2013-01-30, 09:37 | Link #31801 | |||
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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Yasuko discusion stopped interesting me a while ago, but this EP8 news is very nice.
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I've actually always been against the conclusion that the letter was addressed to Natsuhi specifically, because I figured the culprit would have no way of knowing whether she would be the first to notice and read it, but I guess I've been proved wrong on this one! |
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2013-01-30, 10:43 | Link #31802 | |
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It's a good thing she was taunting Natsuhi and not somebody of marginal intelligence like Eva or Kyrie. "I'll wait in the entrance hall" is practically code for "circle around from the other exit to the parlor and shoot me in the back of the head" for anyone with tactical sense. Not that this would've helped if the gun weren't loaded, though I imagine Kyrie would've checked that.
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2013-01-30, 16:01 | Link #31803 |
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Join Date: Jul 2011
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After watching through EP4, I realized that they said that one of the bottles was found on the island, and the other was found at sea later by the fishermen.
Yet, EP1 ends with the bottle being found five years later. I was a big proponent of Bottles = Episodes, but now this makes the ending to EP1 make no sense whatsoever. However, it does imply pre-incident authorship if the bottle was already there. I think someone made a joke about the contents of Natsuhi's letter when we were speculating about it earlier, mentioning the portrait specifically. As far as the fact that Natsuhi's gun was never loaded... wow, that wasn't anything I've ever expected. And I thought the VNs did confirm what Rudolf's "I will be killed tonight." meant.
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2013-01-30, 16:16 | Link #31804 | |
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2013-01-30, 16:25 | Link #31805 | |
Blick Winkel
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Gobbled up by Promathia
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EP1 and EP2 are retellings of the events (or alternate interpretations) by some author (PRESUMABLY Yasu). EP3-6 are supposedly forgeries by Hachijo Tohya. But what is the Meta-World, and how come EP2 and the forgeries share the same continuity? EP2 is really an interesting case. It is the intersection between "message bottle" and "forgery". In other words, the themes of the entirety of Umineko and the Shannon/Kanon deal is directly addressed in EP2. I think that EP2 is actually a "forgery" directly based on the message bottle. Think of it this way: if EP2's message bottle made any mention of Shannon and Kanon's love troubles (the beginning of EP2) then the 1998 characters would have a strong lead of Yasu as the culprit or would at least make special mention of them. Because this does not seem to be the case, I think EP2 is also a forgery in some sense. That is, EP2 is just a "story" built into the events of the second message bottle. EP1 is straight mystery, but since Beatrice/Battler make explicit mention of EP1's events in the later Episodes, maybe EP1 is a forgery too? I personally imagine EP1-EP6 (maybe further?) as a series of forgeries by Hachijo Tohya. EP1-EP2 are based on the message bottles, whereas the rest are either based "the result" (Eva surviving in 1998) or are pure fabrications. THAT is why we are given a straight thematic continuity ("Yasu is the culprit because of the love duel"). Did Hachijo Tohya construct the Shkanontrice solution out of thin air? What is the purpose of such a random solution from an authorial position? (lolRyukishi aside) I personally think that Ikuko "drove the Hachijo Tohya team to write with Shkanon as the solution because SHE HERSELF wanted Battler-Tohya to remember." This makes her a colossal asshole, but I personally find this to make sense with my interpretation of the visual novels. Of course, the fundamental assumption behind all of this is that the meta-world is a part of the forgeries as a structure for continuity. The meta-world could ALSO be detached from the forgeries and could actually represent the interactions between various forces in 1998+ (that is, it is pure metaphor: Battler = Tohya, Beatrice = "Yasu" or possibly Ikuko, etc.) I know this isn't terribly convincing, I don't think I did a good job describing it. But that's how I interpreted it. What is the consensus about the meta-world? |
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2013-01-30, 17:07 | Link #31806 | ||||||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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It's nice to know it really existed. Quote:
Actually she might have done it even after she killed Nanjo and Co. We know they went to check because they heard Maria singing... but we don't know if the phonecall came from that phone. It's possible the trick here is similar to the one used with Jessica. Once she left the room and closed it with her key she went to another phone put on a tape Maria's voice singing a song and then did the call. When Battler and Co reached the room and found Maria singing and the phone in such position they didn't suspect the call could have come from another room. Quote:
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If I'm not wrong the best we all agree (I think) is that it is meaningful, it's probably some sort of psychological metaphor (though there are variations on how this applies so take this as some sort of very lose definition) and... what else? |
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2013-01-30, 17:09 | Link #31807 |
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We don't actually know which stories were the message bottle stories. As far as I know, Ange never explicitly entitles them or describes their contents with specificity (that is, things like "one of the message bottles features a First Twilight where all the parents but Rosa are killed in the chapel and their bellies stuffed with candy," something presumably unique to Turn).
So it's possible both Legend and Turn aren't the message bottle stories... but they're sort of portrayed as being that, so...
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2013-01-30, 17:12 | Link #31809 | |
Guitar Man
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Brazil
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The stuff that comes before is probably not included in the bottles
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2013-01-30, 17:20 | Link #31810 | |||||
The True Culprit
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I mean, shit, they don't even bother to look into the birth records of Shannon and Kanon. They clearly don't give a shit. Quote:
This raises buckets of problems and doesn't give any answers. What does Meta-Ange mean and how come no one talks about her role in them? Why doesn't any Witch Hunter, ever, mention the Meta-narrative, or the implications it makes? How come people still ask questions about things in the forgeries that the Meta-World literally spells out for us real-world readers? Whatever the Meta-World is, I guarantee it's not part of the Forgeries. It falls apart before you even reach the EP6 meta-meta-meta narrative. Quote:
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2013-01-30, 17:22 | Link #31811 | |
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You can't merely remove that part, because scenes like Kanon fighting for Jessica and so forth don't make a lot of sense with those bits removed yet are definitely part of the October 4th/5th narrative. So those parts would also have to be removed or changed... meaning that, well, how do we know which parts are added in and which parts were "originally" in the Forgery?
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2013-01-30, 17:44 | Link #31812 |
Blick Winkel
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Gobbled up by Promathia
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I mean, it seems most likely that the Meta-World is its own thing, like the upper-most layer of the story (the closest to us and Ryukishi), and exists so there's an actual consistent STORYLINE. I'm just giving my explanation for the interpretation I gave earlier. I'm not asserting it as truth, just a possibility for fun.
I don't see how it's unreasonable that Hachijo Tohya could write stories about fictional 1998's. EP3 could be a forgery, EP3's 1998 is just a fictional extrapolation based around the "real 1998". Furthermore, the META stuff in each of them is connected, but need not have any real basis in reality. The fictional meta stuff is a part of the series that Hachijo Tohya constructed as "the means to illustrate the literary or thematic parts of the story." Though about Meta-Ange, well, you have a point. Maybe Ikuko and Tohya had an author-battle about what they wanted the story to be about? Ikuko wanted to focus on Yasu, Tohya wanted to focus around Ange's struggle, and all of Umineko is Hachijo Tohya fighting about what the purpose of the story is (joking) Anyway, making Ikuko = Yasu just seems like something Ryukishi would do. Not that I'm really a fan of that idea. edit: whoa, think I got lost in my own logic, nevermind >_> |
2013-01-30, 17:59 | Link #31813 | |
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Join Date: Apr 2012
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Kanon deciding he loves Jessica out of nowhere and sacrificing himself with no prior motivation? Sounds like fanfiction to me...
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Also what is the Jessica room trick someone referred to? |
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2013-01-30, 18:05 | Link #31814 |
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Join Date: Apr 2012
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ALso I haven't thought about this theory at all yet, so it may fall apart, but maybe the metaworld is like the in-universe representation of general online theories and debate, as viewed by Touhya. Getting lost in the sea of meta could be him losing the belief that he actually knows what happened and just giving in to the general wash of theories. Angie did let herself get chewed apart after all.
Besides, the trial of Natsuhi always screamed trail be media, and meanwhile the only solid evidence Battler can argue with is "I just feel it isn't true". And we know how much this forum likes that argument. |
2013-01-30, 18:05 | Link #31815 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2012
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It is also possible that none of the message bottles, or maybe not even the forgeries, ever had any fantasy scenes inside them. There was this thing Beatrice said (paraphrased): "Slowly the barrier around Rokkenjima gets stronger and more and more demons will be able to enter.", or something of that kind. And then from EP6 on, the talk about a "reader" that can bring falsehoods into the storytelling.
I think what we see in the story is just the interpretation of someone from 1998+ (Yukari, Tohya, Ikuko or others). The "reader" may change at some points though and possibly add their own interpretation or even knowledge into the story (or perhaps there can be multiple readers at once, which explains the "chaotic" nature of EP8). And so while the first story (legend) from our perspective seems to be free of falsehood (which as we know now, isn't), the following stories are more and more magical fantasy stories, that seem to be out of place. (still remember your reaction from the first appearance of a deadly sin's stake at the end of EP1-TP or the first magic battle in EP2?) Perhaps it is just Tohya getting more and more "personally involved" as he recovers his memories, or Ikuko projects herself into Beatrices role more and more, or Yukari gets influenced by the witchhunters'/cultists' theories. The "meta layers" would be just an extention of this, just with the addition that with higher layer, it becomes closer to reality. Quote:
Ironically if we go with StrangerKo, then the forgeries of Tohya and Ikuko are nothing more than fanfiction of the message bottles...
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2013-01-30, 18:22 | Link #31816 | ||
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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Something that strongly differentiates EP1-2 from EP3+ is the way Meta-Battler interacts with the narrative. Starting in EP3, he witnesses everything that happens on the gameboard and argues with Beatrice about it as it happens, and Beatrice in turn directs the events on the board in response to his arguments. But EP1-2 are totally different from that. In EP1, Meta-Battler doesn't exist until after the game board story is over, and there are no outright fantasy scenes until Beatrice reconstructs the second twilight with magical stakes during the tea party. In EP2, we do see fantasy scenes, but Meta-Battler apparently doesn't -- we don't hear a peep out of him even when demons and goat butlers start popping out of the woodwork, and later during the first twilight of EP3 he acts as if he's witnessing magic on the game board for the very first time. What we do get, though, is a scene of Beatrice at the very end saying to Battler that she's going to explain how she did everything using magic, and since she's standing next to a living Kinzo at the time, the scene can't be part of the original game board story. Based on that, I think it's likely that the message bottles underlying EP1-2 don't actually contain any fantasy at all. Instead, Meta-Battler's behavior mirrors how Tohya is reading the text. For EP1, he read it through first and then talked to Ikuko about it. For EP2, she started a back-and-forth with him while he read through the original message bottle, then after he finished she presented him with an augmented version of the story with fantasy scenes. Then EP3 and onward were written with Tohya's active participation, and that's reflected in Meta-Battler's more active role. Backstory scenes like Shannon's date with George or the culture festival actively clash with the presentation of the message bottles being excerpts from Maria's diary, but if they were tacked on later, we can resolve that inconsistency. But then, how could those scenes be written, if they didn't come from Yasu in 1986? From Tohya? Is it really likely that, with corpses scattered everywhere and the island about to explode, Yasu sat Battler down to tell him all about a random culture festival she went to with Jessica? Quote:
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2013-01-30, 18:37 | Link #31817 |
"Senior" "Member"
Join Date: Jan 2012
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When was it ever stated that the message bottles originate from Maria's diary? I thought the only thing the diary showed to us, is that "someones" writing in Maria's diary matches with the writing of the message bottle.
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2013-01-30, 18:52 | Link #31818 |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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Well, I say "diary", but that may be leaping to conclusions. The EP1 endroll describes it as a "notebook fragment" and it's signed "Maria Ushiromiya". Regardless, if you're going to present a text as being authored by a nine-year-old girl, why would you turn around and fill it with information that girl couldn't possibly have?
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2013-01-30, 18:53 | Link #31819 | |
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2013-01-30, 19:25 | Link #31820 | |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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On the other hand, Meta-Battler talks about Kanon's exciting death scene in the tea party, so there's at least one blatantly false, or at least metaphorical, scene that does seem to have been present in the original narrative. So, I'm not sure.
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