[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 8 Twilight of the golden witch

[AuraTwilight]

i don't know, most of what you said seems to be based on comparing umineko to a theater play. I don't see anything supporting that anywhere in the serie.

episode seven.

[Jan-Poo]

That, and Featherinne is the witch of theatergoing.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I never denied that red truths are context related. That has actually been one of my tenets since the beginning.

That doesn't take anything away from the red truth's objectivity though.


BTW: I'm not saying that red truths in Umineko are actually absolute. But that's how they were presented and that's how it was better if they actually were. After all, accepting the red truths was actually necessary to have a game and required trust from out part. No trust, no game, and as soon as red truth couldn't be trusted there was no longer any game, just inconclusive discussions, like this one.

That used to be my problem with it, the arc 3 scene is clearly establishing a relation of trust being necessary between Battler and Beatrice, and it specifically concerns the death in red of the six first corpses. It was a giant breach of trust both to Battler and to us.

But in retrospective it was the arc where Beato pretended to be Batter's ally until the end when she trolled him back. We should've known better is what I can't help but feel now.

It's easy I think to compare Beato's behavior to that of a mystery writer, no matter on what level. A mystery writer should hope for it's readers to try to solve the truth and to have at least a few being actually able to do so. However any hints they should give us would also be misleading in itself, or else it would be like giving us the answer.

At least, that's how I see it, now.

Also, I believe the central reason the red truth was bough up in arc 2 is because Ryuukishi was afraid fans would see Umineko in the same light as Higurashi and wait until more arcs were out before beginning to reason.

Edit : Concerning arc 7 and theatergoing, I thought it was just trying to tell us this was all supposed to be a "show to enjoy". Arc 7 went a lot more into the mystery genre then anything else. Hachijou is not a play writer, neither is Beatrice.

[Jan-Poo]

But in retrospective it was the arc where Beato pretended to be Batter's ally until the end when she trolled him back

But she was actually an ally and not an enemy. The real troll was when she faked to be evil in the end.

EP5 clearly explained that in fact in EP3 Beatrice gave a lot of helps to Battler.

[UsagiTenpura]

Yes, that's the truth of the scene, but not the message, in my opinion.
This is the sort of reason I think the messages are more important then the truth.
The truth feels more like the result of literal consistency. It's not what it's trying to communicate. Goes back to the arc 5 scene about how Beatrice wanted Battler to feel a specific emotion (which I believe to be enjoyment from trying to solve the mysteries and murders). Arc 8's Battler speech to Ange and and quiz games also makes me think that way.

[AuraTwilight]

Edit : Concerning arc 7 and theatergoing, I thought it was just trying to tell us this was all supposed to be a "show to enjoy". Arc 7 went a lot more into the mystery genre then anything else. Hachijou is not a play writer, neither is Beatrice.

Nice backpedal, there.

[UsagiTenpura]

Well I seriously cannot express how surprised I am that arc 7 and the words theatergoing gave birth to a theory that everything was "a play" or "like a play".
I had never read such a theory before either.
I thought the dominant theory was about authors, message bottles, and scripts released on the internet by Hachijou. I also thought arc 6 and 7 only helped that view further.
If I'm wrong that's it, but just saying "Theatergoing" and "arc 7" doesn't help me here.

[AuraTwilight]

Is there really any meaningful distinction between theatre and literature, in the context of meta-fiction?

But to elaborate a little bit, theatre is a bit of a better fit in some ways because we have more than one 'reader' as audience, a single entity can play multiple "parts", and the characters seem to have wills separate from the director/author in the "meta" layers to some extent, or can atleast sufficiently fake it.

[UsagiTenpura]

I can see how the audience/internet makes it closer to theatre, or at least something like movie theatre. I cannot agree with the bit about free wills however.
Accepting author theory theory that way, seems to me like simply moving your suspension of disbelief one "level" ahead. It's like accepting author theory way while dodging it's actual implication on the story.

I believe what Ryuukishi was trying to tell us is more that a lot about the characters has never been specified and thus is left to the imagination of the readers. That we see fictional characters have meaningful conversation with others on a meta-level is showing us that "this too, is a fiction".

Arc 8 had Beatrice explain that "witch game records" is her trying to imagine how her readers would react and reason to her mysteries. Any illusion of "real time interference" during the story stems from this. Writer doesn't need to wait for fan reaction to actually imagine it.

BTW, tho I have no idea what it's called, a "meta fiction equivalent" in a theatre play would be different enough to likely warrant a different name altogether.

[Renall]

By the way, "You are incompetent" can be viewed as opinion. Beatrice just omitted the implied "I think that" because the line wouldn't have been as impactful and funny if the whole thing had been written out. There's no way to objectively demonstrate Battler's complete incompetence on all fronts. Certainly there's often evidence to the contrary. I think it was probably just a taunt; in other words, an opinionated statement with no inherent verifiable truth value. Beatrice had used non-factual red before and she would continue to do so throughout ep2-4.

From a logic standpoint, red text is essentially "the truth value of any statement in red which can have a value of TRUE or FALSE is true." It's similar to the idea that a blue text statement must deny the existence of witches; presumably, the witch side is under no obligation to respond to a blue theory which does not follow that rule, so something like I bet Beatrice's underwear is black doesn't have to be answered even if it happens to be said in blue.

The role of red text is to serve as a replacement for or supplement to evidence. Evidence is defined as a fact which tends to show something is true or false. Therefore any red text which is non-evidentiary in nature - irrelevant ("Ahahahahahahah"), opinion-based ("You are incompetent"), predictive ("I will now... kill you"), instructive ("Kneel"), or otherwise unfalsifiable - does not have a truth value. If it doesn't have a truth value, you can still say it. The only thing you cannot apparently do in red is make a statement in direct contravention of known facts (although known to whom is another matter); the red text itself will not come out. However, you're free as an author or game master to invent a scenario in which those facts are true, though contradicting your own internal facts creates a Logic Error.

[Jan-Poo]

If the opinion bit was true, Renall, you could practically destroy any red by stating they are just the teller's opinion.

six people died? Well that's just an opinion, there's an implicit "I think" at the start of the sentence.

Incompetence isn't something that is inevitably an opinion. There are people that are objectively incompetent to a specific task.

The issue is a lot more simple to explain with context, and the context of that red truth was perfectly clear in my opinion. Battler was incompetent at that game, and he was so because no one cared to explain him the rules.

[Renall]

That's a rather unnecessary slippery slope. "You are incompetent" is a statement with no evidentiary value. There's a difference between "that guy is an idiot" and "that guy is unlikely to have come up with a complicated extortion scheme because he is an idiot."

"Six people are dead" is a fact statement. It's being offered to verify an event in the story that otherwise cannot be verified from the narrative alone. It's obvious that it is not intended to be an opinion, and if the author were to do otherwise he would be playing games with the reader.

Beatrice's assessment of Battler's ability to play their meta-world game is clearly a joke. She's stating it because we just learned that "statements in red are true" and so telling Battler he's incompetent in red is a punchier dis against him than just saying it normally. It's irrelevant whether or not it's objectively true; it wouldn't change anything either way. It lacks a relevant truth value, which leads me to believe it's an opinion.

There is absolutely no way to claim that all statements made in red are statements intended to have a truth value. What does it mean if "Ahahahahaha" is false, again? So the notion that a person's opinion assessment is capable of being stated in red is entirely permissible. It's up to the reader to catch which statements are clearly not meant to have a truth value. Your example doesn't hold, because it's clear that the one you gave was meant to be fact.

Granted, there is a roundabout way of making it factual of sorts: Beatrice, in writing the game, writes Battler as incompetent, and can then say that in that story he objectively is. The problem there is that it's irrelevant, so it doesn't matter if that's how she did it or not. It also takes something away from Battler being incompetent at all if he was just written that way, even though we obviously know he was written that way (by Ryukishi).

[Jan-Poo]

Red truths do not need any evidence, that's the first rule that was told about them. It doesn't matter if you can't even think of a way to prove they are true.
It is also irrelevant whether a red truth is relevant or not. A red truth is simply the truth, that's all that was said and that's all that mattered. Why it has to be relevant now?

there is indeed a difference between

"that guy is an idiot" and "that guy is unlikely to have come up with a complicated extortion scheme because he is an idiot."

The first is a statement, the second express an estimation. "You are incompetent" is more keen to "you are an idiot" than to your second example.

I don't see in your argument anything that even logically can hint that "you are incompenet" is to be seen as a mere opinion except for the fact that's how you see it.

And that's the problem with your idea that it is possible to state in red a mere opinion. Who would then decide which is "obviously" an opinion and which is a statement? You? That's just your opinion. An opinion that I obviously don't agree with.

You see where that leads to? Endless repetition of moves. You say that this red is just an opinion and I say it's not, there is no way to reach a definitive conclusion and the game just breaks. So what was the point of red truths again? I thought they were created to prevent such an occurence.
If they fail at that, they might as well do not exist.

[Renall]

You just don't understand. I can't tell if you're not getting what I'm trying to say or if you're disagreeing with something I haven't said, but my point is pretty basic:

A red truth is a logical statement. That is why Battler's apparent contradictory red truths produced something called a "Logic Error." A logical statement has to have a premise which is either true or false. A statement which cannot be verified true or false, or cannot even be considered true or false as a hypothetical, is not a logical statement.

If a statement exists in red and all red text must be logical statements, it logically follows that any statement you pull from the text that is in red must be a logical statement. This is categorically disprovable by the example "Ahahahahahah" which cannot be assigned a truth value even hypothetically. Therefore the conclusion we reach is:

• All red texts that are logical statements are to be taken as true; and
• All red texts that are not logical statements are to be treated no differently than if they were not in red.

I have provided actual textual evidence of statements which cannot be true or false. Therefore it is fact - not my opinion - that things can be said in red text which are not red truths, because they cannot be true or false, which means they are not logical statements. You can't dispute this. It's there, in the story.

From there, it is possible to extrapolate that because there are other statements at various points in the story which do not appear to have a relevant truth value (as opposed to the aforementioned ones which absolutely cannot), some or all of those statements are not logical statements. If they are not logical statements, but take the form of an assertion, and one cannot state something known to be factually false in red, there is only one other thing those statements can possibly be: Opinion, which can appear to be similar to a logical statement but which is not actually a logical statement.

Which statements are opinion is something you are too stuck on. It's irrelevant. No one has ever used "You are incompetent" as the crux of any serious theory, because it provides no evidentiary value. This lends credence to the idea that it was a joke or opinion. It doesn't prove it, and it really doesn't matter if it does, but the mere fact that its truth value is wholly irrelevant only demonstrates my point. If it so happens that particular statement is true, it does nothing to demonstrate that "red truth is just the truth." That statement, while true, is entirely misleading; red truth can only be the truth for statements which possess some truth value.

The whole matter would be easier if it weren't possible to state things that aren't logical statements in red. But you provably can, therefore the only logical conclusion left is that red is permitted for non-fact statements and true fact statements.

In other words: Absolutely anything can be said in red EXCEPT false logical statements.

[Jan-Poo]

I can agree for the first part but not for the rest.

A red truth must be a logical statement, but you are trying to claim that "you are incompent" is not a logical statement, because it has no relevance, which is by itself completely illogical.

A statement doesn't need to be relevant or provide an evidence for a specific task to be logical. Relevance has absolutely no place in the definition of logical, those are two completely different things.

In addition "you are incompent" has a truth value. You are arbitrarily and arrogantly stating that it doesn't because you don't care about it.

[Renall]

Its truth value (1) cannot be specified, (2) changes nothing if it is true or false, and (3) offers no evidence.

Perhaps it would be better to say that "an opinion has a truth value, but as the truth value is solely encompassed by the speaker's belief that they actually do hold the opinion, it is not actually or logically useful."

In other words, "I think he's a pink elephant" is not a statement which tends to prove whether he is or is not a pink elephant. Its truth value is solely whether I actually believe that. If I were asserting the statement is true, the only truth value I approach is "Do I in fact hold the opinion that I think he's a pink elephant."

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

You just don't understand. I can't tell if you're not getting what I'm trying to say or if you're disagreeing with something I haven't said, but my point is pretty basic:

A red truth is a logical statement. That is why Battler's apparent contradictory red truths produced something called a "Logic Error." A logical statement has to have a premise which is either true or false. A statement which cannot be verified true or false, or cannot even be considered true or false as a hypothetical, is not a logical statement.

If a statement exists in red and all red text must be logical statements, it logically follows that any statement you pull from the text that is in red must be a logical statement. This is categorically disprovable by the example "Ahahahahahah" which cannot be assigned a truth value even hypothetically. Therefore the conclusion we reach is:

• All red texts that are logical statements are to be taken as true; and
• All red texts that are not logical statements are to be treated no differently than if they were not in red.

I have provided actual textual evidence of statements which cannot be true or false. Therefore it is fact - not my opinion - that things can be said in red text which are not red truths, because they cannot be true or false, which means they are not logical statements. You can't dispute this. It's there, in the story.

From there, it is possible to extrapolate that because there are other statements at various points in the story which do not appear to have a relevant truth value (as opposed to the aforementioned ones which absolutely cannot), some or all of those statements are not logical statements. If they are not logical statements, but take the form of an assertion, and one cannot state something known to be factually false in red, there is only one other thing those statements can possibly be: Opinion, which can appear to be similar to a logical statement but which is not actually a logical statement.

Which statements are opinion is something you are too stuck on. It's irrelevant. No one has ever used "You are incompetent" as the crux of any serious theory, because it provides no evidentiary value. This lends credence to the idea that it was a joke or opinion. It doesn't prove it, and it really doesn't matter if it does, but the mere fact that its truth value is wholly irrelevant only demonstrates my point. If it so happens that particular statement is true, it does nothing to demonstrate that "red truth is just the truth." That statement, while true, is entirely misleading; red truth can only be the truth for statements which possess some truth value.

The whole matter would be easier if it weren't possible to state things that aren't logical statements in red. But you provably can, therefore the only logical conclusion left is that red is permitted for non-fact statements and true fact statements.

In other words: Absolutely anything can be said in red EXCEPT false logical statements.

Tho I mostly agree with Renall's post, a few things...
First "Ahahahahahah" is neither a statement nor an opinion. Doesn't have to be one or the other. It's a minor correction but you made a bigger point out of it in earlier posts.

Then I think even such useless reds can actually be understood in a meaningful way if we don't stop at debating about it's value being true or not.

"You are incompetent" is Ryuukishi telling us, through Battler's reasoning and Beato's answer, that the reasoning we are presented with is "way off". "Don't think in that direction, cause it's off", is what i believe it should be taken as.

"Ahahahaha" I think was more or less saying that from his POV/Beato's pov, seeing our/Battler's reasonings turns in circle was amusing. Something like "Stop thinking that way, you're being ridiculous". LD had more or less the same attitude without the red when she made fun of "Rokkenjima syndrome" theories and other nonsense like that in arc 5.

Both red that way has an actual value.

Finally, to Jan-Poo, I don't think it's possible that red could've done what you wanted it to be even if Ryuukishi actually tried to use it that way. Otherwise, religious groups who considers the same words as true would never have split off over different interpretations of them. I'm no expert in court or law, but I'm fairly certain Renall could talk about how even the written law is subject to some level of interpretation.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

First "Ahahahahahah" is neither a statement nor an opinion. Doesn't have to be one or the other. It's a minor correction but you made a bigger point out of it in earlier posts.

You should read more closely, as I said that. It's an example of a statement that cannot be true or false. I then suggested that it might also be possible to make a statement which appears to have a truth value (or has an irrelevant truth value) in red.

"Ahahahaha" I think was more or less saying that from his POV/Beato's pov, seeing our/Battler's reasonings turns in circle was amusing. Something like "Stop thinking that way, you're being ridiculous". LD had more or less the same attitude without the red when she made fun of "Rokkenjima syndrome" theories and other nonsense like that in arc 5.

Both red that way has an actual value.

Narrative value, yes, but not logical value. It's obvious why she's laughing, and laughing in red adds to the effect, but the actual statement itself can't be read as true or false.

To add a degree of ep8 relevance here: Consider the purple text. Purple is considered equivalent to red for everyone except the culprit, who is able to lie. In a similar way, one could presumably not use red to lie about one's own opinions if the inherent truth value is whether one actually believes it. One could roundabout imagine the purple as a series of opinion statements by the author that happen to have the weight of fact whenever the individual described as making them actually believes them. Mind you that's needlessly overcomplicated compared to "it's red unless they're the culprit," and functionally equivalent. I just felt like pointing it out.

[Jan-Poo]

You are bullshitting me.

1) A person can be either incompetent or competent

2) Someone's incompetence can be verified in reality and has real and factual consequences.

3) Someone's incompetence can have severe consequences to the point of leading to deaths and disasters.

In other words, "I think he's a pink elephant" is not a statement which tends to prove whether he is or is not a pink elephant. Its truth value is solely whether I actually believe that. If I were asserting the statement is true, the only truth value I approach is "Do I in fact hold the opinion that I think he's a pink elephant."

I can't take seriously your comparisons if they aren't pertinent. "you are incompetent" doesn't express an opinion, it's a statement, there is no "I think" in it.

I can only compare "You are incompetent" to "the elephant is pink". I cannot compare "you are incompetent" to "I think the elephant is pink". I would only compare to it if it was "I think you are incompetent".

Why you are assuming that "you are incompetent" is just an opinion. Do you really think that incompetence can't possibly be verified or ascertained?

Finally, to Jan-Poo, I don't think it's possible that red could've done what you wanted it to be even if Ryuukishi actually tried to use it that way. Otherwise, religious groups who considers the same words as true would never have split off over different interpretations of them. I'm no expert in court or law, but I'm fairly certain Renall could talk about how even the written law is subject to some level of interpretation.

The extreme advantage of narrative over reality is that you can have the word of God on it. Of course it doesn't work that way in the real world, but this is a story we are talking about. Creating absolute truths in a story is possible.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

You should read more closely, as I said that. It's an example of a statement that cannot be true or false. I then suggested that it might also be possible to make a statement which appears to have a truth value (or has an irrelevant truth value) in red.

It's "not even a statement" tho. That's what I said. Anyway this would be very useless to continue since we're saying basically the same thing.

Narrative value, yes, but not logical value.

Telling us, tho indirectly "your logic is all wrong", sounds to me like has a lot more logical value then extremly subjective "facts". Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but it doesn't change much in the end. It does not only have a narrative value.