2012-01-22, 19:05 | Link #27241 |
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I kinda understand Keriaku's theories because they are similiar to what I believe is going on in the game boards. I think that the game is in a state of superposition and that everything that could happen is happening at the same time. If someone with an objective point of view like piece Battler see it or if a red truth mentions an event, then it forces it to pick a side into a single truth.
So Shkanon could be individuals or a single person in games 1-4 because there is no concrete proof to force it to be a single answer. Same thing happens with the mountain of gold. For all we know, the gold shown in EP2 was fake, or it could be real but it was only a few bars, a far cry from the mountain we were led to believe. This is, in my opinion, the root of Beatrice's endless magic. Now Lambda school is certainty, she can make anything a 100%. So she does, and makes a game were the gold is 100% real and plentiful. Now, she could have forced Shkanon to be a sure fact at the start of the game like she did with the gold. Instead she left it in the superposition. You cant see the number of people as a single number, doing that means that you fall into the trap. The number of people is X, Erika raises it by one, so its X+1. Erika objectively observes the game, this forces X to take a particular shape in that game. The shape Erika observes is 17. The number of people has always been in the quantum position of X. At first it was (1,Infinity), Beatrice then limited to (1,18]. She then limited further to (1,17]. Erika just saw one of the possibilities of X. My idea still trips me up in the final series of reds in EP6 though, I still see it as them going "No, X=16". So here is how I see the problem. Erika introduces herself and says she's the 18th human in Rokkenjima in red. By doing this she forces herself to exist in a world were X must be 17. Battler and Beatrice destroy her by denying the probability of that world from existing, because X can only be 16. So then what happens in EP5 were X had to be 17? Retconned, it never happened Last edited by Cao Ni Ma; 2012-01-22 at 19:30. |
2012-01-22, 19:12 | Link #27242 | ||
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Sadly, I'm not. I'm interested to hear about them though. |
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2012-01-22, 19:35 | Link #27243 |
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Grr, I hate not having internet access. Everyone decides to become chatty, chatty essayists while I'm gone. XD
As I've said before, this issue is just a sore spot for me. Noone's disproved my "Kanon has a body theory" (which in my mind explains everything, is still thematically fitting, and is rather simple to understand), and I doubt anyone can convince me otherwise. Or at least, I haven't heard any real counter. ...at the same time, I'm pretty exhausted on the topic. Alot of these theories are interesting, but a bit much to try and sift through all at once... I guess I'll bow out until we move on to another topic. |
2012-01-22, 19:53 | Link #27244 | |
The True Culprit
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The advantage is that Erika doesn't have to be one Piece throughout the game. She's passed around like a ball. Ghost!Erika is similar, supposing that Erika was an embodiment of the negative natures of all the women on Rokkenjima, including Yasu's. Notice that Erika only appears after Beatrice gives up on Battler, and dies as soon as Beatrice is survived and the two reconcile?
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2012-01-22, 19:55 | Link #27245 | ||
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From my understanding it sound like: 'people (narrative) are lying on what Erika is seeing'... which I translated in 'people lied and said Erika witnessed something that in the end could only be explained with magic' (as Shannon and Kanon can't be seen in the same moment), or, in an even shoter sentence 'Thanks to subjective viewpoint Erika "can see magic"'. Obviously I didn't mean Erika really saw it... just that we were told she saw something that was impossible to see without magic. Though if I misunderstood you, I apologize. Quote:
As far as I'm involved the meta is merely what Toya's subconscious came up while writing his books about the witch of Rokkenjima... which would make everyone that's meta subconsciously created by him (though some of the meta characters can be based on... let's say, pictures on Maria's diary or a certain mystery game that's mentioned in Umineko... ^_-). This would make Erika's personality something he created based to the info he could collect about a girl disappearing around the time of the Rokkenjima incident. As sub theories I've considered the meta could also be something Ange or Ikuko (assuming Ikuko is Yasu) came up while reading or creating the novels. Though there's no way to prove what the meta is so there are many theories and the thing is still up to debate. |
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2012-01-22, 20:47 | Link #27246 | |||||
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As for your theory, at first I liked it the best. But, that was because it seemed like the least ridiculous thing available. Now that this is no longer the case, I'm not too sure how I feel about it anymore. Plus, I found this Red Truth from EP4: No more than 17 humans exist on this island!! That excludes any 18th person. In short, this 18th person X does not exist!! This applies to all games!!! Since the word "humans" was used specifically, I'm inclined to believe that this means that there cannot be more than 17 human bodies on the game board. And, it applies to all games. Furthermore, even with the "ShKanon" theory... If you add Erika in, the total is 17 bodies. According to this logic, Kanon cannot have a body in EP5. ...Well, it's a weak attempt at trying to deny your theory, I admit. I can think of quite a few ways to get around what I just said. But I thought you wanted to discuss your theory, so I tried to throw a small obstacle at you. Quote:
It's also pretty amusing, since it reminds me of the Idiot Ball trope. Only problem is, it's slightly ridiculous. Ghost!Erika seems to make Erika into the "Black Witch." I'm not sure how I feel about that. But you're right, the timing of her appearance and death does seem to coincide. Well, aside from the fact that she came back in EP8. Quote:
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Three people--in other words, three bodies--went in or out. Only you and Kanon entered, and only Battler left. It has already been said in red that all people can only use their own names. Therefore, the names Erika, Battler, and Kanon can only be used by those people. So, Erika was using a different body at the time of the logic error in EP6. Of course, the Erika!Ball theory can get around this. However, the theory we get from combining Erika!Ball with "Erika is Battler's imaginary friend" is just... Lol. (I already know that you said you gave up on this theory, I was just having fun with it) Quote:
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2012-01-22, 20:48 | Link #27247 | |
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I think that of the murder mystery part of the episodes, the solution wasn't always Shkannon, until the end of EP6, where even Meta-Battler goes, "Are you sure? The human side would be screaming at that being so unfair." Which it was, but if you go back through EP1-4, was Shkannon ever necessary for all the particulars of the murder mysteries? I can only think of the EP3 chained locked room where it was because Shkannon had two master keys... Hm... In general though, Shkannon seems to form the answer only for the Greater Mystery, which is non-detective in nature, I think. It's that other 'Mystery' genre I was talking about, although this one doesn't seem supernatural in flavour. |
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2012-01-22, 21:03 | Link #27248 |
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i need the answers to these: note i only watched the anime and i know about erika (a bit)
1.is shannon/kanon one person? 2.who was the killer in the end? 3.i dont get the whole witches/magic/stakes/etc things?-whats the point of them when the story is just a who done it type? is this just in battler's mind because he was the last one surviving? 4.so was the whole story basically finding out who killed the who Ushiromiya family? 5.and why did this person (i think its eva) wanted to kill everyone?? 6.whats the whole jessica/erika relationship? 7. who are the main witches/setting everything up..bern/lambda? |
2012-01-22, 21:10 | Link #27249 | |
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1. The two share one human body. 2. This is never really answered. 3. Umineko isn't merely about the Who Dunnit. 4. Not really. The story has a lot more to it than that. If you read the sound novels (which all have english patches now), you'll see. 5. This is also never really answered. 6. They can't stand each other. 7. You could say it's Featherine Augustus Aurora, if you want. But really, even that isn't confirmed. |
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2012-01-22, 21:39 | Link #27250 | |
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2012-01-22, 21:49 | Link #27251 | |
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...Well, Erika!Ball gets around this, but. >_>; Then again, I guess Erika!Ball gets around everything. |
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2012-01-22, 22:35 | Link #27252 | |
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As for the Black Witch thing...Bern herself is quite strongly influenced by the Black Witch, so it'd be suiting. EP8 brought back like every fuckin' character except Clair, so that's not a biggie.
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2012-01-23, 02:45 | Link #27253 | |||||||
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A lot of people think that the fantasy scenes do represent what actually occurred, though, so you can see them as sort of 'hints'. For example, I think that Kanon's duel with Beatrice in EP2 represents the personalities 'Kanon' and 'Beatrice' fighting for control of their shared body, because Beatrice wants to kill Jessica and Kanon wants to save her. Quote:
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2012-01-23, 02:59 | Link #27254 | |||||||
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Meanwhile, the conflicts and alliances seen in the Meta-World are metaphors for things happening in the real world. Lambda and Bern, doing what they do, mean different things to different people in different situations. In this way they can play various roles (ally, villain etc.) in various circumstances. Neither Lambda or Bern are inherently good or evil; after all, they are just metaphors of (meta)physical forces. Now, gods like Lambda and Bern are only influential in so far as they and their power is believed in. Lambda's death symbolized a destruction of the belief that persistent effort would certainly yield success, and Battler beating Bern represented a rejection of her power to control his fate. It's basically a matter of willpower; Bern tried to make everything go wrong for Battler's real world goals, but he just refused to let that discourage him. Of course these ideas are highly abstract. I probably didn't explain my thoughts in a way that's very easy to understand... Quote:
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2012-01-23, 03:24 | Link #27255 | |
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In other words, there can be 17 people and 18 people on the island simultaneously. |
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2012-01-23, 06:32 | Link #27256 | |||
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It seems to have been made clear that, including Erika, there are 17 people, even though Erika is somehow the "18th human." It's easy to explain the 17 people by saying that Kanon and Shannon only count as people when they're being used. However, the number of humans is not so easy. If it really is the number of human bodies, then that would mean that there is a body without a personality, wouldn't it? And that makes no sense at all. So if anyone has theories on this, feel free to share them. Quote:
How can you get around that? Actually, wait. This 18th person does not exist?? If we say that only that last sentence about the 18th person X applies to all games, then that makes things easy. In short, even with Furudo Erika, there are (1<x<17] people in all games. That is, if "people" and "person" are defined in the same way. But, the number of humans simply cannot exceed the number of people, because humans are not counted once they are confirmed dead. And it wouldn't make sense for a human to not possess a personality while still alive. So if Erika is the 18th human while there are 17 people, that still makes 0 sense. |
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2012-01-23, 10:18 | Link #27257 |
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Well, I still think it has something to do with the quantum nature of the box. The way the narrator talks about Kanon during his finals scenes makes it seem like Kanon, the individual human, couldn't exist anymore after what he and Beatrice did.
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2012-01-23, 10:22 | Link #27258 |
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Let's assume that Ushiromya Kinzo is alive as the 17th person and there are 17 people on the gameboard. Now, when he dies, he still stays the 17th person, but the number of people becomes 16! Now if you add Erika, the number of people becomes 17 again, but the "17th spot" is already taken by the dead Kinzo and Erika becomes the so called "18th human/person"!
That way this scene from EP6 can be explained. |
2012-01-23, 11:23 | Link #27259 | ||
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And at any rate, since the body of Piece!Yasuda still remains on the game board and is (probably) treated as being alive, I think it amounts to the same thing... Quote:
So, this does seem like the most logical theory. |
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2012-01-23, 13:03 | Link #27260 | ||||
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Battler is less observant than Erika, and more trusting of Kanon's existence. That Kanon exists is never even questioned by Battler and he goes to great lengths to speculate as to where Kanon's body may have gone and does not even begin to conclude that Kanon doesn't have one. To bring in Battler's "endless magic resistance" does not even begin to address this issue. If Meta-Battler were shown a scene in which Battler saw Kanon and Shannon simultaneously, he absolutely would not have questioned it, for exactly the same reasons ascribed to why Erika would not have. Yet Beatrice didn't do that. Now it's possible that she didn't do it because she simply chose not to, but if that's so, does that mean that she actually could have, and it would have been fine had Battler not questioned it? I don't believe so, personally. I base this on Ryukishi's own interviews. For example, he suggested that had Battler's ep1 groping gone off without a hitch, he would have discovered the secret of Shannon's chest. But does that mean that Shannon's breasts are real until Battler discovers otherwise? How is that fair? How is that workable? If Kinzo can be alive until someone realizes he isn't, does that mean he actually was the culprit alongside Beatrice in ep4? What stops that from happening, so long as Meta-Battler can't observe and conclude otherwise? Why go to the trouble of hiding Kinzo at all? If Kinzo murders everyone and then Battler determines Kinzo was dead from the start, is that a Logic Error? We know fantasy scenes can be destroyed without forcing such to happen, but even if there is an alternate explanation who was actually the killer before the Kinzo-killer fantasy was dispelled, Kinzo or the "alternative" suspect? If the whole point is "it's because Beatrice wanted to show him something and thus refused to use certain tricks," then I have to question what the point would be of Lambdadelta intentionally employing those certain tricks for no apparent reason. She is playing against Bern (and later Erika). She has no reason to believe or know that Battler will come by at some point and review the game. She has no reason to know or believe that Battler will or won't find the truth based on anything she shows in her game, least of all based upon the parlor scene. Therefore, she must have constructed that conundrum for Bernkastel. Why, exactly? Shkanon is basically not actually useful to her game (it's certainly not necessary, at least for the First Twilight). If her goal was simply to deliberately deceive Bern with a falsehood bluff in hopes Bern wouldn't realize to call her on it, what does that say about the whole issue with Erika's own perspective? Sure, showing it like that could have fooled Bern... but it shouldn't have fooled her piece, which is the crux of the whole problem. If it didn't fool the piece, but Bern and Meta-Erika never had any access to the piece's knowledge, it's functionally the same thing as fooling the piece. Furthermore, we have almost no earthly idea what Battler actually realized to attain the capital-T Truth, which he apparently did. It was a vague epiphany, which by its very nature makes it difficult to deduce what he did or didn't think about. If any information from ep5's game itself was relevant to his discovery, we aren't entirely sure what that information was. It's entirely possible "Shannon and Kanon were shown in the room at the same time" wasn't even relevant compared to "Oh hey, faked deaths and hmm maybe Shkanon?" or any other information he might have reflected upon from Beatrice's games. Quote:
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Look, you guys are all missing the very basic logic of this. There can only be the following permutations of the scene ("Meta-Erika" is synonymous here with "Meta-Erika and Bern"):
If Kanon and Shannon weren't there, and Erika didn't see either, then obviously Bern and Meta-Erika should be calling foul right away, as Lambda is showing them two servants who weren't there and then claiming that everyone on the island is present. They don't. And if Kanon and Shannon weren't there, but Erika observed the two of them anyway, that means the facts comport neither with Erika's own observations as a piece nor with the scene as Lambda portrayed it. In short, it'd be a double-layered cheating sandwich, with Piece-Erika as the meat. Which leaves two more. "Kanon and Shannon were switching off and Erika saw both" means the scene was a lie but it was a semi-plausible lie to the memory of Piece-Erika, who observed at different times Shannon and Kanon being present and thus sees no issues with the scene as presented since her own memory didn't let her see what Battler would have seen from his perspective, but it "sounds right." The red is not a lie, because all human persons were present in the room when Lambda proclaimed it, even though Kanon (or Shannon) actually wasn't visibly present. The problem with this is it's really just "Kanon was standing behind Gohda" evolved. It's not really any more satisfactory an explanation, just one that can be explained without suggesting Erika's piece was deceived. "Kanon and Shannon weren't both there but Erika just didn't see one of them" means Lambda was filling in a detail which was either a deliberate lie on Narrator-Battler's part or an intentional embellishment on her own part. If Erika can't remember seeing Kanon, but "buys it" because the scene put him there, that's an indicator that she's basically stupid and lazy. This is especially true carrying forward to ep6 where Shkanon actually means something. And if Battler's narration is lying, he's doing so for absolutely no reason. Stupid, lazy detectives and narrators telling lies for no reason are hallmarks of incredibly poor writing, and it's going to trip up the reader quite badly. Neither of these really satisfies me, but neither do any of the other permutations I addressed. But the point is, looking at the scene, the following things must be answered:
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