2012-10-29, 04:10 | Link #31021 |
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Was Jessica really as interested in Yasu as she seems to be in the gameboards, though? It seems pretty unlikely to me.
Since Kanon is mostly portrayed as never actually pursuing his chance at love, I think it's probably more like Yasu felt something for Jessica and had suspicions that she might have felt something back, but that they never actually talked about it and it never really went anywhere. |
2012-10-29, 04:18 | Link #31022 |
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If that was the case, the relationship would've been portrayed the other way around. It's very important and very CONSISTENT that Jessica is always proactive in pursuing the relationship.
Ryukishi, for all his faults, portrays things the way he does for a reason. He even stated in an interview not to doubt the relationships he portrays, considering it 'a cruel trap'. Jessica loves Kanon. We are not to doubt this. Whether Jessica knows Kanon is Yasu, whether or not they ever dated, and other details like that are debatable, but not this.
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2012-10-29, 04:24 | Link #31023 | |
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As in it wasn't: Jessica vs Ronove and George vs Gaap but simply Jessica vs George. And perhaps Jessica knew about Yasu. Didn't she went along with Nanjo to "treat" Kanon in EP1? Regarding EP 2? I always saw the scene with Jessica,Kanon and Beatrice that it was Kanon trying to fight his inner demons as Beatrice tried to kill Jessica that being the moment she found out. EP 3: Nanjo being killed by Yasu/Kanon to save Jessica.Didn't Kanon's "Spirit" appear to her blind self? EP 4: Well I can't say how she knew but somehow I see some sense that Jessica and George both knew about Shkanon and their fight was to declare the victor of love. Both died that being the reason Shannon and Kanon died the very next. |
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2012-10-29, 04:44 | Link #31024 |
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The second twilight in EP4, atleast at the time it's claimed to occur, was obviously faked, judging by the phone call Jessica made. That, plus their distance apart, proves they did not kill each other, since corpses never move after death in Umineko.
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2012-10-29, 06:16 | Link #31025 | |
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I mean, calling it 'a cruel trap' to doubt them seems like telling us the relationships are real. One thing that always struck me is the differences regarding the romances between Legacy and Turn. In Legacy Shannon hesitates to accept George's ring, but in Turn she takes it so fast George is surprised. And in Legacy there's nothing between Kanon and Jessica, yet in Turn it suggests they're starting to develop feelings for each other. The bonds of each respective relationship seem to generally strengthen in every subsequent story, End notwithstanding. Basically, the relationships seem like an embellishment, built on a metafictional history. Certainly there was something there in Prime to begin with, but I think a lot of their stronger feelings are exaggerated. Especially when it comes to Jessica and George, since we only get to see Yasu's take on them. Jessica most of all, since at least in George's case we have some more solid history between him and Shannon; for Jessica all we have is the school festival. Last edited by Wanderer; 2012-10-29 at 22:18. |
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2012-10-29, 09:53 | Link #31026 | |
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Jessica didn't die in the confrontation but George did and herself having died at a later point perhaps due to injuries. |
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2012-10-29, 10:05 | Link #31027 | |
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There's also what Wanderer points out about the meta-evolution of the romances. In Turn the romance is just barely starting. In Dawn Jessica's really into him. Those are the same two days. There must be some degree of embellishment or uncertainty one direction or the other. Such evolution of the relationship is impossible except as a meta-construct unless that's the case. Could it not also be that he means to say the relationships should not be doubted in the context of the stories, wherein Shannon and Kanon have independent existences as characters despite a dependent body? Certainly, I don't think anyone doubts that. Well I guess I kind of do, but only because the Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice dynamic doesn't make any logistical sense. Setting aside that belief, I have no trouble accepting that Shannon-the-character and George-the-character genuinely have a loving relationship. I don't know if it's true in Prime, but we don't know if anything was true about Prime.
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2012-10-29, 13:18 | Link #31028 |
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i don't think I'm missing any point at all by questioning the plausibility of leading a double life. I understand the gameboards need not reflect reality entirely, but, I mean ... there is clearly some intent to at least stay within the bounds of what reality was kinda sorta like. It's basically a huge plot hole, and lazy writing.
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2012-10-29, 13:28 | Link #31029 | |
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Maybe it was something like that Jessica did express her feelings to Yasu at some point, but she declined because of her existing relationship with George, and then felt conflicted afterwards because she did in fact return her feelings to some extent? Or maybe Jessica never actually confessed or anything, but Yasu was able to deduce it from how she acted around her. It's all a cat box, in the end. To me, the only thing that's certain is that it would be nonsense to suggest that Yasu lived as two different people for several years in anything resembling normal reality, so I have to conclude that we are not supposed to assume that such a thing happened outside of the gameboards. |
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2012-10-29, 14:17 | Link #31030 | |
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I'm not sure how too put it, but crazy stuff can get explanations later on, like many did in Higurashi (tho the sense they made is actually debatable I guess). Going further into that debate tho. What's so crazy about Shkanon, in the light of everything else? Kinzo managed to hide a Mansion, 10 tons of gold, and two Beatrices, for way way way longer. Natsuhi and Krauss are managing to hide the death of Kinzo. Hell the moment we accepted Kinzo as being already dead, Shkanon shouldn't have been a stretch to accept. Not to mention that Battler being Kyrie's son was hidden from them, or that Krauss never learned about the man from 19 years ago. Who'd be more suspicious? You go to see your grandfather, and don't get to see him for two years in a row, and you're going to demand to see two random servants at the specific same time because you think there's something up with them? If anything, people on Rokkenjima have too many secrets to wonder about to imagine ones like Shkanon, it's like the Sun blocking the stars during the day. As for outrageous, omega bomb + chapel FT in arc 2 is all I've really got to say about this. Now you might, independently, claim that all of this is crazy and makes Umineko bad. I somehow tend to think this is probably Renall's opinion (sorry if I'm wrong), but there's just no reason to specifically consider Shkanon to be worst then the rest, because it really isn't. Also two things. I think Jessica knows about Shkanon because in arc 2 she tells Shannon something like "I think of you as my best friend" which sounds like the follow up to her failed confession to Kanon. Furthermore her whole speech about having "more then one selves" to Kanon sounds like it could've been the origin of the whole deal, and not weirdly having Jessica preaching to someone who already surpassed her in that. As a matter of fact I think it makes some sense if we think Yasu learned to act after being introduced to Jessica on a stage and especially seeing her outrageous costume. I think there's a good hint about visual appearances being similar : even tho Shannon denies blood relation with Kanon, they tend to be called siblings by others. Why do you think? Last edited by UsagiTenpura; 2012-10-29 at 14:56. |
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2012-10-29, 15:21 | Link #31031 |
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Kinzo's activities are equally as stupid and bad as Shkanon and are equally implausible. At least the ep7 stuff. The hidden mansion I can buy nobody knowing about while Kinzo was in control of the family. Once Krauss was even nominally in charge, he should've immediately known about the place. But the gold and explosives? Ludicrous. Their existence doesn't make Shkanon any better, it just makes Ryukishi more of a hack.
Hiding Kinzo's death seems about as plausible as ep5 made it seem. That is to say, the other siblings don't buy it at all but don't have anything they can really use to prove it yet. It's made very much abundantly clear in the early episodes that if Kinzo does not turn up alive pretty soon, the siblings are going to push for inheritance discussions. I don't think for a moment that they buy that Kinzo is dead and the fact that Krauss and Natsuhi are criminally complicit in covering it up is clearly intended as part of their bargaining position. It's just implicit rather than explicit, because it's a pretty harsh accusation to make against family. That at least I have no complaints about. I'd complain if it appeared to be working perfectly fine and no one was the wiser. The baby swap with Rudolf is dumb and seemingly pointless, but I can accept that it's possible if he really wants it to happen and has enough money. That Kyrie wouldn't know is another matter, but Battler takes after his father's side of the family (he's said to resemble Kinzo in his youth), so how is Kyrie going to suspect he's her son if she doesn't live with him and he doesn't resemble her? Of course, there's no purpose to the baby swap or Kyrie being his mother, so God only knows why this is in there to begin with. Shkanon isn't dumb if it happens only in the stories. It is completely beyond any stretch of belief if it happened in real life (absent things like "Kanon" accompanying Jessica to her school festival). There is no indication specifically that it would have, though, so I just choose to believe Yasu-the-writer did it to make a point and not because she's actually crazy.
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2012-10-29, 15:53 | Link #31032 | |
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Well prime remains a fiction anyway. If someone tried to make me believe a murder spree such as the ones in Umineko including the letters and fake murders and all even without Shkanon I'd have quite a hard time believing any of it.
Still I guess I was overall trying to make two points. 1) There are other things like Shkanon, even if we dislike them, I don't think we should've been surprised or discarded it considering everything else. 2) Shkanon has one big advantage next to most other things that were hidden : nobody is specifically looking into it or has any reasons to. Compared to Kinzo's status or the gold, especially if as you say most of the time Kanon existed the sibblings have been thinking about Kinzo's life/death status, I don't think it's such a stretch to accept it. If as you and others say and I tend to think as well, Shkanon is a thing only existing in the fictions (like probably many others) and was there to make a point, I think the people on Rokkenjima has the same chances we'd have if we were given only a single arc and no second reading. Quote:
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2012-10-29, 16:37 | Link #31033 | ||
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About your Jessica thing, well ... I disagree, but I respect it as a pretty valid interpretation. I'd say it's a little wonky because I think the stuff with the couples was supposed to take place in 1985? I'm not sure, and don't feel like arguing enough to check. About the other thing, though, and this is just my personal experience, but calling someone you grew up with (especially if they were raised in the same household) your "brother" or "sister" or "cousin" is really common, as far as I've seen. If it had been an unstated thing, I might think "perhaps those two are related?", but we're specifically told "No no no, they're not related at all." Such a matter is touched on, very slightly, in End, when Battler suggests that the "Rosa" who went to bed in the guesthouse was someone else in disguise, but Dlanor insists clues would have been shown. Honestly, if it had been pushed, I think we would've gotten special Shkanon logic about how neither of them was actually disguised as anyone other than themselves, just like how they're sometimes dead, and sometimes dead ... -ish. |
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2012-10-29, 17:21 | Link #31034 | |||||||||
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Not mentioning that apparently in Prime nothing came up about Kanon not being real/being a completely unknwon guy, which means the other workers likely confirmed there was a Kanon guy working in Rokkenjima who should also have some documents proving his existence. We're told servants, among them, didn't call themselves with their blessed names so the other servants should know which was Kanon's name but even if they didn't likely the police could ask the orphanage which were the orphans sent to the Ushiromiya. Male servants were a bit of uncommon so it shouldn't be impossible to figure out if 'Yoshiya' existed and if it didn't it should raise suspicions. Basically, Umineko first seems done as if the people had more chances to solve the gameboard than the police has to solve prime but then, if you think at it, the police might have had much more leads than us that would point at Shannon and Kanon. Maybe they would still not solve the whole thing but surely those two would look a lot more suspicious than they did to us. A theory I also played with is that only on the gameboard Shannon and Kanon were the same person while in Prime they were different people and for some reason Yasu projected on herself Kanon in her tales but, if that was the plan, personally I don't like it much. Quote:
I wonder if she had in mind the backstory of one of Christie's mysteries in which a person she knew asked her to write him inside her story as the culprit because the culprit is the most interesting character in a mystery. Quote:
Also there was nothing to see that would point out at Kanon being Shannon as Shannon has no breasts so if she were to see Kanon without a shirt he wouldn't have looked suspicious. Things would have probably been different if Shannon had been in Kanon's place... Quote:
We can't really say if, in the long run, Jessica would be willing to start a permanent relation with Kanon as Kanon deliberately doesn't allow the two of them to get close. Even if Kanon were to allow it, Jessica might discover that she doesn't like him much... unless he plays the Shannon card and tries to adapt to her as Shannon seems to try to do with George, accepting his wishes without ever telling how she wanted things to be between the two of them. And do I remember wrong or in EP 6 it was said that, were Jessica the one to win the duel she and Kanon would grow closer and the thing is described as basically Kanon entering in Jessica's world of interests (studying music for example) but not with Jessica entering in Kanon's world (whatever that world included?). Quote:
I'm sure Jessica might have found the thing odd as well but since the fact she couldn't see grandad was a lie supported by everyone she loved she likely preferred to believe it to be true than accept that Kinzo was dead and everyone was lying to her about it. Also Krauss knew about the baby, Natsuhi told him and Rosa discovered the secret mansion, over which everyone had suspicious as Kinzo's wife was used to have her kids search for him when he disappeared. In Ep 8 is also implied that Asumu might have found out that Battler wasn't her kid. So, as you see, many of the other crazy stuffs weren't blindly accepted. ShKanon is odd because Shannon and Kanon are never doubted yet all the suspicious things that should be obvious about them are never discussed by the other characters. Quote:
The fact Krauss never found out about Kuwadorian also seems pretty weird. Quote:
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The problem might be that each of us might accept to suspend his disbelief for 1 or more of them but the whole of them look really too much for many of us. Maybe not each of us choose ShKanon as the most unbelievable but this doesn't mean it turns as believable, just that other people focused more on other things. |
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2012-10-29, 19:29 | Link #31035 |
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There is something to be said though, about Shkanon being so ridiculous and pointless that no one on Rokkenjima would take it seriously.
EP6 in the English world was an interesting case study. Between its Japanese release and the release of our translation, the vast majority of people on English boards thought Shkanon was a joke. A joke, as in, there was no way Ryuukishi meant for that to be the answer, even though a lot of people who read the Japanese version claimed that Ryuukishi made it pretty clear that it was the answer. Maybe someone here was an exception, but I'm willing to bet only a handful of those people re-read EP1 and EP2 specifically to search for Shkanon clues at this point in time. Once our translation came out, the majority of people seemed to think Ryuukishi did mean Shkanontrice to be the answer, though a lot still thought and still think it was terrible. In other words, the majority of readers refused to even consider Shkanon for a period of several months, even after it became a well-known theory. And since we're reading a mystery novel by the Hinamizawa Syndrome guy, you'd think we would be a lot more likely to believe a "twist" like that than someone in real life. Of course, you can argue that Natsuhi and Krauss should have had more hints than we did, so this argument doesn't even get close to proving Shkanon valid on its own.
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2012-10-30, 05:49 | Link #31036 | |
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So it's not written records, nor is it his coworkers' memories which serve as the best objective evidence for Kanon's existence. No, it's a bunch of kids at school who saw him show up to their school festival as "Jessica's boyfriend". That's apparently it. |
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2012-10-30, 07:58 | Link #31037 |
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I get the distinct feeling that Ryu did intend them to have separate lives, for example due to Kinzo teaching Kanon how to shoot. I am guessing he just never thought logistically about the problems that would create (after all, he'd love a handwave like: oh, Kanon rarely works here, or Genji organises all work rosters). In mysteries the general rule is that if it is well hinted and not impossible, then it can happen, as long as it also fits the logic of the story.
As for the police and Kanon, I'm not too sure what they would do if there was a big explosion, but I always assumed they'd be more interested in talking to survivors then seeing if anyone remembers going to school with one of the dead, especially if it is mentioned by others that they worked with him. I also don't know why Kanon and Shannon can't just have been brother and sister, would have made life sooooo mcuh easier. Though maybe it makes their backstory harder or something. And yes, it is clear that the Kinzo ploy worked for the length of the first conference barely, but well before the second (and even maybe during the first) at least some of the relatives were sus on it. It just became a convenient lie. Rereading ep 1 though, it is clear just how much Eva is taunting Natsuhi about it. Especially as Natsuhi is so passionately and crazily lying. |
2012-10-30, 08:06 | Link #31038 |
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Haha, maybe Ryu was trying to defend himself, first time we enjoyed the tale, next time we tore out its guts and found every plot hole. Sorry Ryu, guilt won't stop us now.
I always wondered if Krauss did know about Kumadorian (or however you spell that). It wasn't the best kept secret around (even if after B2 died it was left for ruin). We know he kept the gold from Natsuhi, so it is possible he just kept it under his hat to hide it from the siblings (he never knew Rosa knew). It may be the hidden passage was far enough away he never found it, and just assumed it was an empty mistress' house in a rather hard part of the forest to get to. |
2012-10-30, 08:38 | Link #31039 | |
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The police will want an accounting of everybody who was on that island, because they have precious few identifiable remains. Bear in mind it's a private island, so they can't just psychically know who was actually there, and they may find evidence that shows merely that some people were supposed to be there. For example, Ange was probably supposed to be there, but she wasn't, and the police would try to find that out. Inevitably, they will ask the other servants who was supposed to be on duty for that weekend. The question is, what will those servants say? We can be all but certain that they'd mention Genji and Kumasawa, most of them probably knew Gohda was sure to be there... and... who? Shannon seems to have been Yasu's proper servant face, so they most likely would say she was supposed to have been working that weekend. Would they mention a Kanon at all? There's two scenarios here as I can see it:
Again, how would this not set off red flags for the police? As far as they know, there may have been an uneducated, undocumented, mistreated slave boy on the island whose very existence has been wiped out by the explosion. Or else the message bottles are inserting a person who doesn't exist.
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2012-10-30, 13:17 | Link #31040 | ||||
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I looked up some information regarding Kyrie and Rudolf and their positions of Bishops in EP 3 and found the result quite interesting.
"Why is a Bishop called a Bishop?" Quote:
Also I find this interesting. 00 - Quote:
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A 410 bore fits into a 45 chamber. Implying that 45 and 410 everytime they shoot IMO = The gun used is the Winchester 45 Colt with the 410 bore Ammo. As in: EP 3: Kyrie and Rudolf were killed by the Winchester 45 holding the 410 Ammo. Perhaps could imply that Eva shot them with the very gun she killed Battler with or at least: The person that held the 45 Caliber killed Rudolf and Kyrie. And it DOES exist as its stated that Rosa used it in EP 2 when she pulverized one of the goats brains. Last edited by Kiltias; 2012-10-30 at 13:54. |
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