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Old 2012-06-10, 10:18   Link #29101
haguruma
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
This too. I think the parts with Battler and Beatrice in the early arcs are more or less what I described above, but the other parts may well involve other perspectives.

[...]

I, for one, am not so certain. From EP6:
[...]
Foreshadowing the EP8 ???? perhaps?
Well, there is also the option to say that most of the things we saw actually were paralleling what happened in the real world but was still fiction even in the reality of Umineko's 1998 and onwards.

I think we are still trying to hard to rationalize the relationship between the events of Umineko and a supposed real world. Ryûkishi basically wrote himself into a corner when he made Ange a character in EP4 but let her die as well. This basically meant that he would have to fictionalize all the events or he would basically prove the existence of the supernatural as Ange seemed to have been a major character from the very beginning. The problem with fictionalizing the events though is that we can't make them as fictional as the events on Rokkenjima or they could be considered false (as they are by some around here) because nobody except Ange, who is apparently dead , would have the necessary agencies to know of certain aspects (her aunt Kasumi's hatred of her for example). This is why I think we should consider the term "reality" and "fiction" more losely, especially when it comes to Chiru.

If we consider the end of EP8, even Ange's journey is a giant cat box. We never see the end of any of her journeys...heck, the last we see of her in EP4 is her apparently mercy killing her aunt and then vanishing from the face of the earth. BUT, this happened to Ange in every of her arcs, didn't it?
EP4: supposedly went to Rokkenjima and vanished
EP6: supposedly went to Rokkenjima and vanished
EP8: (Trick): supposedly went to Rokkenjima and vanished
EP8: (Magic): met with Okonogi and vanished
In the last version we know that she simply changed her name and used the connections with Okonogi (and apparently the Yakuza if that is not overanalyzing some implications) to make Ushiromiya Ange simply dissappear.
Considering how competent the police forces in Ryûkishi's universe usually are, the only thing that actually implies that the last version is what happened is (a) Yukari's overall demeanor and (b) the fact that it follows the magic ending. As far as we know EP4 could be true and Amakusa pulled a huntsman on Yukari and let her run off...Okonogi seems to be reasonable enough to just let her go if she doesn't demand or tell anything.

1998 is just as much part of the mystery as 1986 is and even more the question towards what is real and how far reality is affected by fantasy is part of it too.

Regarding my own answer, I think that every story we see has a similar chance to be true (until disproven by the narrative itself) and that it really depends on how you want to read certain parts. This may be considered a cop-out answer, but somehow I find it genius.

EDIT:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
This? I believe she's talking about the forgeries, which at that point she knew that they were written by Tohya.
Sadly my laptop died a month ago and my Umineko disks are at home in Germany...so I have to do the quotation from memory.
She basically said that she now understood how the witch (talking about Bernkastel) was able to say that her brother was dead. When she met with Hachijô Tôya she had to learn that the man she wanted to return actually did die in 1986 in a way, at least in the same way that Meta-Beatrice died between EP5 and 6. He would never be the Battler she said goodbye to in 1986 even with him remembering their times together (which he does).

This basically proves that at least her internal struggle with Bernkastel during EP8 was actually witnessed by her....though as I said above, I think reality is something that should be considered fluid in something like Umineko.

OT: Has anybody ever read City of Glass by Paul Auster?! Somehow I always have to think of it when reading Umineko.
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Old 2012-06-10, 11:17   Link #29102
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
My point is not about "lack of hints", which is an entirely different matter that I'd rather not address now, but the lack of confirmation of "what happened" which made pointless any attempt to foresee it.

And I'm talking here not about the whole story in its entirity, because there's a lot of stuff that could be predicted, was predicted and was confirmed (more or less) but all that stuff (including the single twilights, shkanon and the rokkenjima prime incident) that are left inside the catbox.

Arguing about the content of a catbox is absolutely pointless. By the assumption of the very concept of the schroedinger cat, the cat is neither alive nor dead, it's both.
The only thing that it is worthwhile to discuss about is if whether at the time the catbox will be opened the cat will be alive or dead. However if the catbox will never get opened all those people who tried to predict the outcome of such event just wasted their time.
It is not pointless if you enjoy it. Or rather, maybe fun is pointless, but who cares?

Quote:
That's exactly my point, it isn't really a matter of "murder mystery" rules. Of course one could could make critics on Umineko based on those, but the "lack of answers about central parts of the plot" is a problem that lies on a general narrative level.
Well I still don't think anyone _really_ attempted to solve Umineko that way, might be surprised and come out with a clearer answer. Or maybe not, but nonetheless from my pov at least it seems that approaching Umineko in a new light that might provide understanding is not even something the majority are interested in.

Quote:
I'm not saying that you lack criticims, but according to that definition one is more likely to win the lower is his level of criticism.
It's like a game where you win by lack of skills rather than by possessing them.
That is entirely correct, but sorta an entire point on the side. Children tend to be more easily amused. While growing up experience makes us search (usually) for better things. But I don't get this, you seem to be suggesting a sort of "fiction elite" when you should only read challenging stories and masterpiece. I'm sure that's wrong, but it does come out that way. Isn't someone easily amused someone who can also be thought of as "not picky or demanding" ?
Being picky to the point I saddly am makes it so that I haven't watched TV, a movie, or an anime, in nearly two years now (reading novels).

Quote:
Did that ever happen? I mean to that level you are imagining? There are a lot of things that were predicted and were confirmed, but I don't remember someone going out and claiming "I told you so, assholes!"
Well they wouldn't be that blunt about it. Internet makes it so people have this passive aggressive behavior, coupled with condescending paternalizing attitude. This doesn't concern just this forum or just Umineko. Still it'd be easier to believe that it wouldn't be that if the critics of Ryuukishi didn't sound like everyone wrote tons of mystery fiction in their life and are coaching a junior writer. Basically if the tone would change to something like "I would've done it that way if I wrote Umineko" rather then "Ryuukishi should've done x or y" I wouldn't think that way. I'm aware that is not everyone btw, but I still think this is mostly what could come out of Ryuukishi revealing the truth.

@ Wanderer : It's amazing if that was actually true. I don't know if it is or not, but iono when over a year after the final release of a story you still post daily about how Ryuukishi "fucked things up" or trying to "objectively discredit Umineko/Ryuukishi" what am I supposed to believe?
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Old 2012-06-10, 12:30   Link #29103
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haguruma View Post
Sadly my laptop died a month ago and my Umineko disks are at home in Germany...so I have to do the quotation from memory.
She basically said that she now understood how the witch (talking about Bernkastel) was able to say that her brother was dead. When she met with Hachijô Tôya she had to learn that the man she wanted to return actually did die in 1986 in a way, at least in the same way that Meta-Beatrice died between EP5 and 6. He would never be the Battler she said goodbye to in 1986 even with him remembering their times together (which he does).

This basically proves that at least her internal struggle with Bernkastel during EP8 was actually witnessed by her....though as I said above, I think reality is something that should be considered fluid in something like Umineko.
It could be so, but even then the fact that Ange experienced the metaworld is something that I have no problem accepting, what is to debate is whether that metaworld that Ange experienced actually existed or it was just her delusion.

In EP4 Ange saw stakes killing the Sumadera goons, but we all pretty much concluded that it was just Ange's fantasy and that in reality it was Amakusa shooting them with a sniper rifle (theory that was practically confirmed later).
I see no reason to suddenly dismiss the idea that Ange is delusional and believe that the metaworld must necessarily be real because she thinks so.


Quote:
Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura View Post
It is not pointless if you enjoy it. Or rather, maybe fun is pointless, but who cares?
Well the problem, I think, is that knowing that I've been wasting my time spoils any kind of enjoyment I had previously had.
This is a feeling that I believe it is shared by a few people here. And I think everyone would be kinda pissed at me if I were to challenge them with an impossible riddle only to tell them later that it has no solution.

Quote:
Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura View Post
That is entirely correct, but sorta an entire point on the side. Children tend to be more easily amused. While growing up experience makes us search (usually) for better things. But I don't get this, you seem to be suggesting a sort of "fiction elite" when you should only read challenging stories and masterpiece. I'm sure that's wrong, but it does come out that way. Isn't someone easily amused someone who can also be thought of as "not picky or demanding" ?
Being picky to the point I saddly am makes it so that I haven't watched TV, a movie, or an anime, in nearly two years now (reading novels).
Well there's the point that a game should test some skill not the lack of it. I don't think I qualify as "elitist" just for stating that.
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Old 2012-06-10, 14:59   Link #29104
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@Usagi
Sadly, The people who are most disappointed by the answer are the ones who desperately want a clear answer and therefore discuss this within the speculations thread.

I love Umineko for many of the things it has done, but when a particular thing doesn't make as much sense as we desire we tend to rationalise it as much as we can (just like Battler) even when said rationalising doesn't make us happier.

And when one spends around a hundred hours on a series, they expect an answer with a fair amount of detail. I think about Umineko almost every day, I believe most of the people who post (or just watch) on this thread do the same, I for one am far too inquisitive for my own good!

...

And a big question is, what does the meta world do which a more mundane portrayal couldn't afford? There are so many (somewhat confusing) parallels between Battler and Kinzo, especially in the meta scenes that it must have a clear function other than to simply leave a fantasy vs mystery debate which Ryukishi has very successfully made redundant.
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Old 2012-06-10, 15:24   Link #29105
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Uninteractive narratives aren't relevant to what I'm talking about. Unless a story is in a state of only partial confirmation (i.e. the foreshadowing is confirmed to the audience but the conclusion isn't) there's no pressure on the author to "come up with something". Now, EP6 itself wasn't interactive, but Umineko as a whole was. There were at least 7 points in time in which Umineko was a story in a state of partial confirmation (between each novel, and arguably between EP8 and Our Confessions etc.). And at those points in time, we, as fans, could and did affect RK07's narrative. Profoundly, in fact (see Land => Banquet).
It's still not really comparable. We can't actually reach over and effect the story directly; it's entirely up to Ryukishi to cave to our expectations, theories, or demands and rewrite his plans accordingly. Whether he's right to do so or not is highly debateable, but it's not comparable to Beatrice, Lambdadelta, or Battler.

Quote:
Well they wouldn't be that blunt about it. Internet makes it so people have this passive aggressive behavior, coupled with condescending paternalizing attitude. This doesn't concern just this forum or just Umineko. Still it'd be easier to believe that it wouldn't be that if the critics of Ryuukishi didn't sound like everyone wrote tons of mystery fiction in their life and are coaching a junior writer. Basically if the tone would change to something like "I would've done it that way if I wrote Umineko" rather then "Ryuukishi should've done x or y" I wouldn't think that way. I'm aware that is not everyone btw, but I still think this is mostly what could come out of Ryuukishi revealing the truth.
So everyone should be punished because of a loud minority?
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Old 2012-06-10, 16:20   Link #29106
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Well I find myself having one other theory though it's probably completely wrong. Though I feel like we've been trying to find a human culprit so long that we may have overlooked the fact that maybe...

That there is no human culprit. It seems to me that Eva was trying to solve the epitaph so that she could find the gold but wasn't able to get far on her own. Thus when Battler came to the island and knowing Battler's love of mysteries. Eva enlisted his help to solve the epitaph. Battler not being able to resist a good mystery and of course not being able to refuse his aunt agreed and the two set off to solve it after everyone had seperated after the adults met.

Now I doubt one of the adults could've easily smuggled a bomb to the island so if there is a culprit then it's not a human one. Remember that the island was built on a WW2 base. That must mean that maybe during the mansions construction they missed an underground bunker full of live ammunition or maybe a live bombshell that for some reason hadn't gone off, but then something triggered either of those to explode causing the accident and killing everyone except Eva and Battler who by then had made it to the underground passage. Since lets face it if the explosion changed the terrain that much afterwards there's no way it's some homemade bomb.

Eva and Battler then decided to split up. Probably under the excuse that it'd be faster to find a way off the island that way. Eva sent Battler the opposite way of Kuwadorian so she could go there herself to find the gold. Since she had a pretty good idea it was there by that time. Battler of course found the submarine base and escaped while Eva waited for rescue on the island.
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Old 2012-06-10, 16:49   Link #29107
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Originally Posted by haguruma View Post
Well, there is also the option to say that most of the things we saw actually were paralleling what happened in the real world but was still fiction even in the reality of Umineko's 1998 and onwards.

I think we are still trying to hard to rationalize the relationship between the events of Umineko and a supposed real world.
Yeah, I think you're right... but well, most of us have an impulse to try to neatly organize things.

Quote:
Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura View Post
@ Wanderer : It's amazing if that was actually true. I don't know if it is or not, but iono when over a year after the final release of a story you still post daily about how Ryuukishi "fucked things up" or trying to "objectively discredit Umineko/Ryuukishi" what am I supposed to believe?
Umineko started off very compelling for all of us. Some are just disappointed with how it turned out in the end; but even for those who are, they still have love for what it could have been to them. How some such people have been here so long is really a show of both their love for Umineko and the sincerity and depth of their disappointment in it.

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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
It could be so, but even then the fact that Ange experienced the metaworld is something that I have no problem accepting, what is to debate is whether that metaworld that Ange experienced actually existed or it was just her delusion.

In EP4 Ange saw stakes killing the Sumadera goons, but we all pretty much concluded that it was just Ange's fantasy and that in reality it was Amakusa shooting them with a sniper rifle (theory that was practically confirmed later).
I see no reason to suddenly dismiss the idea that Ange is delusional and believe that the metaworld must necessarily be real because she thinks so.
Ange herself doesn't have to literally think that the 7 sisters killed Kasumi and her goons in order for the story to be told to us that way. It could simply be her own personal metaphor, and in that sense she still "experiences" it without being "delusional".

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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
This is a feeling that I believe it is shared by a few people here. And I think everyone would be kinda pissed at me if I were to challenge them with an impossible riddle only to tell them later that it has no solution.
I hear this kind of complaint a lot, but I have yet to actually see identified exactly what we were challenged to solve in Umineko.

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Originally Posted by AuraTwilight View Post
It's still not really comparable.
I don't see why not, at least up to before the logic error. It was basically said to be bad form for the Gamemaster to change his story part way through (however they may be able to do it well enough to be undetected). Although, by the time of the logic error that "bad form" was what the game had become.
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Old 2012-06-10, 16:53   Link #29108
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I don't see why not, at least up to before the logic error. It was basically said to be bad form for the Gamemaster to change his story part way through (however they may be able to do it well enough to be undetected). Although, by the time of the logic error that "bad form" was what the game had become.
I'm saying the standards of quality and protocol aren't the same because Ryukishi controls every word we read, when Erika/Battler/Will/Whoever effectively controls half of the story.
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Old 2012-06-10, 19:02   Link #29109
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Well honestly I felt cheated too kinda. I mean say what you will that the journey is more fun than the conclusion, but I also like things to make sense, and a lot of my lost in interest when it came to Umineko stemmed from how things stopped making sense after a while. I mean when I look at Higurashi to me it made total sense after Minagoroshi hen. Instead with Umineko I feel like it's just a maze of plot holes that Ryukishi pretty much got trapped in, and is probably still trapped in a dead end at the very center of the maze.

A good writer knows where their story is going, and a good writer doesn't say they could give all the answers so the story makes sense, but won't because they've written themselves so far into a corner that they decide to rely on the fans to make their own ending. It seems to me Ryukishi did have an ending planned but that ending became irrelevant at some point, and instead of trying to fix that problem Ryukishi instead decided to be lazy and leave it all in a cat box to troll the fans.

I mean it's really no surprise that people who read a murder mystery series want to know the answer at the end of the strings of tragedy that have been woven throughout the course of the story. That's the best part!
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Old 2012-06-10, 19:12   Link #29110
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
I hear this kind of complaint a lot, but I have yet to actually see identified exactly what we were challenged to solve in Umineko.
To quote Bernkastel in the first ??? Tea Party:

Quote:
[Beatrice's] existence is a personification of the rules of this world. To beat her, you have to expose the rules of this world and unravel them.

For example, this can be likened to learning the rules of Chess by watching a game.

First, take a good look at the chessboard. Then, learn the movements and roles of the pieces. Then, look for the conditions required to win at her game.

When you've managed to reveal all of those things, her heart will be exposed.
I've always considered that to be Ryukishi's challenge to the reader, though admittedly I was too drawn in to following the story to put much thought into it when I went through the game the first time.

On top of that there is the first tea party, where we were essentially challenged (by Beatrice through Battler) to try and deny the witch until the very end, and to try and come up with a reasonable explanation for a human culprit.

Honestly, I never felt like what happened on Prime was within the scope of the story, but I can understand how people would be upset that Ryukishi would talk so much about it and then never give out the conclusion. Kind of reminds me of Ikuko, speaking to those people from the Mystery writing contest at one point in the story, saying she would gladly give them her manuscript, but under a different name and submitted legitly. If they could find it, they were more then welcome to use it. The situation is a little different, but I can see a few parallels.
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Old 2012-06-11, 07:17   Link #29111
Jan-Poo
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as TwilightsCall said, let us not forget that the single murder mysteries of each game were never properly explained, not just the truth of Rokkenjima Prime.
Albeit those are almost 90% solved, I would have still liked to see a proper explanation inside the story.

But at any rate, Ryuukishi clearly issued a challenge to the readers

Quote:
This is a sound novel without choices, where you search for the truth yourself. [...]
Will you surrender to the witch, or stand up and face her?
It was the premise of the whole work. Now thinking that we should have waited for Ryuukishi to specifically state each part we were supposed to find the truth about and which we weren't, seems completely preposterous to me.

Besides he implied in the interviews that he was expecting us to reason about Rokkenjima Prime.

http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=207253
Quote:
>In addition, the word "Rokkenjima Explosion accident" appeared for the first time this game.

Ryuukishi: That may have been the first time the word appeared, but the epilogue of EP1 did say that "the jaw was the only part of Maria's corpse that could be found". Furthermore, in EP4, it was shown that Ange's boat was unable to dock at the mansion's harbor and that the remains of the mansion were missing, so it should be possible to link that with "something happened that changed the terrain". So, the words "Rokkenjima Explosion accident" are not a hint, but one of the answers. To go even further, one could say that all things that appeared after EP5 are not hints, but part of the answer.
Isn't that enough?
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Old 2012-06-11, 11:49   Link #29112
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Originally Posted by Aethos View Post
A good writer knows where their story is going, and a good writer doesn't say they could give all the answers so the story makes sense, but won't because they've written themselves so far into a corner that they decide to rely on the fans to make their own ending. It seems to me Ryukishi did have an ending planned but that ending became irrelevant at some point, and instead of trying to fix that problem Ryukishi instead decided to be lazy and leave it all in a cat box to troll the fans.
There's two points where we can imagine the story changed, and one point where we know it changed:
  • Land became Banquet, which became ep3. We don't know exactly what Land was going to be, except that it was going to be different and (according to the author) more difficult. Unless Land was the forgery from Our Confession (and there's nothing to provide any evidence for that at all), we know absolutely nothing about its contents. I'd venture to say that the story probably would've had a different trajectory if only because we'd have a totally different set of events as our ep3. What else would've been different? Would Eva still survive? Would Ange still be introduced when and as she was? Nobody knows.
  • The transition from Umineko to Umineko Chiru. We do know that this was a tumultuous time for Ryukishi personally, and we know that he had to make a lot of decisions about how Chiru was going to go. I think he may have even mentioned in an interview that he didn't want to make it like Higurashi's second half, but whether that means he had already come up with all the ideas and knew it was different or if he was still working through it to make it different, we'll never know.
Honestly, those are the two points I can come up with. I do think Dawn, Twilight, and Requiem were all some portion of an idea that had fully crystallized by the time Dawn came out, although whether that was the plan all along, we have no way to find out unless he tells us. I do not know if he intended for End to be what it was after Alliance, and I do not know where he intended End to go after he was finished with it.

So basically I'd argue the two big mysteries in where Umineko may have gone are Land and End. Those are points of departure for the series. Whether anything would've actually been better we really have no business saying, though; the same plot issues and narrative constructions may have existed no matter what. However, I have to think that if Land was different, Alliance would've been totally different too in some fashion, and that would have made the path into Chiru different as well.

It's difficult to criticize a work that doesn't exist. That's why I wish he'd release his notes or outline on Land or have made Our Confession about the writing of Land. It may well be that Land and Banquet were substantially similar in many ways and much of the to-do about it changing the series is unwarranted because it only really changed the individual puzzles. We don't know. That's why I want to know.

Anyway Prometheus coming out gave me a totally different idea about how things must've gone down on Rokkenjima:
Spoiler for SCIENCE FICTION!:
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Old 2012-06-11, 12:21   Link #29113
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Besides he implied in the interviews that he was expecting us to reason about Rokkenjima Prime.

http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=207253
Quote:
>In addition, the word "Rokkenjima Explosion accident" appeared for the first time this game.

Ryuukishi: That may have been the first time the word appeared, but the epilogue of EP1 did say that "the jaw was the only part of Maria's corpse that could be found". Furthermore, in EP4, it was shown that Ange's boat was unable to dock at the mansion's harbor and that the remains of the mansion were missing, so it should be possible to link that with "something happened that changed the terrain". So, the words "Rokkenjima Explosion accident" are not a hint, but one of the answers. To go even further, one could say that all things that appeared after EP5 are not hints, but part of the answer.
Isn't that enough?
To me, it seems pretty clear that he's just giving a hint about the bomb there. The information given in Ange's part of EP4 helps to solve the main mystery, the gameboards, by giving a clue as to how everyone suddenly dies at midnight no matter where they are in all games.

I always figured Ange's part of EP4 was just meant to provide supplementary information to help us solve the actual mystery, myself. Actually, I think most people thought the same. The more I think about it, the more it seems like the introduction of Hachijo in Dawn was the turning point for the series, with how it ushered in the concept of Rokkenjima-Prime. I wonder if Ryukishi really intended it that way from the start...to be honest, rereading the earlier episodes and interviews seriously makes me think he didn't. But we'll never know, unfortunately.
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Old 2012-06-11, 13:01   Link #29114
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But that's still information that comes from Rokkenjima Prime. How does it make sense to reason about what is said regarding Rokkenjima Prime in order to understand the gameboards and then forgetting that a Rokkenjima Prime exists and that there is a mystery even there?
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Old 2012-06-11, 13:05   Link #29115
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Well remember, at the time, the idea of Prime didn't even exist. Everyone just assumed that it was a continuation of the EP3 world, like the Demon's Script TIP in Higurashi was a continuation of Tsumihoroboshi.
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Old 2012-06-11, 13:50   Link #29116
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Well remember, at the time, the idea of Prime didn't even exist. Everyone just assumed that it was a continuation of the EP3 world, like the Demon's Script TIP in Higurashi was a continuation of Tsumihoroboshi.
Kylon's author theory was in it's beginning stages after episode 4 was translated and before Episode 5 was translated. I'm also pretty sure Rokkenjima Prime was an idea before episode 6 too. But episode 6 made it popular when the episode brought up the forgeries and confirmed a lot of the author theory.
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Old 2012-06-11, 14:16   Link #29117
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We were definitely kicking around Author Theory and the notion of a Prime universe around ep4. I have no idea who first called it Rokkenjima-Prime, although it sounds like something I'd make up. "Author Theory" was proposed by somebody else and named by them, I believe, or named by someone commenting on their theory.

I actually felt pretty good about that one by ep6 as that pretty much all but confirmed it, and there was a large contingent here who felt the same way.
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Old 2012-06-11, 14:40   Link #29118
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I begun to argue about the fact that all the "games" were fictional stories at the time of EP5. Note that that happened quite shortly after I read EP4, since from EP5 onward I stopped waiting for the translation.
I used to call it "fictional theory".

When EP6 came out the theory was widely accepted, and before I knew it it was named "author theory" and I adapted to it.

I first elaborated the theory at page 178 of this thread, and then Renall at page 179 gave his input and we started discussing it seriously.

Granted, the name "Rokkenjima Prime" wasn't popularized yet, but it was an inevitable consequence.

Apparently the first post in this thread that mentions it is from Kylon
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...me#post2971652


At any rate if there was no distinction between "Prime" and "games" there's even less of a reason to not wonder about the truth of the universe where the Ange of 1998 is from.
From that perspective saying that Ryukishi never asked us to find that truth would be the same as claiming that Ryukishi asked us to solve EP1 but not EP5.
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Old 2012-06-11, 18:45   Link #29119
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Quote:
From that perspective saying that Ryukishi never asked us to find that truth would be the same as claiming that Ryukishi asked us to solve EP1 but not EP5.
...I'm almost tempted to argue that that might be the case. Chiru did seem to move from 'a mystery that must be solved' into a 'story that must be told' kind of deal. The last 'real mystery' was Episode 5, which Erika and Bernkastel purposefully ruined, also in part thanks to Lambdadelta not really caring. Episode 6 barely had any mystery, and the whole solution was given by the end of the episode except for 'how did Kanon save Battler from the locked room.' After that, the mystery stopped entirely. I never personally felt as a reader that we were being pushed to solve the mysteries past Episode 4.

But you know, that's just arguing for the sake of arguing.
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Old 2012-06-11, 20:21   Link #29120
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A question:

I've seen the "Ryukishi had no solution" argument pop up a few times these past couple days and I'm curious as to what exactly you mean by this. Do you mean

-Ryukishi literally had no idea where he was going with this and just presented a bunch of possibilities that might satisfy us and expected us to sort out the 'truth' from a mess of red herrings?

or

-Ryukishi was unable to commit to a single answer because suggested possibilities are not quite properly explored within the story because he messed up along the way? I mean, thematically, this works better than the first option. Ryukishi could very well have had a 'satisfying conclusion' from the get-go, but trapped himself midway through and tried desperately to salvage the remainder of the series to make it at least enjoyable, if not 'satisfying'. I do not see this as malicious, nor does it necessarily make me angry at Ryukishi. I mean, it was literally a four-year journey that depended heavily on audience reaction. Even if he had thoroughly documented and planned out a masterpiece from the start, he's human, and when if one of his changes somehow trapped him, I feel he did a pretty good job patching it up without creating obvious contradictions. It just leaves a lot of ambiguity which just happens to fit in with the themes of the story.
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