2013-11-15, 22:18
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Link #33221 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
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I guess you're right about the epitaph.
I am pretty sure the mystery game happened on Prime. It fits well with the bribes, the strange stories that Yasu wrote and the heavy prominence of fake murder plots in episode 5 and 6. The question then becomes "who was in on it". I think the answer is probably everybody except Battler and 'the detective' for that story (and perhaps to some degree Maria, who wasn't aware that the murders were fake but who was assured that everyone would come back to life at the end anyway). So if she decided to run Legend on Prime, everyone would be in on it except Battler and Natsuhi. Under this scenario, it's possible that the "detective" made a wrong inference and ended up killing someone because they thought they were the culprit (say) causing a mass panic. Or perhaps they mistook the conspiracy against them for something more sinister than it actually was. Or maybe Yasu dangling gold in front of everyone's faces made them become greedy. I agree that Yasu is largely forgivable in this theory, but she could probably have realized that putting such highly strung people in this situation may have had terrible consequences. |
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2013-11-15, 22:51
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Link #33222 | |||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
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If there was a game it's likely the detective was supposed to be Battler as Yasu wanted him to solve the mystery. Quote:
It can be the gold had became a problem if Krauss did the same he did in Ep 5 pr 7. But again, in Ep 5 he kills no one and in Ep 7 he was Yasu supportive and the first murders were actually incidents. |
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2013-11-16, 02:09
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Link #33223 | |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Germany
Age: 39
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Yes, the manga does make us understand Erika's position better, because she was basically betrayed by everybody and toyed around with even by Bern (who likely knew from the very beginning that Natsuhi had nothing to do with the murders). There is an interesting scene at the end of the chapter, where they start talking about why she is doing this and how that relates to Ange. Spoiler for Talking about Truth and Ange:
To me that again pretty much reads like Erika being a representation of Ange's anger and frustration, maybe also Tohya's fear about what Ange could turn into if she is actually left with nothing more than her quest for the truth. This whole confrontation also does a much better job (like all of the EP8 manga) to explain why exactly meta-Battler is doing all that to Ange. He really is afraid that it will have a horrible impact on her if she learns the truth without understanding more about it. He's still a pretty big blockhead for not trusting her a little bit more, but having Ange's plan actually spoken out makes his fears a little bit more substantial. |
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2013-11-16, 08:00
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Link #33224 | ||||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
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Spoiler for Talking about Truth and Ange:
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Sure, he recovered after each trauma but here and there got pretty close to death. So in his mind learning an unpleasant truth might be tied with risking self destruction. To him is a concrete reality, laced with the fact his first reactions at learning the truth are always self destructive and only if he receives help he manages to recover and, in Tohya's case, he gained a permanent disability. If he applies this reasoning to Ange as soon as she learn an unpleasant truth he couldn't help but believe she'll do the same as him, trying to self destroy herself and he won't there to stop her as Battler doesn't exist anymore... and Tohya rejects to be him. So it's not a matter of trust in Ange, it's more a matter of thinking his own behaviour will apply to Ange as well... Apparently he doesn't know the option 'someone learnt an unpleasant truth and dealt with it in a normal way'. On a sidenote in Ep 7 Battler insists during those years previous to his return he'd been pretty busy... in doing what I wonder? Didn't he live the normal life of a teen or he got himself in troubles more than once as a way to cope with what had happened to him? This might explain why Battler culprit theory is popular while we've no info about a George culprit theory being that meaningful even though it would make more sense for George to be the culprit with the secret aim to get the money and marry Shannon and for Eva to try to cover up for him. |
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2013-11-17, 11:59
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Link #33225 | |
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One reason I'd think this: In his own mind, he's probably inadequate to fulfill the promise of returning to Ange, since he's a stranger to her now. However, I find it difficult to believe that Ange would care all that much. Given the affection and nostalgia she's shown toward her brother, I can't imagine she'd care if he remembered her as long as he was alive. Similarly, that argument Erika has with Battler in the manga doesn't make a lot of sense if events are transpiring in Ange's mental landscape. It wouldn't make sense for Erika to mock him about not coming back because Ange doesn't genuinely think there's any chance of that happening, but Tohya would know that it is possible but undesirable or imperfect (which sort of matches Battler's response). "Why don't you just come back to her?" is an argument that only hurts a Battler who knows it's possible that he can. I would think if Ange were going to personify a being as withholding the truth from her it'd be Eva. That's how it plays out in ep4, but in ep8 it's quite different. So it kind of makes more sense to be viewing this as Tohya's thoughts and not hers, meaning the Ange of ep8 is the worst-case-scenario Ange of his deepest fears. In a way, ep8 does the opposite of the other Chiru episodes which tend to offer some answers to a question already asked. Ep8, at least with respect to the Ange stuff, sort of raises a question that already got answered in ep4, which is how Ange can find anything to live for in a world where she can't know the truth. We already know she found an answer of sorts in forgiving Eva and remembering Maria's optimism there. She may not have "forgotten" it at all; instead, Tohya just might not be able to believe that she'll be able to cope and will spend her life self-destructively refusing to move on. The Magic ending would suggest then that he was wrong the whole time. Ange could cope just fine, and all she really cared about was seeing that he was alright. The suicidal self-destructive Ange or the ruthless Trick ending Ange never existed... well, assuming the Magic ending happened and was real/Prime/whatever.
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2013-11-17, 13:07
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Link #33226 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Germany
Age: 39
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The only thing that still remains mysterious right now is how that connects to any actual post-1998 scenario. The EP8 VN told us that "Ushiromiya Ange" dies one way or the other, either by actually killing herself, by being killed, by vanishing or by signing over the company and getting the new identity of Kotobuki Yukari, so maybe Tohya's fear is not completely unbased (at least from a plot perspective). We'll have to see what the manga tells us, but so far that point is still pretty much in the air. Especially when there is this very weird scene in chapter 20 of the manga where Featherine transforms back into Ikuko (in her office) with Bern lying on her couch and saying how she will quietly sit by and record Ange's choice, which is not yet decided, but the fact that Ange will come and unlock the book of One Truth is fixed (and it shows that Ikuko has both the diary and the key)... Well and then the servant comes by and tells her the publisher called and that Tohya has woken up, prompting Bern to become the cat again...so this kinda implies that Ikuko actually is Featherine... |
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2013-11-17, 19:07
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Link #33227 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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If we assume that when Eva died Ange was the first who found the diary, read it and then disappeared and the diary ended up in Ikuko's hands later Ange reading it is a fixed truth... although Battler/Tohya might not know/be sure if Ange had read it or not and so in his mind he conjured up various scenarious in which he hoped to drive a message to Ange prior to her reading the book... or at least prior her doing something really foolish like killing herself. Quote:
In the manga there are various reference to Ange being still a child. It can be a reference to the fact her piece is built up on Battler/Tohya's memories of Ange as a child and some factual informations he learnt about her life, but not on real Ange. As a person changes quite a bit in 8 years, expecially when facing such situation and that the facts Battler/Tohya learnt about her had been influenced by who narrated them, is possible Prime Ange is completely different from how Battler pictures her. Interesting enough the manga took care to explain Ange's change of heart from Ep 4 to Ep 8 saying that she decided to forgive Eva and tried to but then the Battler and family culprit theory became popular and Bern showed her that Teaparty and she couldn't bear it she went back on blaming Eva. Not the best explanation but at least it makes more sense than her switching back to how she was before randomly. |
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2013-11-18, 11:41
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Link #33229 | ||
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One way or another, Ikuko knows that Ange learning the contents of the diary is inevitable, either because she already did or because Ikuko personally revealed it to her. But in either case, Ikuko doesn't know what happened to Ange after that, so there's really no way she can explain it to Tohya. It'd be entirely in Ikuko's character to keep that from him too. She knows anything he attempts to do to comfort himself will be meaningless, because the story's already been written. Quote:
Everything within it makes more sense as an aspect of his own world, especially if the characters map to and reflect on things he's familiar with (like Ikuko or Bern). There's just too much in ep8 that Ange honestly wouldn't or couldn't know, and ep8 is in some sense not told from the perspective of Ange as the protagonist. Arguably, one could say Ange is one of the antagonists of ep8; she certainly spends a lot of time hanging out with the "villains" and has goals in line with theirs, and the thrust of the story is arguably "Battler is trying to do X, but Ange is resistant" rather than "Ange is trying to do X, but Battler is getting in her way." That's certainly how Ange sees it, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in any real scenario; there's no way Battler/Tohya can get in Ange's way. In fact, he seems terrified of actually meeting her and it takes him an age to do it. Flip it around though, and Ange being an antagonistic force to Battler and what he's created makes a lot of sense. Tohya is afraid of the impact his choices may have had on Ange, and realizes that he still feels guilty about her brother failing her because, while he doesn't feel like Battler and doesn't truly remember him, he acknowledges the truth that he used to be him (so Battler not returning is essentially, in his mind, his fault). So he can't stop imagining Anges who are consumed by their inability to know or understand the truth, and whom he cannot reach or convince no matter what avenue he tries because he's ruined everything by his previous actions (like writing about it). Makes you wonder if, should Ikuko in fact know that Ange already found out the truth (or at least the contents of the diary) at some point, would Tohya have ever found out about it? How would he have reacted?
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2013-11-18, 14:57
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Link #33230 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Germany
Age: 39
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Though what does that say about the scene where Ikuko plans to publicize the content of the Book of One Truth? Ikuko's attempt to chronicle Ange's journey? Is everything we learn about Ange a catbox as well? |
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2013-11-18, 20:31
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Link #33231 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
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I'll toss here a random thought. What if Ange found Eva's diary after her death, tried to contact Tohya, was turned down and then disappeared after asking for the diary to be delivered to him and ended up handing it to Ikuko?
This would make as a fixed fact the thing that Ange will get into possession of the diary and Ikuko might know if she had read it or not although she might decide not inform Tohya about how Ange read it. Now, if Tohya read it, he can hope Ange didn't read it or not although he can make a polite guess. This would make EP 8 a desperate attempt to influence what had already happened. Ange in fact had read the diary but Tohya/Battler tried to deliver the message it's not so important what happened compared to the fact his family loved her so she shouldn't do anything foolish. Declaring they'll show everyone the book might be an attempt to call Ange back. Maybe they thought if they were to say they'll let it became public Ange would rush to them to try stop them. Or maybe it could be an attempt to indirectly help Ange as people became a little more simpathetic to her after this. |
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2013-11-19, 09:34
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Link #33232 | |
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The question is whether Umineko has a single consistent overall point of view. Now obviously I'm not talking about a single narrator, because it doesn't have that at all. What I mean is, is the entire narrative structured around the observations of somebody like Tohya, and how that person reacts to and thinks about all the events, or is it somehow constructed from multiple viewpoints? If it's the former, there's no way that Ange can exist as an actual independent observer, and the Ange that exists is the Ange of the observer's imagination. In other words, all the various Anges that we see are Anges that Tohya conceives of, but they don't represent the Ange that actually exists (because her existence is in a catbox and Tohya cannot know what she actually did).
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2013-11-19, 12:14
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Link #33233 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Germany
Age: 39
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In this way EP8 could be a mixture of Ange's experiences and thoughts and those of Tohya. If so, then both the Ange in EP8 and the Battler in EP8 would be true (and would explain how their perspectives are mostly seperate for the main part of the narrative). Btw. on Ikuko=Yasu once more and also on the question on perspective. During EP8 in the fight over the Golden Land, I think it is no accident that it is Battler and Ange who go to the Meta-Library with Lambda, while Beato remains with the others to protect the Golden Land and finally dies on Erika's ship(!) when the whole island is sucked into the void. The whole event in the meta-library basically speaks for an Ange-perspective, but with input from Battler. It is he (the hope in him and his survival) who finally beats down Bern (Ange's desperation about the absoluteness of her family's horrible death) but only due to Ange actually believing in him and in the message he imparted on her. |
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2013-11-19, 15:52
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Link #33234 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Yesterday!
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Iono if Ryuukishi had this in mind when he made Umineko but I'm fairly certain Beatrice's an INFJs. Reading on the growth of one through time seems to explain her fairly well. Outside of explaining her duality, quest for understanding herself, feelings of loneliness, being unhappy in love, rationality vs emotions (with emotions winning), etc... it also brings two points that might relate to the mystery itself.
1) Fiction and somewhat society itself tend to portray INFJ's intuition as a sort of clairvoyant power - tho that is wrong I'm thinking there might be something about Yasu's apparent prediction of the Rokkenjima tragedy (one could even argue the various arcs are different interpretation of her intuition). 2) INFJs tend to consider that everything is their own fault. Could that be the reason why she portrayed herself as the killer in every arc? It at the very least seems very odd to think she would actually do it in prime. A somewhat interesting point is that INFJs are supposedly the best at introverted Intuition which "solves paradoxes" and "create possibilities where there was none" - however aren't very good at using these new possibilities themselves. I believe this is fitting for explaining how good Beatrice is at creating new possibilities when it looks like she hit a dead end up but Yasu herself can't get out of her own real life dead end. |
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2013-11-19, 16:03
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Link #33235 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Interesting that you think so too! I've noticed the same thing, as I mentioned a while ago. (I'm an INFJ myself, actually. Wouldn't be surprised if Ryukishi was too.)
And while we're playing with typology and Beatrice, I guess I may as well mention that she's also a Four on the Enneagram. I've occasionally felt like it'd probably be a fun exercise (and possibly even a somewhat productive one!) to try and type the whole Umineko cast some time. Never gotten around to it though. |
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2013-11-19, 16:11
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Link #33236 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Yesterday!
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Oh read your previous post's point. Agree she has some INFP characteristics (eternal child mostly).
But yeah considering there's 16 people on Rokkenjima there seems to be a good chance that they are the 16 types. Guess it'd be relatively easy to split them into temperaments if you want us to get into that. The biggest question is then, would Battler be an ENTP? cause it sure feels that way. |
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2013-11-19, 16:26
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Link #33237 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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ENTP huh? I'd go for ENFP, personally. Battler likes to think he's a really rational and reasonable person, especially towards the beginning, but it's pretty obvious to me that he's ruled by his emotions.
...And, well, I admittedly have a bias that might particularly make me want to type him that way, mostly because I love how it makes this image basically a summary of Umineko's plot in a nutshell. But he definitely strikes me as a feeling type. |
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2013-11-19, 16:32
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Link #33238 | |
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The other issue with that interpretation is that it essentially posits that the thoughts of Tohya and Ange can coincide despite not having contact with one another. One could perhaps argue that Battler and Beatrice are the same, but there we had a definitive originator for Beatrice's perspective in the form of the message bottles, and we knew that "Beatrice" was long gone (even if her creator was still alive, I'll set that aside from this discussion as it is potentially irrelevant and distracting). Also, most of what Beatrice does is to drive Battler to a conclusion, it's reflective. This sort of thing could work if ep8 is entirely within Ange's perspective, as then Battler takes on the Beatrice role for her. But there's a lot of holes with that as well, such as why Ange would consider Battler to be antagonistic toward her when she has no apparent knowledge of his continued existence*. I consider either to be preferable to the notion that the story is actually being interpreted by multiple invisible viewpoints though, because it's not particularly clean writing. Which, given Ryukishi, isn't exactly much of an objection, I admit. --- * Of course the whole "what if Ange actually has read the diary" thing could put this in an interesting light if the diary actually suggests that Battler was alive by the end but vanished with Beatrice or was otherwise lost and unaccounted-for. Ange would certainly have reason to feel hurt and view Battler as someone who "betrayed her" to run off to the Golden Land. If Eva's diary said something like "Well a bunch of people got greedy and it escalated, and by the end it was just me and Yasu and Battler, and the two of them ran off and I fear they probably killed themselves," then Ange has every thematic reason to portray her brother as an enigmatic wizard who ran away with a witch and denied her what she truly wanted. But the problem is that this wouldn't work too well in the sense of narrative timing, as it would take a construction of events that runs as "Ange grows up mad at Eva, Eva dies, Ange finds her diary and learns the truth, Ange becomes mad at Battler instead, Ange learns to overcome her anger by believing that Battler had his reasons, Ange moves on with her life." While the latter half of ep8 could arguably be said to follow this trajectory, the first half doesn't. It also makes the whole thing with the key and the book and Ikuko having it and so forth a bit questionable, as this entire thing would hinge on the theory that Ange became aware of the contents of the diary at some point before the events portrayed in the story in order to recast her mental landscape to make EVA-Beatrice her ally and Battler her enemy. You could try to address this by portraying it as Tohya's take on Ange's mental struggle, but there's no way he could possibly know any of this unless he was just guessing, which again brings us back to "the Ange in Tohya's mind isn't real," which would make most of Ange's growth in this theory pointless since it really only works thematically if it has an impact on the observer; so either Ange's the observer and things all reflect on her own thoughts and actions, or Ange isn't the observer and her character growth has to instead reflect on whoever the observer is. Again, #1 is cleaner than #2. EDIT: Although a thought is that the Book of the One Truth actually isn't the diary at all but a metaphor for Tohya learning that Ange already read it. Which is why we don't actually find out what she read; Tohya doesn't know, only Ange does. The revelation is actually to him, discovering that she knew. That would certainly shake up how he views Ange while also potentially fueling his fears that all she wanted was to learn the truth and die (which would be his inference from her discovery of the truth and subsequent disappearance).
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2013-11-19, 16:37
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Link #33239 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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Okay guess I didn't really think of that much, yeah Battler's much more of an idealist then a rational. Edit : So I'm not really sure of all of them but almost. Kumasawa : ENFJ - The Giver - Visionary Yasu - INFJ - The Protector - Visionary Battler - ENFP - The Inspirer - Visionary Maria - INFP - The Idealist - Visionary Hideyoshi - ESTP - The Doer - Artisan Genji - ISTP - The Mechanic - Artisan Jessica - ESFP - The Performer - Artisan Rosa - ISFP - The Artist - Artisan Eva - ESTJ - The Guardian - Protector Natsuhi - ISTJ - The Duty Fulfiller - Protector Gohda - ESFJ - The Caregiver - Protector George - ISFJ - The Nuturer - Protector Rudolf - ENTJ - The Executive - Rational Nanjo - INTJ - The Scientist - Rational Krauss - ENTP - The Visionary - Rational Kyrie - INTP - The Thinker - Rational Oh and Ange is definitively an INFJ as well. This is clearly what Ryuukishi had in mind, you just don't get all 16 MBTI types "thanks to luck or coincidence". Now it even seems he's using more or less textbook definition of them. If anyone wants to make speculation about X or Y characters, what they can do, how they would react to stress, etc, I believe checking their MBTI personality type would be the easiest thing to do. Last edited by UsagiTenpura; 2013-11-21 at 09:40. |
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2013-11-21, 18:09
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Link #33240 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
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Didn't Ange suspect that the forgeries were written by Battler? That would probably be enough for her to see him as a living person who betrayed her.
e: If the fantasy scenes were in the actual forgeries (I'm not sure if they are?) then she'd have fairly decisive evidence since characters from Maria's grimoire appear in them. |
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