[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 6 Dawn of the golden witch

[Leafsnail]

Uh, yeah. Oops.

Well, it seems to hint at a fake set of deaths (since the corpses were never moved but were apparently seen in one place then gone). And then ep6 confirms that.

[Volcanic]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

So Hideyoshi is Lambdadelta?

They are both drawn with their hands behind their backs....

[dopelfish]

I have a question.

How could Erika kill all of the people who played dead without violating Knox's 1st?

[Jan-Poo]

Simply by giving up her detective status. She wasn't the detective so she could kill everyone.

Yeah I know it doesn't make much sense, but that's how it is...

[Aspirety]

Wait what? When, or HOW did she give up her detective status? Is just a hole in the story?
Or perhaps are we ignoring knox's decalogue in this game altogether?

[Frisko]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Simply by giving up her detective status. She wasn't the detective so she could kill everyone.

Yeah I know it doesn't make much sense, but that's how it is...

Knox's 1st is "It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story." You're thinking of Knox's 7th.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by AspieSincerity

Wait what? When, or HOW did she give up her detective status? Is just a hole in the story?
Or perhaps are we ignoring knox's decalogue in this game altogether?

Hey that's how it is explained in the game, why are you surprised, you can't possibly have missed that.

Originally Posted by Frisko

Knox's 1st is "It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story." You're thinking of Knox's 7th.

Oh right, well, apparently each game is considered a stand alone mystery novel.

Also those who believe in the ghosterika claim she is in fact the usual culprit under the guise of an inexistent Erika.

However I don't particularly like that theory because from the metaworld perspective fake personalities are considered to be separate entities just like how Maria makes clear distinctions between her mother and the black witch.

So the statement "Erika killed them" shouldn't be valid neither from a real world perspective (where no Erika exist) nor from a metaworld perspective (where she is a different person).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AspieSincerity

Wait what? When, or HOW did she give up her detective status? Is just a hole in the story?
Or perhaps are we ignoring knox's decalogue in this game altogether?

She never claimed it. Now, how that makes any sense when Battler was never forced to affirmatively claim it, I don't know, but that's how the writer of ep6 (not ryukishi, though of course he did obviously write ep6...) did it.

A thornier question is how Erika could be the culprit if the Dawn of the Golden Witch existing as a story in higher-order fiction doesn't contain any of the meta-world scenes. It's only in those scenes that any of the nonsense about the red, the room sealings, the Logic Error, and Knox even come up. So either Erika wasn't the detective in the story even though she appeared to be (which would make ep6's writer kind of a hack), Erika wasn't in the story (which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense), there was evidence of another person being the detective that we never got to see (it certainly wasn't Battler), the killer wasn't Erika after all (but in this case it's got other issues), or meta-scenes do appear in the text (which would be a disaster of massive proportions for reasons I am not going into at this time).

EDIT: Actually, it works for Erika not to have been the true killer if ep6's author intended to frame Battler as the culprit. This is one of Meta-Erika's objectives anyway. That is, in Dawn of the Golden Witch the higher-order fiction fiction (yeah, I know), Battler was the killer. The Logic Error plotline is a meta-world story which would be an author/reader clash over something in the text that isn't believed (such as... Battler being a killer).

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

She never claimed it.

I say that this is the same as claiming it:


"......You told me I could make the detective proclamation whenever I wanted, right? ......Well, unfortunately, ...I am no longer capable of making that proclamation."


Erika here is referring to what Battler told her earlier, about not listening to Bern and use her detective authority anyway, however here she specifies that she actually cannot use it, regardless of Bern.
If this doesn't mean she isn't the detective anymore what else it means? Plus everything after this is consistent with the idea of Erika != detective.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I say that this is the same as claiming it:


"......You told me I could make the detective proclamation whenever I wanted, right? ......Well, unfortunately, ...I am no longer capable of making that proclamation."

Not exactly.

What she's saying there is "You told me I could still claim it at any time. I have not done so up to this point. Additionally, I am no longer capable of doing so, because <etc.>"

As I understand the sequence of events, it works as follows:

• Battler expects (or "expects") Erika to be the detective.
• Erika and Bernkastel explicitly disclaim this possibility as part of a ploy to trick or ("trick") Battler.
• Battler leaves the option on the table, stating that Erika can make the proclamation if she wishes to.
• Erika does not do so.
• Later, Erika announces that she is not capable of taking the detective proclamation. Battler realizes (or "realizes") that this is because she has violated the culprit rule.

So technically she never was the detective and never claimed to be. She could have been, up until the point where she made it not possible. This of course makes no sense in a fiction context but does in a meta-context. But nobody before that point had ever claimed to be the detective either, so where did that rule come from?

EDIT: Also note that if Battler has any access to the "true fiction" of Dawn of the Golden Witch, then Genius Battler must be true, because he would already know Erika is the culprit in Dawn and thus incapable of claiming to be the detective. This assumes a lot, of course, like that Erika is the culprit in the "true fiction" of Dawn.

[Jan-Poo]

Even if you put it in a different way you are implying the same thing.

Considering that Erika was the designated detective, you could say that at the start of the game she was indeed the detective. But then she never took that role and she made it clear in the middle of the game, with Battler telling her that she could retake the role whenever she wanted.

A small change in the story but it doesn't change the fact that Erika could decide to be or not be the detective at will.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Even if you put it in a different way you are implying the same thing.

Considering that Erika was the designated detective, you could say that at the start of the game she was indeed the detective. But then she never took that role and she made it clear in the middle of the game, with Battler telling her that she could retake the role whenever she wanted.

A small change in the story but it doesn't change the fact that Erika could decide to be or not be the detective at will.

And yet she and Beato acknowledge during the duel that she is the detective.

Even if it isn't stated in red, both affirm that she is. So does Erika's supposed disqualification come from the possibility that shes the culprit? Or what?

[Jan-Poo]

The way I interpreted that affirmation from Beatrice is that she intended to "respect" Erika as a detective even if she wasn't.

That means Beatrice gave her the assurance that she didn't use tricks that would not otherwise work with a detective.

[Renall]

Let's look at it on several levels:

First, let's assume "Furudo Erika" and Meta-Erika are different entities. This is not to imply that they are not both Furudo Erika, just that they're distinct in the same fashion as Meta-Battler/Sorcerer Battler and Piece-Battler. Ep6 certainly does us no favors to blur the line in that respect, but it seems sound enough.

Next, let's ask who Battler meant when he offered "detective" authority.

• The authority applies to the observations of Piece-Erika. Meta-Erika can only be certain of things when given the means to verify them on-board. It appears, therefore, to have nothing to do with Meta-Erika's own perspective.
• The authority is supposed to prevent Piece-Erika from committing murders. Knox's rules do not apply to higher-order fiction. Even if they did, Meta-Erika has not killed anyone on her layer of existence.
• All references to Erika being "the detective" in ep6 occur when spoken by or about Meta-Erika. Beatrice states (in white) that Erika is the detective, but this is during their meta-world confrontation.
• However, Meta-Erika refers to herself as "the 18th person on Rokkenjima" when pronouncing herself the detective at the end, which would seem to be a trait applicable only to Piece-Erika. However, it may be that this was the intent, and Meta-Erika suffers conceptual denial of some sort by the impossibility of being such a person (even if she could be one in a story).

It would appear that the authority Battler was actually offering was Piece-Erika's authority. Meta-Erika's authority is independent of this. This would allow, for instance, Meta-Erika to be "the detective" on the meta-level, but not for Piece-Erika to be "the detective" on the board level.

Do note however that if Dawn of the Golden Witch is an independent fiction, the notion of "changing the story" is patently impossible, which means either that Erika was the culprit all along or Erika wasn't actually the culprit in Dawn of the Golden Witch. That's not to say that in ep6's version of the story she wasn't, necessarily, though that starts getting layers-upon-layers.

[Jan-Poo]

You are basing your arguments on concepts whom I do not agree with, Renall.

There are things that quite apparently seem to be working for both the piece and the metaworld counterpart. There are too many things that do not make sense if you think otherwise. The "detective" status must be one of those things that applies to both the piece and the metaworld version. That's because apparently there is a direct link of informations between the piece and its owner. Otherwise it makes no sense that Meta-Erika knows stuff that even Battler (the GM) can't know (or isn't supposed to know). That definitely means that Meta-Erika has a source of information about the gameboard other than the GM himself, and that can only be her own piece's perspective.

That inevitably means that the absolute perspective of a piece is automatically transmitted to its metaworld counterpart making it "de facto" a detective.

To this I would add that "detective" is a label that has always been attached without any distinction between piece and meta-version.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

You are basing your arguments on concepts whom I do not agree with, Renall.

Well that's not really my problem.

There are things that quite apparently seem to be working for both the piece and the metaworld counterpart. There are too many things that do not make sense if you think otherwise. The "detective" status must be one of those things that applies to both the piece and the metaworld version.

No? It doesn't. That simply does not follow. Ever.

That's because apparently there is a direct link of informations between the piece and its owner. Otherwise it makes no sense that Meta-Erika knows stuff that even Battler (the GM) can't know (or isn't supposed to know). That definitely means that Meta-Erika has a source of information about the gameboard other than the GM himself, and that can only be her own piece's perspective.

You assume (1) he doesn't actually know and (2) her means of acquiring that information came from the source we assume it came from. We don't actually know how she found out about what "she" did. We have no proof whatsoever that Meta-Erika was responsible for it (that is, that she caused Piece-Erika to do it, if Piece-Erika in fact did). For all we know, all information is apprehended by observers strictly through narration within the story. Erika may or may not have had access to narration, but it simply isn't ever said. We don't know where that information came from. There is no evidence it explicitly comes from some kind of informational connection between piece and meta. Indeed, ep5 appears to discount that possibility.

And there is almost no narrative from Erika at all. If it exists in the higher-order fiction of Dawn, then we've very specifically not been shown more or less any of it. So yes, it's possible that Erika had access to the Erika Furudo narrative thread of Dawn where others did not and knew what happened. Or was reading ahead in the story. Or was told by an outside entity (such as Bernkastel). But we can't actually be sure. She just comes out with her claim and nobody contradicts it or asks how she knows this.

There's also the "problem" (not really a problem) that if Battler knew it all along, he probably had access to the same narrative and simply played with Erika's expectations on it. At that point we're back to square one because we don't know where Erika got her information and we have no idea how much information Battler actually had.

And even if it did, it proves nothing. Because so what? It doesn't make them the same character. In fact, it proves they're not. Meta-Erika has more information than Piece-Erika. Therefore, they apprehend different levels of comprehension. Ergo, they are different entities. The best counter-argument you could really raise to this is that Meta-Erika seems to be taking over at random points in the story, but when she does so the story appears to violently reject her behavior. Meta-Erika does not belong in that particular story even if Piece-Erika does.

That inevitably means that the absolute perspective of a piece is automatically transmitted to its metaworld counterpart making it "de facto" a detective.

No, it doesn't. You have no logical basis for that.

To this I would add that "detective" is a label that has always been attached without any distinction between piece and meta-version.

Isn't it probable that's because Ryukishi didn't want us to think about that possibility explicitly because it's an assumption he knew everyone would incorrectly make?

[Jan-Poo]

Renall, you are just playing dumb if you claim "we don't know where Erika got her informations".
There is an obvious and clear explanation for that. You are appealing to trivial matters to further a quite improbable theory of your.

All the things that Meta-Erika said clearly implied that she had witness in first persons the events she describes at the time she killed everyone. If you don't understand that then you can't "get a clue" and you need stuff to be told you as if you where a machine before you can understand them.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Renall, you are just playing dumb if you claim "we don't know where Erika got her informations".
There is an obvious and clear explanation for that. You are appealing to trivial matters to further a quite improbable theory of your.

All the things that Meta-Erika said clearly implied that she had witness in first persons the events she describes at the time she killed everyone. If you don't understand that then you can't "get a clue" and you need stuff to be told you as if you where a machine before you can understand them.

So you admit that you don't actually know that this is true, because you just said it was implied. An implication in this story, or any mystery, is one which should be looked at critically. You just don't want to.

[Aspirety]

Heheh, man. Watching you guys debate points like this, it's almost too much for my head. You guys have had heaps of time throwing theories back at each other, I'm just a newcomer to the community who's been pretty much relying on his own deductions. There's a lot of terminology you're using that goes way over my head, aha.

But, if I may comment, I'm not sure it's healthy to be placing such a strong distinction between Erika and Meta-Erika. They both come from the same source, and are conceptually the same person. Sure, some distinction can be made, but I wonder if you're looking into it too much?

That said I don't really have any authority to comment just yet, but I thought I'd share that regardless. eheh.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AspieSincerity

But, if I may comment, I'm not sure it's healthy to be placing such a strong distinction between Erika and Meta-Erika. They both come from the same source, and are conceptually the same person. Sure, some distinction can be made, but I wonder if you're looking into it too much?

Again, you have to look at the two Battlers. One's had extensive character growth over six installments. One gets his memories reset every time. They simply can't be referred to as the "same person."

You could probably apply the same logic to Beatrice and whoever she is on the board.