2012-02-28, 04:51 | Link #27942 |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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I'm not sure if "honest" or "dishonest" is the right word to use at all here. In EP 5, Virgilia and Ronove explicitly tell us that Beatrice has a very different idea of what constitutes a "fair mystery", and specifically say that the answer might be lost in translation. Remember the riddle about dragons who "fight knights?"
Besides, the idea of using the old meaning of mystery - "a (staged) miracle" - is not so much "hinted at" as "hammered in from the start." Kinzo won't shut up about trying to stage a miracle for the first four episodes. |
2012-02-28, 04:54 | Link #27943 | |||||
Audiophile
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 31
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Thanks for the responses!
Firstly I want to get my theory to the very nature of Umineko sorted out first. This is really important and I can't believe I missed it out initially. I believe that fantasy does in fact exist outside the Game Board. I believe that Witches and the fantasy World does indeed exist, because as long as you believe it, it exists. I believe that the limitations of magic only exists within the Game Board. In the Game Board, "magic" doesn't really exist - it is just Anti-Mystery. Outside the Game Board, one cannot deny the supreme power of magic. The very fact that a Game Board can be established is magic. The final scenes in episode 8 is all magic. I'm not sure right now in this thread whether the general conscience is that everything that happened in Umineko is just some stories dreamt up by Battler at the end, or whether magic truly exists and everything in Episodes 1~8 literally happened, and in the end is written down by Tohya and Battler. I believe in the latter. I think there is truly a senate of witches and a magical library which stores a lot of Game Boards, with Umineko no Naku Koro ni being the real, literal story about one of them. With that in mind, I'll start replying to some comments. Naturally, if you think my very fundamental belief above is wrong, feel free to correct me with evidence. After all I probably missed a lot of details of the game after playing all 8 episodes in a roll. Quote:
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Well, I'm asking that even though AuraTwilight already gave his response below, but your thoughts are interesting to hear as well. Quote:
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But the scene at the end of Episode 4 strongly implies that Yasu WANTED Battler to remember. But if Battler remembered...then what did she do all this for? Just for Ange? That's not a strong reason I think. Quote:
As said above, I believe that everything that happened in 1~8 literally happened. Magic and witches do exist. That means Yasu did get granted power by Lambdadelta to become a real witch, and thus to run the Game. If George is the culprit, I can understand Eva going to such lengths to hide the truth, but why would Yasu go that far? Why would Yasu try to make herself seem like the culprit all this time, just for the sake of protecting George? If Battler is the culprit, then yes, I can understand Yasu going that far to protect the man he/she loves. And also that explains why Ange is so shocked at the truth in episode 8 that she wish she never saw it. So I guess I can accept that. Yasu did say in episode 4 that all of this involved Battler's 'sin' from 8 years ago. Virgillia did also confirm that "Ushiromiya Battler didn't kill anyone." but again, Red Truths only represent what happened in the Game, and not reality... All I'm saying is I can accept your theory of Battler being the culprit, but I'd like you to explain a bit more about why your think George is a likely candidate. Thanks for your theory of Battler being the culprit though. I think I believe that he's the culprit too now that I think about the end of episode 5 and the entirety of episode 6. Yeah, he's more likely to be the culprit than Yasu. Except for that boat scene at the end, which hopefully you'll elaborate upon. Now if you can just explain the boat scene more carefully, as well as why Yasu seemingly wanted Battler to find the Truth in Episode 4, I'll fully accept the theory that Battler is the culprit. Last edited by ImperialX; 2012-02-28 at 05:10. Reason: Rethought some things. |
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2012-02-28, 05:21 | Link #27944 |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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If we have to get a culprit - and I don't think we actually need one, given the strong possibility that the whole mess was an accident - George makes more sense than very nearly anyone else simply on the basis of:
1) His close access to Shannon and thus, potentially, the bomb. 2) Eva's willingness to hide what happened, even at the cost of casting suspicion on herself. 3) The fact that, in every case where "being willing to kill for love" comes up symbolically in the story, he doesn't hesitate at all. If George set the bomb to blow, Yasu could have run away at the last minute to rescue Battler, then committed suicide out of remorse, especially if George died during all of this. This neatly explains the boat scene. I still think the evidence favors an accident that nobody would believe. Ange's reaction to Eva's diary, and the low likelihood that George would want to start his married life under a cloud of suspicion (with Shannon complicit) all point in that direction. I mean, geez. An unlabeled switch with no clear on or off position or indication of its function? That's asking for trouble. |
2012-02-28, 05:26 | Link #27945 | |||
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Spoiler for Stuff:
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... I mean, ahoy, good to have you aboard! To reply to your points, one by one: 1. I think you're probably right about the number of physically alive people. Honestly, whether or not I think Yasu bothered using Kanon in the real world changes from day to day. 2. I agree with Aura that the scene of Yasu and Battler escaping together was likely a fantasy. Also of bizarre note is Tohya in the EP8 ??? claiming that he entered the tunnels with Eva, split up with her, and wound up in the submarine base while she wound up at the Kuwadorian. 3. I rather disagree and think several unpleasant, nasty things about Ryukishi keeping the box sealed forever, both in principle, and with the reasoning the story offered for doing so. I won't say I didn't enjoy EP8, but I did find it pretty ... morally disagreeable, as a whole. 4. I also disagree that Yasu was the "culprit" in the real world, proper. I don't recall the specific passages, but several lines in EP8 (and not a moment before) finally made me back down from accusing her of mass murder. I still think she's pretty culpable on a "common sense" level, though. 5. I personally haven't thought of a theory of what happened on the island that feels entirely satisfying. It has to be something that Eva would bother hiding, and would make Ange react extremely badly and retreat into her Eva-culprit theory. On a weaker level of certainty are the ideas that George and Hideyoshi were definitely murdered... All I can really assume from Eva's diary is that Shannon made her challenge as Beatrice, and sooooomebody solved the epitaph. However, if the epitaph was really solved on the first night, there's literally noone on the island that has a motive to commit murder that makes simple sense. And I'm not even talking mass murder, there's not a single person for whom it makes sense to kill even a single other person in such a case, as far as we've been told. And if you take into account (which maybe one shouldnt) those images from the diary that were removed (but still in the data, or...something?), then yeesh, just YEESH. Quote:
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Spoiler for Not even sure I really wanna link to a 2.5 hour video...:
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2012-02-28, 05:37 | Link #27946 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
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I don't think Yasu did it. Yasu just doesn't seem so heartless, for one. Another is the story she crafted; why kill everyone and send out multiple message bottles telling different stories as to how they died? The message bottles aren't really confessions of murder. Anyway, my favorite idea is that the explosion was the end result of a "murder mystery game" gone wrong. The idea of a fake murder game can be taken from various episodes. Episodes 5 and 6 are the most obvious, but even episodes 1, 2, and 4 make more sense if you see a fake murder game orchestrated by Yasu as the motivation for so many characters to lie. For example, in episode 1 Maria comes off as someone who is insane enough to believe the epitaph so literally that she's completely unconcerned with anyone's death, including her own mother's. But what if Maria isn't insane? What if she actually knows the difference between the real world and make believe and is just acting? Rosa's fine and Maria knows it; it's all pretend. And it's really fun for Maria! She's just loving all the attention she's getting playing a central role in the game and tricking all those people who would normally just make fun of her when she talks about magic. There are numerous variations of the murder game theory. Many have speculated that there was a fake murder game orchestrated by Yasu, but hijacked by someone else in order to commit real murders. There is also the idea that the fake murder game was just Yasu's ruse to trick people into being accomplices for what would ultimately be real murders. But my personal favorite is that Yasu was running an innocent fake murder game that was too realistic for its own good; the unfortunate result being that someone who wasn't in on the game snapped from paranoia and, in mistaken self-defense, killed someone else for real, which snowballed into more people killing each other and ultimately the clock switch being flipped for some reason. In particular I love the idea that it was Battler who snapped, because then all the stuff in episodes 1 and 2 about how "he should just accept the witch" and "he shouldn't suspect any of the 18" carries very interesting moral weight. Yasu's fake murder game being the cause of everyone's deaths would also explain Yasu's sense of guilt over the incident, and her desire to take responsibility for the "murders". Also, how a murder game fits with the epitaph and another reason I don't think Yasu did it:
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2012-02-28, 06:38 | Link #27947 | ||||||||||||
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Awesome stuff!
Wow, I'm hearing so many good points about the game I never thought about before. I'm growing to love it even more!
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Battler or some other paranoid snapping and killing someone for real I can understand though. Provided the "Murder Game" actually started. That makes a lot of sense, and also explains why Battler and Eva were walking together before they got separated, and Battler getting into the Boat with Yasu. This point was brought up by Kealym. Quote:
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Last edited by ImperialX; 2012-02-28 at 10:31. Reason: Added some details. |
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2012-02-28, 08:21 | Link #27948 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Yesterday!
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Another sorta crazy theory~
Pushing further the logic of "the real Kinzo" vs the one in Yasu's story, I've been wondering basically how much of everything is altered. Yasu does that, rewriting things in order to make sense and be part of something larger. Her treatment of Battler shows that pretty well. So basically, what if this is arc 7? A world rewritten to make sense to Yasu. No time to get into what this can entail, but the idea is that the more she tried to prevent her "world" from crumbling apart, the more Yasu ended up having to picture negatively everyone in the family. Arc 8 arguably could be the result of actually breaking Yasu's illusion: in it, Battler shows a family where everyone is nice to each other and claims that Ange forgot that this is how things really were. I guess it's like saying that "fantasy" is an illusion, but so is "mystery" in most aspects. If we compare "reality" to how much Yasu imagined insane things considering Battler, and try to apply that to everyone else, I think a lot of assumptions falls back. One interesting thing about this is that Kinzo is never shown to be particularity nice to Shannon or push her to solve the epitaph, while he is particularily nice to Kanon and pushes him to solve the epitaph. The former being the truth, the later being how she rewrote it to make sense as part of her story? It sounds likely to me. So perhaps basically a huge part of the Umineko backstory is only how Yasu rebuilds things. The probably best example I can think of is how everyone dies as a result of Battler's sin. That's certainly not an universal truth, but this is probably how Yasu rewrote things to make sense with her "world". She seems very obcessed with ideas such as fate and various other esoteric ideas that aren't necessarily magic. When Eva accused her of just taking advantage of George in arc 2 (and that will later dump him or so implied by Eva) was actually pretty much right on the mark, it seems, yet it was presented to us in a way where Shannon agrees with Eva but only because she's a "furniture and servant" (and not because she actually loves someone else). So ultimately, Umineko would be about breaking off two set of illusions and to redeem everyone in the family. |
2012-02-28, 10:37 | Link #27949 | |
Audiophile
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 31
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Here's another question if any of you are interested. It's about the ???? Ending of Episode 8. So...what exactly is your take of what happened at the very end, when Battler was greeted by the little children, and suddenly everyone appears around him, welcoming him into the Golden Land?
My take is that it was indeed supernatural. ANGE is a real witch unlike Yasu, who just getting sponsored by a real witch (Lambdadelta) to host a Game for them, being granted magical powers within the Game Board and the Game Board alone. Battler noted this as well, saying that in the outside World, she will not have "magical butlers" to do her bidding. ANGE has demonstrated true magic outside the Game Board several times such as episode 4. As I said before, I believe that Magic only doesn't exist within a Game Board. Within a Game Board, Magic is simply a weapon of Anti-Mystery. There is no "real magic". Real Magic does exist outside the Game Board though, and since there is no GM or Reader, anything "magical" IRL must be real magic. Thus ANGE is a real witch. In the final scene, as the Witch of Resurrection, she resurrected everyone for Battler. I know, I know...cheesy ending, what? Naturally many people will say that it's just illusions going inside Battler's head. I don't deny that possibility, but I'm just saying that ANGE, as the Golden Witch, should have the ability to do something like this. If someone wants to disprove my theory, they'll certainly have to convince me that ANGE is not a real witch, but merely a territorial witch like Beatrice first. Otherwise, there's no reason for her not to do so. Again, having come into this thread without reading the previous 1300 pages, I suspect that what I said have been covered (and possibly proven wrong) before. If that's the case, it's most appreciated if you can let me in on the loop. Quote:
Yes, it's clear that Yasu is delusional, but underneath all his/her imagination, we can still have a general idea of what's going on. It's true that everything here happens within a Game Board in which Featherine/Bernkastel? is the Game Master, but I don't think she is the one who would want to conceal the Truth. After all, in most of episode 8 she wanted to reveal the Truth, and she ran episode 7 to prove her theories. Everyone can interpret Umineko subjectively, and that's what make it a masterpiece. I personally don't believe episode 7 to be untrustworthy or illusional by all means, because I feel that would undermine staple theories of the series. |
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2012-02-28, 10:49 | Link #27950 | |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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When Tohya sees that one room on the Fukuin House (Which Ange made to look like the parlor or something on the Mansion on Rokkenjima) Battler "revives" as a personality and is greeted by Beatrice. Hachijo Ikuko is Beatrice, waiting for Battler to revive, and thus, we get the scene where Beatrice says "I've waited for you, Battler" That way, Ange's tittle as a Resurrection Witch has some use outside fantasy. |
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2012-02-28, 10:56 | Link #27951 | |
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 31
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I'm wondering how you arrived at Ikuko=Yasu/Beatrice theory? |
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2012-02-28, 10:56 | Link #27952 | ||
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Let's say there really is 10t of gold, it's sitting right in front of you, and you want it. Let's accept as true, simply for the sake of argument, that you'd even be willing to kill others to keep it. You've got a gun in your hand, nobody around you suspects your motivation. You have motive and you have means. But hang on. How are you going to get away with it? The gold is sitting there, being extremely heavy and extremely valuable. Great. So...
Kyrie's behavior in that scene just doesn't match her character at all. She's impulsive, flashy, and stupid. That's an absolute reversal from her usual attitude and the idea that she would believe she'd actually get away with things is ridiculous. Nevermind the problems above with actually keeping the money (if there is any money), how's she going to duck the suspicions that she was involved if her family is "conveniently" the only ones surviving? At least Eva was alone, creating the argument that she wouldn't have abandoned her husband and son which casts doubt on whether she did it. Now, you can argue "gold makes people behave irrationally," but if we reach that point it becomes impossible to really bother trying to come up with a "reason" why someone would've done it. Irrational behavior by its nature means someone wasn't thinking about it. That basically excuses anything, which means we're right back to square one. What was all the development for then? Surely we're being shown information that suggests some people either are or are not the type to be swayed by this temptation? This is without taking into consideration several other factors:
That's the thing, here. To justify any one murder, you either have to explain why the other murders would happen, or justify the murderer also having motive to kill everyone else. The only such motive we're presented is Yasu's, and hers is quite absurd and constantly contradicted. Believing in an accident ultimately seems to make the most sense, simply because the very idea that someone would do it intentionally is ludicrous. That doesn't mean it's the case, but the evidence is not strong enough for much else. Unfortunately, evidence has been withheld from us as readers. Quote:
1) What if it's the opposite? That is, Kinzo knew who Yasu was (or suspected) and pushed her to solve the epitaph because he wanted her to do it and he was a nice guy? But, believing herself not to be important or worthy of the consideration (she has self-esteem issues, after all), she invented this idea that Shannon was somehow treated more distantly. 2) There's a number of memories Kanon has in ep6 that don't seem to make any particular sense. He remembers hanging out with Kinzo on friendly terms, for example. These don't appear to be Yasu's memories, but how do we know they're not, and if they aren't, what the hell is Kanon doing remembering things that never actually happened to him? What's the point of showing us that?
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2012-02-28, 10:56 | Link #27953 | |
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^However, Pieces can only be moved in patterns that follows their personality, right? To put it in another way, they couldn't make Natsuhi's piece rape Battler, or to quote someone else demonstrating this, make Nanjo build a nuclear reactor.
So it clearly shows that Kyrie and Rudolf are willing to kill everyone on the island. Or am I mistaken? Quote:
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2012-02-28, 11:08 | Link #27954 | |
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2012-02-28, 11:20 | Link #27955 | |||
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 31
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Now I agree that people are probably not going to kill each other, much less family, for just money. As you said, the adults are constantly shown in a positive light (by the Game Masters), but what if you throw in the fact that someone just died in front of you, and there are bombs planted underneath your feet ready to go off? Can you still think rationally? Can you? I'm not disapproving your theory because I can't. As you said, there isn't enough evidence, but it's just a thought. Thanks for your insight though, it was very interesting. And I still think the spray-painted Fe is going a bit too far. The entire family fortune started by lending out one single ingot for the businessman to inspect. That was legit gold, right? Quote:
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2012-02-28, 11:34 | Link #27956 |
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I'm not saying I believe in an accident, I'm saying the only conclusion I can reach from the evidence I've been given is an accident, unless Ryukishi reveals some of the evidence he's intentionally hiding from his readers.
Also, "it was an accident" does not entail that any murders happened, nor does it require a murder game happened. It's not unfathomable that there was just a chance detonation during the storm, entirely without human intervention. Is it implausible? Yes, but so is having dozens of WW2 torpedoes rigged to explode 40 years after the fact. Why would we believe one and not the other? As far as the gold's veracity: First of all, we don't know there was ever any gold, and we don't know that Kinzo got it from an Italian submarine. What we do know is that Kinzo presented at least one gold bar to a business associate, and this person supposedly confirmed its existence to the satisfaction of people who gave Kinzo loans. Now, if you ask me, which is more plausible and more in character with Kinzo's personality: That he really did happen to have 10t of WW2 gold, or that he scraped together the illusion that he did with a bit of manipulation? Having said that, it isn't especially relevant whether it's real or not, as I think it's merely a distraction from the real issue. For example, if Yasu was really the killer, money didn't matter to her at all. She had the 10t of gold, and she didn't care. So right away that makes the motive of the presented culprit figure non-financial in nature. And indeed, every other motive we have is related to love, or jealousy, or some associated thing thereof. Hell, George is suspicious as all get-out, and even he says he'd rather make his own fortune his own way! I'm also not sure I'd buy Ange's reaction being what it was in ep8 if what she read was "Somebody killed everybody else for money." That's exactly the sort of answer she was afraid she might see. That's the sort of answer that she'd been teased about. The implication seems to be that what she saw was both surprising and underwhelming. Given the psychological impact some theories seemed to have on her, whatever she saw apparently wasn't that traumatic. EDIT: Regarding Yasu's "sins," consider that the message bottles created the rampant murder speculation. Could that, rather than any actual physical wrong, have been her sin?
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2012-02-28, 12:59 | Link #27958 | |
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The only 2 coherent arguments about this are: 1-There were no hospitals wherever Battler landed. 2-Ikuko didn't take him to a hospital because she just didn't feel like it. Perhaps because she is an "hermit" and didn't want to be somewhere public (And if this were the case, why would she be driving on a car in the middle of a stormy night?) Another thing is that, Ikuko is pretty much living Beatrice's ideal life. You know, living with Battler (Well, not exactly him), writing mysteries together and having a ton of cash avaliable so they don't have to work. Besides, the background behind Ikuko is kind of suspicious. She is a super wealthy hermit that writes mystery as a hobby (Kind of like Yasu) and gets money for not showing up with her family because she is kind of a weirdo and gives them a bad image. This gives Ikuko/Yasu a good alibi for not showing any of her unexisting family. Not only that, we get an early description from Battler where he says that Ikuko is kind of old, but not TOO old. Then, at the end of EP8, Ange meets Ikuko+Tohya and describes Ikuko as "Someone who should be a lot older than Battler and still looks too young" or something like that. Maybe, when Ikuko/Yasu rescued Battler/Tohya, she used makeup to look older and with the pass of the years, she just stoped using that. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, after all, Yasu was introduced as a servant to the Ushiromiya House as 2 or 3 years younger than what he/she actually was. Besides all of this, there are 2 things that make me believe that Yasu survived the explosion and is living somewhere. First of all is the bank account introduced in EP4. As far as we know, Beato sent 3 cards + pins + keys to access to part of the money stored into the bank account. We know from both Nanjo's son and Kumasawa's son that there were around 20 rooms with cash for this account. Each of them had access to ONLY one room. When they opened those rooms with their keys, each of them found around 100.000.000 yens. That (possibly) leaves 18.000.000.000 yens untouched. Why would Yasu store SO MUCH FREAKING MONEY if she was going to die anyway? We could argue that Yasu sent a credit card + key to everyone in the island (That makes around 18 pepole) BUT, she didn't send a credit card+key to either Rudolf or Kyrie. Ange got a letter, however, her parents didn't. Another reason that makes me think that Yasu is alive is this: EP 1 and 2 were both wrote by Beatrice. We are led to believe that they were wrote before October 4th of 1986. However, that is impossible. Why? Because Ange DOESN'T appear as a character in those 2 tales. Beatrice had no way of knowing that Ange would be abscent that day. After all, she had stomach ache. How would Beato know that someone would have stomach ache that day? Not only that. Battler has been abscent for 6 years in a row, and yet, Beatrice knew that he would come that day. Isn't that too much of a casuality or a big logic hole by Ryukishi? Isn't it easier to assume that Yasu survived the explosion and wrote the games afterwards? Funny thing. The password to the bank account is both Beato's and Battler's birthdays |
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2012-02-28, 13:17 | Link #27959 | |
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Especially with Ryukishi barking up that tree constantly. He seems to have said it pretty clearly in the work: Beatrice didn't kill anyone, but the message bottles created an environment in which people could believe that she (or someone else) had. So why does he appear to contradict himself in interviews with vague suggestions that she was the killer or somehow responsible for the deaths? Is he trying to be intentionally misleading in his interviews, or what?
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2012-02-28, 13:55 | Link #27960 | ||||||
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What really convinced me was when I was trying to make sense of Maria's weird behavior while rewatching the first arc of the Umineko anime . It's really kind of funny and cute how over-the-top she is, actually, when you look at her with the murder game idea in mind. Plus, Spoiler for Higurashi:
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Also, "to put the Witch to sleep for all time", as read in the epitaph, does not require Yasu's literal death, but would probably require Beatrice's "death" as a mode. Quote:
I don't have any disagreement with "the meta-world and magic are real" as a valid interpretation, as I believe that was RK07's intent. I see it as a kind of dualism where magic is meant to be both real and not at the same time. It's all a matter of which method of interpretation the storyteller/observer prefer to use. However, in discussions about "what really happened" I would say that magic doesn't really have a "real" place. Quote:
There's also Beatrice's general desire to be acknowledged. Take Yasu's trick to make that one maid's key disappear off of her key ring for example. She did that because the maid didn't take Beatrice seriously. There's also just the fun of it. Especially for Maria. "HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA" . Quote:
I'm not saying that's exactly what really happened, but Yasu really does have the resources to get the adults to do what she wants. And it's a lot easier to bribe someone into humoring a fake murder game than it is to bribe them into being accomplices to real mass murder. Quote:
I think that Yasu "took responsibility" by making herself an actual culprit in her fictions, because, even though she didn't kill anyone, she still thinks the greatest fault lies with herself. |
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