[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

If you are not biased against the author-theory from the start then there are hints towards Ikuko (she IS the writer after all) in the EP1 endscroll already. It is very easy to retroactively write something into the plot and I admit that it was done less skillfully with Ikuko than with Hanyuu, but retcons they still are.

Of course Author Theory hints were quite clear from EP1, but the author of EP1 isn't Ikuko (well, according to what you believe), so I don't think the connection you're making is valid. At best you could link her to the concept of forgeries, which was introduced in EP4.

I'm not a fan of Hanyuu either, actually, for the same reason you aren't. I can't see Hanyuu as a retcon, though, since if you reread you can see her influence even in Onikakushi-hen. On the other hand, assuming Ikuko=random we have no idea when Ryukishi thought her up.

Originally Posted by haguruma

What I dislike about any post-incident authorship theory is that it requires us to consider hints that are given to us as facts from 3rd party characters to be untrue without any apparent hint towards why they would be fabricated.

In Umineko, just the fact that a story is dubious on its own merits has consistently been hint enough for it to warrant incredulity. And aside from my own suspicions, I think Ange's befuddlement at the whole scenario is a valid reason to suspect the scenario presented to her isn't what it appeared to be. After all, Beatrice's legend in the post-1986 world arose from strange events very similarly to how Beatrice's legend on pre-1986 Rokkenjima did.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Police reports are said to have dated the letters in the bottle to a date shortly before or during October 4th-5th 1986.

I don't remember that. Could you provide a citation?

Originally Posted by haguruma

If the ???? does not depict any "Prime" then there truly might not be a prime universe at all, which basically puts all our musing about "what actually happened" at rest. We can concentrate on solving the mysteries of each world separately and any unifying element is simply fabrication by an author we can never truly be sure about.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. There is one unifying event that connects all of Ange's realities, and that is her making a decision to jump or not to jump from the skyscraper. I think that that moment can easily be something that exists in Prime without the EP8 ???? actually representing Prime. Basically, the knowable story ends at that point in time, and Ange's future is a cat box.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Well aside from all these reasons, I am not really saying that Ikuko must really be Yasu. The scenario that she "recreated Yasu in her own image" would be possible too, which would however mean that we NEVER see the real Yasu (aside from Legend and Turn) and that Yasu was merely a "self-insert" by Ikuko.

This idea sits better with me than the default.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Which leads me to another matter: How did Battler get his "brain injury"?

Was it ever called a "brain injury"? I've only ever read the EP8 ???? in Japanese, and IIRC it was only ever referred to as a "memory defect" or something like that. It always came off as psychological to me.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

While this assumes Ikuko=Yasu again, I actually just try to make sense of EP7, escpacially "Kinzo's story", which seems very strange to me. Did we all of a sudden have a authorial narrator that "magically" speaks to the viewers? I think this would then be the FIRST TIME WE HAD AN AUTHORIAL NARRATOR in the whole of Umineko (aside from possibly the bit with after incident news reports or something like that, shortly before the scene, where Eva-in-deathbed and 1998 Ange were introduced). So of course I become sceptic? How did anyone in the post-Rokkenjima world get to know about Kinzo's past in the Rokkenjima-military base? Was Battler (and so by extension Tohya) was just told these things before Yasu died? (Which would be necessary for Ikuko=RandomStranger to work and seems very unlikely for me, but we had the message bottles written in 2-3 days, so I "wouldn't put it past R07"). Or did Yasu write it from what was told her by Genji etc. (If Ikuko=Yasu would be true).

Well, from the standpoint of the meta-narrative, it was Theatergoing Authority that allowed for the authorial narrator you speak of. In fact, I would argue that everything in Requiem that was "unlocked" by Theatergoing Authority was information that likely only Yasu could know (especially Yasu's own very detailed and explanatory first person story). That this information could make it to the meta-world I see as strong evidence for Yasu's continued existence. And that it's "Theatergoing Authority" by which this information is distributed connects Yasu to Ikuko.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

There are a lot of things that need inside knowledge to be true either most of Ep 7 is pure fantasy so either Battler sat down with Yasu in those 2 days and had an overload of info about Kinzo's past, Kuwadorian Beatrice's death (because I doubt Rosa went around spreading the info), Yasu falling from a cliff due to Natsuhi and most of Yasu's life. Not mentioning the truth about him being Kyrie's son (I'm hoping for this to be clarified in the manga since I know the manga talks about it but I can't read what they say... -_-) and Yasu having received a injury that made her body 'unable to love'.

And let's not forget Jessica's late-night scare in the VIP room, and all those details about how Maria and Beatrice became friends.

I think most people just chalk EP7 up as inexplicable magic meta-bullshit that's completely unrelated to anything that happens in the real world, existing solely to give the audience answers (meanwhile the Tea Party's existence is not unrelated to the real world at all). I don't like this viewpoint. I'm very inclined to view the events of the meta-world to be symbolic of events that happen in the real world. Otherwise, why should we even care about the meta-world? That being said, I think Will, being both well-versed in, yet unrelated to, Rokkenjima and trapped in a situation where he is forced to solve the stories... fits Touya's profile quite well.

I get tired of people saying that Ikuko=Yasu is just for people who want "that kind of ending". I can't speak for other supporters of the idea, but for me it has a lot more to do with its explanatory power over the meta-world than anything else.

Originally Posted by haguruma

If she were Yasu she'd knowingly drag out the Rokkenjima story under the pretense of writing a story only to satisfy her own semi-sexual needs for him to recognize her.

You say "only", but romantic/sexual acknowledgement is one of our most primal desires as human beings. Not having it leaves a profound lack of fulfillment. And we're talking about Yasu here; no one has a stronger love complex than she does.