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Old 2010-06-06, 17:23   Link #10881
Kylon99
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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
One of its [Author Theory] biggest failings is that it's distrustful of everything that's written and assumes it's mostly applicable as a contrast between the unknown "author" (or authors) and what he or she thinks about the Rokkenjima Incident, rather than what actually did happen. Since this person is entirely unidentified, it's pretty much the enemy of fans of the mystery and fans of the romance. Especially if most of the characters really did die in 1986. Then what was the point of any of their struggles or dreams?

The big problem really becomes "who cares?" Though I've often explored Author Theory, I can't really answer that. Unless more hints are dropped about it, I think it's a plausible wild theory, but little more than that.
Spoiler for Long explanation and theories...:

Last edited by Kylon99; 2010-06-06 at 17:24. Reason: Holy crap.. long. Putting in spoiler tags.
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Old 2010-06-06, 17:47   Link #10882
SeagullCrazy
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Originally Posted by Kylon99 View Post
Spoiler for Long explanation and theories...:
Wow, I didn't even think about that last part. That gives me a couple ideas regarding Author Theory.

If the Siestas were written into the story because 'Beatrice' loved Maria enough to put them in, then maybe all of the magical characters were originally Maria's ideas.

The reason that the adults don't get much screentime is because the author doesn't know much about them. Likewise, characters that do get screentime are people that the author knows more about.

Because it would be much harder to write about things you don't know about, it makes sense for Beatrice to write about things she does know about. I guess most of this is helpful to figure out the identity of the author....wait.

The Siestas could only be bunnies because Beatrice knows about Maria's rabbit band. But Hachijou claims to have written EP3, the first episode the Siestas appear in. Does that mean Hachijou = Beatrice?
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Old 2010-06-06, 17:51   Link #10883
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Originally Posted by SeagullCrazy View Post
The Siestas could only be bunnies because Beatrice knows about Maria's rabbit band.
Or you know it could just be the obvious reason.

The author of episode 3 and 4 is a misogynist and a pervert and he just wanted to write a story with beautiful girls dressed in skimpy bunny suits.
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Old 2010-06-06, 18:32   Link #10884
Kylon99
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Originally Posted by SeagullCrazy View Post
Wow, I didn't even think about that last part. That gives me a couple ideas regarding Author Theory.

The Siestas could only be bunnies because Beatrice knows about Maria's rabbit band. But Hachijou claims to have written EP3, the first episode the Siestas appear in. Does that mean Hachijou = Beatrice?
It could be Hachijou discovered some more facts about Maria and put them in to give herself some legitimacy as well. To 'emulate' the original Beatrice, perhaps.

The Siestas are an amalgam of the rabbit figures and winchester rounds. Before more details about 556 came out I was speculating that she wasn't there because no one liked 'metric.' 8)


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Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
Or you know it could just be the obvious reason.

The author of episode 3 and 4 is a misogynist and a pervert and he just wanted to write a story with beautiful girls dressed in skimpy bunny suits.
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Old 2010-06-06, 18:48   Link #10885
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Touya claims to have done research on the individuals involved, thus giving her "more" information to work with. We don't know if that information she's gathered really exists though. It isn't impossible to imagine, however; the game board is closed off, but the Witch Hunters after the fact would have an entire world of facts and witnesses to hunt down. So even if Hachijou herself didn't do any such research (or doesn't exist to do it), someone could have. So it's possible the "development" over episodes actually is derived from research. But that would somewhat suggest the game boards are getting closer to the truth, rather than further away...
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Old 2010-06-06, 19:01   Link #10886
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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
But that would somewhat suggest the game boards are getting closer to the truth, rather than further away...
That would imply that the truth is an epically unbelievable one.

Which is quite possible, mind you.
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Old 2010-06-06, 19:02   Link #10887
SeagullCrazy
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Originally Posted by Kylon99 View Post
It could be Hachijou discovered some more facts about Maria and put them in to give herself some legitimacy as well. To 'emulate' the original Beatrice, perhaps.
If that's the case, then the only way to know about the rabbit band would be from reading Maria's diary. The rabbits were destroyed, so even if Maria's house was searched there would be no way to find the actual figures. But if the Witch Hunters or someone searched Maria's house and found her diary, then they would definitely know about the rabbits.

But Ange was in possession of Maria's diary. Maybe it goes something like this:
  • Beatrice reads Maria's diary
  • Beatrice writes EP1 and EP2
  • The Witch Hunters read Maria's diary
  • Hachijou puts the rabbits in EP3
  • Ange takes the diary
  • Ange meets Hachijou
Of course, this is completely irrelevant if they could find out about the rabbits through something other than Maria's diary, but I would have no idea how.
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Old 2010-06-06, 19:07   Link #10888
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Now that I think about it if Kinzo was the author a lot of things would make sense.

The message bottles for one thing. If they were prepared before hand nobody really needs to find them in the ocean if Kinzo is involved. He just has to set something up with some publisher or some friend of his to release the "message bottles" after he is presumed dead or when the accident happens. So even though there were sailors who said they found them that could just be a lie. And Kinzo does make bluffs and weird stories up.

Secondly the people who are framed would make more sense. The author seems to frame women most of the time (except for the one time in episode 4 where Kinzo is framed, which is the only exception) and Kinzo is portrayed to be perpetuating misogyny and teaching it to his Kids. He's also said to be a lot like Battler so the perverted stuff in the meta world wouldn't be out of the ordinary if he wrote it.

Third these stories made an obscure hobby like the occult popular after they were found. Kinzo says from the very beginning that he doesn't want to leave anything behind. He says he began with nothing and he'll die with nothing. However at the same time witch hunt finds rare books from his personal library, and they are formed after the Umineko stories circulate. Kinzo might have a motive to write these stories to make the occult popular.

Kinzo suddenly seems all the more awesome now!

EDIT: An important thing to note is I don't beleive anything I just said. it'd be awesome if it were true for episodes 1 and 2 at least. I just thought it was funny how that could easily explain how they were written if episodes 1 and 2 were written previous to the Rokkenjima accident.
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Old 2010-06-06, 19:17   Link #10889
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Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
EDIT: An important thing to note is I don't beleive anything I just said. it'd be awesome if it were true for episodes 1 and 2 at least. I just thought it was funny how that could explain how they were written if episodes 1 and 2 were written previous to the Rokkenjima accident.
But.. but.. .but... 8)

Actually, what if the written epsiodes 1 and 2 WERE Kinzo's written will? Maybe Shannon was just told what to write without fully understanding it and then snuck in that extra line about finding the truth. Maybe. 8)

Also, Kinzo was a bit upset that Rosa named her daughter Maria. What if there was a different woman who was Ushiromiya Maria, which is what the writing referred to? And she and who we think of as 'Beatrice' is the same person? I mean we do know this new woman inherited the title of 'Beatrice.' So maybe her previous name was Maria.

(And she's no longer alive.)
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Old 2010-06-06, 19:20   Link #10890
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Also, Kinzo was a bit upset that Rosa named her daughter Maria. What if there was a different woman who was Ushiromiya Maria, which is what the writing referred to? And she and who we think of as 'Beatrice' is the same person? I mean we do know this new woman inherited the title of 'Beatrice.' So maybe her previous name was Maria.

(And she's no longer alive.)
Rather than the previous Beatrice being named Maria, which is a very common theory. What if he knew someone in the main family who was named Ushiromiya Maria and then the Kanto earthquake hit and she died?
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Old 2010-06-07, 02:26   Link #10891
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The main problem I see is the fact that even with the manyworld intepretation you still need to imagine that the Game Master needs to create a story to cover the real story.
That's because the process of creation is at this point undeniable.

So in the end the manyworld interpretation doesn't really have any purpose, because the fake story creation process by itself can explain all the differences among the various games, and you only need a single "real world" which all of them are based upon.

Why you need many worlds, when the Gamemaster already has the power to make changes to such worlds?
I don't think the word "creation" in any way implies that the kakera analogy doesn't work. Yes, kakera cover all possibilities, but you can't just say "Gohda killed everyone by accident" unless there's some physically possible way for that to happen. So, if you want to tell a particular story (i.e. find a specific kakera), you need to find out what conditions are needed to lead to that result.

For example, if you want to make a story that leads up to that famous Nanjo closed room of EP3, you can't just pull that kakera out of a hat. You'd need to find a set of conditions that leads to that result. If your reasoning was right, then there must be a kakera that follows your story (assuming that there are kakera for all possibilities, no matter how unlikely). But you have to be able to create that reasoning in the first place.

In other words, as we figured out long ago, the Author Theory and Kakera Theory are nearly identical while on Rokkenjima. In one, you're writing a story that must be internally consistent to hold the readers' interest, and in the other, you're writing a story that must fit the laws of physics and the game start conditions so that there will be a kakera to match it to.

However, the Game Master isn't changing any worlds with the kakera theory, just selecting them. If they were changing the actual worlds themselves, that would violate the laws of cause and effect and make the story invalid as a kakera.
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Old 2010-06-07, 04:12   Link #10892
Judoh
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The only difference I'm aware of between Kakera theory and author/fiction theory is that the first one is just different scenarios with a nonfiction narrative that come about by making different choices to change the circumstances after a higher power loops time, while in author or fiction theory the stories don't loop, but rather are fictional, knock off, variations of the same event written at different times one after the other by one or more people.

I'm not sure where this idea of someone "selecting Kakera" came from other than maybe the moments where people remember "fragments" i.e. memories from other scenarios. I don't think it's ever been implied anywhere that someone chooses which Kakera they will go into. If anything it's implied that what will happen once you enter a different Kakera is entirely guess work, and that it's manipulated by changes in the environment.

if you need an analogy for the Kakera theory the sea of zero in episode 4 is probably the best. You start with nothing and than create infinite possibilities from that.
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Old 2010-06-07, 05:07   Link #10893
Kylon99
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Originally Posted by chronotrig View Post
In other words, as we figured out long ago, the Author Theory and Kakera Theory are nearly identical while on Rokkenjima. In one, you're writing a story that must be internally consistent to hold the readers' interest, and in the other, you're writing a story that must fit the laws of physics and the game start conditions so that there will be a kakera to match it to.
Maybe a better way to say it is that the two are analogous. Besides what Judoh said, there is one very important difference for me. The author-level should sit above the meta-level. In other words Lambdadelta and Bernkastel themselves are characters for the author...

My version of the Author Theory came about when Lambdadelta was introduced since I was suspicious of magic characters even on the meta level. So it was a way to pierce the meta world too and deny the existence of fantasy even on that level. 8) I wasn't aiming to solve the mystery, I was trying to shoot at Lambdadelta and Bernkastel.

But anyways, I like the Author Theory because as we've seen it is analogous to the events in the story. Things like, "Beatrice made the game to be solvable" or "Knox rules" or "Set up the gameboard" or "Game master has to craft the story." But in addition to the things said and observed in the meta world it also ties in the stuff said and observed outside the meta world; things which the meta world never seemed to touch on. Things like the "Message Bottles." I haven't seen anyone talk about those except in the 1998 world...

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I'm not sure where this idea of someone "selecting Kakera" came from other than maybe the moments where people remember "fragments" i.e. memories from other scenarios. I don't think it's ever been implied anywhere that someone chooses which Kakera they will go into. If anything it's implied that what will happen once you enter a different Kakera is entirely guess work, and that it's manipulated by changes in the environment.
I thought that Bernkastel was able to view different kakera when she showed Battler the sea of kakera in Episode 5. I didn't actually see her entering any; in fact... Umineko has always been about 'setting up the gameboard' rather than 'choosing which kakera to go into.'

But I thought that since she was there she could've chosen to go into one at any time, if this idea of kakera holds the same as from Higurashi. But, she was just using them to view Eva's solution of the Epitaph in that one scene though.

I know from Higurashi that Rika was rather helpless in which kakera she found herself in. I remember Ryukishi explaining that rather than time travel it was more of entering into a world where a series of dice had been thrown to decide certain events. But I'd imagine that Bernkastel (if she is the same one) has greater powers in seeing and selecting kakera now. Of course, I think we all suspect this way of thinking is a red herring...
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Old 2010-06-07, 09:34   Link #10894
Jan-Poo
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@chrono
Spoiler for Higurashi:


@Judoh
there are a few times where the selection of a kakera is mentioned. That's when Bernkastel tells that she "will choose the most terrible kakera" to send her piece to.

However such a thing was never mentioned by Beatrice.

Even so the selection of kakera isn't incompatible with the author theory, since you can choose and read whatever story is already existent. Rather it's the many-world interpretation that it's incompatible with the creation of kakera, unless you assume someone has God-like powers.

Now there is a particular thing that I noticed about Bern and Lambda. Depending on your interpretation, assuming Lambda and Bern are telling the truth about themselves then they either:

1) "Lived" for an incredible amount of time among many real worlds. So they must have seen humanity and their histories in any possible way.

2) Are meta-existences that have traveled among many different stories created by humans. Their experiences are therefore tied to fictional worlds.

In EP5 Hideyoshi makes a comparison with an historical event in order to explain his theory about Kinzo's situation to Eva. People draw facts from their favorite field of knowledge when they make comparisons, and in fact we know that Hideyoshi has always been fascinated by the sengoku era.

But what about Bern and Lambda? What do they most often talk about? What are most often referencing to and with a clear assumption that the other knows perfectly what they are talking about?

Not surprisingly (for me): works of fiction, mainly books.
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Old 2010-06-07, 11:18   Link #10895
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@chrono
Spoiler for Higurashi:
This "not necessary" thing is silly. I've already made an argument about EP4's 1998 which only makes sense if the Kakera Theory is true. If that argument turns out to be part of the answer, then the Kakera Theory is necessary to solve the game.

In effect, the only point you've made is that I can't prove that the Kakera Theory is relevant, which I never claimed I could do in the first place.

Anyways, just because books and creating stories are a theme doesn't detract from the Kakera Theory in the slightest, in my opinion. It's still up to the Game Master to write a story that fits the physical boundaries of the island. The false scenes can be interpreted as an imperfect observer, either because they didn't see the scene they thought they did, or because of secondhand information. Higurashi shows that kakera can include falsehoods if the perspective of the narrator is unreliable. Umineko takes that to the next level by making the identity of the narrator part of the puzzle.
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Old 2010-06-07, 13:57   Link #10896
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
Not surprisingly (for me): works of fiction, mainly books.
And Higurashi is, within both our world, Umineko's world, and even Higurashi's world, a work of fiction.

That. That makes perfect sense.
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Old 2010-06-07, 18:14   Link #10897
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Also note that Battler is incredibly well-read. He doesn't trot this out often (though he mentions it at least a couple times), but it is somewhat implicit in the things he thinks about. Although he misses a few major works... but the ones he misses mostly seem to be western or out of genre.

Among the other characters on the board, only Erika, Nanjo, and Kinzo seem to have any particular affinity for books. Erika and Nanjo both like mysteries, which suggests they're accustomed to fiction in general, but Kinzo's collection depends more on how he actually viewed all those books and could lean more toward a lack of interest in fiction.

George is shown to have what must be book learning, but he never really seems to suggest an interest in fiction.

Hideyoshi is interested in historical stories, but he clearly has an appreciation for narrative. He may be more interested in history than fiction, however.

Eva is shown to have a relative contempt for books, at least insofar as she was willing to pawn her father's library. This could be a ruse, however, especially given how clever she is.

From the other side: "Beatrice" is stated to have a decided interest in writing fiction. And of course there's Featherinne.
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Old 2010-06-07, 19:03   Link #10898
Oliver
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From the other side: "Beatrice" is stated to have a decided interest in writing fiction. And of course there's Featherinne.
Pretty much the only bodily character other than Featherinne who is shown to have written anything longer than a note is Maria. And that diary of hers surely does sound like fiction at times.

Maybe we should give the girl a bit more credit, what's to say she really did not write those bottle messages? The handwriting, which doesn't look like that of a nine year old child? Well, her speech in Ep1, in particular, and in many other instances, is definitely not the speech of a nine year old child either. It may be just my impression (read: it's very annoying to seriously count, so I'm relying on my memory for a preliminary assessment rather than actual numbers.) but Maria in full magic mode uses the longest words of any character other than Kinzo, and strings them into sentences on par with Kinzo's own in length and complexity.

George and Jessica explain that away by an alleged 'personality of a thousand year old witch' that exists within Maria as an imagined character, and Battler eats that up. They're missing one important consequence and Battler just drops it then and there, not following up on it.

Namely, you cannot improvise the portrayal of something that you cannot actually do. You can only fake that portrayal effectively if you're responding to a predefined script or otherwise directing the reactions of the other participants to reduce the possible solution space.

That is, either Maria has photographic memory good enough to hold a lot of canned speeches and others are playing along, or she really can generate them in place. Either would be beyond the capabilities of a normal nine year old child. That a novel-length description of Ep1 or Ep2 is beyond the capabilities of a nine year old, or that the writing does not match, should not, therefore, be an argument against Maria actually writing them.
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Old 2010-06-07, 21:02   Link #10899
Shiro Kaisen
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George is shown to have what must be book learning, but he never really seems to suggest an interest in fiction.

A bit out of touch with the discussion at hand, but I will comment here - George at least really likes "Journey to the West," and mentions liking fantasy stories. He doesn't ever show any interest in mystery, though.
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Old 2010-06-07, 22:28   Link #10900
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Pretty much the only bodily character other than Featherinne who is shown to have written anything longer than a note is Maria. And that diary of hers surely does sound like fiction at times.
I have to think she's getting inspiration from somewhere. There's an obvious chain of thematic inspiration between Kinzo and Maria, it's just not clear where that chain's inner links run (if I had to guess, it would be Kinzo to Kumasawa to Shannon and/or Maria, or just Shannon to Maria). I don't think Rosa, despite having the highest degree of control over Maria, would have permitted that chain of communication between Kinzo's interests and Maria's.

It's more than just a mutual occult interest. The references seem nearly identical.

While I can't deny the possibility Maria wrote the bottles, I somewhat suspect it's the person who inspired her directly who wrote them instead. If it was Maria, then it was almost certainly not an idea she just generated herself. Someone gave her the means to come up with it.
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