[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

And I'm talking here not about the whole story in its entirity, because there's a lot of stuff that could be predicted, was predicted and was confirmed (more or less) but all that stuff (including the single twilights, shkanon and the rokkenjima prime incident) that are left inside the catbox.

Arguing about the content of a catbox is absolutely pointless. By the assumption of the very concept of the schroedinger cat, the cat is neither alive nor dead, it's both.

I would totally agree with you that from the viewpoint of narrative criticism Umineko lacks some necessary points, because it just throws some things out there without ever delivering a payoff. It still has an overall message, but it's as if Hugo decided to just drop the whole Javert arc in the final book or something like that...it doesn't really kill the concept or what Ryûkishi is trying to get across, some major threads are just left dangling in the air.
But I think that is something that just comes with him as a writer, he has done this in almost all his stories (as few as there may be). Even the very short Ôkamikakushi (which is basically a Higurashi rewrite if you ask me) has those problems. He creates all those characters and story arcs and possibilities for them to develop, but he doesn't really emphasize with his readers regarding what they can actually deduce and what they can't. At least that's the feeling I got by now.

I still love Umineko as a concept, because looking at it raises some very interesting question not only about mysteries, but about narrative structures in general...but as a narrative it lacks the same points as always, it's just a little more to my liking due to setting, characters, etc.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Think there seems to be something forgotten...

In that anti-mystery vs anti-fantasy TIPS, ryuukishi used the example of Maekashi and said basically "what if I had released a new arc later that basically told you what you thought was the truth with Maekashi alone ended up being wrong".

And he actually did do that (or let it be done) again and again by now. This is one of the reasons why I can't take Higurashi seriously anymore.

Spoiler for Higurashi beyond Meakashi:

Due to the existence of such arcs like Onisarashi, Yoigoshi or the totally weird Kotohogushi he contradicted himself so many times on the internal mythology and science of his own series that it's just getting stupid.
After the series ended you could basically say that it was a simple genetic mutation in Hinamizawa that developed along the way which made the people more prone to violent outbursts...a mutation of a gland (much like he did in a certain other series).
But then he suddenly changed things around, one time it was related to stress, other times there were still unknown factors and finally we got the story around Hanyû's arrival in Hinamizawa over ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO (proof that Ryûkishi didn't care being historically incorrect far before he involved Nazi gold being shipped through a war-infested ocean) and the disease was already around and somehow curable due to her alien blood.

Even though it is one of the key factors of Higurashi he never properly explained it...if anything he made it worse by writing in circles around it.

I'd prefer Umineko's way of an open solution to this retcon marathon any day.