[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

It's not that they think that the average person is "too stupid" to have it; one side advocates hiding the truth because it can cause Ange to kill herself, or asshole people might use it to make even more radical theories like "George raped Maria and snapped her jaw off."

The other side is arguing that there is no good reason to hide the Truth, and that deciding to hide it from people requires treating yourself as being somehow morally better than other people to the point where you're deciding what they do and don't deserve to know, even though you have no way to know what they'd do with it ahead of time.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

By that logic then money has no intrinsci value either. And that's correct in a way. But who cares? If you dig down enough you'll end up realizing that nothing has an intrinsic value. So who cares about anything?

That's not an healthy approach to life. Things have the value that people attach to them. That is however nothing to belittle.

Well, I don't think you can say nothing has an intrinsic value, unless you mean value in the sense of some sort of "worth." Things have the intrinsic value of being what they are. Photons have the intrinsic property of photon...ness. Physical objects have intrinsic mass, you can use that if nothing else to describe them. You can also describe an ethical act as an end-in-itself, which is generally referred to as having "intrinsic value."

(Also technically money doesn't have intrinsic value because money is a symbol that extrinsically represents some valuation of physical property)

Otherwise of course you're entirely correct. The primary reason things are valued by people is because those things have value to people. Consequentialists and deontologists alike will agree with that, although they'll disagree on what should be valued and in what way.

[Jan-Poo]

The other side is arguing that there is no good reason to hide the Truth

I'm on the pro-truth side, but I don't have such a radical position. There might be good reasons to hide the truth. But that applies to special cases and I don't think it applies to hiding the truth of a mass murder.

Originally Posted by Renall

Well, I don't think you can say nothing has an intrinsic value, unless you mean value in the sense of some sort of "worth."

[...]

Otherwise of course you're entirely correct. The primary reason things are valued by people is because those things have value to people. Consequentialists and deontologists alike will agree with that, although they'll disagree on what should be valued and in what way.

Yeah I meant that with the acception of "worth".

[UsagiTenpura]

I just want to put the supposed "withheld truth" in perspective, and get some clarification.

We do not have the police report on the Rokkenjima incident, this is information withheld from us (readers). However it is not information withheld (as far as we know) from the general public in Ange's world or Ange herself. This bit of "withholding" can be probably considered annoying in the real sense.

As for Eva's diary that Hachijou has, not talking about the "meta-version" of the whole thing, but the Ange world's version of it, when she was about to unveil it.
1) How is it that Hachijou got it in the first place?
2) How can she prove it's the real thing? How can we know it does?

So again, to me the very concept that information was withheld from Ange is part of "witch-hunter nonsense". And considering that Hachijou's speciality is forgeries of Yasu's arcs, well her credibility concerning the authenticity of Eva's diary coupled with "how the hell did she get it" makes it most unreliable.
Information however, was concealed from us (readers) however we at least get to know the conclusions different sides made on them. One is a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorist, the other is the law.

[Renall]

If there is a good reason, I think it requires several important steps that I don't think are met in the story:

• A moral actor who acknowledges the moral evil that may be committed by concealing information, but...
• ...has definite or reliable knowledge that a greater moral evil will result from failing to conceal, and...
• ...resolves to conceal information solely to the extent necessary to prevent the greater harm and accepts that the information may be released at a later time once that harm has passed.

Incidentally, this is actually how many American states and the federal government (roughly) structure their Freedom of Information laws. It's generally possible to withhold certain information contained in government-held documents, but only for a particular necessary purpose and once that purpose has passed, they cannot continue to be withheld.

It's not perfect, but at least it's some kind of justification framework for committing a lesser of evils.

[AuraTwilight]

So again, to me the very concept that information was withheld from Ange is part of "witch-hunter nonsense".

Eva never told Ange what she knew about the incident. Meta-BATTLER tried his damndest to keep Ange in the dark (as much as Meta-BATTLER could be said to exist; the point is in that narrative withholding information was part of his motive).

Ange WAS denied information, because Eva doesn't have amnesia. The question is what does Eva know, and why isn't she spilling the beans, and how does she justify that to herself?

[Renall]

Yeah there is also that. In Battler's defense, or at least in Touya's, he can't tell Ange-Prime directly what he witnessed. Not reliably at any rate, and not as the person who was actually present. But Eva could have, and should have. If she wanted to justify to herself that it "wasn't time" (as she might do given Ange's age and situation, not that I agree with her, but she might do it), that still implies there was going to be a point where it was "time."

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It's not that they think that the average person is "too stupid" to have it; one side advocates hiding the truth because it can cause Ange to kill herself, or asshole people might use it to make even more radical theories like "George raped Maria and snapped her jaw off."

The other side is arguing that there is no good reason to hide the Truth, and that deciding to hide it from people requires treating yourself as being somehow morally better than other people to the point where you're deciding what they do and don't deserve to know, even though you have no way to know what they'd do with it ahead of time.

Then why was Umineko even written? Aside from the fact that it seems to point out and talk about certain subjects, what's the point of it? If we're not supposed to learn the truth of what happened to the family on Rokkenjima, why waste our time reading it? I'm sure, not EVERYONE read Umineko just to have some mystery topics explained and debated, I don't think they need a novel to do that, and if Umineko's main message is that we're supposed to just think of any conclusion that satisfies us, then I don't think he needed to make 8 whole episodes when we could have done this just as well with 4(or 5 maybe).


Ryukishi clearly showed the side of people who just want to slander and abuse any amount of information they have on the subject(everyone slandering Eva, and branding Battler and his family as culprits), but is EVERYONE really going to do something like this? I mean you're always going to have those types of people, but is concerning yourself with them to the point of not letting others know the truth a good idea?


If my family disappeared off an island one day, I'd rather know what happened even if it makes me kill myself rather than wonder for the rest of my life, or tell myself that some witch used her pixie dust to make everyone go to a magical land of pancakes and leave me behind, to claim someone is morally just for hiding that truth from me...


I can understand if Eva wanted to hide her view of what happened on Rokkenjima from Ange, I'm fine with that, though, I doubt Ange would have believed her anyway.

[AuraTwilight]

Yeah there is also that. In Battler's defense, or at least in Touya's, he can't tell Ange-Prime directly what he witnessed. Not reliably at any rate, and not as the person who was actually present. But Eva could have, and should have. If she wanted to justify to herself that it "wasn't time" (as she might do given Ange's age and situation, not that I agree with her, but she might do it), that still implies there was going to be a point where it was "time."

And that time PROBABLY should've been when she became a legal adult, or at the very least, detailed in a will after Eva died, like "Now that I'm gone, I want you to read this."

But the series seems to strongly imply that Eva wanted the truth locked up forever. If it's something like, "Eva thought Ange's parents killed everyone", I can understand the emotional reason why Eva did so, but that doesn't mean it was moral or correct to do it. As I said before, it's essentially the same as dictating that people aren't allowed to eat certain foods because you don't trust them to manage their own health.

Then why was Umineko even written? Aside from the fact that it seems to point out and talk about certain subjects, what's the point of it? If we're not supposed to learn the truth of what happened to the family on Rokkenjima, why waste our time reading it? I'm sure, not EVERYONE read Umineko just to have some mystery topics explained and debated, I don't think they need a novel to do that, and if Umineko's main message is that we're supposed to just think of any conclusion that satisfies us, then I don't think he needed to make 8 whole episodes when we could have done this just as well with 4(or 5 maybe).

You're going to have to ask Ryukishi that. It seems to be that he's arguing that the truth should be locked up because it's unpleasant, but I can't read his mind.

Ryukishi clearly showed the side of people who just want to slander and abuse any amount of information they have on the subject(everyone slandering Eva, and branding Battler and his family as culprits), but is EVERYONE really going to do something like this? I mean you're always going to have those types of people, but is concerning yourself with them to the point of not letting others know the truth a good idea?

That's pretty much exactly what Renall and I think. Perfectly good people are being punished because some people are jerks. Fuck those people. It's better to reward the bad than to punish the good, in my opinion. But Ryukishi used these jerk people to justify his argument.

[Jan-Poo]

Eva had her own reasons. If we go by the assumption that the Rudolf family culprit theory is true then she did it to protect Ange. If we go by the assumption that the culprit is George then she did it to protect the image of her own son. If it is someone else of her family then she did it to protect the name of her family.

In any case while she's been selfless in regard of her own persona she's been selfish in regard of her family. She is doing something good (in her eyes) for her family while doing something bad for the whole world and some of the victim's relatives.

[AuraTwilight]

You're right. But even if one disagrees with what Eva's doing, she's atleast commendable for the sheer sacrifice she goes through in order to do it. She is motivated by selfless intentions, and pretty much sacrifices everything she has to her name for that goal, including her place in history.

Battler and Beatrice want to have their cake and eat it too.

[UsagiTenpura]

Strickly speaking Eva said "I can't tell you what happened that day" it does seem to imply she knows the truth but it could also means exactly that.
Toyah says his own memories about escaping are fuzzy and Yukari doesn't even seem to insist much. She never once asks if it could've been murders, which considering "Battler" as the sole other survivor then Eva should make him into a prime suspect in Yukari's book, should she believe it could still be possible at all that murders really occurred.

Furthermore "withheld details of that day" might not have much to do with the actual tragedy. If Eva decided just to not talk about how all the sibblings had a very ugly argument over Kinzo's inheritence, and that Shkanon was revealed and made Jessica and George flip out and other ugly things like that, she could decide to withhold just that. If Kinzo's really dead and the family's hiding it, that's another thing that's quite pointless to reveal once everyone is dead already.

If we take what occurs within the arcs, the adults never seem to be really happy to show that "dark side" of them to their kids.

Still just take it from another angle. Ever since arc 1 we've slowly discovered a lot of the cast's dark secrets, nonetheless none of these seems sufficient to become a murderer, and even less to become a mass-murderer. However they were still information that allowed everyone to pick up a "personal favorite" (often George) and associate the bad traits of his/her personality with him/her being a murderer.

If that's the kind of information Eva withheld, I can quite understand it. If at the very least she is certain it's an accident herself, she has no reason to ruin everyone's reputation which only would feed theories that it's not an accident. I really take it as Eva wanted Ange to keep a better memory of her family then she could've should she have told them in details about that day, even without any murders event.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Then why was Umineko even written? Aside from the fact that it seems to point out and talk about certain subjects, what's the point of it? If we're not supposed to learn the truth of what happened to the family on Rokkenjima, why waste our time reading it? I'm sure, not EVERYONE read Umineko just to have some mystery topics explained and debated, I don't think they need a novel to do that, and if Umineko's main message is that we're supposed to just think of any conclusion that satisfies us, then I don't think he needed to make 8 whole episodes when we could have done this just as well with 4(or 5 maybe).

As to your first question, why was it written: I don't know. I'd like to find out. Maybe more interviews and Our Confession will shed more light, or maybe we're stuck with what we have. It does seem like Ryukishi went into things with different motives than he finished them with. Did things change for him? When, why, and how? I don't know yet.

As to your second, why we should read it: Well... get back to me on that once I know why he wrote it. Alternately, read it for cute girls/bunnies in leotards. Not every reason needs to be a complex, morally-significant one.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Furthermore "withheld details of that day" might not have much to do with the actual tragedy. If Eva decided just to not talk about how all the sibblings had a very ugly argument over Kinzo's inheritence, and that Shkanon was revealed and made Jessica and George flip out and other ugly things like that, she could decide to withhold just that. If Kinzo's really dead and the family's hiding it, that's another thing that's quite pointless to reveal once everyone is dead already.

If we take what occurs within the arcs, the adults never seem to be really happy to show that "dark side" of them to their kids.

It's understandable why, as a parent, you might not want your children to know about your "dark side."

I will say, however, that I gained a lot of respect and sympathy for my mother, with whom I'd been at odds for many years, when my sister explained some things about her "dark side" that she had witnessed. Nothing bad, just things she never wanted me to see that showed her at some of her lowest, most vulnerable, or weakest moments. It humanized her. And it gave me a better understanding of maturity and dealing with pain, which is something every adult has to deal with.

[Jan-Poo]

I won't deny that. Eva's intention were good, but ultimately misguided. Her decision in the end caused a lot of collateral evils.

Still I can't deny that for one person would be extremely hard to take the decision to tell the world that the culprits of a mass murder ar the parents of the child she wants to grow up as her own.

And besides even if she told, would have anyone believed her? Ange probably wouldn't and she would have hated her even more.

I think that morally she should have still told the truth to the world. But I don't think reality would have changed that much.

Or maybe who knows... maybe by stating that the culprits were Rudolf and Kyrie from the beginning she would have actually caused the public opinion to believe the culprit was ultimately Eva.

[cronnoponno]

I'll admit, truth be told that I was a lot more interested in the Meta stories than the actual stories themselves, but the fact that it was like a ''2 in 1'' thing is what made it all so fun to read, even if the conclusion wasn't satisfying. The wacky conversations in the tea parties and red/blue machinegunblasting scenes were so fun, and I honestly liked it when Battler used really retarded solutions to solve the mysteries that made absolutely no sense at all(That isn't to say that the Rokkenjima stories we see weren't fun to read, I loved them too).

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

I will say, however, that I gained a lot of respect and sympathy for my mother, with whom I'd been at odds for many years, when my sister explained some things about her "dark side" that she had witnessed. Nothing bad, just things she never wanted me to see that showed her at some of her lowest, most vulnerable, or weakest moments. It humanized her. And it gave me a better understanding of maturity and dealing with pain, which is something every adult has to deal with.

Well I guess I fully agree with that. 18 years old Ange should've been told about these things, but I guess by that point Eva was mostly nuts and certain not very moral.
Tho Ange herself ended up humanizing Kasumi of all people, the one person introduced in the entire serie who actually can be seen as a mass-murderer, should she have been on Rokkenjima that day.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

The revelation of truth is the natural, default state. Information's fundamental purpose is to be distributed and comprehended.

See this is where we fundamentally disagree.

Originally Posted by Renall

Except that I approached it through reason, so yes it is. I admit I probably shouldn't assume that you haven't done the same, but I'm pretty jaded to it these days and tend to just assume most people do not sit down and take a rational accounting of their own moral philosophy.

I appreciate it, since I've thought about and gone through many moral philosophies. Ultimately I've found all of them irrational except for relativism, but not because I ever wanted to.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

By that logic then money has no intrinsci value either. And that's correct in a way. But who cares? If you dig down enough you'll end up realizing that nothing has an intrinsic value. So who cares about anything?

That's not an healthy approach to life. Things have the value that people attach to them. That is however nothing to belittle.

I believe there is no objective intrinsic worth to anything, yet that doesn't stop me from caring about things. It's illogical, but hey, it's also a fact.

Value is assigned subjectively, and I'm OK with that. I don't want my values decided for me, anyway.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

To say that anyone who happens to be in a position of responsibility, regardless of character or motivation, has the right or duty to censor information treads the path of paternalistic absolutism.

If I have a reasonable expectation that releasing some information will result in someone being hurt, and I release it anyway according to some ideal of Truth without due consideration of that possibility, then what I have done is an attack on that person. Perhaps I didn't do it with malicious intent, and perhaps that person might not be hurt in the end, but I did entirely abdicate responsibility for the potential harm I might cause so that I could feel good about myself. That strikes me as an act of gross negligence.

As reasoning beings, I think we have a moral responsibility to try to limit the harm we personally do within the boundaries of our knowledge, even if that knowledge isn't perfect. Or in other words, imperfect knowledge isn't an excuse to say "screw it, I don't care what happens." I suppose that means I hold Compassion as a higher ideal than Truth, even though it means we have more complex moral problems to solve.

[Keriaku]

I've gotten behind on following the thread, but I just wanted to throw in a comment back to the beginning of page 1315 when people were discussing whether or not it is morally right to reveal the truth.

I appreciate the different moral sentiments about whether we should reveal the truth or not, but the matter seems more complicated then that. Ryuukishi seems to subscribe to the idea that there is no 'absolute' truth, and the best thing we have is Eva's recorded perspective on what happened. Keeping this in mind, it doesn't seem to be as black and white as 'keep it hidden or reveal it'. It seems to me that revealing that truth is rather giving Eva's perspective dominance over all other possibilities about what happened, even though it might be flawed on a number of different accounts.

To me, at this point we can't appeal to absolute moral principles for truth and reveal it, because that seems to also be allowing possible lies and biases to be forced in as the truth. Should Eva's One Truth really be taken as absolute simply because it's the best thing we have? If we can't actually have the absolute truth, why is a possibly biased, one-sided truth allowed to stand above the rest?

[Silverkun]

Not gonna pull any punches here.

Wherever you guys live, there's probably a door to that place with a lock on it. You probably like to keep it locked, because you don't want people to come in and steal or break stuff, or maybe even kill you. This is easy to understand.

Now, suppose you find a door that, to you, looks suspicious for whatever reason. It MIGHT have something behind it that should be exposed. But it also might not.

In that case, the "Truth" side of this argument seems to be saying "break the door down and expose everything to the light of day." Because all information exists to be spread, apparently. The default state is to spread it, and to fail to do so is some kind of sin.

The door has been left open. If a criminal finds this, I don't need to explain what would happen. However, the fact that the criminal found it, that's not my fault. I only left the door open. The criminals are the ones to blame for what they're doing, and they need to go die.

At this point, it's just like what Erika does. You find a lock, you break it, and you just leave it open. Nothing after that is your responsibility. However, I ask you: Who has the better motive?

1. The person who does it for personal amusement, to watch things burn when people's secrets are exposed to the light of day.

2. The person who doesn't even acknowledge that they are Breaking And Entering, because they believe that they are doing what is Right™. Things burn all the same, afterward, but this person believes that it is the Lesser Evil™ and not their fault anyway and thus justified. They also fail to understand that they also have secrets they keep from others, as ALL humans do, that secrets exist to be kept, and that if their secrets were exposed, they would be suffering too.

Are you seriously going to try telling me that you have never told a lie in your life? You show me a human that does not lie, and I will show you a human that leads an absolutely miserable life, being continually abused and taken advantage of by others because they refused to do something very simple and easy that could have prevented a great deal of that suffering.

Newsflash: humans really aren't that righteous. Humans have two particularly major natural instincts: the instinct to get rid of suffering, and the instinct to pursue pleasure. They take care of others because that eases their guilt (getting rid of suffering) and because it makes them feel good about themselves or because they expect something in return (pursuit of pleasure). The idea of love is the same: you receive gratification when the things you do for a specific person are acknowledged by them, and when they return your feelings. You suffer when you don't receive these things from them, but you may choose to continue the relationship simply because you believe that will change, or because you're receiving some kind of self-satisfaction by doing things without receiving anything but pain in return. People want to believe they are Good™, and not Bad™. But those concepts only exist within the minds of humans, and furthermore, they differ greatly between humans. Your sense of what is Good™ is not any better than that of any other person.

A human is merely 1 of roughly 7,000,000,000 on this planet. When that 1 starts to honestly believe that they know what's best for the other 6,999,999,999, it is the epitome of arrogance. They are far better off just making their decisions based on whether it would be good or bad for themselves, and those they know well. If something is None Of Your Business, then it is best left alone.

However, there is the possibility that you may be right. Something suspicious was behind the door you opened, and it was something that needed to be exposed. That's just wonderful. But what if it wasn't? Everything depends on the results. True, you may even be thought of as a Hero by some, and I'm sure that would be very gratifying. At the very least, you will probably think of yourself as a Hero. But you may also be thought of as a Criminal, the very thing you are trying to fight. In that case, you will probably continually tell yourself that you had good intentions and not to worry about what they're saying. But that doesn't change the fact that you committed the crime of Breaking And Entering, even though it was probably None Of Your Business. So even if you're thought of as a Hero, doesn't that still make you a Criminal? What's the difference between the two anyway?

So, you may say it is a Necessary Evil™. But in the case, at least don't stick the label of Justice™ on it.