered idiot, it's not that surprising he completely fail to guess that she has such huge problems. |
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2012-12-20, 22:10 | Link #31463 | ||
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Actually, because of things like that, I was convinced that what we were seeing as Kinzo (the guy in the study with Nanjo, the one who gave Rosa the guns, the one who committed the first twilight murders in EP4) was Shannon. I couldn't figure out the Shkanonigans, and I decided the one going around pretending to be the blonde witch that we saw in EP2 was Kanon. I wonder if I still have those notes scattered around somewhere. Quote:
Reading it now not just as in a Shkanontrice culprit theory but as a Yasu Author Theory, it seems even stranger. Is she presenting Shkanon as an idealized version of her personalities where they all fulfill their roles perfectly. It's interesting that she would even present that "leak" for lack of a better work right now. Also, I just saw more Shkanontrice deniers talking about the I am the visitor, the 18th human on Rokkenjima!! Erika can be the 18th human on Rokkenjima but there will still be 17 people because if Erika ended up on the shores of Rokkenjima, she was probably already dead. Just like Kinzo Hey, it's pretty fitting for a piece who got Bern upset. No miraculous life jacket to save her.
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Last edited by RandomAvatarFan; 2012-12-20 at 22:44. |
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2012-12-21, 07:22 | Link #31464 |
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Join Date: Dec 2012
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I like the theory that erika is already dead. Sad end to somehow sad character.
But what it comes to episodes 5 and 6, i always had hard time to consider them as parts of the main mystery. I understand that in the universe they are "written" by different person, but are they really serious adds to the story? I always thought that they are just boards constructed in order to give us hints about the "real" core of the story, episodes 1-4. Willard doesn't even touch the games when "slicing the illusions" in the episode 7. Even though i love erika as one of the badassest antagonists, i find the episodes 5 and 6 somehow separated from the rest of the story. I actually haven't even tried to solve the mysteries behind these episodes and concentrated only on 1-4, treating 5 and 6 only as clues. That's why shkanontrice hate based on red text on extra clue chapters always felt like missing the point to me. |
2012-12-21, 07:58 | Link #31465 | |
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[QUOTE=Dormin;4484148]I like the theory that erika is already dead. Sad end to somehow sad character.[q/uote]
I wonder if Erika even arrived on Rokkenjima. Wasn't her presence there merely speculated by the people in Prime s she fell from the boat and her fate ended up in a catbox the same as what happened on Rokkenjima? It allowed her to be placed on the island in the tales but I can't remember any confirmation about her reaching for real the island. Also, although I like the theory of Erika being dead it's a bit unlikely that the detective (Ep 5) and more important the killer (ep 6) are dead. The detective should have a reliable perspective and Erika is shown being able to interact with people, a thing a corpse usually don't do (unless we suppose she's a ghost and then really, if we can have ghost why not to have witches?). A dead killer should be able to... kill nothing really, unless someone else was doing the killing and Erika's theory is again WRONG and she had no idea what her piece was doing on Rokkenjima. Quote:
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2012-12-21, 08:41 | Link #31466 |
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No, no confirmation on Erika's arrival was ever given. It was merely stated in EP6's tips that those who knew about her would often write her into the story because apparently her ship went down in that area or something.
I think then, that if you think about the red being a statement about Erika's status, it becomes not a red of the gameboard, but a red about Prime. Although not a very helpful or useful one.
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2012-12-21, 13:04 | Link #31467 | |
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2012-12-21, 15:02 | Link #31468 | |
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First he says: Illusions to illusions. ......Tales woven by the gold truth return to illusions. And then: Earth to earth. Illusions to illusions. ......Silent corpses, adorned by fiction. |
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2012-12-21, 15:50 | Link #31469 | |
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I think it was intended to be impossible to actually play a totally different game on the board without it becoming clear. You can create events on a magical level, but you can't force events that would be impossible in that context on the reality-level. In that way the stories are warped but still in the realm of likelihood. That Battler actually made mistakes when constructing his story in a way to conceal the 'culprit' is shown through the logic error. |
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2012-12-21, 16:51 | Link #31470 | |
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Rizon
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The solution to the logic error only works because Erika generously let the closet untouched before examining the bathroom. In other words, it only works because of meta-considerations. I don't think it is possible to plausibly account for Battler's escape without factoring in the meta-world. One could argue that the prank Battler set incited her to see it beforehand, but that directly contradicts the fact that she thoroughly checked the bedroom first. I will say more. I don't think one can plausibly explain Kanon's disappearance without factoring in meta-motives. What method made possible for Kanon—and not Battler—to disappear? I see two, but feel free to add more to the count: 1) dying (because Battler couldn't die or else the letter given to Erika would have been false) 2) turning into Shannon. Dying can be accounted for by suicide or Erika shooting through the door (unproven, but plausible if one takes in account that she burgled Kinzo's study and killed the fake corpses before beheading them). Turning into Shannon is self-explanatory. But none of these explanations are credible in the natural world. Being shot? It only works because Erika didn't have the chance to open the closet, or she would immediately find out the truth. Therefore, only works because the game stopped, something impossible in the natural world. Committing suicide? Not only would it make Erika realise the truth, it would be extremely difficult to account for, motive-wise. Turning into Shannon doesn't even begin to make sense in the natural world. Why would she flee from the cousins' room, turn into Kanon, save Battler and then go back to being Shannon while in the closet? No wonder Will didn't bother with the fifth and sixth games; they are not even close to have the heart. |
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2012-12-21, 17:26 | Link #31471 | ||||
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Well, to be very frank about most of that, 1. I think you have problems with Ryukishi's writing / plotting, more than "Shkanon" 2. The gameboards don't need to match up with "what actually happened that day". Lots of things are possible in the catbox, after all. When you're ready, I'd recommend reading through Our Confessions, which is pretty much a walkthrough of Beato making the outlines for another gameboard, and confirms the tricks from a lot of the other Episodes. Wanderer rather graciously provided a translation not too long ago, and I guess someone copy+pasta's it to the wiki. http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/Our_Confession Quote:
He may seem to consider himself her intellectual superior, but ... I mean, it never seemed, to me, that she was trying to communicate her problems to George. At best, her rather romantic view of the world. And, to boot, both Jessica and Battler have much more openly expressed a disdain for that kind of thing, while George just sort of accepted it as a step in her way to adulthood. Quote:
That's when I realized - Erika has the ability to take part on Rokkenjima gameboards, but she can also take part in other mysteries, too, if you're willing to make the improbable assumption that she survived and drifted away and never wanted to go home again. Quote:
Hey, this is "Nah, we don't need to hear about the last two years" Will, here. |
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2012-12-21, 21:12 | Link #31472 | ||||
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After all Shannon spent nearly all her life on Rokkenjima and she is an orphan and a servant and therefore below him. He probably finds natural for her to feel unworthy of him, the rich and beloved son of her master's daughter, who had the chance to study and travel much more than her. He could have been more sensible to her feelings, yes, but really he likely didn't expect them to be nothing more than the result of the way Shannon lived till then. Maybe he even thought once being married with him she would overcome them naturally or, it's also possible, being as self centered as he is, he wouldn't care if she were to continue to consider him superior to him. After all he lives in a family were male supremacy is pretty predominant so what if Shannon feels inferior as his grandfather thinks is okay for a woman to feel? He'll be nice to her anyway. So yes, clearly he wasn't the potential, perfect husband he wanted to be, he's still immature and too self centered but even if he were a way better person it's unlikely he would have figured out what was bugging Shannon without more help from her part. In a fashion Yasu expects too much from others starting from the promise Battler made her. Maybe, if Battler had been older and Yasu had made absolutely sure she loved him and wanted him to take her away it would be fair to demand from him to remember that promise and come take her away but Battler was just a kid who had lost his mother and had left his family, likely while in an emotional turmoil. And as years went by and she never contacted him nor let him know her feelings even if he maybe had thought at her, it's likely he thought she forgot him or that she didn't take him seriously. And when he's back and find her in love with George... well, it looks like she hadn't wasted her time waiting for him so why should he feel guilty for not going to get her? All in all Yasu isn't really good in understanding others and comunicating with them. It's not all her fault as she wasn't raised in an environment that made easy for her to learn it but it's surely part of the problem. Likely, if she had tried contacting Battler or had chosen a different approach once he came on Rokkenjima, things would have gone differently. Quote:
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So, personally, I would have preferred if, when Will told her we didn't need to hear about this, she had told him: 'no, I want to talk about it' and spoke it up. In exchange Ryukishi might have cut the story of how Rosa met Beato as it's exactly the same as the one we already heard in Ep 3 and even he admitted it didn't add anything new. And really, instead than having some Battler bashing in form of complaining about how Battler was quite a disagreeable man because he never realized that the outbreak of the crime was his fault, I would have liked to hear Battler's side instead of him being randomly absent. |
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2012-12-21, 21:53 | Link #31473 | |
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It doesn't help that the justifications we do have are pretty much the most pathetically petty things, or things which seriously don't matter that much and seem odd to flip out over. Yet the story has gone to such length to try to discount petty motivation, but refuses to provide something more substantial. It leaves Yasu a flimsy character... not that he/she wasn't to begin with, but at least some effort is being put in to try to sync up the person we're seeing with the person whose writings we're already familiar with. And then that effort sort of trails off right when it was getting good. If Ryukishi wanted the character to be fully relatable, he failed by being too vague right at the point where he was bringing everything toward a single conception of the character as a full person. Now, maybe that's the point, designed to make us question whether they could really become that kind of person... but it's kind of a weak point and it causes some retroactive damage to the story that he could've repaired had he continued along with his elaboration. Essentially, if the goal was to make me buy this character as a culprit it was a miserable failure because it didn't push far enough to the genesis of whatever murderous instinct arose; and if the goal was to get me to believe this character is scapegoating themselves, I'm not clear on who they're scapegoating for, why, or when they decided to go forward with that. Pretty much the worst-realized character in the VN when he/she needed to be the best, or at least one of the best. Quite honestly, every other character in ep7 came across better, which is a travesty considered we supposedly have six episodes of indirect development for this person. Like a half-complete jigsaw puzzle, and half the pieces are from the wrong one.
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2012-12-22, 08:37 | Link #31475 | |
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Ep 7 makes things worse because it portray Yasu in such a gentle light it's hard to think she would go and murder everyone. Not mentioning the wound and the gender identity issues that probably were a big problem for her are so barely brushed one might miss them completely. Honestly, if Yasu isn't the murderer in Prime, I don't think she's scapegoating for someone. I think that due to a setting of facts she ended up being a scapegoat. Really, I've a hard time believing she would do something so horrible as to kill so many person but I have equal hard time into believing she would make something so kind as to take the blame for all the mess for someone else. She doesn't come out evil enough or kind enough for either of the two things. Spoiler for Spoilers for Ep 8 chap 10 manga version:
Oh and by the way... Spoiler for Spoilers for Ep 8 chap 9 manga version:
Last edited by jjblue1; 2012-12-22 at 11:26. |
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2012-12-22, 11:42 | Link #31476 |
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There's a significant disconnect between her goals, motivations, backstory, and methodology and the necessity of actually killing anyone. In the stories (and in Our Confession), Yasu begins with the idea of convincing people to do things with threats and bribery and then... actually kills them.
But wants to be stopped. But if stopped after the First Twilight, those people have still been brutally murdered. So she wants to be stopped enough that she will give them the chance to prevent any deaths whatsoever, but after that? Screw it. That just seems... off, somehow.
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2012-12-22, 13:41 | Link #31477 | |
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No, the problem with Yasu is she came out insane. Let's compare it with Kyrie. She said she wanted to kill Asumu because Asumu was a source of pain to her. It has a logic on its own as once Asumu is out of the picture she can marry Rudolf as she actually did if she was smart enough not to get caught. If we want to give Kyrie more moral values we can assume she too wanted to be stopped and it can work because if she were to be stopped fast enough no harm would be done. Now let's take Yasu: By bribing and threatening she starts already to make harm. The method of killing isn't practical, it doesn't imply she wanted to be stopped. It's insane. The purpose for all of it? Basically she destroy her whole world, herself included if she have success. I wouldn't call this an improvement toward happiness. If she fails her life will worsen. That's real there's people who kill his whole family and then kill themselves for... reason X both in real life and movies (let's pick up "Seven" for example in which the murderer in the end purposely cause his own dead) but this sort of people is presented as insane. We aren't asked to understand the heart of this guy. This guy had something wrong right from the beginning so, even if he has 'reasons' to do what he did, in the end the main cause is he's not thinking straight. Even if this guy had a really sad, tragical story, this wouldn't be justification enough to say he's sane in what he does. |
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2012-12-22, 13:53 | Link #31478 |
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I'm not sure it's fair to say you can't understand someone just because they're delusional; considering the amount of time that is spent telling us all about the constructs of Yasu's imagination (probably 50% of the whole Umineko cast can be counted under that somehow) and that we have a pretty good idea what exactly her delusions consist of, I personally find the motive reasonably satisfying and understandable. But, I know that most people here aren't able to accept that Yasu genuinely believes in magic or that she thinks the ceremony will accomplish anything. Of course, it's entirely possible that the motive only applies to PieceYasu in the first place, though it doesn't really make much difference to me whether she did anything in Prime or not.
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2012-12-22, 15:11 | Link #31479 | ||
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Also somehow I've hard time into believing she believed in magic as it's not with magic she killed people she only made it look like she used magic by using tricks. It's Maria who had more chances of honestly believe that they would all go into the golden land as in plenty of instances she tries using magic to get what she wants (see her uhhh uhhh sound) and, when in doubt, she was in denial of everything that seemed to deny her magic theory. Also people around her often fed her delusion so that she could really believe magic truly existed. And yes, by what Umineko says it's possible to figure out part of Yasu, how a side of her wanted to hope and another was disilluded, how she longed for someone who loved her, how she felt inferior, how she was still hung up on Battler despite George. The problem is when we're asked to accept that due to all this it was okay for her to murder everyone. There's to say Ryukishi in an interview confirmed there's madness in Yasu. Problem is this level of madness goes out the reasoning range. So... if she orchestrated a game, either by writing a story and handing it to Battler or by finding a way to make people play it with or without Battler knowing it was a game and then something went wrong and people died it can still be in the boundaries of reasonable. But if she really went on a murdering spee that ended with her death and the destruction of half of Rokkenjima... then she wasn't thinking straight in a way that goes beyond what is acceptable. By the way on the Umineko Wikia I've found this... but I can't remember reading it in Umineko. Someone knows from where it comes from? Quote:
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2012-12-22, 15:16 | Link #31480 |
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Well, I think the issue is that you are looking for a motive that is "acceptable". The fact is that there is nothing that can ever make a mass murder acceptable. But it can be understandable, and even forgivable, and I personally find this to be the case (though of course I know that plenty of people don't).
Also, I don't really see the fact that she used tricks as proof that she doesn't believe in magic; it's the sort of magic that is described over and over again, the kind that becomes real when people believe in it. So while she was using tricks, she hoped that by making everyone believe in the witch, it would make the magic real. Basically what the EP1 tea party was saying. |
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