[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Even if our solution is wrong in the grand scheme of things that does not make it wrong at this very moment. Or to liken it to prosecution, sentencing somebody based on evidence is not wrong, but it can always turn out later that the evidence was incomplete, faked or just analyzed in a wrong way.

Believe me, I'm entirely aware of that. I question, however, whether you understand the difference between "complete understanding" and "a more complete understanding." If you did, you would recognize that science itself denies the absoluteness of human truth, as does the legal system. There's a reason we rejected lost continents for tectonic drift without complaining, or why we accept that the burden to have a courtroom full of ordinary people decide what truth is in an accident case is merely "who is more likely than not to be right?"

It is possible to criticize the mystery genre in particular ways in light of this kind of understanding or merely in challenge to the type of understanding the genre presents. But that's not by itself what I'm talking about. My question is more what is the point that's being made in the text about this and how well does it follow through on making that point.

It's not sufficient (for an author; it's sufficient for you) to merely say "here's a genre work that is critical of the genre." What is it criticizing? Is it right? What exactly does it want me to think about? Looking at Umineko through this lens, I think I can see the various points the author did want to provide this sort of running dialogue... but I also fault the answers he did and didn't provide. I honestly don't think it's really fair to compare it to the examples you've given (although I've not read most of them), because I think we're dealing with an author who at best tried to convey some of these better-explored-by-others notions to an audience he knew would be largely less familiar with them. That may not have been his original intention up until Turn came out.

The point is, whatever he did do, I'm not convinced he did it well. You're speaking here very generally, so it's difficult for me to point to a specific example of a thing you think he did do well and explain why I agree or disagree (as I don't think he did everything badly). But my point is that if you're arguing that he wrote the work in a manner that only someone like you could fully appreciate it... then he still failed even if you appreciate it, because he had other readers and he wasn't very good at warning those people away. In fact, it seems like he tried very hard to win them back at the cost of compromise.

It boils down to the question, what is a fair game and who are actually the opponents.
If we readers among each other are opponents, as in the case of most classical mystery stories, then the author is obligated to present all clues necessary to reach the intended solution, because else it could happen that no winner comes out in the end. In that case the author is merely the judge of a race.
If the author is our opponent, wouldn't it be like hacking of your legs at the beginning of a race to ensure that your opponent has a definite chance of winning? This is just my opinion, so people who prefer the classical mystery where the chance to win is definitely given are entitled to their concept, but I think Umineko's take on a game between the reader and the author casts this into a new light not often considered before (because before the advent of the internet author-reader communication was limited).

The problem here is that you seem to be referring to this over and over as something that is either akin to a game or was meant to be viewed as such. Now, maybe that is the expectation of some of the more mystery-genre-educated readers in one very specific segment of the fanbase, but I somewhat doubt that was the case for all of his readers even in Japan. It seems he realized that as well, as he did something relatively early on to shift gears and either appeal to one of these audiences more or to shut another one out (I don't pretend to know which was which). I don't know his exact intentions, of course, so I have to guess based upon what was actually published.

More to the point, I also don't care. If his goal was to introduce a genre and dialogue about it, he didn't do enough of it. If his goal was merely to write a satisfactory story, I wasn't particularly satisfied. I can see bits and pieces of the story that could have been, but I have no idea if it's the story he would have done or if this was his intention all along. I was fine with his limited-scale criticism on the genre by the end of Alliance, but in End and Dawn he reduced it to a caricature of itself and kept beating up on it when I'd already long since gotten his point. Maybe a lot of readers didn't, but I think it was made competently by ep4 or so.

I was expecting him to do something with that from that point on. And at times he seemed to be teasing that spectacularly (at least in parts of Requiem and Twilight). The more experimental, ephemeral, uncertain and criticized parts of ep7 were in fact my favorites, like Will's investigation, the stage play, or the Tea Party; parts that convey "information," like the interviews, submarine story, or Yasu narration, were largely groaners. I wanted to see some Young Kinzo stuff, but mostly to get a sense of his motives. I really didn't need an origin story for the gold, especially not a ridiculous one. Now, it would've been interesting were that story significantly challenged to make a point (would you accept such a ridiculous thing if this was its origin, but if not, why would you accept it really existing 40 years later?), but we get like one panel to even touch upon that very intriguing idea.

Maybe that's something he wanted to do, but it doesn't appear he did. Whatever his ultimate objective was, however, he seems to have pursued it in opposition to writing a coherent overall story. He took too many of his enjoyably-crafted literary devices away from us and what he replaced it with was often less complex and not very well challenged. Roles became more stark, characters became less approachable and apprehensible, and he ignored a large chunk of complexity until Twilight, where I feel he just didn't do enough. Again, there could have been a point intended in doing this; it isn't wrong to break up the main interaction dynamic halfway in, but you have to be doing something with that. I get his plan to some extent but I don't think he executed it, and then it got patched up in a very strange way.

None of these criticisms are about Umineko and its relationship to the mystery genre. These are about Umineko solely as a work of fiction in isolation. Obviously you're claiming it's a work of fiction with things to say about a genre, and I don't deny it. But I'm honestly not seeing what it actually says that's so impressive, and apparently you're the only person who has enough background to know. So by all means, tell me. I just don't know that it will do much to alter my perspective on the overall work, because what you're talking about and what I'm talking about don't appear to really be the same issues. Still, perhaps I'm missing the point that he actually did make, and you can convince me he did so competently, even if I don't like it.