2012-01-18, 18:07 | Link #27141 |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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@Kylon:
Your theory reminded me of something in another novel I read recently. Spoiler for Kokoro Connect vol. 1:
If you start from the premise that Yasu had this kind of problem, and then she received the additional shock to her perceived identity from Genji etc.'s revelations, then I think a similar sort of breakdown and seeking for someone to tell her who she's supposed to be is not out of the question. That said, I don't really feel comfortable ascribing mental health problems to Yasu to explain the murders because I don't think she planned to commit any in the first place. @Everyone else: Here are the things I think we learned about Readers. - Reading includes providing narration and filling in missing information, such as the contents of cat boxes. (EP8) - Game Masters normally Read their games. (EP8) - Readers are not necessarily Game Masters. (EP6, EP7) - Readers don't have to distort the events they're Reading. (EP6, EP8) - Reader distortions aren't necessarily intentional. (EP6, EP7) - There can be several levels of Readers. (EP6) So I think that Reading encompasses any kind of interpretive activity toward a sequence of events, which includes but is not limited to overwriting stuff with fantasy scenes. And, I don't think a player normally participates in Reading a game because the whole point of the game is to see through the GM's Reading.
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2012-01-18, 18:12 | Link #27142 |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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Are you sure about that? If I recall correctly, it was 11:45 when Genji came to get Battler, and I doubt it took 15 minutes to get upstairs.
Maybe Battler didn't wake up at all, and the end sequence up to midnight was filled in as a dream, like Maria's dream of killing Rosa in EP4.
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2012-01-18, 18:19 | Link #27143 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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So my best explanation for Battler meeting Kinzo and Beato is that he was completely drunk and out of it. That or Rosa killed him while we weren't looking. |
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2012-01-18, 18:50 | Link #27144 | ||||
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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Um. Quick question. Does anyone happen to remember exactly what part of EP6 I'm remembering here?
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If the two are the same, then in order to have a Fantasy side of the story, one must have a Reader. Not only that, but Battler, who reads mystery genre stories all the time, said clearly in my quote that, on the contrary, the constant premise of the mystery genre is that it must be told from the impartial, objective perspective of God. And you just said that it's the complete opposite. I've never read too many mystery genre stories though, so actually, I don't have any idea which it is. It would be pretty weird if Battler was just totally and completely wrong though... Quote:
What do you mean by exactly what the thing was that changed her, though? I don't think we're quite on the same page there. Quote:
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2012-01-18, 18:51 | Link #27145 | ||||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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In that specifical istance is even more difficult as we don't know if Meta!Erika was present. She wasn't there when Meta!Battler witnessed the scene and, in the beginning, it was Bern that played with Lambda in the meta world and Bern likes to bully Erika. Kanon and Shannon also have meta knowledge. Piece!Battler has moments in which he seems to be connected to Meta!Battler following his directions and echoing his words as if the two were one and the same and moments in which he's completely disconnected by it. So as far as I'm involved yours is just a theory with circumstancial evidence that clashes with circumstancial evidence she might not be aware of it. From an objective point of view I'll say they both have a 50% possibility to be true or wrong and the sides of the scales are tipped merely due to our personal preferences. Let's call it a draw... Quote:
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2012-01-18, 19:25 | Link #27146 | |
The True Culprit
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2012-01-18, 19:40 | Link #27147 | |||||||||
The True Culprit
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But yea, I've said before that embellishments can distort and change what the audience perceives without altering information. Tricks do not have to constitute false information and I wish people would bother to acknowledge that point instead of ignoring it. Quote:
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I'm positing that Umineko is genuinely, objectively different from other Mysteries in that it contains non-objective viewpoints and lying points of view, and this is completely irrelevant of a Reader's possible influence. Quote:
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This is not a draw in any sense. You have provided no evidence. Quote:
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2012-01-18, 19:59 | Link #27148 | ||
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Meta-Meta-Meta-Space
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Note that none of this suggests that she is driven to murder by some kind of psychosis or mental illness; just that she's realizing how disabled she is for the first time in her life. The post prior to that post of my theory talks about how people become suicidally depressive after similar or even lighter (like in Battler's case) brain damage. So she would be driven to murder through 3 years of real despair, a real sense of loss and tragedy that she only realized when she thought she had gained everything. And I think the key is that, if then she cannot express these emotions, since to her, 'she' does not exist, then she can't express her happiness or anger, except through her personas. (But of course this tragedy didn't happen to her personas; Shannon, Beatrice, nothing like being thrown off a cliff by your mother happened to them. It's this non-entity Yasu that suffered the tragedy, and yet this Yasu has the inability to express it.) And so it is Beatrice that expresses all the anger and Shannon expresses all the love. And Kanon all the pessimisim; he always gets the short end of the stick, poor guy... Anyways, I'm not 100% clear on how this developed, but I'm starting to feel certain that she lacks the ability to actually have a self. More below... Quote:
And also, I've been discussing this with some friends and it just seems to answer more and more things. Or at least it provides a concrete way of viewing things: Like look at this discussion that George and the cousins are having about Maria and her dual personalities. (This is from Judoh's George Culprit theory.) http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/2...orgepoint3.jpg Now, since Yasu was writing this episode, imagine it's not the cousins having this discussion... because it most likely is not since it's written. Imagine this is all Yasu working out her identity problem. 8) This is the Pessmisitc, Self-Deprecating Adult Yasu talking, that learned of her disability and is now looking down at the child-like naive Yasu that she used to be mere months before. At least if you keep in mind my theory while reading it, it totally reads like it. Other stuff keeps fitting too. Genji had an eagle too but I assume this was Kinzo's doing. So why did Shannon and Kanon have eagles? If Shkannon was truly a trick that Yasu was intent on hiding, putting eagles on those two would have been a dead giveaway! Yet the eagles are there. Why? Because in the end they are not mere roles she was playing. They, along with Beatrice are considered by her to be *real* parts of her, not some mask. (Discardable roles would be like the Man From 19 Years Ago.) So, my opinion is that she could not not put eagles on them; it would be like if she didn't put an eagle on herself after being the head of the family. (But she can't put an eagle on herself, because there is no herself.) I'm talking about Shkannon wearing eagles in the stories of course. I have no idea about Rokkenjima Prime. 8) Basically it's a dead giveaway in the story that she could not not have placed out there; it would be similar to us disrespecting ourselves. I'm about 60% sure on this last one. 8) But at the very least, I'm starting to think she views Shannon and Kanon not as discardable as we thought them to be. And if she is so serious about Shannon and Kanon though, I could imagine when she DID discard them, it would be like cutting off a limb. That limb effectively dies. It is literally death of a piece of her. Anyways, it's an idea that I think has merit and seems to provide answers. The mechanics of the physiological brain damage or psychological problem I haven't fully worked out, yet. But this truly feels like The Answer, and that almost all the dialogue and scenes in the game were about it. And I am seriously seeing why Ryukishi wouldn't want to just fart it all out at the end like the end of Psycho the movie where some psychologist comes out and explains it all to the audience in a soliloquy. (I guess 1960's audiences were more accepting of something like that.) |
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2012-01-18, 20:29 | Link #27149 |
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Meta-Meta-Meta-Space
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Sorry, double post again. 8) I'll try not to triple post.... but the thoughts are coming fast now. These are all consequences if the story and Yasu if Yasu truly has a problem with self identity.
Why can't Yasu leave the island? Which of her personas can leave the island? Well, Kanon can and Shannon can. But Beatrice cannot leave the island, since her myth is closely tied to it. The other two can leave for awhile but to leave permanently to go after Battler or George means to rip away Beatrice. To us normal people it feels like we're just going to give up pretending. But to someone with no self identity it's like sawing off a limb. Which she DOES, when she decides in EP6. (Or Tooya imagines this for her.) Imagine the pain of doing this for her if it was real. More... this is just an interesting thought experiment: Imagine you living your life. You wake up, you get some toast, you go walk the dog. Now imagine how Yasu lives it. Just WHO wakes up? Then who eats the toast? Who walks the dog? You can't live your life as a non-entity doing these things, it makes no sense to your brain. So you start making up the who, because there cannot logically be a no-one who did all those things. Etc., etc... Anyways.. I'll shut up now. 8) |
2012-01-18, 20:42 | Link #27150 | |||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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To make two Christie's examples that are mentioned in Umineko: Spoiler for Spoiler for Christies's mysteries:
I think it's more common mysteries are told with the perspective of God... or, when they aren't, at least you get hints the perspective isn't necessary reliable. (You get hints the scene described is merely 'what others told someone else it happened' and so they might have lied and the description might be unreliable) Quote:
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It makes hard to keep on talking with you when you do this. Spoiler for Behind a spoiler cut for lenght:
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2012-01-18, 20:45 | Link #27151 | |
The True Culprit
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I specifically used the idea because I entertained Ange Culprit Theory.
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2012-01-19, 05:55 | Link #27152 | |||||||
Goat
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Gnawing away at Rokkenjima
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I haven't commented on it until now, but all this psychology stuff has been very interesting.
So, I was thinking about how strange a coincidence it was that Battler got such a similar form of brain damage as Yasu. Then I wondered if maybe it wasn't a coincidence. What if Ikuko was Yasu and she somehow inflicted it on Battler on purpose? What if Battler wasn't even a victim but volunteered to become that way? Pretty ridiculous, I know, but it actually makes a lot of things... fit. Anyway, just some wild speculation... Quote:
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The terms point is a fair one, but I believe that's RK07's double standard, not mine. He has likened reading and writing to a competitive game between reader and writer before. Who is Totes? Quote:
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2012-01-19, 12:15 | Link #27154 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Though it's also possible Battler never woke up. Personally I think EP 2 is pretty unclear about this. The only thing that seems to be pretty secure is that Battler was drunk so 'goodbye reliable point of view'... |
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2012-01-19, 13:20 | Link #27155 | |||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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In Ep 5 Battler says:
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And in Ep 6: Quote:
When reading text the amount of interpretation we can add is pretty minimal and it will influence mostly the tone with which the quotes from the characters are read and we don't really observe things... we just read them and, at best, we picture them in our mind. However if what we're supposed to read is... let's say a manga to a person who's not going to watch the scene drawn, we've to describe them using our words. In this way we can influence the plot a lot more. If the 'reading' Ange is doing is some sort of 'meta' reading, in short it can be in the meta world the tale is being 'seen' by her and she narrates her interpretation of what she sees to Featherine. That's her 'reading' and that's how she can influence the reading. She can't really change the plot of what she's seeing but she's telling Featherine the story using her own words. And yes, this would mean Umineko basically instead than using 'reader' with the usual meaning of 'person who read a written text' used it with the meaning of 'person who read a situation (and then reports it according to his own interpretation to another)'. Note that Featherine said she was 'watching the stories' through Battler's eyes and that it was made clear in EP 3 that Battler was called to give his own interpretation of the story (remember the discussion between him and Beato about the magic battle between Beato and Virgilia?), so maybe in a fashion, Beato was being the reader for Battler, as she gave him a fantasy interpretation of facts, and Battler was also a reader, as he gave facts his own interpretation. ... and this is just a newborn theory so it can have holes. Also... Quote:
So can this be a hint that Featherine is also one of Yasu's personas? Or is it just a read herring? |
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2012-01-19, 15:07 | Link #27156 |
"Senior" "Member"
Join Date: Jan 2012
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Hmm in EP4 Battler was also drunk, but his viewpoint was still reliable and he could investigate... well aside from the Beatrice, he saw at 23:59 when he was standing next to the Beatrice picture in the hall... or was it 00:00 already?
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2012-01-19, 15:42 | Link #27157 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Also in EP 4: Quote:
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2012-01-19, 16:04 | Link #27158 | |||||||
The True Culprit
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Or are people going to engage in Special Pleading again? Quote:
If Clair is just repeating what Yasu came up with, in what way is Clair embellishing it? And how can a Reader embellish a story if they do not have a personality or soul? She's basically a Kindle. Quote:
But to attack the actual point, bear in mind that what tripped people up most wasn't the Fantasy Scenes, but the minor embellishments, such as a TIPS not being updated until Battler arrives, thus obscuring the time of death forever. Quote:
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2012-01-19, 16:06 | Link #27159 | ||
The True Culprit
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2012-01-19, 16:20 | Link #27160 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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You used one of the TIPS to argue your point a bit ago, and I'm pretty sure you said something like "if you disagree with this, then you're disagreeing with Ryukishi." You sure seemed to accept that the text in that TIP was the truth though... |
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