[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Ep. 4 Alliance of the golden witch

[Qilin]

Another question from me...

It's been stated that Lambdadelta's goal is to use Beatrice to trap Bernkastel in an endless tie, but what exactly is keeping her from just leaving when she feels like it as Beatrice did? Unlike Beatrice, her Bern's powers should roughly on par with Lambda, so she shouldn't have much trouble leaving when she wants to. How exactly is Bern even "trapped"?

[Marion]

Originally Posted by Qilin

Another question from me...

It's been stated that Lambdadelta's goal is to use Beatrice to trap Bernkastel in an endless tie, but what exactly is keeping her from just leaving when she feels like it as Beatrice did? Unlike Beatrice, her Bern's powers should roughly on par with Lambda, so she shouldn't have much trouble leaving when she wants to. How exactly is Bern even "trapped"?

Bern isn't really trapped, but she chooses to remain in Beato's game to alleviate her boredom.

[luckyssol]

Bernkastel said that in the past she was imprisoned inside Lambdadelta's world. According to her, she won a game of attrition.

Lambdadelta said that a witch like Bernkastel, who thoroughly reads her opponent, has a really bad affinity with Beatrice. By "trapped" she means that Bernkastel will continue to try to win forever even if the odds are heavily not in her favor as long as she does not get bored. However, if Bernkastel does get bored then she could probably just leave when she wants to.

[Qilin]

Oh I see. That interpretation really takes away a good chunk of the sinister feel I got from Lambda's dialogue at the end of ep3... Bern really just hates to lose, huh?

[Marion]

Originally Posted by Qilin

Oh I see. That interpretation really takes away a good chunk of the sinister feel I got from Lambda's dialogue at the end of ep3... Bern really just hates to lose, huh?

Basically yes.

[Jan-Poo]

That's correct, If Lambda really could imprison Bernkastel by force she would do that, but such a thing is probably impossible with voyager witches.

So that's why she can only use this elaborate strategy and set up to achieve this goal. Bernkastel will be trapped because of her own pride and stubbornness. Lambda knows she will never admit defeat, after all she's been playing for 100 years the previous game.

[Neofio3]

There's this old story about how to trap a monkey.

All you have to do is take a coconut, punch a small hole in it (small enough for a monkey to put in its hand) and drain it, place some food in, then tie it to a tree. The monkey will wander over, and stick its hand inside the coconut, in order to get the food inside. However, when it closes its fist around the food, it will find that its fist (with food) is now too large to to fit out of the hole it went inside in the first place. For any rational being, the solution to this predicament would be easy. Simply let go of the food. But for the monkey, that solution is out of the question. The monkey will, consequently, continue to attempt to force its fistfull of food against the entirely small hole, unable to get out, until it dies of starvation.

And that's how you trap a monkey, or a being who in the past has proved to be predisposed to bashing itself against fate a few thousand times until something goes its way.

[Echoman]

Originally Posted by Neofio3

There's this old story about how to trap a monkey.

All you have to do is take a coconut, punch a small hole in it (small enough for a monkey to put in its hand) and drain it, place some food in, then tie it to a tree. The monkey will wander over, and stick its hand inside the coconut, in order to get the food inside. However, when it closes its fist around the food, it will find that its fist (with food) is now too large to to fit out of the hole it went inside in the first place. For any rational being, the solution to this predicament would be easy. Simply let go of the food. But for the monkey, that solution is out of the question. The monkey will, consequently, continue to attempt to force its fistfull of food against the entirely small hole, unable to get out, until it dies of starvation.

And that's how you trap a monkey, or a being who in the past has proved to be predisposed to bashing itself against fate a few thousand times until something goes its way.

Will a monkey actually do that? o.o

[sona-nyl]

no monkeys are quite smart actually they can easily realease the food and think about another way to get it.

[Neofio3]

Originally Posted by HanyuuChan

no monkeys are quite smart actually they can easily realease the food and think about another way to get it.

Shush you! Next time we might even hear that mice aren't intelligent or benevolent enough to free lions from nets, geese don't lay golden eggs, and that Mr. Ant, barefit of lonely and backbreaking labor, doesn't stockpile enough food to last him through the winter (in contrast to that lazy grasshopper).

[Ithekro]

Raccoons on the other hand, will do this.

[Workworkwork]

Originally Posted by Neofio3

Shush you! Next time we might even hear that mice aren't intelligent or benevolent enough to free lions from nets, geese don't lay golden eggs, and that Mr. Ant, barefit of lonely and backbreaking labor, doesn't stockpile enough food to last him through the winter (in contrast to that lazy grasshopper).

You shattered everything I thought I knew about animals.

[DarknessLord]

Fun fact: "Beatriz" is currently in the rotation for Worldwide Tropical Cyclone Names, technically wrong part of the pacific and wrong year in the rotation, but still fits in with the disaster theory, sorry if this has been pointed out before.

But yeah, I think the time-delay or dead-man's switch is in fact better both plot wise then random landslide that they have no way of seeing coming.

[Renall]

Trust is a major issue for the family. Suppose someone told them a disaster was coming. Would they believe that person? Would they flee to a place they aren't even really sure exists? Narratively, the conflict is not escaping a natural disaster (which could in itself be a decent climax if done right), but convincing a group of people who have very good reasons not to trust each other that they have to stick together to survive.

In this case, Eva maybe could have saved Jessica had she known where she was (and had Jessica wanted to be found). Or perhaps in a later episode someone discovers the disaster and wants to convince everyone to follow, but some refuse. The only way to ensure a "good" ending in a natural disaster scenario is for everyone to make it. What would that take?

Of course, that assumes it was a natural disaster. If so, it would paint Ange's search for "the truth" in a very different light, as well as her character. Basically, it would make her the hardheaded one who couldn't accept the truth everyone else knew, and Eva was trying to protect her somehow. But that's contingent on knowing what the "disaster" really was. We don't know, and Ange and Okonogi are strangely evasive on the matter.

[ijriims]

The problem of a purely natural disaster in the end is that it could not have happened at a particular time in each episode.

For a landslide or any major catastrophe to happen exactly at 00:01 Oct 6 were most unlikely if it was randomly caused. (just like a chess game, even though the openings are all the same, but when each game unfolds, hundred of millions of possible scenarios become possible. For each episode to give the same random disaster at the same time in each episode is like playing the chess game randomly four times and they gave exactly the same pattern at some specific round.)

[Renall]

Actually, a purely natural disaster would make perfect sense for consistency between episodes; if no one is causing it to happen, it should always happen the same time every time (as nature is doing it).

However, happening almost at exactly midnight is suspicious, but then again... it has to happen at some point in the 24 hours of the day, right?

[ijriims]

If the disaster might be purely natural and random, then happening at the exact time was extremely unlikely.

Consider the butterfly effect, a minor flip of a butterfly could cause a typhoon in some distant place. In all episodes, people walk around in different way, in different time. All these would have an extremely minor effect on the air pressure and geographical disturbance. (like one throws a dice in a slightly different height, the outcome could have a stark difference) But these extremely minor effects will translate into utterly different events as most events like weather and plate tectonics (still unclear actually for this one) has chaotic properties.

You don't expect the wind blown in the same way and same magnitude in each episode at the same given time?

The premise here is chaos theory and natural disasters follow chaotic patterns. Theoretical base is subatomic randomness because of Heisenberg uncertainty principle

[Renall]

Originally Posted by ijriims

If the disaster might be purely natural and random, then happening at the exact time was extremely unlikely.

This assumes whatever was happening was something in any way controlled by subtle differences in natural forces. If it was just rainfall in a particular area accumulating a pond that loosened some rocks and started a landslide, it's unlikely anyone's actions on or around Rokkenjima would've changed it at all. The butterfly effect actually works against your point because the whole point of that example is that small changes have large effects over time. In other words, whatever would have set up a natural disaster (if one existed) was set in motion long before the 4th, and probably is invariable.

As to it happening at midnight, well, it's exactly as likely to happen at a "significant" time as an "insignificant" one. I mean, nature doesn't distinguish between 24:00 and 00:07. Plus there's no evidence that the disaster, whatever it is, happens exactly at midnight. In fact, most games suggest it happens slightly after, since people are still alive.

[Jan-Poo]

Exactly, the butterfly effect only has relevance over a long time span, anything that happens on October4 can't have such a relevance on the disaster, at max it can change it by a few seconds, minutes at worst.

Also as Renall states there is no telling that the disaster happens exactly at midnight.

[ijriims]

The fact that this happened on Oct 5 where the family meeting was held and mass murder occured was suspicious enough. Not only the culprit(s) planned to kill the Ushiromiya family this day, but the nature was also acting against the family by wreaking a disaster over them at the last moment.

It was certainly not the only typhoon hitting Rokkenjima throughout these years. But only this caused the disaster (I am talking about landslide here) was again suspicious. Someone discovering it was again suspicious. If it was a volcano eruption then it happened on this particular date was again suspicious.

The point is a human triggered disaster was more likely than any purely random disasters.