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Old 2012-06-11, 20:38   Link #29121
Aethos
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You know the words love and desire are prevalent through this whole series. Plus the second opening saying straight out "this is a story of my love."

Coincidence? I think not.

So let me just make my point. Umineko is NOT a mystery series. It's a purely romance driven story that is masquerading as a mystery series. So in a way telling people there was a mystery to be solved sounds like a way to keep readers interested wouldn't you say? Having them search for something that was never there. Yes it ends in tragedy but a lot of love stories do anyways.

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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
A question:

I've seen the "Ryukishi had no solution" argument pop up a few times these past couple days and I'm curious as to what exactly you mean by this. Do you mean

-Ryukishi literally had no idea where he was going with this and just presented a bunch of possibilities that might satisfy us and expected us to sort out the 'truth' from a mess of red herrings?

or

-Ryukishi was unable to commit to a single answer because suggested possibilities are not quite properly explored within the story because he messed up along the way? I mean, thematically, this works better than the first option. Ryukishi could very well have had a 'satisfying conclusion' from the get-go, but trapped himself midway through and tried desperately to salvage the remainder of the series to make it at least enjoyable, if not 'satisfying'. I do not see this as malicious, nor does it necessarily make me angry at Ryukishi. I mean, it was literally a four-year journey that depended heavily on audience reaction. Even if he had thoroughly documented and planned out a masterpiece from the start, he's human, and when if one of his changes somehow trapped him, I feel he did a pretty good job patching it up without creating obvious contradictions. It just leaves a lot of ambiguity which just happens to fit in with the themes of the story.
I think either way I would be fine and satisfied if Ryuukishi just admitted that they fucked up in the first place. I think then maybe people would then reflect and say "well maybe you did but the series was enjoyable. I suppose we can forgive you."

Instead of "lol I know the answer but I'll never tell you!"
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Old 2012-06-11, 20:47   Link #29122
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Originally Posted by Aethos View Post
You know the words love and desire are prevalent through this whole series. Plus the second opening saying straight out "this is a story of my love."

Coincidence? I think not.

So let me just make my point. Umineko is NOT a mystery series. It's a purely romance driven story that is masquerading as a mystery series. So in a way telling people there was a mystery to be solved sounds like a way to keep readers interested wouldn't you say? Having them search for something that was never there. Yes it ends in tragedy but a lot of love stories do anyways.
I think the problem is that Umineko is marketed as a murder-mystery series, not a love series, from the very start. It's fine and dandy if you actually meant to form it into a love series (and do so tastefully) as long as you deliver on what you 'promise'. Especially with EP5, we are given hardcore mystery rules so we are led to believe that Ryukishi will satisfy the mystery component of the story. It's not okay if (even if this was planned from the start) Ryukishi constructs several mysteries that all tie into a love story, if he expects us to go out of our way to solve them but does not deliver with some semblance of an answer.
It's like false advertising. It's one thing if he meant it to truly be a love story (which I think is very plausible and likely) and held us to a high regard to solve his puzzles if he had an answer in mind. It's a completely other thing if he doesn't satisfy the people that were drawn to the work based on what he advertised it as.

However, I personally felt that there was a 'satisfying answer' (or at least several interesting possibilities) so I am not particularly disturbed. This is just the gist I get from the people that aren't satisfied.

Quote:
I think either way I would be fine and satisfied if Ryuukishi just admitted that they fucked up in the first place. I think then maybe people would then reflect and say "well maybe you did but the series was enjoyable. I suppose we can forgive you."

Instead of "lol I know the answer but I'll never tell you!"
I forgot about that part. I can see why it'd be a problem. But, if he admitted before EP8 that he messed up along the way, I think that would make people lose faith in the story and that would discredit the series as a whole. The decision is like
"What is the point of reading the conclusion if Ryukishi admitted that there wouldn't be a satisfying conclusion?" versus "Ryukishi's being a dick waving 'a solution' in front of our eyes but not telling us anything about it, so we have a hard time taking the series serious as a result."

From what I can tell the split between 'pleased' and 'unpleased' is 50/50. If he had told us that we had been wasting our time, then there probably would have been a bigger reaction against him. Even though he may be willfully deceiving us, he probably did it to protect the previous Episodes.

And it's not like his response is unreasonable given the themes of the story (after all, he really does want us to 'think for ourselves'). It just seems like a big coverup.
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Old 2012-06-11, 21:03   Link #29123
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
I think the problem is that Umineko is marketed as a murder-mystery series, not a love series, from the very start. It's fine and dandy if you actually meant to form it into a love series (and do so tastefully) as long as you deliver on what you 'promise'. Especially with EP5, we are given hardcore mystery rules so we are led to believe that Ryukishi will satisfy the mystery component of the story. It's not okay if (even if this was planned from the start) Ryukishi constructs several mysteries that all tie into a love story, if he expects us to go out of our way to solve them but does not deliver with some semblance of an answer.
It's like false advertising. It's one thing if he meant it to truly be a love story (which I think is very plausible and likely) and held us to a high regard to solve his puzzles if he had an answer in mind. It's a completely other thing if he doesn't satisfy the people that were drawn to the work based on what he advertised it as.

However, I personally felt that there was a 'satisfying answer' (or at least several interesting possibilities) so I am not particularly disturbed. This is just the gist I get from the people that aren't satisfied.



I forgot about that part. I can see why it'd be a problem. But, if he admitted before EP8 that he messed up along the way, I think that would make people lose faith in the story and that would discredit the series as a whole. The decision is like
"What is the point of reading the conclusion if Ryukishi admitted that there wouldn't be a satisfying conclusion?" versus "Ryukishi's being a dick waving 'a solution' in front of our eyes but not telling us anything about it, so we have a hard time taking the series serious as a result."


From what I can tell the split between 'pleased' and 'unpleased' is 50/50. If he had told us that we had been wasting our time, then there probably would have been a bigger reaction against him. Even though he may be willfully deceiving us, he probably did it to protect the previous Episodes.

And it's not like his response is unreasonable given the themes of the story (after all, he really does want us to 'think for ourselves'). It just seems like a big coverup.
Well as far as audiance reaction goes you seem to be underestimating fandom quite a bit. Do you really think fans would abandon Ryukishi so easily just because of one screw up? Of course not. They may get mad for a while but as soon as Ryukishi releases another series they'd be first in line to buy it. THAT is fandom! Honestly I think dangling the answer right in front of people is more of a reason for people to be pissed off at them. I mean lets face it every author has their screw ups at some point but that's not gonna keep people from following everything they create, but dangling a steak in the faces of hungry lions? You best be sure you don't end up in the same cage with them.


Personally I'd rather be all "I MAD!" For a while and then move on to Ryukishi's next work instead of feeling like a crocodile that keeps getting poked with a stick by idiot rednecks.
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Old 2012-06-11, 21:20   Link #29124
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Originally Posted by Aethos View Post
Well as far as audiance reaction goes you seem to be underestimating fandom quite a bit. Do you really think fans would abandon Ryukishi so easily just because of one screw up? Of course not. They may get mad for a while but as soon as Ryukishi releases another series they'd be first in line to buy it. THAT is fandom! Honestly I think dangling the answer right in front of people is more of a reason for people to be pissed off at them. I mean lets face it every author has their screw ups at some point but that's not gonna keep people from following everything they create, but dangling a steak in the faces of hungry lions? You best be sure you don't end up in the same cage with them.


Personally I'd rather be all "I MAD!" For a while and then move on to Ryukishi's next work instead of feeling like a crocodile that keeps getting poked with a stick by idiot rednecks.
I agree with you on this point, but I'm not necessarily concerned with the fan's reaction to the author himself as much as their opinion on the story.

Ryukishi worked really hard on this, I think we can all agree. To blow all of his work on one mistake is unfair for him, justifiably, so it'd make sense how he would try to defend the work because if he didn't then he could potentially lose a part of the readers' respect in the story (whether or not this is better than what he's doing now, who knows).

Sure, I would forgive him if he came out and told us he was wrong. It's the commendable thing to do, after all. HOwever, if he did such, I'd feel a little less strongly about Umineko as a story because Ryukishi confessed this. I enjoy Umineko, don't get me wrong, but it's like eating 'the greatest dish ever' and having the Magical Gohda Chef tell you afterwards that he messed up along the way. It detracts from the experience.

I'm not necessarily supporting his decision from a moral standpoint, but I do see why he did it.
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Old 2012-06-11, 21:38   Link #29125
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
I agree with you on this point, but I'm not necessarily concerned with the fan's reaction to the author himself as much as their opinion on the story.

Ryukishi worked really hard on this, I think we can all agree. To blow all of his work on one mistake is unfair for him, justifiably, so it'd make sense how he would try to defend the work because if he didn't then he could potentially lose a part of the readers' respect in the story (whether or not this is better than what he's doing now, who knows).

Sure, I would forgive him if he came out and told us he was wrong. It's the commendable thing to do, after all. HOwever, if he did such, I'd feel a little less strongly about Umineko as a story because Ryukishi confessed this. I enjoy Umineko, don't get me wrong, but it's like eating 'the greatest dish ever' and having the Magical Gohda Chef tell you afterwards that he messed up along the way. It detracts from the experience.

I'm not necessarily supporting his decision from a moral standpoint, but I do see why he did it.
I can understand your point, but it feels to me like my enjoyment of Umineko was far less than my enjoyment for Higurashi. I mean sure its debatable now if Ryukishi is screwing that up now too, but Higurashi is still my favorite series because it had great characters and it told a great story that in the end made me feel satisfied. I feel like Umineko took away a lot of that satisfaction for me when episode 3 came around and then suddenly the meta world and magical battles took over the entire series. It's like I thought this was a magic vs trick series and suddenly even Battler turns into a hypocrite of a character as he turns more to the magical side of things.

Heck you might as well say that once Bern and Lambda came into play that there really is no debate. Magic won because we all know that Bern and Lambda aren't pieces that only exist in Umineko. Actually the presence of Bern and Lambda pretty much confirm that magic and witches exist. Thus negating the whole trick side of the debate. Since after all anybody who's seen or read Higurashi is not going to say that Bern and Lambda DON'T exist. You get me?

As for the mystery part. I feel like Ryukishi probably only wanted us to solve the locked rooms. In interviews it seems they fixate on that whenever the whole mystery thing is brought up. So in a way they did keep it as they marketed it, but that still doesn't make it a mystery series. To me the more I think about it the more it seems like a love story with puzzles. Sounds like a job for Professor Layton really.
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Old 2012-06-11, 23:16   Link #29126
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
A question:

I've seen the "Ryukishi had no solution" argument pop up a few times these past couple days and I'm curious as to what exactly you mean by this.
I speak for myself.
When I saythat there's no solution (limited to specific parts of the story) I don't imply anything more than the evident lack of a solution written in black and white.
Granted, I recognize and understand that this is part of Ryuukishi's precise will, but for various reasons that I explained I don't think it's a good idea, not even in relation to the objective that I believe he wanted to achieve.

It is in other words the same as a "book of riddles" where the page with the solutions is missing. That doesn't necessarily means that the riddles cannot be solved, but regardless, you'd normally expect that page to exist when you buy the book.


As for whether Ryuukishi messed up with his story or not, it's hard to say when there's still the possibility of an undiscovered "explanation x". But the problem is that he doesn't talk to us, and if there was a misunderstanding, it will never be clarified.

So let's talk for example about shkanon, many people didn't like it and many other didn't like how it was handled. Maybe an explanation on the same line as the explanation for Kinzo's death could have made us appreciate it better, or at least make it more acceptable. Ryuukishi is talented enough that he could find a way to make even the strongest shkanon denialist think that it isn't that bad after all. He made us accept brain parasites, amnesia, and 900tons of explosives after all!
But that won't happen with shkanon if he doesn't explain it.

Another big problem is the personality death written in red. I don't really like it, and I'm not alone. Maybe Ryuukishi has a good explanation for that, I doubt, but maybe there is. We may never know...
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Old 2012-06-11, 23:32   Link #29127
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He never specifically confirmed personality death in red being a thing, it just seems to be necessary for his intended solution. Assuming, you know, Will was right and/or we were right in interpreting Will.

That's part of the confusion of it, it's hard to tell what he intended to be taken quite literally and what he's just half-lying about to create an air of mystery. He so rarely distinguishes between the two that it's hard to tell which is which.
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Old 2012-06-12, 04:06   Link #29128
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Since after all anybody who's seen or read Higurashi is not going to say that Bern and Lambda DON'T exist. You get me?
I have and I do. Witches don't exist in Umineko Prime.
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Old 2012-06-12, 06:13   Link #29129
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I have and I do. Witches don't exist in Umineko Prime.
Well I just can't do it. Mainly because if I do then I'm acknowledging Higurashi never existed and that's just something I won't accept. My point though is that magic took over the series way too much to the point that it no longer was really a debate whether it was supernatural or human based. Plus it still doesn't explain Battler becoming a complete hypocrite by the start of Chiru.
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Old 2012-06-12, 06:45   Link #29130
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Well I just can't do it. Mainly because if I do then I'm acknowledging Higurashi never existed and that's just something I won't accept.
There's no reason to believe that Higurashi took place in Umineko Prime, though. In Umineko Prime, there are no witches and no red truth. Outside Prime, Lambadelta and Bernkastel and the other witches could still exist, and so could the many other fragments. There's no real conflict, IMO, between there being no witches in Prime and the Higurashi characters and magic situations existing. Higurashi was presented (at least in Umineko) as a fragment, a gameboard, just like the various games Beatrice and Battler played. So, Prime should not be taken as the equivalent of Higurashi's gameboard, because Prime wasn't a gameboard.

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My point though is that magic took over the series way too much to the point that it no longer was really a debate whether it was supernatural or human based. Plus it still doesn't explain Battler becoming a complete hypocrite by the start of Chiru.
If taking the perspective that the "meta" part of the stories are only taking place inside someone's head or as part of a fictional story someone wrote in Prime, at least part of the supernatural issues thing can be explained. Ange's story in ep 8 could be seen as her internal conflict or as a story written for her by Featherinne/Hachijou Tohya. Earlier stories could perhaps be explained by Tohya struggling with his memories and trying to find out the truth, and Battler's change in attitude could represent the change in him after he found that truth. Once he knows the truth, he no longer blames Beatrice and instead wants to apologise to her. Regardless of the explanation for the games, that is likely to be the main thing behind his change in attitude.

The premise of the game as many people were introduced to it was a guy who apparently just got killed meeting the witch who says she killed everyone, and deciding to prove that she didn't do it and doesn't exist. Sounds absurd right from the start, right? In order to do that, there are a bunch of major options for it: either magic has to be real, there has to be a confusing mash-up of meta, it has to be all in-universe fiction and thus never "real", or it has to all take place in somebody's imagination.
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Old 2012-06-12, 08:04   Link #29131
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Bear in mind that, at least according to Umineko, Higurashi is a fictional story. I wouldn't take the Meta-Layering of the independent WTC series too seriously in general though, and this from a person who takes everything about Umineko pretty seriously.
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Old 2012-06-12, 11:03   Link #29132
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Well I just can't do it. Mainly because if I do then I'm acknowledging Higurashi never existed and that's just something I won't accept. My point though is that magic took over the series way too much to the point that it no longer was really a debate whether it was supernatural or human based. Plus it still doesn't explain Battler becoming a complete hypocrite by the start of Chiru.
It was obvious that magic doesn't exist from the very beginning, though, by the very fact that Beatrice sought Battler's acknowledgement of it.

Well, at least it was obvious that magic doesn't exist in the objective world. The entirety of Umineko was, among other things, an argument that magic doesn't exist in the objective, but does exist in the subjective. And Umineko never strayed from the subjective.

As for Battler's change of heart, it's because he realized that the games Beatrice wove were actually entirely fictional and, in fact, a veiled confession of love to him.
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Old 2012-06-12, 13:40   Link #29133
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There's also the condition that Umineko as a whole should be solvable. If we have to delve into a previous work's (of which could be considered spoiler) material in order to make sense of about half of the series' narrative, that can defeat the purpose a bit. Umineko certainly has some aesthetic similarities to Higurashi, but relying on said similarities can potentially remove one from other possible solutions.

Personally, I doubt that Lambdadelta and Bernkastel are are simply manifestations of Rika and Lambdadelta. A more generalised theory might be able to accomodate these characters, but I have supposed 'evidence' of the contrary which might manifest itself in the form of a post later on if I could just be disciplined enough to write said post in a complete form.
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Old 2012-06-12, 20:35   Link #29134
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Except that it could be the real Bernkastal and Lambdadelta due to the fragment sea interconnecting all stories. I hate to bring this up but just look at the Digimon Wonderswan games. Primarily the character Ryo who existed in the Adventure universe but then got sent to the Tamers universe where the Adventure Universe is fictional. Yet both series "digital worlds" are connected. There's probably a dimensional barrier keeping the two universes apart but both series versions of the digital world actually are part of the same digital world. From my understanding of it anyways.

Going back to Umineko its the same with the fragment sea. There's no reason to not believe that it's the real Bernkastal and Lambdadelta especially when even they reference their battle in Higurashi. Plus not only do we not know anything about Rokkenjima prime outside of there being an unexplained explosion accident, but even if the arcs were in Tohya's head it can't be ignored that the fragment sea does connect Higurashi and Umineko together as well as many other stories. Going by that logically it could be assumed that witches COULD exist in Rokkenjima Prime as well. Especially if we're to believe episode 8 took place in Ange's head. Actually a lot of Ange's side of the story tends to support there being witches in Rokkenjima Prime.

Then again it can't be proved either way since its in the cat box. If you still want to say that my argument is wrong then let me propose that maybe the opposite argument is just as wrong. We don't have enough of a conclusive solution to say one way or the other. The locked rooms while solvable were as said before just set up as a thinly veiled love letter to Battler, and since the positions of the pieces changes way too much that we can't really determine who died when and how outside of when the bomb went off at midnight we've really come to a standstill.
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Old 2012-06-12, 23:18   Link #29135
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Going back to Umineko its the same with the fragment sea. There's no reason to not believe that it's the real Bernkastal and Lambdadelta especially when even they reference their battle in Higurashi. Plus not only do we not know anything about Rokkenjima prime outside of there being an unexplained explosion accident, but even if the arcs were in Tohya's head it can't be ignored that the fragment sea does connect Higurashi and Umineko together as well as many other stories. Going by that logically it could be assumed that witches COULD exist in Rokkenjima Prime as well. Especially if we're to believe episode 8 took place in Ange's head. Actually a lot of Ange's side of the story tends to support there being witches in Rokkenjima Prime.
According to Umineko, the ones who were fighting with Higurashi as a gameboard were Lambadelta and Featherinne. Rika was just a piece of Featherinne's.

There's not any particular reason to assume that the fragment sea in Umineko is real and "can't be ignored". It could be real within the Umineko universe as a whole, partially real, or it might not be real at all and might just be something that took place totally in a character's imagination. We don't really know, because Ryukishi never told us whether the meta world actually "exists". And we don't know for certain whether the meta world activities are were written in the message bottles and forgeries.

I don't think that ep 8 taking place Ange's head makes witches existing in Rokkenjima Prime a more likely situation. Not sure what your logic is there for that. Or for saying Ange's side of the story outside episode 8 supports witches existing in Rokkenjima Prime.

From the Keiya interview with Ryukishi:

Quote:
K: Bernkastel and Lambdadelta announced that in the end, didn’t they?

R: The two of them might reappear somewhere, but if there will be a meta-world ever again, I don’t know yet. Maybe it was just some wild babbling that comes up while doing an afterword. But it’s quite possible that in the new piece I will shamelessly feature another character with a name like Furude Rika.
Suggesting there that Bern and Lambda appear in the meta world of Umineko. There's not really evidence that they exist as witches in Prime, or that any witches really exist in Prime. In fact, going by ep 8, Bern in Prime is probably just Ikuko's cat.

Renall earlier is probably correct that the meta world layering between Umineko and Higurashi shouldn't be taken too seriously. I don't think Ryukishi was taking it seriously either. He is definitely the type to just shove a character with a similar name to one from an existing series in and expand it a bit from there; he has said that he never really intended Bern and Lambda to get such big roles.

Last edited by GoldenLand; 2012-06-12 at 23:45.
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Old 2012-06-13, 00:07   Link #29136
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There's no reason to not believe that it's the real Bernkastal and Lambdadelta especially when even they reference their battle in Higurashi.
They don't mention anything specific that would tell us without any doubt that it was Higurashi, but even if their past battle was in that world that still doesn't prove that Higurashi is a real world, seeing as how in Umineko their battlefields are fictional gameboards. By the way the only time when Higurashi was specifically mentioned in Umineko it was stated that it was a mystery novel.

As for the reason to not believe they are the same characters, well it's simple, they are too different.

In the first place there is absolutely no Lambdadelta in Higurashi. Sure her name means 34, but the same is true for Sayo. Her personality and character are also completely different, if anything she resembles Satoko a lot more than Takano.
The candy theme that distinguish both her outfit and her magical attacks are absolutely absent in Higurashi. In addition her alleged Higurashi counterpart never was stated to be a witch nor she wanted to be one.

For what concerns Bernkastel the similaraties are more striking and the name is straightforward, however why did she mysteriously lose the "Frederica" part? And in addition she gained a cat tail that was never mentioned before. And in EP8 you can't even count the times when they said she is a cat. Why would EP8 stress so much that Bernkastel is a cat?


In conclusion while similaraties exist, blatant differences also exist. If they were the same characters, why those differences exist? If however they are recurring characters like in the case of Okonogi, both similaraties and differences can be explained.
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Old 2012-06-13, 00:56   Link #29137
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
For what concerns Bernkastel the similaraties are more striking and the name is straightforward, however why did she mysteriously lose the "Frederica" part? And in addition she gained a cat tail that was never mentioned before. And in EP8 you can't even count the times when they said she is a cat. Why would EP8 stress so much that Bernkastel is a cat?
I think the loss of the 'Frederica' part would be mainly because she loses the 'Furude Rika' part of her personality, as there are no 'Nipaas~ ' or 'Nano-desu's for Bern. All that remains of her is the Bernkastel part, which is the Witch who had to go through countless worlds of tragedy and turned into such a bitch. As for the cat tail, it clearly was meant as a reference to Rika, after all, in all punishment games she wore a cat tail and ears and she said 'Mii~' imitating a cat's mew.
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Old 2012-06-13, 01:37   Link #29138
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In the first place there is absolutely no Lambdadelta in Higurashi. Sure her name means 34, but the same is true for Sayo. Her personality and character are also completely different, if anything she resembles Satoko a lot more than Takano.
The candy theme that distinguish both her outfit and her magical attacks are absolutely absent in Higurashi. In addition her alleged Higurashi counterpart never was stated to be a witch nor she wanted to be one.
I'm not sure that's really evidence against anything, since Lambdadelta likes to lend her power to unrelated individuals without taking an avatar, such as with Beatrice herself.

One could argue that her contractors have 34-pun names, in which case Sayo counts by virtue of being Yasu.

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For what concerns Bernkastel the similaraties are more striking and the name is straightforward, however why did she mysteriously lose the "Frederica" part? And in addition she gained a cat tail that was never mentioned before. And in EP8 you can't even count the times when they said she is a cat. Why would EP8 stress so much that Bernkastel is a cat?
Shroedinger's Cat symbolism all up ins.

Also, Beings With Many Names gain and lose them all the time. Maybe the 'Frederica' part represents her Furude Rika aspect, which she surrenders when they part ways after Higurashi Rei?
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Old 2012-06-13, 01:49   Link #29139
Kylon99
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Sorry for the uber post; I've been busy lately and had to respond to several pages worth...

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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
But only because you constructed it that way. The continuum of possibilities makes it improbable to believe that the entirety of the possible truth can be represented by a mathematical matrix, because we don't actually know what our full range of options are.
What I constructed was a matrix that multiplied two issues together: truth vs. lie multiplied by good vs. evil intent, if Beatrice claimed she was a witch. You can construct *two* decision matrices instead and it ends up being the same thing. One where it simply analyses truth vs. lie and the second one, if she's lying, then whether she's doing it for good vs. evil.

What do you mean by 'continuum' of possibilities? Are you saying that other than 'truth' or a 'lie' there exists some kind of state outside of those two? Maybe she's deluded, right? Well, that too is still a lie and would fall under the second decision matrix. Maybe instead of just 'good' vs. 'evil' it's 'good' vs. 'unintentional' vs. 'evil/harm'. You know, you can update the decision matrix with new information too. Although what you want to do to actually solve the mystery is obtain evidence to cut down the number of columns.


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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
Unless it turns out the author intended us to do what you call the "losing" line, and we have no way of knowing that he did or didn't at this time. You're considering that we either know or don't know based on whether we choose to do one thing, another thing, or yet another thing; in truth, we cannot know what any of the outcomes actually are because we do not know what the premises or outcomes are.
Hmm... I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Maybe I need to reiterate that what I was getting at was a kind of prejudicial approach at a problem. A judgement prior to having enough knowledge of the author's actions. So I can't understand why you're talking about whether we know something or not; the basis for what I was saying is that we *don't.* (And yet we judge prematurely.)

The losing line is merely the act of prejudging the outcomes without evidence one way or the other. Of course if you find evidence then you can start collapsing columns of the decision matrix. But before that happens, the bottom row which causes you to doubt everything is the row to discard.

Also, you should know that the rows represent our actions; the columns represent the other party's action only and we have nothing to do with it. They're listed because we're unsure of which action the other party took. We are guessing at the other party's action, but that guess is represented in the row, not the column. (And thus it's always a square matrix.)

In my first example, if you choose to believe that there is no truth to be had, then you will never find the truth. And this is with the assumption we keep believing that. You can of course change your mind later and get out of the 'losing row.'

Maybe a better analogy: Assuming you want to win, if you believe that by playing the game you will always lose, then you will never play. You can never reach a winning state by not playing, though you may prevent a loss. (Though you actually want to win.)



In any case, it wasn't my intent to just talk about the very simple case of losing; the fun stuff is avoiding that row and diving into the rest of the matrix, where it's about cutting down columns with evidence as the story goes along. Or if you're an author yourself, this is a method you could use to plan out everything you do and see the consequences of your reader's beliefs and guesses.

EP3's Locked Room Chain is a good example. When Beatrice started stating that people didn't commit suicide or die of a trap, I was able to quantify the number of ways those people could have died:

1. Murder (or death by another, willingly or not)
2. Suicide
3. Accident
4. Natural Causes

These are all the ways people can die (as in every death fits into one of these categories). I can't think of anything else. But I did think of one more possibility:

0. Not dead.

So when Beatrice cut down 'suicide' and 'accident' that left the deaths by murder, natural causes or... not dead at all. Which incidentally was the furthest she could cut it down as Kinzo died of natural causes and Shannon and/or Kanon was not dead at all.


By the way, it's interesting that you say "what the author intended us to do." It's my suspicion that Ryukishi intuitively (though I doubt he thinks about it this formally) knows how to manipulate people in this way; that is to get some of us to choose the losing row. That is by starting to give out hints that 'there is no truth to be had' it will make people give up by believing it. Even though it becomes an absurd waste of time on his part. Not that I approve entirely, but it is interesting to see the methods to mess with your readers.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Renall View Post
We were definitely kicking around Author Theory and the notion of a Prime universe around ep4. I have no idea who first called it Rokkenjima-Prime, although it sounds like something I'd make up. "Author Theory" was proposed by somebody else and named by them, I believe, or named by someone commenting on their theory.
Don't you remember? *You* were the one to call it the Author Theory. In fact, my posts were very disorganized, but you helped to organize the thoughts into key points. ( http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...39#post2971739 ) I had a rather bland name... explained below... As for Rokkenjima Prime, when I came up with my theory, my friend to whom I explained called it 'Rokkenjima Prime.' And then I used that terminology for my first post about this a week or two later.

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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
I begun to argue about the fact that all the "games" were fictional stories at the time of EP5. Note that that happened quite shortly after I read EP4, since from EP5 onward I stopped waiting for the translation.
I used to call it "fictional theory".
When EP6 came out the theory was widely accepted, and before I knew it it was named "author theory" and I adapted to it.
I first elaborated the theory at page 178 of this thread, and then Renall at page 179 gave his input and we started discussing it seriously.
I fear I enjoy reminiscing about the past Umineko too much, but what happened was that I, too, had the same idea that the stories had to be written near the beginning of EP2; and I even named Shannon. But even though we all came out with the same idea, the main problem was that the automatic response was, "If it's all fictional, then it's all made up lies! Umineko would all be useless!" Or so my friend kept insisting. That kind of an argument led to dead-end thinking. (i.e. Similar to those 'Losing at Umineko' posts I was making before... heh) So I was trying to think of how it could be fictional but still useful for the longest time.

So when EP6 confirmed it, it hit me in the shower. History books often have conflicting or outrageous facts. Why don't historians just toss them all away screaming, "It's all useless! Useless!" And so I brought those principles to the Author Theory to keep it from being useless, with a theory called "Historcal Method Theory". When I did that, (although I had to post 2-3 times before people would notice it) then starting with Renall who named it Author Theory, everyone started to think it too. Although there were holdouts who just couldn't believe it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Aethos View Post
Instead with Umineko I feel like it's just a maze of plot holes that Ryukishi pretty much got trapped in, and is probably still trapped in a dead end at the very center of the maze.
I don't think you can say that Umineko is like that since I've discovered that he gave us the answer in EP1 and 2. Basically what he wrote in EP7 had already been planned by EP1 and 2. My first signature link provides all the relevant quotes; you can see how it builds up Shannon's story and gives Beatrice a reason to kill for her. This was kinda alluded to in the interviews and it was only by going back did I discover that it was there already. (Since I didn't pay attention because I just wanted to get to the action scenes.. )

The quotes weren't cherry picked; whenever anyone had to say things about life, the way people worked; etc, I jotted it down. There were really only those two major themes; about Shannon being trapped and about the difference between being an adult vs. a child. All the other stuff was either advancing the plot, or one off ideas. (I should get around to posting those quotes too; some of it is a total laugh now that we know the answers...)

However, I agree with Jan Poo and others about how the definitive answer needs to be outed by Ryukishi. This is just the 'whydunnit' though; I think there needs to be more 'howdunnits.' Although Our Confessions did help a lot in piecing most of it together. And as others have noted, some explanations about how some of the reds worked/didn't work would be nice.

I think the reason why he didn't want to tell us "The Answer", though, was that he got too close to Yasu/Beatrice. If Yasu was someone you knew, you too wouldn't want to go around blabbing her problems out. "Hey, my friend here was dropped on her head when she was a baby and now she has personality problems, lack of growth hormones, a flat chest and crushed gonads!" There's just no delicate way to say it. But at the same time, I feel like he forgot that she's a *character* and not someone real... so it IS okay to out these things, because ultimately it is the story you are trying to serve. (Maybe Ryukishi treats his characters as if they were real.. just like.. Yasu... ?!)
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Old 2012-06-13, 02:06   Link #29140
AuraTwilight
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Quote:
What do you mean by 'continuum' of possibilities? Are you saying that other than 'truth' or a 'lie' there exists some kind of state outside of those two? Maybe she's deluded, right? Well, that too is still a lie and would fall under the second decision matrix. Maybe instead of just 'good' vs. 'evil' it's 'good' vs. 'unintentional' vs. 'evil/harm'. You know, you can update the decision matrix with new information too. Although what you want to do to actually solve the mystery is obtain evidence to cut down the number of columns.
"Beatrice is lying, but the truth can be discovered by eliminating the falsehoods"

"Beatrice is lying, but someone else is telling the truth."

Just to list a couple of examples.
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