[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Not quite. For this reasoning to work we'd first have to give a clear definition of Forgery!Battler, which is something that has been often discussed. It is basically the question of, "is Meta!Battler=Forgery!Battler?" or by extension the age old question "do the Forgeries include Meta?"

The Meta!Battler of EP3 at that point knew why Eva was shooting him, because to him she was the culprit in that moment. He trusted Beato so much he was ready to sign into the existence of witches, but was only ripped out of it by Ange's sudden appearance.
The question would rather be, how Forgery!Battler arrived at the point where he accused Eva or if he simply arrived at it by being able to exclude every other possible culprit. They were in the parlor during that scene, so assuming Jessica was dead in the parlor or vanished it wouldn't be unlikely to assume Eva the culprit.

But, if we go by the Meta!Battler=Touya theory, wouldn't it be likely that at the point of releasing Banquet he actually believed in Eva being the culprit? Then we could assume that Ange's appearance in the Meta-World is her attempt at reaching Hachijou Touya, which was mentioned in EP8's ???.

I'm not sure what are you trying to say.

Either way both MetaBattler and PieceBattler believed Eva was the murderer when we know that, unless Banquet is different from how we read, Banquet is structured so that Yasu can kill Nanjo. We know Eva couldn't have killed him as she was under Battler's control.

So Tohya, who wrote the draft for Banquet as he's the one in charge of the drafts, knew Eva wasn't the culprit but PieceBattler and MetaBattler were fooled into believing she was.

The whole Eva-culprit seems a cover story for the Yasu-culprit theory.

And if Tohya was already able to write stories in which he could insert the Yasu-culprit theory he must have, at least, solved the forgeries, who either were never solved or those solution was never accepted (Ange will never say the two tales pointed at Kanon/Shannon as culprits nor she'll investigate over them or why they were painted as culprits).

This would make Tohya the 'gamemaster' and place him in a position completely different by Meta & Piece Battler.

Also, even if the Meta has Ange trying to reach him, apparently he wrote more than one book when she started her travel to Rokkenjima as Ange said she also read End.

We can even wonder if the Meta is actually Tohya's work or Ange's work, her interpretation/fantasy of what her brother would do fighting the witch and how she would try to help him.

And anyway the example mentioned above wasn't there to say that in Prime Eva shoot Battler but that due to certain circumstances despite being present and witnessing certain elements a person could still get a partially wrong picture of the whole story just because he lacks certain pieces.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

So Tohya, who wrote the draft for Banquet as he's the one in charge of the drafts, knew Eva wasn't the culprit but PieceBattler and MetaBattler were fooled into believing she was.

And this is where it becomes inconsistent, either because of narrative inconsistency or because your theory does not work in it's entirety. I at least think I remember you being in the team saying that Meta!Battler was a representation of Touya's struggle.
Now if you say that Meta!Battler was fooled into believing she was the culprit and only ripped out of it by Ange's appearance, this would have to be the same for Touya. If Touya knew about Eva not being guilty, then Touya=/=Meta!Battler.

Now we could of course question how it was possible to create a Yasu-culprit applicable plot while not knowing the solution, but I'd argue that it was Prime!Battler's submerged memory which led Touya to create a plot like this. He knew subconsciously what the actual answer is, but did not have the actual power to work towards it.
Though on the other hand you could of course advocate Yasu!Ikuko here and say that she wrote a story around Touya's draft which contained the solution she wanted (Beato!Culprit).

And then there are the hints in EP8 which make you assume that Prime!Battler and Eva actually conspired in creating the Eva!Culprit theory, which was impossible to proof but at least put a lid on the tragedy.

This would make Tohya the 'gamemaster' and place him in a position completely different by Meta & Piece Battler.

But he is not.
The GM of EP1-4 is Beatrice, EP5 has Lambda, EP6 has Meta!Battler, EP7 has none and EP8 again has Meta!Battler. This is what is given to us in the narrative and doubting it on such a basic level only disables us to reach common ground.

If you'd argue that Touya=GM, then Touya=Beatrice, which would either mean Touya=Culprit or Touya=Beatrice=Battler or both.

[Thunder Book]

Originally Posted by haguruma

If you'd argue that Touya=GM, then Touya=Beatrice, which would either mean Touya=Culprit or Touya=Beatrice=Battler or both.

"I need to stop Beatrice!"
"No Battler, YOU are Beatrice!"

[Witch of Uncertainty]

Originally Posted by Thunder Book

"I need to stop Beatrice!"
"No Battler, YOU are Beatrice!"

And Then Battler Was a Witch.

[AuraTwilight]

I don't know why but no matter how much I analyze stranger!Ikuko's choices, somehow they never seem the best ones...

I like how you totally ignore the fact that any option besides doing what she did has significant risk of emotionally and psychologically damaging Toya and possibly causing a post-traumatic trigger. Even with the actions she DID take, he attempted suicide atleast once. That was in a stress-free environment where contemplating his history and identity was optional. If he was reported to the media or his family, he would have to confront that whether or not he was prepared for it and would degenerate all the more seriously and horribly.

Did Ikuko do the right thing? Maybe not. Should she have done something else? Maybe so. But it's implied that she did what she thought was best for him at the time, and when he WANTED to speak to his family, she let him do so. When he WANTED to make a public appearance, she let him do so. Toya was not a prisoner. She did not obfuscate information from him or try to shelter him against his wishes. Aside from bribing that one doctor, everything was done by his request.

@jjblue1:
A very good breakdown of possible scenarios. Thanks for your hard work. Indeed the possibilities are unlimited and as long as we don't get some kind of confirmation about one of these from R07 in some way (like the EP8 manga), we will continue to stay in the dark. All I wanted to say was basically, that Yasu!Ikuko=evil and Stranger!Ikuko=grey is nothing but an assumption.

Except none of that matters to what I was saying. I wasn't saying Yasu was being malicious or evil. I was saying that no matter what Yasu's motivations are, her course of action as Ikuko is indefensibly unethical because she has the ability to stop Toya's suffering and doesn't do so. At all.

For instance, one of Battler's main worries about recovering his memories is the fear that he might've been responsible for what happened. If he's not, Yasu can just fess up and say that. If he IS, well, she's apparently willing to lie to him anyway if she's Ikuko, so why not just like to him more now? Yasu lies all the damn time. Literally ALL THE TIME. She built her life around deceiving people. Exonerating an amnesiac criminal she's in love with shouldn't be beyond her.

All this argument accomplishes, is making a scenario where Yasu does not know who the perpetrator is, at best "a bit less likely" and is no more than a straw man argument.
Also as jjblue1 said, there is the possibility that Yasu was not on Rokkenjima at all during the incident.

Yea there is literally no way Yasu was not on Rokkenjima during the incident, given that she caused it even if she's not the culprit. She creates the situation that causes murders to break out.

And if no one is a murderer? Yasu can just say that. And if she doesn't know, she can just lie, say she does, and tell Toya/Battler. Honestly, why would Yasu NOT do what she can to stop Toya's crisis, unless she doesn't feel like stopping his suffering?

Ikuko as a stranger has an excuse for not intervening, Yasu does not.

I was not referring to Prime!Battler/Tohya. I was talking about the fictional Forgery!Battler.

Okay, and? Considering I wasn't even talking about the Forgeries whatsoever, I don't know why you keep trying to bring it up as a counterpoint, unless you don't understand what I'm trying to say.

The GM of EP1-4 is Beatrice, EP5 has Lambda, EP6 has Meta!Battler, EP7 has none and EP8 again has Meta!Battler. This is what is given to us in the narrative and doubting it on such a basic level only disables us to reach common ground.

Minor nitpick, Bernkastel is the Gamemaster of EP7, according to both Featherine and the fact that Bernkastel displays Gamemaster authority of the episode. Bern does claim she's not the Gamemaster of EP7's Tea Party, but that's a different 'gameboard' entirely and her honesty is very arguable in this scene.

In the ????, she does claim she "never did any real Gamemastering," but that's also arguable as to what it means. Afterall, EP7's main story didn't have people getting murdered and all that fun stuff Bern likes. She didn't really get to have fun with the task.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Minor nitpick, Bernkastel is the Gamemaster of EP7, according to both Featherine and the fact that Bernkastel displays Gamemaster authority of the episode.

Oh true, I mixed that one up, thank you.
Still I wonder what other people think on that point, because this would show that either Author=/=Game Master or Touya is a lot more messed up than we think.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And if no one is a murderer? Yasu can just say that. And if she doesn't know, she can just lie, say she does, and tell Toya/Battler.

Or she can write stories that put the blame on a witch.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Okay, and? Considering I wasn't even talking about the Forgeries whatsoever, I don't know why you keep trying to bring it up as a counterpoint, unless you don't understand what I'm trying to say.

Have you tried rereading the conversation?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I at least think I remember you being in the team saying that Meta!Battler was a representation of Touya's struggle.

I think there's a difference between considering that a theory could possibly be right and blindly believing it to be right.

I considered that theory yes, or better a variation of it in which the Meta was in Tohya's subconscious like some sort of dream (therefore the Metabattler Tohya "dreams/dreams to be" isn't Tohya not has his full knowledge) and I also considered the theory the meta might be Ange's fantasy.

Still:
- I don't get how your discussion ties with the previous. We were talking of a person being in Rokkenjima and not being aware of who was the culprit or mistakenly believing the culprit was X, in reference to the fact that Yasu might have been on the island and not know who caused all the mess not of the layers between Piece, Meta & Tohya. To discuss it I used a part of the story as example.

- If Tohya isn't aware of the right solution than in his eyes there's a huge logic error in it. If he believes everyone is dead then no one could have killed Nanjo. Even without the meta, if you're an author you should know which character is supposed to be dead at that point as if it was a red truth. So the chances are that:
- Ikuko, be her Yasu or not, changed his plot considerably without him realizing
- he wrote a magic story with no mystery solution
- his Banquet and ours are different.

- I'm not sure what your actual theory is. Yasu was the culprit and killed everyone? MetaBattler is Tohya? Something else?

- There's not really need for Tohya to write Banquet to create the Eva culprit theory as Eva was already pretty suspicious herself and, unless she were to confess what had happened or proof that would lead people to think that X happened, Eva would stay suspicious no matter what.

She strangely went in the only safe place in the island, a place that was hidden and whom she wasn't supposed to know about when the house in which she was supposed to reside and that was pretty far from it went KABOOM, killing everyone else who could claim rights on Kinzo's money and it's not explaining a thing. Note that she moved there likely while it was raining pretty bad and, since the explosion happened by night, it's obvious she spent the night there, far from her family. And all this happened while she was in need of money.

It is as suspicious as hell.

Originally Posted by haguruma

But he is not.
The GM of EP1-4 is Beatrice, EP5 has Lambda, EP6 has Meta!Battler, EP7 has none and EP8 again has Meta!Battler. This is what is given to us in the narrative and doubting it on such a basic level only disables us to reach common ground.

If you'd argue that Touya=GM, then Touya=Beatrice, which would either mean Touya=Culprit or Touya=Beatrice=Battler or both.

Tohya is writing the book so, in the Prime layer the author is the equivalent of the gamemaster, the one who wrote the tale. And yes, according to my theory all the Meta was created by Tohya therefore he created Beato, Battler, Lambda and Co.

Of course in the Meta Layer the GM are the ones you mentioned but in the Prime Layer we know the first 2 episodes were written by Yasu and the other by Tohya.

Unless you're saying that Yasu actually wrote the first 4 in Prime as well, that somewhere in Prime there's a Lambda who wrote the 5 episode and that Tohya is responsible only for Ep 6?

Anyway I'm sorry, maybe I'm just too tired but I can't seem to get your point. Is it that I've explained myself poorly so you couldn't understand me and this lead to misunderstanding?

Because by your reply I've the feeling we're talking of different things even if we're talking to each other...

[AuraTwilight]

Oh true, I mixed that one up, thank you.
Still I wonder what other people think on that point, because this would show that either Author=/=Game Master or Touya is a lot more messed up than we think.

I don't think the Meta-narrative is anywhere near that close to 1:1 like that. I doubt Toya consulted Ikuko's cat for ideas or anything.

Or she can write stories that put the blame on a witch.

You mean the thing that caused a huge media shitstorm that made it difficult for Toya to go into the outside world in the first place? Yea, that's a good idea. Ikuko has the motive of helping Toya recover her memories and the ignorance of what happened and who he is to help justify her actions. Yasu doesn't have those qualities.

Have you tried rereading the conversation?

I did. All I see is GreyZone bringing up the forgeries to attempt to make my argument look stupid with "WELL MAYBE LOLMAGIC MAKES AS MUCH SENSE AS WHAT YOU'RE SAYING EVEN THOUGH YOU DIDN'T MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THE FORGERIES BUT WERE TALKING ABOUT 1998 LOL"

I'm kind of losing respect for him as an intellectual opponent, not gonna lie.

[GreyZone]

@AuraTwilight:
All I wanted to say is, that a scenario is POSSIBLE, where:

Ikuko=Yasu was on Rokkenjima, but was not present at the murder scenes and didn't know who the culprit was, while Battler was. This would give Yasu!Ikuko a reason to push Battler/Tohya into remembering what happened. Because she would most likely want to know who killed off (almost) the whole Ushiromiya family, because she may, you know, have also something like an "emotional attachment" toward some of these people. It would make her motives similar to EP8 Ange's motives.
I just wanted to show that we cannot come to conclusions (yet) regarding morals and motivations of Yasu!Ikuko and Stranger!Ikuko with our current amout of information.

But then you came around saying "this is completly impossible, because reasons".


If this is was nothing but a misunderstanding then I apologise and hope we can bury the hatchet and agree to disagree.

If not... then I have no idea why you are so focused on shooting this hypothesis down and not even refraining from the use of straw man arguments.

[Kealym]

Had to go back a few pages and see when I started disagreeing with jiblue1 so hard.

So, it seems, I find Yasuko creepy as balls for being in some kind of strange, existential love game with an amnesiac Battler after, by definition , having been heavily involved, at least moderately culpable, in an incident that led to over a dozen people's deaths, and toying around with those people's deaths for the sake of ... I'unno.

Whereas YOU find Strangerko suspicious as balls for not revealing Ushiromiya Battler to the public / his family.

Having read through the posts again, I can concede that perhaps I was a bit hasty to accept Strangerko = Grey, Yasuko = Evil, and unless more information is given, I cannot evaluate her true nature with CERTAINTY. I'm sure a scenario exists where Yasuko is entirely sympathetic, and just trying to do her best in her strange, doctor bribing ways. HOWEVER, I'm quite a fan of Occam's Razor, and I feel Yasuko in general requires far more assumptions, and generous ones at that, for a solution that presents more thematic confusion than it could hope to solve. If I put moral arguments to the side, I find little reason to support Yasuko over Strangerko in the first place. Taking moral arguments into account, I guess the best I could say with certainty is that it's easier to figure Strangerko into the morally grey zone Ikuko / Featherine seems to inhabit, than Yasuko does.

Ceertainly, that does not mean that the simplest answer is always true - as someone pointed out very thoroughly some time back, the ENTIRE suggestion of Axis Italians taking a huge store of gold to FRIGGIN' JAPAN is inherently ridiculous ... however, it is the situation as Ryukishi presented it, and if I doubt that narrative, then it feels like a slippery slope to saying things like "I doubt there was any strange gold / financial shenanigans at all," or "How do we even KNOW there was a person named Ushiromiya Jessica?" or "Eva never loved Hideyoshi. She had ALWAYS planned to divorce him if he ever went below earning a particular salary." It's like, where does the doubt stop?

Anyway, I hope that explains my stance a bit. Yasuko already requires more assumptions by definition, and a sympathetic Yasuko requires even more, so I tend to shy away from it. Certainly, i couldn't PROVE what Yasuko's motives may have been ... but I will still trust the woman who picks up a cat that HAPPENS to be from a house up the road over the woman who picks up the cat KNOWING it's from a house up the road, even if they both treat the cat pretty gosh darned well. Sure, maybe the family in the house up the road were abusing and starving it or something, but there's no evidence or hints or suggestions of such a thing, so I have a hard time going with the KNOWING cat burglar being a good person, even if it's possible. Sorry I keep pushing this cat analogy in this.

[AuraTwilight]

@AuraTwilight:
All I wanted to say is, that a scenario is POSSIBLE, where:

Ikuko=Yasu was on Rokkenjima, but was not present at the murder scenes and didn't know who the culprit was, while Battler was. This would give Yasu!Ikuko a reason to push Battler/Tohya into remembering what happened. Because she would most likely want to know who killed off (almost) the whole Ushiromiya family, because she may, you know, have also something like an "emotional attachment" toward some of these people. It would make her motives similar to EP8 Ange's motives.
I just wanted to show that we cannot come to conclusions (yet) regarding morals and motivations of Yasu!Ikuko and Stranger!Ikuko with our current amout of information.

The thing is that Yasu not knowing who the killer is is incredibly unlikely, veering on impossible. She should atleast have a strong idea, considering that the entire incident is intrinsically her fault even in scenarios where she isn't the murderer. She's the one who set up conditions so that violence would break out, even if it was entirely accidental.

Also, she was the only one who has the knowledge and motivation to activate Kinzo's bomb, unless we're entertaining Hilariously Evil Genji as a culprit idea. At the very least she had to know that someone was killing people in order to activate the bomb, which means she knows the culprit isn't one of the dead people, meaning that she would conclude it was someone.

There's no way Yasu was just sitting in the gold room for 36 hours wanking it while murder happened outside; she was going around the island in atleast three different costumes and identities, she had to see something. She has some sort of picture what happened even if it's incomplete.

Even if her picture is incomplete, it should be enough for her to be of SOME help to Toya's crisis. "You're Battler Ushiromiya. I can guarantee that this list of people aren't killers because I was there and I witnessed their corpses."

Even if it wasn't quite that direct, she could've said literally ANYTHING. Yasu, no matter what she knows, knows more than Stranger!Ikuko. She could atleast look at a Forgery and say "That didn't happen" or something. What in the hell is she dragging this out for, because it is demonstratively not for Toya's own mental health or best interests as presented in the narrative. He's SUFFERING, and that's something that SHOULD bother Yasu significantly.

Is it possible that Yasu knew absolutely nothing? Maybe. But it's so astronomically likely, and makes Yasu's distinction from Stranger!Ikuko completely meaningless, so why entertain it?

If not... then I have no idea why you are so focused on shooting this hypothesis down and not even refraining from the use of straw man arguments.

I'm not resorting to strawman arguments. Strawman arguments are when you misrepresent the other person's argument for the sake of tearing it down.

Which, incidentally, is what you did when you mocked me with sarcastic accusations of Yasu having magical powers and stuff.

Also +1 to literally everything Kealym just said in the post above. Yasu!Ikuko is inherently less supported as an idea.

[Wanderer]

Alright, I'm gonna take a stab at explaining how I more or less see the whole Touya-YasuKo dynamic.

First, something to consider is how YasuKo would see Touya and Battler in regards to their respective personhoods, since she's so intimately familiar with multiple personas herself. I think that there is no doubt she would see Touya as a different person from Battler, but she may also think Battler still exists in a way.

I've never envisioned that Ikuko wanted Touya to return to being Battler, but that what remained of Beatrice (inside Ikuko) wanted to talk to what remained of Battler (inside Touya). However, those two "stopped existing" in 1986, so the 'rule' is that they can only talk to each other in a fictional world set at that time (regardless of what the year really is); and this is why they are "caught in an endless recurrence" of those two days. This of course ties into Prime how Ange and Battler are both 18 at the same time in the meta-world, because even in 1998 Battler is still trapped in 1986 (come to think of it, it makes Touya's name even more symbolic). Also, this means there is no intention within any part of Yasu to "restore" Battler, since the only part of her that's even interested in him already shares the same 'meta-1986' "plane" of existence.

In fact, the only entity that ever attempted to restore Battler was Touya himself. I don't think it's fair to place the blame on YasuKo for suffering that Touya's own sense of moral obligation caused him.

For Yasu (as a single entity), Touya's suffering from Beatrice's message to Battler was definitely undesired, and possibly unanticipated (since in Yasu's case, her identities' respective memories are cleanly compartmentalized; she could easily have wrongly assumed the same for Touya/Battler). As for how the bottle stories affected Touya directly, we don't really know beyond them giving him headaches. Although, strangely enough for both the YasuKo and StrangerKo scenarios, he delved into his memories and wrote anyway. Thinking of it that way, it seems likely that Ange was his motivation for writing even as early as Banquet.

Incidentally, the above 'rule' about Beatrice not existing in the future is also part of the reason why I'm inclined towards post-incident authorship. Even if Yasu lived after 1986, Beatrice did not, so anything that Yasu might do in the future as Beatrice, such as send a message to Battler, is not allowed to appear to post-date 1986. ...Just an explanation to tie some things together.

Originally Posted by Kealym

~~~~~~~~~~~

Good post. As you can see, I've borrowed your YasuKo, StrangerKo terms. It was getting annoying typing it out the various other ways.

Originally Posted by Kealym

HOWEVER, I'm quite a fan of Occam's Razor.

I generally am too, but then again, how useful was Occam's Razor in solving ShKanon?

Originally Posted by Kealym

but I will still trust the woman who picks up a cat that HAPPENS to be from a house up the road over the woman who picks up the cat KNOWING it's from a house up the road, even if they both treat the cat pretty gosh darned well. Sure, maybe the family in the house up the road were abusing and starving it or something, but there's no evidence or hints or suggestions of such a thing, so I have a hard time going with the KNOWING cat burglar being a good person, even if it's possible. Sorry I keep pushing this cat analogy in this.

You left out the fact that both of these women went out of their way to make sure that whoever's cat it is doesn't know she has it. Sure, it's difficult to believe that the woman who knows where the cat is from is acting altruistically, but for the other woman who goes out of the way to hide the cat while knowing nothing about where it's from? That's definitely wrong.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I'm not sure what your actual theory is. Yasu was the culprit and killed everyone? MetaBattler is Tohya? Something else?

I won't commit to whether Yasu was the actual culprit or not but I am quite sure that MetaBattler at least examplifies the struggle a part of Touya went through, while trying to recover Battler's memories of Rokkenjima. I don't see him as Touya though, as Touya is a new personality (seperate character) who struggles with the dilemma of being both drawn towards the solution and wanting to discard the memories of a stranger (Battler) altogether.

My point was more in pointing out the deliberate separation and cherry-picking of theories depending on the situation. People seem less inclined to find one straight answer, but try to twist elements around to work out the perfect solution for one aspect of the scenario. In this case it is the separation of Touya and MetaBattler in one moment, while arguing for a metaphoric representation of Touya's internal struggle at another point.

Tohya is writing the book so, in the Prime layer the author is the equivalent of the gamemaster, the one who wrote the tale. And yes, according to my theory all the Meta was created by Tohya therefore he created Beato, Battler, Lambda and Co.

But wouldn't that imply that he knew the entirety of the answer from the very beginning, even if only subconsciously? And isn't that only possible if he is also the culprit? I'm against creating a clear hierarchical order of reality＞fantasy , I am for an intertwined relationship between both, in which events within our reality are at the same time occurring on the meta-plane.
Let's take the TIP Witches' Tanabata as an example. Bernkastel is taking influence on Ange's attitude towards Eva by promising her mother's definite death as soon as she accepts Eva as a substitute. This tells us more than just the struggle of Touya himself, but also reveals other characters' problems.

I would actually say that within the context of Umineko the gamemaster and the author are to be regarded on different levels. Some scenes simply don't make sense to me if they are simply creations of the mind, so at least to a certain degree, the metaworld is as real as the reality Touya and Ange exist in. The meta beings act out what is written but then again these changes in the metaworld influence what is written.
So the gamemaster (if not all challengers in the metaworld) is representative of the attitude and thought process with which that particular gameboard is approached. In that sense the author is more the gamemaker.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Incidentally, the above 'rule' about Beatrice not existing in the future is also part of the reason why I'm inclined towards post-incident authorship.

I was finally to find the passage relating to my critique of the post-authorship theory.

Narration (Ange): However.

Later on, it was confirmed that a similar message bottle had been recovered from the nearby ocean on the day of the accident by the police in their search for lost articles, and this caused a sensation.

Ootsuki: "It seems that, due to evidence from the surrounding area and the fact that the bottle was sealed, the police had decided that its likelihood of being a fabrication was low, and that it had been abandoned within several days before the accident. And the handwriting for both matched.
This caused the credibility of the scraps of paper discovered by the fisherman to rise.
It seems that magazines and the like have reported on the contents of that message bottle repeatedly, but do you require an explanation?"

Like Kealym already pointed out quite sharply regarding a Yasuko theory, a post-authorship theory also requires us to discard given information without any reason to doubt it beyond the general possibility to doubt anything.

I found it also quite interesting to reread this passage because it led me to another striking element that I had almost completely forgotten about: that is Eva's role in the rise of the occult craze.

Narration (Ange): In other words, until Kinzo's library was leaked to the public by Eva, Rokkenjima had been nothing more than a nameless island that no one could remember, ......and it definitely hadn't been a witch's island.

However, when knowledge of the Ushiromiya Library spread across the world, Rokkenjima's image immediately took on an occult twist.

Ootsuki: "And so, what happened next was that case with the message bottle. It is what turned that island into a witch's island. A nameless island in the Izu archipelago began to transition into an occult island, and the island of the mysterious witch, Beatrice.
You could say that, lacking either the Ushiromiya Library or the message bottle, the Rokkenjima Witch Legend would never have been established."

It wasn't even the message bottle that gave the initial spark but Eva selling Kinzo's collection to the public. Probably, without this incentive, the fisherman would have also never come out with the story about him discovering the message bottle.
But considering that Eva did not sell the collection until she was in dire need of money, doesn't that hint towards the events of the forgery craze being even less controlled than many people seem to assume?

[AuraTwilight]

In fact, the only entity that ever attempted to restore Battler was Touya himself. I don't think it's fair to place the blame on YasuKo for suffering that Touya's own sense of moral obligation caused him.

To clarify, I'm not blaming YasuKo for the suffering itself so much as allowing it to go on when she has the ability to do something about it.

Maybe Yasu disagrees, but to me, loving someone definitively includes not wanting someone's suffering to continue unnecessarily, and since his entire situation is her fault she has a moral obligation to do something about it regardless.

I generally am too, but then again, how useful was Occam's Razor in solving ShKanon?

In fairness, ShKanon is compliant with Occam's Razor as soon as EP6 happens, if not earlier.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

My point was more in pointing out the deliberate separation and cherry-picking of theories depending on the situation. People seem less inclined to find one straight answer, but try to twist elements around to work out the perfect solution for one aspect of the scenario.

Hum... I think that, unless the discussion is very linear and a person wants to expose his solution of Umineko with a long essay it's pretty hard for another person to check if person X is picking theories according to the situation or merely revised a precedent theory and applied it to all the game.

After all a person can acknowledge he made a mistake in his previous theory and... well discharge it for another that, according to him, is the one stright answer.

If we never revised theories... well I don't think we would get very far and it would make discussing Umineko pretty pointless...

Originally Posted by haguruma

But wouldn't that imply that he knew the entirety of the answer from the very beginning, even if only subconsciously? And isn't that only possible if he is also the culprit? I'm against creating a clear hierarchical order of reality＞fantasy , I am for an intertwined relationship between both, in which events within our reality are at the same time occurring on the meta-plane.

I'm not sure I'm following you.

My theory is:
- Tohya solved the message bottles
- Tohya has recovered some memories of Rokkenjima and the people in it
- he used his solution, his knowledge of facts post Rokkenjima and his memories to write the tales
- it's possible that in the tales there are some facts that really happened on Rokkenjima... however I wish you good luck in figuring out which one exactly are.
- No idea how much memory Tohya recovered while writing the tales and how much in denial he is about being Battler. The Meta might imply some turning points but as this depends on how you interpret them for now I'll let this up to speculation.

So how Tohya writing forgeries based on Yasu's messages would insure he knows who the culprit in Prime is?
But Tohya as a writer knows who the culprit is in his tale... and the culprit is Yasu.

It's entirely possible that Tohya didn't wrote his tales giving at the end a straight answer so that when you read Banquet, Alliance and End you don't know who exactly the culprit is. It's possible in Banquet he tried to use the popular theory of Eva-culprit to 'cover up' his truth, so that people that read it were faced with a setting in which Eva was definitely suspicious and maybe she even killed Battler in the book too, but an Eva solution didn't solve every murder so that the fantasy of the witch is preserved unless you attack Banquet with the Yasu-culprit theory.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Let's take the TIP Witches' Tanabata as an example. Bernkastel is taking influence on Ange's attitude towards Eva by promising her mother's definite death as soon as she accepts Eva as a substitute. This tells us more than just the struggle of Touya himself, but also reveals other characters' problems.

All I can say about the meta is that it seems more focused on the psychological aspect of the characters. However I would consider Ange's meeting with Bern not meta but a fantasy scene, similar to when Shannon meets Beato in Ep 2 and Beato tells her to break the mirror in the shrine or when in Ep 5 Beato tells Natsuhi with her magic she'll resurrect Kinzo.

It's just an interpretation though. As I said I'm still considering theories over the Meta as none seems satisfactory enough as of now.

Originally Posted by haguruma

I would actually say that within the context of Umineko the gamemaster and the author are to be regarded on different levels. Some scenes simply don't make sense to me if they are simply creations of the mind, so at least to a certain degree, the metaworld is as real as the reality Touya and Ange exist in. The meta beings act out what is written but then again these changes in the metaworld influence what is written.
So the gamemaster (if not all challengers in the metaworld) is representative of the attitude and thought process with which that particular gameboard is approached. In that sense the author is more the gamemaker.

It can be that gamemaker is a better world for 'author'.
As in the Meta the gamemaster was also the one who made up the story I honestly didn't bother searching for a new definition.

Originally Posted by haguruma

It wasn't even the message bottle that gave the initial spark but Eva selling Kinzo's collection to the public. Probably, without this incentive, the fisherman would have also never come out with the story about him discovering the message bottle.
But considering that Eva did not sell the collection until she was in dire need of money, doesn't that hint towards the events of the forgery craze being even less controlled than many people seem to assume?

I like to think that the events of the forgery craze were pretty coincidental and not planned.
Sure, likely Eva had been suspected and people in her and Ange's inner circle might have continued suspecting her even without the forgery craze but, after 10 years, if it hadn't been for the forgerers and the witch hunters likely the interest of the rest of the world would have died down which probably would have been good for Ange as she wouldn't have to continuously deal with conspiration theories.

Interesting enough the fact that Eva was having financial problems might also prove she didn't receive the bank account code or refused to use it or it was only a thing presented in the games (this would imply that Ange's talking with people receiving it might have been purely fictional).

Anyone has suggestions? Theories? Whatever else?

[DaBackpack]

I personally disagree with applying Occam's Razor when it comes to storytelling. In general, I think it's useful for picking hypotheses in the natural sciences, but it shouldn't become the main justification for a theory in this story. Its use is hard to avoid in a story like Umineko, though.

That said, Shkanon is still the most plausible explanation for thematic and logical reasons. And personally, I think Ikuko was -intended- to be Yasu, and the moral issue was an oversight on Ryukishi's side. That said I choose to believe that Ikuko was a stranger for reasons described already.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Interesting enough the fact that Eva was having financial problems might also prove she didn't receive the bank account code or refused to use it or it was only a thing presented in the games (this would imply that Ange's talking with people receiving it might have been purely fictional).

The third option would imply that the information about Eva's financial situation, the message bottles, even Eva's survival is likely fictional itself. This would make up a vicious circle of assumptions we have no necessity to make.

[AuraTwilight]

And personally, I think Ikuko was -intended- to be Yasu, and the moral issue was an oversight on Ryukishi's side.

I'd really like to think where you see this intended, considering that there's literally nothing connecting them except a lose name pun that applies to "Toya Hachijou."

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I was finally to find the passage relating to my critique of the post-authorship theory.

Oh, that. Yeah I remembered that part more or less correctly. I just thought that when you said the police "dated" it that they actually tested the age of the paper or ink or bottle itself or something. My fault.

But rereading it again I can pinpoint the thing about that particular part that I've always found strange: That is that it's the bottle the fisherman found that caused the bottle the police had to go public. What caused the police to release their bottle only after the fisherman's was found?

Originally Posted by haguruma

Like Kealym already pointed out quite sharply regarding a Yasuko theory, a post-authorship theory also requires us to discard given information without any reason to doubt it beyond the general possibility to doubt anything.

I guess I'm just more a fan of Knox's 9th than of Knox's 8th.

I don't simply 'discard given information', I just absorb it precisely. It's not "the police found a bottle", but rather "the police reported having found a bottle some years ago, and produced something that appeared to be that bottle." That's the 'information given'. I don't see a need for a hint that the police are lying, because I don't assume they are telling the truth. It's simply a matter or the relative plausibility of their story being true or false. Of course, all other things being equal, the police are a very trustworthy organization. But there are other factors.

Ange in that same scene later surmised that the writer would probably have to be the culprit based on what she knew. So, three possibilities:

A) The information she has is good, and her reasoning is good. This means the writer really is the culprit. Logistically, this is the most sensible explanation, by far. However, I find this difficult to accept from a narrative standpoint.
B) The information she has is good, but her reasoning is bad. I don't think it is, because I share her reasoning that pre-incident authorship points to the writer being the culprit.
C) The information she has is bad, but her reasoning is good. I'm pretty sure this means that the police lied.

I prefer 'C' & 'B' to 'A' for entirely thematic reasons. And I prefer 'C' to 'B' for both logistic and thematic reasons.

Basically, aside from discarding 'A' rather arbitrarily, my theory is actually based on deductive reasoning.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

To clarify, I'm not blaming YasuKo for the suffering itself so much as allowing it to go on when she has the ability to do something about it.

Assuming we more or less agree that his moral obligation to Ange was the source of Touya's suffering, I'd be interested to hear what "ability" YasuKo might have to alleviate it.

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

I personally disagree with applying Occam's Razor when it comes to storytelling.

Indeed. For example, Occam's Razor points squarely at Yasu as the culprit for Prime. It "ignores the heart", I guess.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I'd really like to think where you see this intended, considering that there's literally nothing connecting them except a lose name pun that applies to "Toya Hachijou."

loosely in what way?

EDIT:
Bought what's out so far of the EP8 manga. Just finished chapter 6, and here's a couple spoilers got from it for anyone who doesn't already know them.

Spoiler:

All these spoilers are about Legend.

• Natsuhi's gun was never loaded and she didn't even realize it. Tee-hee.
  
• Rudolf's comment about "being killed tonight" was confirmed to be about the reaction he expected to get from Kyrie after telling her about Battler's birth. No surprise there, but nice to have confirmation.
• The content of the final letter that lured Natsuhi into the hall:

  Ushiromiya Natsuhi-sama
  
  Let's settle which of us is most suitable to be the family head.
  I shall be waiting in front of my portrait.

  Pretty much what you'd expect, but, again, confirmation is nice.