[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 8 Twilight of the golden witch

[Rias]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kaisen

To be fair to the goat bit, the Umineko fandom has been particularly awful at times regarding the mystery. People got absurdly and unnecessarily hostile and defensive about everything and proclaimed they alone understood the mystery. Ryuu isn't insulting the average reader, but the hardcore mystery guys who ruin it for everyone. As a good example, the post-6 "SHANNON HAS DID AND IS KILLING EVERYONE, IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS YOU'RE AUTISTIC AND CAN'T READ" people.

I thought he was mainly referring goats to people who easily jump on bandwagons, or had theories based on limited knowledge. For example, those who quickly jumped on the anti-fantasy wagon, but didn't have any solutions to tricks in the past episodes. Or those who jumped to conclusion without verification.

And that's probably why some of the more solid theories were not uttered by the goats...

[Renall]

This is going to be too heady, but here is how I would think about the Meta-World.

The Meta-World is a plane of existence drawn from reflection on uncertain speculation. Every idea is here as it's processed by someone seeking information, from speculation, fact, to fiction on the whole. Tohya thinking about being Battler, Ange reading Tohya's stories, would all be represented by the Meta-World.

Of course two people's thoughts can't overlap in the same landscape, but they're not. The Meta-World is an interpretation of all of these thought processes formed into a story. You can think of it as, literally, meta-fiction within the "reality" of the fiction.

So in the sense that one says "the Meta-World really exists," one would be theoretically correct. It's not a place, but it's also not the thoughts and stories themselves, but a layer removed from them. Thoughts and ideas basically ascend to the Meta-World where they take form.

Whether they stop existing because people stop thinking or what happens if the thinkers die or whatever are not material because the Meta-World isn't the thought or the thinker, but a fictionalized representation of all thoughts and thinking. So if you want to believe the Meta-World persists, there's really no reason that it shouldn't.

I guess you could call it the Collective Unconscious, though I'm not sure that's really accurate. Jung's idea is basically that thought is collective though, and that more or less can be used to imagine how the Meta-World might work.

Originally Posted by Klashikari

That's actually the reason why he made the ending of that kind, especially if we consider a meta existence of his own, through Hachijou Ikuko (and moreso with the Golden Land war, and every goats running around).

In fact, every single "mystery" of Umineko turned into a catbox: the truth, yasu, Lion's gender etc.

He obviously has the means and possibility to burst open the catbox, but for the better or for the worse decided not to.

I move for a Logic Error on at least a few of these points. He didn't choose not to answer, he had no answer, nor did he ever intend to come up with one.

"Well, he never intended to" may or may not be true, but it don't stop it from being weaksauce, ladies and gents. Maybe he'll come up with some real answers (or steal the best ones from his fans) and "reveal" them in Umineko Rei.

There's ways to "cheat" without cheating, but he hasn't really done that. And this is coming from somebody who stopped caring about minor details a long time ago. I got the sense around ep6 that he wasn't really caring about any of that stuff, and it kind of more or less turned out to be the case. I'm not sure how you want to describe all of those things (charitably, "garnishing," uncharitably, "filler"), but they were basically more thematically important than actually important. If that's where we were headed all along, that's one thing, but I seem to recall fighting many an uphill battle over the idea that things only really mattered in terms of their overall theme. Believe me, I wanted to be wrong.

Do I need all the little answers? Definitely not. Honestly, stating some of them outright would just be tacky (HEY GUYS, WHAT'S IN YASU'S UNDERPANTS!?). Do I need some proof he himself actually knows what those answers are, even if they don't really matter all that much in the end? Uhhh, yes.

I am not yet convinced. He put that stuff there. Fish or cut bait, ryukishi. You don't have to play your hand, but at least prove to me you were holding the cards.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kaisen

To be fair to the goat bit, the Umineko fandom has been particularly awful at times regarding the mystery. People got absurdly and unnecessarily hostile and defensive about everything and proclaimed they alone understood the mystery. Ryuu isn't insulting the average reader, but the hardcore mystery guys who ruin it for everyone. As a good example, the post-6 "SHANNON HAS DID AND IS KILLING EVERYONE, IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS YOU'RE AUTISTIC AND CAN'T READ" people.

Yeah no. Hardcore mystery fans have been claiming that Umineko isn't a proper mystery from the beginning. The people you are referring to aren't mystery fans at all, since a true mystery fan sort of needs to analyse evidence before saying anything. Any 'hardcore' mystery reader as you put it wouldn't jump on a solution before at least book 7 came out, unless your definition of hardcore mystery fan is 'someone who reads Umineko and thinks that understands what a mystery is made of despite not knowing a thing about the genre.'

The people you are referring to are the ones who only have a passing knowledge about the mystery genre and think they know more than anyone. Those are not mystery fans at all. Anyone who read half a mystery novel knows that settling on a solution without thinking is stupid.

The Umineko fandom is awful at times, but that's more often than not coming from the people trying to defend Ryuukishi as a God than anything else.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Renall

I move for a Logic Error on at least a few of these points. He didn't choose not to answer, he had no answer, nor did he ever intend to come up with one.

It is certainly not the good thread nor the good timing for that, but I seriously wonder how the hell you can have such conclusion, whereas you definitely didn't read Episode 8, nor actually give credits to the actual "intent" of the author.
This is also why Ange's portion of Episode 8 was at first irrelevant, but became actually pertinent with Ryukishi's intent for this epilogue.

I see no objective issue with people being upset and calling "foul play" with Ryukishi not opening the cat box. But it is going a bit preposterous and out of proportion to declare that he just doesn't have any answer.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

It is certainly not the good thread nor the good timing for that, but I seriously wonder how the hell you can have such conclusion, whereas you definitely didn't read Episode 8, nor actually give credits to the actual "intent" of the author.
This is also why Ange's portion of Episode 8 was at first irrelevant, but became actually pertinent with Ryukishi's intent for this epilogue.

I see no objective issue with people being upset and calling "foul play" with Ryukishi not opening the cat box. But it is going a bit preposterous and out of proportion to declare that he just doesn't have any answer.

As someone who has read episode 8, I agree with Renall, and also have to wonder why you feel the need to point out his reading or not of the episode when his points have no relation to the episode itself, but the series message.

If I were to give you a difficult puzzle and never told you the answer, would it be such a stretch to assume that the puzzle I gave you never had an answer at all?

Let's use poker as an example. If I told you I had a great hand, but refused to show it, it would count as me folding. The rules would assume I was bluffing.

You can't claim you have answers without showing any evidence of such a thing. The moment he refused to open his box, his actual competence was also put inside that box.

At this point, we can claim that he never had an answer in the first place and is just bluffing just as you can claim he has an answer and merely isn't showing it to us.

In a mystery, not showing your hand violates the sense of trust the reader and the writer developed throughout his series. One could argue that since Umineko isn't a mystery, it wouldn't be required to show its hand. But regardless of its mystery status, Ryu's refusal to show us his hand gives us the right to call his bluff.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

But it is going a bit preposterous and out of proportion to declare that he just doesn't have any answer.

Well, ironically, whether R07 had an answer or not is a cat box on itself, I think.

[Circular Logic]

Couldn't you just take it as r07 presented it - as a catbox for people to play around with and create their own golden truth? Looking back from EP2 onwards, it seems pretty clear to me that was his intention.

There's no reason for him to show us his cards. That wasn't the purpose of the series. It's a deconstruction of the fiction genre, not just the mystery genre.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Circular Logic

Couldn't you just take it as r07 presented it - as a catbox for people to play around with and create their own golden truth? Looking back from EP2 onwards, it seems pretty clear to me that was his intention.

There's no reason for him to show us his cards. That wasn't the purpose of the series. It's a deconstruction of the fiction genre, not just the mystery genre.

People throw the term deconstruction way too lightly. If Ryuukishi was trying to do such a thing with fiction itself, then he either failed miserably or he seriously thinks that storytelling is something that seems like a good idea but really isn't.

I like Umineko's setting and the idea of a catbox makes for some fun fangames. But personally, one of the things that turned me off about Littlebigplanet is how it relied on user made content as it lacked any real content from the beginning.

It's the same thing here.

There is a very good reason why he should show us his cards. If this was indeed his attempt at deconstructing fiction(which sounds absurd) then he failed miserably. If he wanted us to keep theorizing forever from the beginning, his writing should have been different and handled the subject better. It didn't.

Surely you can see a hint or two now that you look back, but creationists can also find evidence to support that the world is only 2000 years old. Know why? Because once you already have the result you want and are just looking for evidence to Chewbacca your way through the proving stages of it, everything seems much more relevant than it actually is.

If he didn't want us to show us his cards, he should at the very least have convinced us he had them. I can say with certainty that he didn't convince me, and judging from this topic I'm not the only one.

If you are content with what he showed us, great! But surely you must understand that some of us simply...aren't.

[Circular Logic]

I think the Japanese in general are more likely to be statisfied with resolutions that don't completely tie everything up. I remember seeing some sort of poll comparing the reactions of western vs. japanese viewers and there was a pronounced difference.

And let's not forget the GAINAX ending...

[witchfan]

Love him or hate him, Ryukishi does have a reputation to uphold. I don't think he would've started writing this painfully long series, would've baited us into treating it as a murder mystery, if he did not have an answer. The key here is past tense, though; I think in midst of writing this series he became self-absorbed enough to forget the point he was trying to make in its entirety. Becoming self-absorbed is not always a bad thing; Evangelion is a great success, Cross Channel is a superb visual novel, and, to give an example from recent times, Subarashiki Hibi is wonderful. Did it work here? Who knows. Maybe in ten years, Ryukishi would be praised for being the founding father of a whole new genre of literature. But, at present, as someone who's been following this series for years, I can't help but feel this is a very dishonest move he's making.

[Rias]

Having the mystery part naturally becoming some delusional fantasy isn't something new by Ryukishi07. Higurashi has already proven that.

Not necessarily a bad thing tho.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Used Can

Well, ironically, whether R07 had an answer or not is a cat box on itself, I think.

Exactly. I mean, speaking thematically here, does it really matter, in the end, whether he has an answer or not?

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Exactly. I mean, speaking thematically here, does it really matter, in the end, whether he has an answer or not?

It certainly does.

[The Bloodlust Kid]

I'm trying my best to avoid as much spoilers as possible (not working so far). Once I read the thing to try and make more sense of it, am I to expect some sort of Rashomon scenario?

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Exactly. I mean, speaking thematically here, does it really matter, in the end, whether he has an answer or not?

Thematically speaking (as in what he ultimately delivered), probably not. In terms of mystery, I think it definitely does.
More than anything else, I believe this comes down to expectations. The problem here is, I think, even if there was the whole "this could be no mystery" and "R07 doesn't plan to explain everything like in Higurashi" he did fuel many fans' expectations about this being mystery and that there'd be a way to reach a clear answer, even if it wasn't through an obvious mean like in Higurashi - his many tantrums throughout Chiru doesn't make it any better, in my opinion. So, if many people are disappointed, I cannot blame them.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Circular Logic

I think the Japanese in general are more likely to be statisfied with resolutions that don't completely tie everything up. I remember seeing some sort of poll comparing the reactions of western vs. japanese viewers and there was a pronounced difference.

I think this is maligned. Japanese people do not necessarily like stories that don't ever indicate whether they have a resolution. I think there is a cultural predisposition to stories without tidy resolutions, which is very much a Hollywood trope.

There's a big difference between "AND EVERYTHING WORKED OUT FINE!" and "not everything worked out, but this story clearly addressed all that it meant to address." Likewise, there is a big difference between the latter and "I just plain forgot/don't care about/never intended to address certain things."

The last of those is not a "Japanese" thing or even a cultural thing. It is a "bad writer, overly forgiving readers" thing. Just because the Japanese reading audience is more comfortable with bittersweet, lingering, or regret-filled resolutions does not mean they are - or should be - comfortable with unresolved and apparently forgotten plot points. If they are, they're bad readers.

Umineko's left a few too many instances of "Who killed Owen Taylor?" And Chandler at least had the testicles to say "Hell if I know."

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

It certainly does.

Well, if you look at Umineko like a virtual reality game, and considering that it's serialized I don't doubt that it was intended to be in some aspect, then what ultimately matters is not whether Ryukishi has a solution but whether WE have a solution.

Originally Posted by Used Can

So, if many people are disappointed, I cannot blame them.

If people are disappointed, then they probably weren't paying very much attention.

I'd have loved some more concrete resolution to the mystery, but given that Ep7 was supposed to be the end to that aspect of the story, I don't see what people were expecting out of Ep8...

[Circular Logic]

Originally Posted by Renall

I think this is maligned. Japanese people do not necessarily like stories that don't ever indicate whether they have a resolution. I think there is a cultural predisposition to stories without tidy resolutions, which is very much a Hollywood trope.

There's a big difference between "AND EVERYTHING WORKED OUT FINE!" and "not everything worked out, but this story clearly addressed all that it meant to address." Likewise, there is a big difference between the latter and "I just plain forgot/don't care about/never intended to address certain things."

The last of those is not a "Japanese" thing or even a cultural thing. It is a "bad writer, overly forgiving readers" thing. Just because the Japanese reading audience is more comfortable with bittersweet, lingering, or regret-filled resolutions does not mean they are - or should be - comfortable with unresolved and apparently forgotten plot points. If they are, they're bad readers.

Umineko's left a few too many instances of "Who killed Owen Taylor?" And Chandler at least had the testicles to say "Hell if I know."

I'd say the fact that many anime series will simply 'end' after one season (with several manga volumes published/in production) with them walking off into the sunset/beating the boss of the arc and going back to school/deciding to compete for the protagonist's love (yes I'm most definitely thinking of harem anime here) shows that they are rather more tolerant of stories with no resolution.

[rainz]

Thematically, the ending reminds me of the movie Inception.

Spoiler for Inception ending spoiler:

In the movie, the main character is obsessed with finding out what's real and what's a dream. He's looking for the singular truth. This obsession is something shared by the audience.

But at the end, he gives up this search when he finally meets his kids. He learns to let go and embrace what actually makes him happy.

As the audience, we're left to debate the truth. However, it soon becomes clear that there is no way to get a definite answer. Like the main character, only by accepting that there are more important things than the truth, can we ever be happy with the conclusion.

I think R07 is going for a similar message here. However, the umineko games are much longer than the Inception movie. People are naturally more upset and less eager to accept this message because they've been cracking at the mystery for so long.

[Rias]

Originally Posted by Circular Logic

I'd say the fact that many anime series will simply 'end' after one season (with several manga volumes published/in production) with them walking off into the sunset/beating the boss of the arc and going back to school/deciding to compete for the protagonist's love (yes I'm most definitely thinking of harem anime here) shows that they are rather more tolerant of stories with no resolution.

That's different. People know that the anime can be restarted since there are material out there, and that's why some series have new seasons coming out after taking a break (for more material from the original source). The ones that end that way while there are more original work to base from are usually ones that aren't popular enough as an anime (ie from DVD sales), or the popularity of the original work has dwindled.

One thing to keep in mind is that Ryukishi07 did express that he si thinking about writing "Rei" for Umineko. IMO, Saikoroshi-hen was a better wrap up than Matsuribayashi-hen was.