[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

And I'm saying the same thing. Eva's death can be real because she has no obligations to live to 1998 whatsoever.

[cronnoponno]

Can anyone tell me where the hell these Gohda meme's are all coming from? All that magical chef Gohda and all of that, I mean, they're funny, but as usual I have no idea whereit originate's from, I saw a youtube video titled ''Magical chef gohda opening'' which was just occultics no majo, with all the characters having Gohda's face edited onto them....doesn't seem meme worthy, I tried to look up funny images, kind of like how Renall has that picture of him wearing BATTLER's cape, but no good, where is everyone getting this?

I ask because I hear jokes about Gohda pretty much everywhere.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by ErenselTheJester

I know. I'm speaking within the Game's sake.

Nah, AT is correct - it's because these worlds are mere forgeries that Eva is allowed to die for real in them.

On a side note, I read through the adults solving the epitaph again, in EP3. In hindsight, the adults more or less walked us through it's solution, step by step, while obscuring enough information to make it a challenge. I forgot that the characters in Maria's name were discussed, which, for me, was the confirmation line on the chart of "If you had thought a bit harder, the solution was there for you" standard.

Except, however, how the hell was one supposed to legitimately land on Taiwan by logic alone? Kinzo's proficiency in English and western-fetish opened up quite a bit of the world, and it's possible I forgot, but I don't recall Areca nuts being mentioned until, what, Natsuhi's vacation in EP5? And by Natsuhi's narration Krauss liked to visit places in Asia, "unlike Kinzo", including Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. Silly Natsuhi, throwing people off the trail.

[Wanderer]

Whether Eva survives depends on the Kakera we are talking about.

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Can anyone tell me where the hell these Gohda meme's are all coming from? All that magical chef Gohda and all of that, I mean, they're funny, but as usual I have no idea whereit originate's from, I saw a youtube video titled ''Magical chef gohda opening'' which was just occultics no majo, with all the characters having Gohda's face edited onto them....doesn't seem meme worthy, I tried to look up funny images, kind of like how Renall has that picture of him wearing BATTLER's cape, but no good, where is everyone getting this?

I ask because I hear jokes about Gohda pretty much everywhere.

They're based on misheard lyrics of Happy Maria. It's really hard to tell what's being said in that song, so people hear things like "I'm gonna piss in fire for magical breeding power" and the like.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Whether Eva survives depends on the Kakera we are talking about.

Oooor there are no kakeras at all? One of the things you need to do in any series that involves a form of mystery is to distance yourself from any other series and not let it influence your ideas on the one you are currently reading. You can still use them to get a basic idea of what the author is and isnt trying to do, like comparing some of the scenes and characters to some examples in Christie's or Carr's novels. But as I and others have said, a lot of the allusions to Higurashi where there to mislead us.

[AuraTwilight]

Uh...the concept of kakeras was used inside of Umineko, dude. No other series is being referenced.

And given what a kakera IS, how you interpret it's metaphysica doesn't change anything. A written story is still a kakera by virtue of the fact that it is an incomplete glimpse of a possible world.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Except, however, how the hell was one supposed to legitimately land on Taiwan by logic alone? Kinzo's proficiency in English and western-fetish opened up quite a bit of the world, and it's possible I forgot, but I don't recall Areca nuts being mentioned until, what, Natsuhi's vacation in EP5? And by Natsuhi's narration Krauss liked to visit places in Asia, "unlike Kinzo", including Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. Silly Natsuhi, throwing people off the trail.

A number of hints were dropped about how Kinzo's hometown was affected by World War 2 in the first four games. It's not in Kanto, and it was bombed severely, but later recovered and became a major population center. That's enough info to narrow it down to Taiwan.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Oooor there are no kakeras at all? One of the things you need to do in any series that involves a form of mystery is to distance yourself from any other series and not let it influence your ideas on the one you are currently reading. You can still use them to get a basic idea of what the author is and isnt trying to do, like comparing some of the scenes and characters to some examples in Christie's or Carr's novels. But as I and others have said, a lot of the allusions to Higurashi where there to mislead us.

Who said anything about Higurashi? Bernkastel talks about searching Kakeras in Umineko. It's meta, so it's open to interpretation as to whether you wanna take it literally or as noise (which I think is Ryukishi's intention). Even if you do take it as noise though, can we be sure that the world Eva survives in is the real one? These are the kinds of questions Ryukishi is challenging us to think about.

Even whether Umineko is linked with Higurashi or not is one of these questions.

[FirstTwilight]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You're not getting my point. I don't want to write my own Umineko, I want Ryukishi to be able to write his own competently. I've got my own shit to write.

If with "competently" you mean "with my theories" then yes, you want to write your own Umineko.

I already did. It causes problems. Take out a central part of the narrative and you get questions you can't solve without baseless conjecture.

No, it really doesn't. That's why it was revealed at the last moment, it just adds another layer of analysis. But jeez, if you believe in meta-world you don't even need Tohya!

You're acting as if we can't use information from EP3 to solve EP1. Get over yourself.

But I and III belong to the same layer, argument invalid.

And? Just because everything is a metaphor for something Toya is trying to express doesn't mean none of it exists.

You can't have foreveralone Battler in his chair writing fanfiction AND meta-world existing at the same thing, it's silly. Pick one.

Excuse me if Ryukishi's Word of God doesn't own up to what he actually wrote and how he characterized his characters.

But it does. Honestly, i don't mean to pry in your life, but from your previous posts it looks like you are emotionally involved in Yasu's character in some ways i cannot understand, but that forbids you to look at her objectively.

[FirstTwilight]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Who said anything about Higurashi? Bernkastel talks about searching Kakeras in Umineko. It's meta, so it's open to interpretation as to whether you wanna take it literally or as noise (which I think is Ryukishi's intention). Even if you do take it as noise though, can we be sure that the world Eva survives in is the real one? These are the kinds of questions Ryukishi is challenging us to think about.

Even whether Umineko is linked with Higurashi or not is one of these questions.

He confirmed recently in one of the books he released that Bernkastel was Rika and there is a connection between Featherine and Hanyuu.

[AuraTwilight]

If with "competently" you mean "with my theories" then yes, you want to write your own Umineko.

No, I mean, I want him to write competently so that his narrative isn't a mess in need of an editor.

Which it IS, REGARDLESS of what my theory is.

Also, he kind of fucked up the aesop of his story and is apparently insinuating we need to forgive a serial killer because of her emo relationship problems when the actual text gives the impression that Yasu is a martyr for someone else's crimes.

No, it really doesn't. That's why it was revealed at the last moment, it just adds another layer of analysis. But jeez, if you believe in meta-world you don't even need Tohya!

Yes, you do, because his existence was implied since BATTLER ascended to Gamemaster status. Ryukishi wrote in Toya's existence for a reason. He made Author Theory canon for a reason. If he doesn't want us to use the scenes of the Meta-World to understand the in-universe author, why the fuck did he bother?

There's other things those scenes can mean, sure. But that's because they have DOUBLE MEANINGS. I'm not the one sitting here we should ignore entire parts of the narrative, here. That's all you.

But I and III belong to the same layer, argument invalid.

No, it doesn't. You're saying I can't use Toya to explain BATTLER's aspects and personality because we didn't know about Toya in EP5 and EP6 or whatever, and yet you're totally fine with me using characterization of Eva in EP3, for example, to paint her as a culprit or innocent or whatever the fuck in previous episodes.

There's no reason for this. The distinction is purely arbitrary on your part.

You can't have foreveralone Battler in his chair writing fanfiction AND meta-world existing at the same thing, it's silly. Pick one.

Why in the fuck can't I? Ever heard of Pantheistic Solipsism? It's the thought experiment that instead of drawing from the imagination, the writer is psychically, subconsciously drawing on another world and writing about it; or perhaps are creating that world through the process of writing it, or BOTH, given the peculiarities of non-correspondent metatemporal mechanics.

Why can't it be a Chicken Egg scenario where Toya writes the Meta-World which influences the real world which feeds back into the Meta-World which feeds back into...

But it does. Honestly, i don't mean to pry in your life, but from your previous posts it looks like you are emotionally involved in Yasu's character in some ways i cannot understand, but that forbids you to look at her objectively.

Well, given that it's a work of fiction, humans are incapable of objective observation, and Yasu was designed to be a subjective mirror, fucking of course I can't. Derp dee derp.

But that doesn't mean I'm impressing my life onto Yasu. I'm doing the opposite, if anything. The points I made remain valid, however, and countless people who don't self-identify with Yasu reached the same conclusions I did: She's too meek, timid, self-sacrificing, self-punishing, and undecisive to plan a mass murder with cold, meticulous efficiency as she must in order for the incident to go off as it must.

This is a girl who doesn't have the resolve to fucking make a phonecall. How the hell is she going to kill six people right off the bat, then put on her stupid meido outfit and put on a perfect acting job of innocence infront of everyone else?

But then there's the genuinely possible likelihood that Ryukishi thinks Yasu has Multiple Personality Disorder, which isn't consistent with his story OR how the condition actually works, so he kind of cornered himself hardcore.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by FirstTwilight

No, it really doesn't. That's why it was revealed at the last moment, it just adds another layer of analysis. But jeez, if you believe in meta-world you don't even need Tohya!

Actually, a central tenet of Author Theory, which has been around since at least ep3 or ep4, is pretty much that the meta-world and the unseen author (whose identity was speculated to be Battler for almost as long) are deeply and inextricably linked. The reveal "at the last moment" was actually pretty important confirmation (one of the few we actually get for anything), but if read metaphorically the meta-world can be seen to track Tohya's "reality" pretty strongly.

Or perhaps it doesn't. We can't be certain. But the comparison seems intentional.

You can't have foreveralone Battler in his chair writing fanfiction AND meta-world existing at the same thing, it's silly. Pick one.

The prefix meta- is an auto-antonym and can refer both to a thing separate and above and to a thing which is all-encompassing. The intent of Ryukishi's meta-world appears to be both. Is Tohya an author in a chair writing fiction and imagining a metaphysical plane of ideas in which thoughts and memories do battle over the truth? Or does the meta-world transcend over all worlds and Tohya is just a shadow of that reaching out to the meta-world for inspiration? Or can it be both? Ep6 more or less directly presents an impossible feedback loop of story layers, so the notion of impossibility in the fiction is clearly present in the text.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by FirstTwilight

He confirmed recently in one of the books he released that Bernkastel was Rika and there is a connection between Featherine and Hanyuu.

Could you say in which book that was or where the interview was released?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But that doesn't mean I'm impressing my life onto Yasu. I'm doing the opposite, if anything. The points I made remain valid, however, and countless people who don't self-identify with Yasu reached the same conclusions I did: She's too meek, timid, self-sacrificing, self-punishing, and undecisive to plan a mass murder with cold, meticulous efficiency as she must in order for the incident to go off as it must.

This is valid criticism if you see Yasu's development as closed at the end of the story. I still think that we only got the interpretation Battler had of her and the idea she had of herself, it's not like EP7 serves as an objective source only because it has no gamemaster. Even EP7 is still inside view.

I don't think she is as self-sacrificing as she might make herself appear and I think she is not as cold-blooded as she wants to appear. There are several things that hint towards that.
If she was actually that coldblooded while planning the mass murder, why would she implement the bomb? It's not like there was any definitive need for her to cover up the crimes. You don't need to be coldblooded to plan murder on a group of people...nor to carry it out. I think desperation is sufficient to do that.
If she was actually that self-sacrificing, why not come out and say that she did it? Why push it on an imaginary witch?

I think it's nice to see her as a martyr, but it's not like the witch Beatrice existed. Yasu was just misguided in thinking that this was a way that could solve anything, no matter how it went.
And I think it's not that difficult to understand that either. I'm not talking about relating or forgiving, I'm just saying that maybe there is another way to understand Yasu than the popular theories.

Originally Posted by Renall

The prefix meta- is an auto-antonym and can refer both to a thing separate and above and to a thing which is all-encompassing. The intent of Ryukishi's meta-world appears to be both.

I have to agree with Renall here. There is no problem with both existing at all, especially when the meta-world seems to be constructed to exist outside of normal temporal boundaries (which is implied through Ronove in the Forgery No.xxx TIP). Tôya can read the message bottles, retro-actively create Beatrice in a meta-world, which connects to other (supernatural) meta-worlds that already existed...come into existence. The problem is, when you are writing about worlds with warped times it's bound to leave something open for interpretation. It's questioable if it's even meant to be perfectly plausible.

The way I see it there are three major ways to approach it.
1. The meta-world is a pre-existing alternate dimension, which has certain ifluences on the real world and changes it to it's liking (Bern whispering to young Ange, Featherine as Ikuko instigating Tôya to write, etc.)
2. The meta-world is a metaphor for the internal battle of Tôya, who is involved in solving the tragedy of Rokkenjima. That would make even characters like Bern or Lambda nothing more than personification of his internal struggle between logic realism and magical escapism.
3. The meta-world and the real world are linked at certain points. While the meta-world as such is pre-existing, people's imagination, wishes, hopes, fears create imprints in that world which collect in form of a "character". Because the meta-world exists outside of temporal boundaries it does not matter when a person thinks that, the character is always treated as having existed always.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I think it's nice to see her as a martyr, but it's not like the witch Beatrice existed. Yasu was just misguided in thinking that this was a way that could solve anything, no matter how it went.

I don't think he's talking about Yasu being a martyr for a witch. Beatrice is her literary martyr. She's the mechanism.

He's insinuating that the actual tragedy was caused by someone else. Someone whose crime may well be unknowable. He's also saying that, if Ryukishi didn't mean that, to hell with him, because that's what AT thinks.

Unfortunately for us, apparently all that suspicious stuff about George was to be taken completely at face value. And the Kyrie thing was... uh... was that supposed to be a red herring or not? It's false, but it could have been true, but maybe it wasn't true, but oh hey it's just a game I'm using to troll you, etc. etc. etc. Point is if you read Ryukishi's interview one way, all that stuff totally isn't indicative of a mass murderer personality, but Yasu's various internal conflicts are. Because that makes total sense.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

I don't think he's talking about Yasu being a martyr for a witch. Beatrice is her literary martyr. She's the mechanism.

That is exactly my point. Because she is using Beatrice as a martyr it shows that she is neither self-sacrificing nor totally cold-blooded nor absolutely sure of her plan. She is still using a cover-up and in the end it doesn't really matter if this covers up her own crimes or those of another person.

[ErenselTheJester]

Or there is no crime, thus no need for a martyr. I'm under the impression that Yasu just flipped the switch then left with Battler after the bomb went off.

[Bluemail]

Originally Posted by haguruma

The way I see it there are three major ways to approach it.
1. The meta-world is a pre-existing alternate dimension, which has certain ifluences on the real world and changes it to it's liking (Bern whispering to young Ange, Featherine as Ikuko instigating Tôya to write, etc.)
2. The meta-world is a metaphor for the internal battle of Tôya, who is involved in solving the tragedy of Rokkenjima. That would make even characters like Bern or Lambda nothing more than personification of his internal struggle between logic realism and magical escapism.
3. The meta-world and the real world are linked at certain points. While the meta-world as such is pre-existing, people's imagination, wishes, hopes, fears create imprints in that world which collect in form of a "character". Because the meta-world exists outside of temporal boundaries it does not matter when a person thinks that, the character is always treated as having existed always.

The nature of the Meta-world and it's characters is the next "Do witches exist?" after Beatrice was doomed to lose that argument.

And who knows, maybe Bernkastel is 15 years older Rika in 1998. Lambdadelta might be Satoko, and their somehow acquaintances with the Hachijous. ...Is Ikuko Oyashiro-sama?

[Renall]

Rika grew up and became a scathing literature critic. Satoko became an editor. They never stop dropping by Tohya's house to criticize and motivate his latest manuscript. Ikuko... well okay, this doesn't work for all of them I guess.

[AuraTwilight]

This is valid criticism if you see Yasu's development as closed at the end of the story. I still think that we only got the interpretation Battler had of her and the idea she had of herself, it's not like EP7 serves as an objective source only because it has no gamemaster. Even EP7 is still inside view.

EP7 has no Gamemaster? Lol whatever dude, it pretty clearly did regardless of what Bern said. Even if it didn't have a Gamemaster, that'd only be more reason to trust Clair's confession.

I don't think she is as self-sacrificing as she might make herself appear and I think she is not as cold-blooded as she wants to appear. There are several things that hint towards that.
If she was actually that coldblooded while planning the mass murder, why would she implement the bomb? It's not like there was any definitive need for her to cover up the crimes. You don't need to be coldblooded to plan murder on a group of people...nor to carry it out. I think desperation is sufficient to do that.
If she was actually that self-sacrificing, why not come out and say that she did it? Why push it on an imaginary witch?

Roulette, or some shit.

Yasu's actions aren't very well thought out, and this is an important part of her characterization.

I don't think he's talking about Yasu being a martyr for a witch. Beatrice is her literary martyr. She's the mechanism.

He's insinuating that the actual tragedy was caused by someone else. Someone whose crime may well be unknowable. He's also saying that, if Ryukishi didn't mean that, to hell with him, because that's what AT thinks.

Unfortunately for us, apparently all that suspicious stuff about George was to be taken completely at face value. And the Kyrie thing was... uh... was that supposed to be a red herring or not? It's false, but it could have been true, but maybe it wasn't true, but oh hey it's just a game I'm using to troll you, etc. etc. etc. Point is if you read Ryukishi's interview one way, all that stuff totally isn't indicative of a mass murderer personality, but Yasu's various internal conflicts are. Because that makes total sense.

The funny thing is that George-culprit is the most satisfying theory in that in answers absolutely everything.

That is exactly my point. Because she is using Beatrice as a martyr it shows that she is neither self-sacrificing nor totally cold-blooded nor absolutely sure of her plan. She is still using a cover-up and in the end it doesn't really matter if this covers up her own crimes or those of another person.

But she IS Beatrice. She's a martyr in that she's sullying what's most important to her in order to protect someone else. Beatrice is her role-model,the ideal she wants to fulfill, the part of her she considers the most true part of her three selves. Beatrice is her 'magic', and thus it can be seen as the part of herself she thinks is capable of making a difference in her life. It's the inner aspect of her that can give her a future.

And she's throwing that away, and demonizing it, and letting it be the subject of the whole world's ire. She's climbing on the cross.

And that's not even touching the fact that she seems to make Shannon and Kanon the culprit in all her fucking Games, so that if you deconstruct Beatrice you still throw an arrow in her heart.

Or there is no crime, thus no need for a martyr. I'm under the impression that Yasu just flipped the switch then left with Battler after the bomb went off.

Flipping the switch of a bomb is still a crime, bro.