[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 7 Requiem of the golden witch

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Well if you doubt Claire's story I guess there's a lot of possibilities open to you.

But personally I prefer to think it's true for the most part. Kinzo's perfectly timed death and magic scenes apart everything made perfect sense to me, plus Will didn't have any problem with that.

It just bugs me. We never had an indication that Shannon had any kind of injury in EP1-4 other than her calling herself furniture, and in the meantime she was happily planning with George to build a big family with lots of kids. And then this "child from nineteen years ago" thing comes out of nowhere in EP5, and we're supposed to believe an infant not only survived falling off a tall cliff onto rocks, but wasn't physically or mentally crippled by it in an immediately obvious way?

[Jan-Poo]

And isn't it strange that at this place the term 大怪我 appears again?!

But the whole story doesn't fit with a fall from a staircase. Apparently Shannon is able to move so she didn't break her spine. She also doesn't show any kind of walking impairment.

The only kind of death threat that can happen from falling from the stair is that you break your neck, but that's not something you can recover from.


Plus it was hinted before that Genji thought that the baby was dead when he brought it to Nanjo, so it can be well assumed that the baby suffered some kind of bad injury.
Everything fits here.

[Volcanic]

Originally Posted by cmos

Lion didn't experienced the fall though. Yet his gender is still ambiguous. So unless his appearance is a mere symbol for our Yasu's gender ambiguity, we can say that it's not related to the injury and probably inherited.

...I should have worded that differently.

Yasu's ambiguous gender is represented by Leon's, I should put it. Bernkastel even flat-out states Leon's appearance is a "placeholder."

[Ayu-ayu]

Originally Posted by cmos

Lion didn't experienced the fall though. Yet his gender is still ambiguous. So unless his appearance is a mere symbol for our Yasu's gender ambiguity, we can say that it's not related to the injury and probably inherited.

Oh ho, interesting, I hadn't thought of that and had been taking it more or less symbolically. But that is a rather good point if building the case the injury was some other part of the body (be it face or chest or what have you).

Speaking of heredity and such, I wonder if Lyon has extra toes, too (not that this has to do with anything)...

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

My thoughts were the same about this scene probably signifying the origin of the "Furniture... however there is one other instance in Yasu's story--when Maria is helping Beatrice make names, she does refer to Ronove as being suitable for her head furniture if I recall...? Or was it just head servant in that case? If so, then should we place the flashback scene before this scene with Maria, or after?

I think we can safely assume that this meeting with Maria did probably occur rather late due to several reasons.
If Yasu is Beatrice and Ronove does really derive from Genji it is quite probable that she wouldn't imagine him as part of the ''witche's court'' until after she had solved the epitaph and received the trust of the servants.

Maria is already talking about quite many 'furnitures' and I think even the bunnies (later Siestas). If I remember correctly she only received them after she got Sakutarou, which is either in 1984 or 1985.

They are in the garden of Kuwadorian (of course this might have been part of an illusion), assuming that they really were there it would have to be 1985 already.

When Battler hears about the servants refering to themselves as 家具 does he wonder about the term in the beginning?! My memory is a bit fuzzy concerning that part, but if he doesn't remember we can additionally assume that the concept was created sometime between 1980 and 1984/85 (when we first see flashbacks of Shannon and Kanon).

EDIT:

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

It just bugs me. We never had an indication that Shannon had any kind of injury in EP1-4 other than her calling herself furniture, and in the meantime she was happily planning with George to build a big family with lots of kids. And then this "child from nineteen years ago" thing comes out of nowhere in EP5, and we're supposed to believe an infant not only survived falling off a tall cliff onto rocks, but wasn't physically or mentally crippled by it in an immediately obvious way?

We have the fact that she calls herself 'furniture', she says the she is unable to love because she is furniture and several other things that implied she did not see herself as exactly human. Just a quick question regarding that...can somebody grow colourblind by losing one eye?! ^^°
And the baby did not fall and crash onto the rocks it was a maid that did that and probably softened the impact. You never heard of a mother jumping from a high building and shielding her child with her body? Sometimes it works.
BUT another thing...if we were to assume that Gaap is at least partly Nanjo, then we could interprete the whole affair with a servant dropping the child altogether. Imagine that Natsuhi refused the baby, so the only chance there would have been was for it to go to Kuwadorian like his mother and Kumasawa, Genji and Nanjo probably didn't want that. So the three made up the whole story of the baby dropping from a cliff and dying not only towards Kinzo, but also in front of Natsuhi so that she wouldn't reveal it to Kinzo. Maybe there never was a maid that dropped from a cliff with the child, but just Dr. Nanjo who faked a report that said something like this happened.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

But the whole story doesn't fit with a fall from a staircase. Apparently Shannon is able to move so she didn't break her spine. She also doesn't show any kind of walking impairment.

The only kind of death threat that can happen from falling from the stair is that you break your neck, but that's not something you can recover from.

There are many injuries that you could suffer by falling down from a certain height and a death threat can come from several things. She could have also smashed her head and suffered a serious injury that did leave a hideous disfigurement. Imagine she hit her ace against a sharp edge of the stairs, or landed on the floor face forward...the bloodloss alone would have been life threatening, so death threat does not have to come in form of an injury to the spine.

[musouka]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

It just bugs me. We never had an indication that Shannon had any kind of injury in EP1-4 other than her calling herself furniture, and in the meantime she was happily planning with George to build a big family with lots of kids.

And you never wondered why Kanon seemed to treat that plan with flat, utter derision? EP6 makes it especially obvious that it's "impossible" for that dream in particular to come true for Shannon, no matter what happens.

Ryukishi made you think "furniture = can't love" when it was the reverse "can't love = furniture", which totally changes the dynamic of nearly every scene where Shannon and Kanon talk about the concept.

[Ayu-ayu]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

I think we can safely assume that this meeting with Maria did probably occur rather late due to several reasons.
If Yasu is Beatrice and Ronove does really derive from Genji it is quite probable that she wouldn't imagine him as part of the ''witche's court'' until after she had solved the epitaph and received the trust of the servants.

Maria is already talking about quite many 'furnitures' and I think even the bunnies (later Siestas). If I remember correctly she only received them after she got Sakutarou, which is either in 1984 or 1985.

They are in the garden of Kuwadorian (of course this might have been part of an illusion), assuming that they really were there it would have to be 1985 already.

When Battler hears about the servants refering to themselves as 家具 does he wonder about the term in the beginning?! My memory is a bit fuzzy concerning that part, but if he doesn't remember we can additionally assume that the concept was created sometime between 1980 and 1984/85 (when we first see flashbacks of Shannon and Kanon).

Right, I knew the Maria sequence was pretty late (if not later than the flashback, but more likely that would seem to be the case). But I wonder how far back the flashback is then? Too bad there's not any more context given with it, it seems a pretty significant scene. Was the background image to the scene anywhere unique? I should go back and check now.

[Jan-Poo]

When Battler hears about the servants refering to themselves as 家具 does he wonder about the term in the beginning?!

First instance when Battler is seen hearing the word in 1986 is from Kanon during their first meeting.

Second instance is when Battler tries and fails to touch Shannon's boobs.

In both cases Battler doesn't show any particular reaction.
It's interesting to note... Shannon and Kanon do not say "I am furniture" they say "We are furniture".

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

Right, I knew the Maria sequence was pretty late (if not later than the flashback, but more likely that would seem to be the case). But I wonder how far back the flashback is then? Too bad there's not any more context given with it, it seems a pretty significant scene. Was the background image to the scene anywhere unique? I should go back and check now.

The background is one of the screens in Kinzo's study. We can assume that Yasu was never in there before she solved the Epitaph, but there is no definite proof to that. Yet the fact the she is in the study with Nanjo and Genji implies pretty much that it is in or after November 1984.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

First instance when Battler is seen hearing the word in 1986 is from Kanon during their first meeting.

Second instance is when Battler tries and fails to touch Shannon's boobs.

In both cases Battler doesn't show any particular reaction.
It's interesting to note... Shannon and Kanon do not say "I am furniture" they say "We are furniture".

Hm, interesting...I also notived that they often use plural when they refer to being furniture. And then we have the image of the broken brooch again, two parts of a whole, but useless as it is.

[Ayu-ayu]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

The background is one of the screens in Kinzo's study. We can assume that Yasu was never in there before she solved the Epitaph, but there is no definite proof to that. Yet the fact the she is in the study with Nanjo and Genji implies pretty much that it is in or after November 1984.

Hm! Okay, to me at least that would seem to imply that this occurs after Kinzo's death, either after the events told by Yasu/Claire or somewhere in the middle and omitted. Perhaps there were more revelations made then, and in turn there were more instructions she gave, such as establishing the role of furniture. Perhaps she glossed over things a bit here in her retelling and it wasn't as simple as "continue on as things were" after all?

[cmos]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

I think we can safely assume that this meeting with Maria did probably occur rather late due to several reasons.
If Yasu is Beatrice and Ronove does really derive from Genji it is quite probable that she wouldn't imagine him as part of the ''witche's court'' until after she had solved the epitaph and received the trust of the servants.

Maria is already talking about quite many 'furnitures' and I think even the bunnies (later Siestas). If I remember correctly she only received them after she got Sakutarou, which is either in 1984 or 1985.

They are in the garden of Kuwadorian (of course this might have been part of an illusion), assuming that they really were there it would have to be 1985 already

Actually, we can say that it was 1984, because in that meeting Beato suddenly remembered that she needs love, etc, Maria says that Beato doesn't have enough power, and they decide to solve the epitaph.
And judging by background, it was rose garden arbor, which creates a contradiction with ep4, because of Sakutaro in Kuwadorian.

Spoiler for backgrounds:

Backgrounds to the left are named garden_r1<letters>.bmp and it's the arbor, because George proposed there and the corpses were found there in ep3. To the right is Kuwadorian and they are named garden_se<1-2><letters>.bmp

Originally Posted by Volcanic

Bernkastel even flat-out states Leon's appearance is a "placeholder."

Could you please post a quote? It seems that I missed that and can't find anything like that in those scenes, where they discuss Lion.

[Jan-Poo]

And judging by background, it was rose garden arbor, which creates a contradiction with ep4, because of Sakutaro in Kuwadorian.

It doesn't create a contradiction. The scene shown in EP7 happened in a later instance, because Sakutaro has been made already.

[cmos]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

It doesn't create a contradiction. The scene shown in EP7 happened in a later instance, because Sakutaro has been made already.

She hasn't solved epitaph yet, when that meeting in ep7 takes place, so she shouldn't have access to Kuwadorian. But Sakutarou appears in his human form, that was created, according to ep4, during their meeting in Kuwadorian.

Well, it's not a fatal logic error and you can explain it in several ways, making some assumptions, but still.

[Jan-Poo]

Okay that's odd...

Either the kuwadorian flashback has been embellished with a fake background, or Ryuukishi didn't told us the whole story in Ep7.

I'm going for the first. It's doubtful that Beatrice brought Maria to the Kuwadorian, walking 2km back and forth just to play in a different environment is kinda pointless.

[Renall]

There's a lot of kludging to make the Baby From 19 Years Ago story fit.

Rosa's Beatrice-2 story never made sense to me, especially with some of the embellishments in ep7 when Will asks about it. So she just happens to go running into the woods and by pure luck locates Kuwadorian, and then after Beatrice dies she runs away and just happens to spot the chapel and get home? It's a wonder everyone hasn't been to Kuwadorian if it's that easy to get there and back.

Will mixes the two "falling" stories told by Rosa and about Natsuhi's baby to insinuate some degree of similarity between incidents, which serves as the foundational basis to explain L[y/i/e]on and Yasu. I don't really see a lot of reason to do that, but he does. Even if we keep them separated, it's possible to still derive the Yasu story from it, but it becomes stranger and stranger.

We have ep6, where Natsuhi has no idea what Beatrice is talking about. The only three explanations that can possibly derive from this is heavy denial, outright lying, or that there never was any such incident and thus, no baby. If she's in denial, it's strange her memory is never jogged. It's unlikely she's lying, because she seems to have no motive to. But if the baby didn't exist, or the fall incident didn't happen (i.e. the baby was in fact Jessica or something), then Yasu can't possibly be that child (though Yasu could still exist and merely think she is), and neither can L[y/i/e]on. So it would wind up denying his existence at least.

Yasu speculates on being an Ushiromiya long before any such thing is "confirmed." It's not an incredible leap of faith really (why bring somebody there at such a young age and keep them around so long?). But it is very... narratively convenient.

By the way, isn't it weird we have three stories about a person falling, and Battler and Asumu both have that complex about falling? What's up with that? Half the falling stories are looped back onto the Yasu thing which, so far as we've been shown, has nothing whatsoever to do with Battler or Asumu. Either this family gets involved in or causes an awful lot of falling accidents, or there is some kind of theme not being properly parsed here.

EDIT: And of course, Ange survives her miraculous fall from the building. There's got to be something more to this falling motif.

Originally Posted by musouka

Ryukishi made you think "furniture = can't love" when it was the reverse "can't love = furniture", which totally changes the dynamic of nearly every scene where Shannon and Kanon talk about the concept.

What does that make Genji then?

Admittedly, that time someone proposed he was a homosexual and attracted to Kinzo in a way that could never be fulfilled was about the most sensible way to make it seem like it fit in light of the Shannon/Kanon dynamic proposed, but I see no proof anywhere of it.

[Jan-Poo]

It's a wonder everyone hasn't been to Kuwadorian if it's that easy to get there and back.

Actually if there's something that doesn't make sense is that Krauss didn't know that Kuwadorian existed especially after he called people to make an investigation about the area.
I don't understand how it can be so hard to find that house in a merely 2km wide island especially a Mansion that has a huge fence surrounding it and a port on its vicinity.

Rosa stumbling on that fence sounds pretty reasonable to me. What doesn't sound reasonable at all is that Krauss or his men didn't.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Actually if there's something that doesn't make sense is that Krauss didn't know that Kuwadorian existed especially after he called people to make an investigation about the area.
I don't understand how it can be so hard to find that house in a merely 2km wide island especially a Mansion that has a huge fence surrounding it and a port on its vicinity.

Rosa stumbling on that fence sounds pretty reasonable to me. What doesn't sound reasonable at all is that Krauss or his men didn't.

Well, people say his surveyors didn't find anything, but I'd think they would have to have found Kuwadorian, especially if they did any aerial photography whatsoever (and they assuredly must have).

So I think the better question is why Krauss is lying about not knowing Kuwadorian exists, because he almost certainly does.

[Jan-Poo]

Krauss is the kind of man that likes to keep informations to himself (for example he believes that the gold must exists but he pretends to think it's just a legend).

He might have decided to keep the story of the Kuwadorian to himself, but I wonder why he didn't tell anything when Rosa said she's been there in the past.
Well Krauss is sort of a dick, he's George's uncle after all.

[musouka]

Originally Posted by Renall

What does that make Genji then?

Someone sympathetic to their master's mental plight.

[Erisette]

Originally Posted by Renall

We have ep6, where Natsuhi has no idea what Beatrice is talking about. The only three explanations that can possibly derive from this is heavy denial, outright lying, or that there never was any such incident and thus, no baby. If she's in denial, it's strange her memory is never jogged. It's unlikely she's lying, because she seems to have no motive to. But if the baby didn't exist, or the fall incident didn't happen (i.e. the baby was in fact Jessica or something), then Yasu can't possibly be that child (though Yasu could still exist and merely think she is), and neither can L[y/i/e]on. So it would wind up denying his existence at least.

But there is also the possibility, as chounokoe said, that the baby exists and is Yasu but the incident is a lie to make keep her away from Kinzo and Kuwadorian or something like that.