[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

The above is, of course, speculation. We MIGHT know the real Ange.

[Renall]

But he is right that we might not. Still, we ought to know something about how she feels from what she seems to say and do.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The above is, of course, speculation. We MIGHT know the real Ange.

You are right. It's just a speculation but I think the Ange in EP8 that Toya met was the "real Ange". She didn't seem like a suicidal type of Ange or the Ange that doesn't know the Truth.

[AuraTwilight]

Your last post seemed pretty confident and 'absolute', so I just felt like shaking that up.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Golden Dream

With all this ethical absolutism, I can't help but to point a pretty good example: a brother lies about his sister's where-abouts to the drunken husband threatening to harm her would also be wrong under your view of morality?

Its better to not say anything at all in this case than it is to lie. The best option would be to confront the man and ask why he would harm her. Report him to the authorities, etc.

e- Its trying to side step the problem instead of actually confronting it. Its the easiest path, the one with least resistance. I can see its appeal to some people but I would personally try to avoid that path at all times.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

It's not enough to just say that though. It falls to you to explain why it isn't. Truth, being reality, is by default in the advantageous position. If you're going to say "Well wait a second, no, there's a reason we must lie about reality," it has to be justified with some kind of moral foundation.

First off, strictly speaking I am an ethical relativist, so I believe that "moral foundations" can only exist as emotional sentiments. I don't see the truth as being advantageous intrinsically, although I tend to think that in practice it's usually better not to lie.

That being said, my moral foundation/sentiment is based off of the principle that empowering people to control what happens in their own lives and protecting said liberty is a good thing. Revealing the truth to the secondary victims themselves has the benefit of granting them greater self-understanding, peace, and ability to deal with the outside world, which is good; but to do so at the cost of revealing the truth to the entire world, which is filled with many people who will use that truth in ways that will harm their liberty, may not be so good on balance. Thus, I think ideally the decision should be the responsibility of those whose lives that this particular truth affects. Of course, we don't live in an ideal world where their wishes can be easily known. Ange, Nanjo's son, and Kumasawa's son were the only secondary victims we met and I'm not certain that any of them would want to learn the truth if it meant exposing it to the entire world. It's a difficult call, but based on what little information we have, I would say revealing the truth is probably the right thing to do.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But that's happening to Ange ANYWAY. Everyone already assumes the worst possible case for Ange and torments her about it.

Socially speaking, if Ange's parents were found to be murderers it would be worse for her than the status quo of uncertainty. Additionally, I'm not only talking about Ange; take Nanjo's son for example; if Nanjo turned out to be a killer, it would make things a lot worse for his son than they already are.

[Renall]

Again though, where do any of us get off in saying we have the right to withhold the truth?

Imagine we have a book that's got the truth in it and we haven't ourselves read it (because for whatever reason we just believe ourselves to be custodians and don't have a right to read it directly, so we abstain). We wander around finding people we believe have a right to the truth and offer them the choice to read it or not. That'd be some kind of ideal scenario for you it would seem, a powerful guardian restricting access to those who in your mind (1) deserve the right to see it and (2) actively choose to do so. Ange, Nanjo's son, etc. could all make a determination on their own if they wish to see it and we would then let only them see it.

But as this blind guardian who doesn't know what it is I'm the gatekeeper of, how can I be sure that I'm judging who has a right of access? I don't know what's in there. And if I do know what's in there, isn't it hypocritical of me to decide that even though I now know the truth, I have the right to tell other people they don't? Were my motives so pure? Is my rationale flawless? Do I even know, if I read whatever I have in my hands, that I will be able to tell accurately who would be affected by this information and thus offer the book to everyone who in your mind should have a chance to decide to read it?

That is, of course, accepting the premise that there are certain people who "deserve" the choice and certain people who do not. Which I flatly reject, because I know that bringing Truth to innocents and Justice to the guilty, or at least striving for this, is a good which can be recognized and appreciated even by a complete stranger.

You can't patronize the whole world just because you believe that some or even most people will behave badly with the information they're given. You believe that things would be worse for Ange, or for Nanjo's son, or for any number of other people you're too short-sighted to identify. But your feelings are not reason, and your capacity to judge is not justified.

Believing in Truth means understanding that true things can hurt people and that people will do evil with truth out of malice or simple neglect. Realizing that you are not capable of stopping this allows you to understand why Truth must be pursued. Let Ange take care of Ange. Let Nanjo's son take care of Nanjo's son. Let the whole world take care of the whole world. Don't allow yourself to be ruled by fear like Beatrice and retreat into denial of reality because of what you feel that you or others might think or do in response.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Its better to not say anything at all in this case than it is to lie. The best option would be to confront the man and ask why he would harm her. Report him to the authorities, etc.

e- Its trying to side step the problem instead of actually confronting it. Its the easiest path, the one with least resistance. I can see its appeal to some people but I would personally try to avoid that path at all times.

What's your opinion of the people who lied about hiding jews?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

What's your opinion of the people who lied about hiding jews?

These false gotcha examples aren't very good. Again, it's a balance of moral acts depending on the strength of the knowledge available to a person in a given situation.

The people who helped or hid Jews from the Holocaust did so because they were patently and certifiably aware that Jews were being enslaved, mistreated, and murdered. They didn't lie because lying is right, they lied because letting people get murdered for no good reason is more wrong than lying is.

Such a situation is not transferrable to Umineko's scenario, because we have no such knowledge of any moral evil that will or is likely to occur from the truthful and open distribution of information. We thus have no justifiable duty to suppress it.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Again though, where do any of us get off in saying we have the right to withhold the truth?

Ultimately that resumes all your problems with Umineko no?
Ryuukishi is doing just that, and you don't find that forgivable.

That said I'm not saying it's the case for mystery litterature, but I've dealt with other stories where the author doesn't give the exact truth.
Some of them weren't really less confusing then Umineko either. The only problem with Umineko is that arguably the author doesn't want us to figure it out, even on our own.

Random but Im very surprised to see Chrono back here !!!

[Jan-Poo]

Believing in Truth means understanding that true things can hurt people and that people will do evil with truth out of malice or simple neglect. Realizing that you are not capable of stopping this allows you to understand why Truth must be pursued. Let Ange take care of Ange. Let Nanjo's son take care of Nanjo's son. Let the whole world take care of the whole world. Don't allow yourself to be ruled by fear like Beatrice and retreat into denial of reality because of what you feel that you or others might think or do in response.

The problem of "telling the truth" "not telling the truth" will always be one of the hardest moral issues to solve. "Closer" is a movie that deals with the subject quite brilliantly, albeit it's a bit one-sided.

However the problem complicates further when there's a truth that the whole world (and not just one person) wants to know about. The one who needs to decide whether to divulge the truth to the world or not will be in a very peculiar position. If he decides to withold the truth he will claim for himself the right to decide what the world ought to know and what it doesn't. There's so much arrogance in that that it isn't even funny. And yet sometimes one has to make that call.

There is then another thing to consider. You may think that there are truths that people would be happier without knowing, and certainly that's true. But each person has the right to decide whether they value happiness over knowledge or the other way around. Personally I prefer the latter. Now it's hard to tell what kind of person you'r dealing with. One might tell you that they want to know the truth even if what they actually want is someone to confirm that the truth is what they wish for. But once you understand that one truly wants to know the truth even if that'd kill him... well you know that person really wants to know the truth. Then you should respect that will.

There are then a few important things that Battler and Erika missed in their discussion.

One is that a goal might be worthless in itself but the very fact to reach a goal you have set is worthwhile. Your life isn't going to change if you climb to the top of mount everest, and that definitely might kill you! But the act of reaching that goal, might very well be worth the efforts and the risks if you truly yearn that.

The other point is the answer to question: "What do you do once you know the truth?" And my answer is "I move on!"
Especially in the cases of the loss of someone dear, most people need to know what happened to them in order to find piece of mind. Not knowing is like torture, and that might tormet you for many years after. On the other hand if you know someone you cared for died, you'll be sad, but then you'll bury him, you'll grieve him and eventually you'll move on with your life. Some people might be able to move on even without knowing, they'll simply settle on whatever conclusion they reached. But some people just cannot, and the only cure for them is to let them know.

I don't think I need to tell which kind of person Ange was.


Beatrice and Battler would be only justified for their decision in the light of the fact that Ange would die if she learned the truth.
The probelm is: why she'd die if she learned the truth? It makes no sense. And in fact Ange learned the truth and she didn't die! So what the hell?
The facts tell us that Ange's life was a mess for the whole duration of the time she didn't know. And at the very instant she learned the truth, she started moving on from it.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Ultimately that resumes all your problems with Umineko no?
Ryuukishi is doing just that, and you don't find that forgivable.

Well, clearly I don't agree with him on a fundamental moral level. I reject the conclusions his work appears to be reaching (it's possible, remember, that he doesn't himself actually believe what his work appears to support). I also reject his apparent approach to it.

However, it's not so much that I expect or desire the answer from him so much as I find myself baffled by his behavior about it, and his waffling on themes of Truth, pursuing Truth, and the value of Truth. That his behavior about the answers to the work at large is somewhat reflective of the attitude in the work itself is not really surprising, considering he wrote it.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

One is that a goal might be worthless in itself but the very fact to reach a goal you have set is worthwhile. Your life isn't going to change if you climb to the top of mount everest, and that definitely might kill you! But the act of reaching that goal, might very well be worth the efforts and the risks if you truly yearn that.

As strange as it sounds, I get the sense that Umineko is not a work that much engages with themes of idealism. I say strange because that certainly appears to be what the whole Beatrice thing was about, but really Ryukishi brings the notion of fantasy and how it's used as a coping mechanism down to a very realistic level (if that makes any sense). The idea that fantasy can be an end unto itself, an ideal worthy of admiration even though it lacks physicality, is where I initially thought ep6 was going, but apparently not. At best we have Will fighting for that in the ep7 Tea Party and, well, that didn't go so well.

There is no apparent admiration for idealism in pursuit of the truth, and it's never ascribed to any one character or group of characters as their stated goal. Ange understandably has a concrete desire for knowledge because of her direct connection to events. But what about, say, the police officer who investigated the crime and, even though he knows he probably will never find enough evidence to solve the crime, is satisfied only when he knows he has done everything he possibly can to acquire as much information about the incident as he is able? For such a person, "learning the full truth" or "not learning the full truth" are essentially irrelevant; either outcome is acceptable, as long as he can convince himself that he tried as hard as he or anyone was capable of trying to reach it.

I get the sense there's not a lot of respect for such people in the story, but I certainly respect that.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Well, clearly I don't agree with him on a fundamental moral level. I reject the conclusions his work appears to be reaching (it's possible, remember, that he doesn't himself actually believe what his work appears to support). I also reject his apparent approach to it.

However, it's not so much that I expect or desire the answer from him so much as I find myself baffled by his behavior about it, and his waffling on themes of Truth, pursuing Truth, and the value of Truth. That his behavior about the answers to the work at large is somewhat reflective of the attitude in the work itself is not really surprising, considering he wrote it.

Personally this is sorta what baffles me.
For the most things Ryuukishi confirmed so little that you can come up with almost any answer that satisfies you or not. So why is it that nearly everyone comes up with answers that inherently doesn't satisfy them?

It's true I guess that he has a more clear moral about the truth itself tho, especially from Dlanor's speech to him in arc 5's end. I guess that's probably the core of the problem. However from Ange's reaction in arc 8 I think the truth she found out must have been neither surprising nor shocking in any way. It almost makes it sound like "well it was an accident derr".

You know I've been comparing lately the witch-hunters within Ange's world to people who believe that a planet will appear in 2012 or other such nonsense (I am sorry if I offend some with this).
The phenomena is "the greatest social phenomenon of right now" which compares it to what they say the Rokkenjima event were. A lot of people who aren't idiots and far from it nonetheless still believes in some variations of it and take interest in it too.

When I think of it in that light, it sounds almost certain that no murders ever occurred.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Personally this is sorta what baffles me.
For the most things Ryuukishi confirmed so little that you can come up with almost any answer that satisfies you or not. So why is it that nearly everyone comes up with answers that inherently doesn't satisfy them?

If I wanted an answer that satisfied me, I could just make one up by ignoring everything in ep5-ep8 and pretend like it didn't happen. I'm sure if I did that I could satisfy myself very easily.

Or I could, if I didn't derive satisfaction from reasoning it out based on the evidence the author has chosen to give me, and have consequently come upon a slew of potential answers which do not satisfy me. I'm trying to take him at his word and all that, but I am of the opinion that what he's given me to work with pretty much sucks no matter how it's likely to shake down.

You know I've been comparing lately the witch-hunters within Ange's world to people who believe that a planet will appear in 2012 or other such nonsense (I am sorry if I offend some with this).
The phenomena is "the greatest social phenomenon of right now" which compares it to what they say the Rokkenjima event were. A lot of people who aren't idiots and far from it nonetheless still believes in some variations of it and take interest in it too.

When I think of it in that light, it sounds almost certain that no murders ever occurred.

And isn't that entirely possible? Wouldn't we want to prove that, if we could, to silence some of those baseless speculations? You won't shut up everybody, but you'll at least provide a bedrock for intelligent people to say that no, the Pyramids were not built by aliens.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Or I could, if I didn't derive satisfaction from reasoning it out based on the evidence the author has chosen to give me, and have consequently come upon a slew of potential answers which do not satisfy me. I'm trying to take him at his word and all that, but I am of the opinion that what he's given me to work with pretty much sucks no matter how it's likely to shake down.And isn't that entirely possible? Wouldn't we want to prove that, if we could, to silence some of those baseless speculations? You won't shut up everybody, but you'll at least provide a bedrock for intelligent people to say that no, the Pyramids were not built by aliens.

Well as you often mentioned in Ange's world we don't really know what is common knowledge. However it seems that the majority of people nonetheless accepts it as an accident and not a mass murder. You'd think such a conclusion must've been based on facts. Conspiracy theories and witchhunters, are the kind of people who are good in doubting any evidence that goes against what they want to believe.

It's quite possible that in Ange's world the accident scenario has been elaborated even by specialists, yet some people refused to trust them and the thing just blew up in proportion. Take the WTC event if you want. No amount of specialist's testimonies will change anything about amateurs claiming "this was an inside job" and even a decade after tons of people aren't even interested in the evidence that it wasn't. Since in reality things cannot be proved 100%, there will always be place for such "theories".

If you think of Ange's world that way, and witchhunters that way, it does sound like it fits with Ryuukishi's whole moral in a much more positive light. Suppose for instance this is what Eva's diary contained, only explaining once again that it was an accident.

Witch-hunters would use it as evidence to say Eva tried to cover the truth, or claim that the diary is fake (what's Hachijou doing with it anyway?). Ange as she is in arc 8's end, probably understood that she wouldn't ever get any more evidence then this and just gave up trying to deny the obvious. Most likely then not there is not a single thing that would make witch-hunters stops speculating about information withheld on purpose and the such, Ange just understood exactly that.

To me that mostly is satisfying really.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

What's your opinion of the people who lied about hiding jews?

You actually think that these things are comparable? The only way they would be is if in the case I referred too there was absolutely no way for the brother to confront the father or get the authorities involved. In fascist germany you had very little ways to get them out of there, everything that was being done to them was state policy. What option would a common man/woman have other than lying?

As I said, I try to avoid it, but there are times where it has to happen.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

It's quite possible that in Ange's world the accident scenario has been elaborated even by specialists, yet some people refused to trust them and the thing just blew up in proportion. Take the WTC event if you want. No amount of specialist's testimonies will change anything about amateurs claiming "this was an inside job" and even a decade after tons of people aren't even interested in the evidence that it wasn't. Since in reality things cannot be proved 100%, there will always be place for such "theories".

If you think of Ange's world that way, and witchhunters that way, it does sound like it fits with Ryuukishi's whole moral in a much more positive light. Suppose for instance this is what Eva's diary contained, only explaining once again that it was an accident.

While I don't disagree with you exactly, two things:

1) Ange apparently is not satisfied with the standard party line. She believes, for whatever reason, that there's more to it. Maybe she's just in denial, and wants to believe that terrible things happen for a reason, even a terrible reason. She'd rather an evil witch or a vengeful family member have murdered everyone than for something to have just... happened that took her family away from her. It's hard to tell. Still, she wants something more. How do we respond to that when we don't know if she's looking out of genuine belief that more information exists or because she just can't accept that she lost 90% of her family for no reason whatsoever?

2) Ryukishi seems to have taken the attitude that somehow the terrible murders, the witches, etc. are what we as an audience "wanted to see." He's kind of shifting blame to us, calling us out as somehow morally equivalent to the Witch Hunters conspiracy types who insist that a murder really did transpire. If he wants us to understand that it's just an accident, why is he treating us like this? And if we do understand it's probably an accident, what were we supposed to do? Were we supposed to put the book down (or turn the VN off, in this case) midway into ep4 and just not read the rest?

[Jan-Poo]

Ironically until EP7 I was stating that on Rokkenjima Prime there was no murder and that it was just an unfortunate incident as everyone was saying.

So I'm one of the few people her who couldn't identify to any of the various goats shown in EP8.

The probem is that... I was wrong!


It's just like the final riddle of EP8. You either choose the answer that is false and get the good ending or say the true one and get the bad ending.

Ryuukishi only gives us two choices: You can decide whether you want to be "wrong" or an "asshole".

Tough call...

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

While I don't disagree with you exactly, two things:

1) Ange apparently is not satisfied with the standard party line. She believes, for whatever reason, that there's more to it. Maybe she's just in denial, and wants to believe that terrible things happen for a reason, even a terrible reason. She'd rather an evil witch or a vengeful family member have murdered everyone than for something to have just... happened that took her family away from her. It's hard to tell. Still, she wants something more. How do we respond to that when we don't know if she's looking out of genuine belief that more information exists or because she just can't accept that she lost 90% of her family for no reason whatsoever?

Well, her conclusion perhaps. That depends on how you want to look at Ange obviously.
Personally I think it's the second, considering how she behaved in front of Ootsuki for instance. However her case is rather weird. She has actually good reasons to believe it's more then murder because of the letters and the bank account thing. That single evidence, even if it's just a "nightmarish miracle of a coincidence", can surely torture someone for decades.

2) Ryukishi seems to have taken the attitude that somehow the terrible murders, the witches, etc. are what we as an audience "wanted to see." He's kind of shifting blame to us, calling us out as somehow morally equivalent to the Witch Hunters conspiracy types who insist that a murder really did transpire. If he wants us to understand that it's just an accident, why is he treating us like this? And if we do understand it's probably an accident, what were we supposed to do? Were we supposed to put the book down (or turn the VN off, in this case) midway into ep4 and just not read the rest?

If Prime is the only thing you want to reason out, probably, yeah.
But even being aware of that doesn't explain much about the gameboard's own rules and who wrote them and why. Which is another mystery in itself.
I'm not too sure what you mean about Ryuukishi how he treated us. He seems to want us to "be attacked by red", "hear people's unacceptable blue" and "make our own gold" as his core moral.

[Renall]

What if I'm morally opposed to making my own golden truths? I've never much cared for the unpleasant implications of that.