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Old 2010-05-22, 14:23   Link #10461
Judoh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
Actually, I'm pretty sure they're referring to the "Galaxy Express 999" movie. In it, the theme of cruelty resulting from eternal life is expressed throughout, while the manga has more time for other topics.
It's both a movie and manga. They both have the same title. It's interesting the territory lord code is 999 though. That can't be a coincidence since they just got done talking about it.

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Me, I'm not saying anything beyond a direct quote from the text.
I'm not sure where it's from though. is it red or white text?

Last edited by Judoh; 2010-05-22 at 14:49.
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Old 2010-05-22, 14:54   Link #10462
Judoh
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Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
Ep5 quote:

Dlanor: "...So, once you claimed to have seen Kinzo, it was no longer misrecognition... ...In other words, this proves that the observer wasn't objective... is what you are SAYING...?"
Narration expands on that: "In this case, unintentional 'misrecognition' is not permitted by the rules of this game. However, it is possible to intentionally 'lie about seeing' something you never saw...!! And that is an action not permitted to a 'detective' burdened with the responsibility of an impartial perspective..."

Emphasis mine. I would say this is a pretty strong anti-disguise argument in general, because any disguise as someone else is in one way or another a misrecognition. People lie. Not just make mistakes, they also lie, including to themselves. Doctor House has good reasons to say that every chance he gets to. In many a circumstance this is a natural, logical and strategically sound thing to do. In some rare cases it's even a morally correct thing to do.

oh right your talking about this. Yeah I found it too. Sorry for not being up to date. However we should note that it's the narration that is saying this and not Battler. Lambda also said in white text that only the game master can use the golden truth and that doesn't seem to be true either. I think a detective can be "partial" to a theory without violating any of the commandments. As detectives they should be obligated to be neutral and unbiased, but Erika shows this is not the case through out the whole of episode 5. If her theory isn't biased and partial to her own personal opinions I don't know what to call it.

it seems a lot of the statements made in white text in the ??? would be completely false if this is true though. There might be something deeper to what Lambda says about the bodies disappearances than they weren't really dead. However maybe episode 6 disproves that.

EDIT: In fact it seems like this would be a huge trap. Where does Knox's Seventh say anywhere that the detective can't lie about what his/her eyes and ears see and hear? It's something we've taken for granted, but a liar is not a culprit are they? Of course maybe they just interpret what they see wrong that's not a problem.

Last edited by Judoh; 2010-05-22 at 15:20.
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Old 2010-05-22, 15:45   Link #10463
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I guess I'll elaborate. I think the most vital part of land of the golden witch may be that the detective can lie even with an objective point of view. The detective is not really falsifying their view, but they can lie about what it is they saw as long as it's only in white or blue text. This means that we even have to put what Erika says she sees under extreme scrutiny. If she can bluff to get someone to admit to murder this works there might be a lot of instances where Battler lied to give someone an alibi. Beatrice DOES call him a liar. There are quite a few examples of this for Erika like the finger prints and the diary for example. Only Erika looked at these things it's entirely possible to falsify evidence and claims to put people in a disadvantageous position. This is a very dirty trick which is why I think it works. Since we have virtually very little narration from Erika what she says in white text is entirely suspect. We don't know what the detective really saw, but we have to interpret in the correct way. Without compromise, without suspicion and without taking every possible lie in to account the truth can definitely not be seen.
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Old 2010-05-22, 15:45   Link #10464
Renall
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Well, let's just use a random example.

Battler finds a body. Battler identifies this body as a corpse. However, the person is not dead.

Battler wasn't lying. He just... got it wrong. Someone fooled him. It's practically the job of the culprit to try to fool the detective, otherwise he'd be easily found out.

Now, could Battler find a "corpse," realize it's not dead, and lie about it? Possibly, though I don't think he could do so in his own narration. Not because he is the detective, but because that just runs counter to logic.

Erika, however... we almost never see her thoughts. So how do we know what she actually thinks?
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Old 2010-05-22, 15:54   Link #10465
Kylon99
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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
Now, could Battler find a "corpse," realize it's not dead, and lie about it? Possibly, though I don't think he could do so in his own narration. Not because he is the detective, but because that just runs counter to logic.

Erika, however... we almost never see her thoughts. So how do we know what she actually thinks?
This goes along with the question of the unrealiable Detective:

I was saying this before. Though the two may be called 'Detectives' they aren't your traditional mystery novel detectives. (More than just Erika being a hentai. :3)

The detectives in other novels actually *solve* the mystery at the end of the book. You can rely on them to approach and eventually come up with a solution. But neither Battler nor Erika are able to do so in all the episodes.

What this means is that instead of being an ally for the reader, these 'detectives' are actually working against the reader. They bring up incorrect theories and lead you astray. Most damningly I think the 'answer' in EP6 for us was during the after-dinner-puzzle scene. It basically showed us that there are puzzles that are impossible to solve if you do not undo the priming effect. That is, someone incorrectly brought up that it was a block of cheese rather than a slice of cheese.

So I think maybe there are things that Battler has said that led us astray. While it may be true that the detective has to conform to the Knox rules, this is one way Ryukishi probably has used the detective to our detriment. 8)

Last edited by Kylon99; 2010-05-22 at 16:24.
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Old 2010-05-22, 15:59   Link #10466
Judoh
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Well to put it another way if a detective is deceived from the start they are going to repeat lies that someone else told them. This works better in Battler's case since he's so trusting. Erika however is a complete stranger and doesn't trust anyone. If she's bluffing it's because she's taking advantage of the fact that she did do an investigation and that until the police arrive her evidence can't be shown to be false. However if someone like Nanjo were to lie to her too than that would create some problems also.

Well either the detective is untrustworthy to some extent. Or they are repeating lies that have corrupted their investigation. Either way this means we have to readdress a lot of things. A lot of our hints could be red herrings.
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Old 2010-05-22, 16:49   Link #10467
Oliver
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Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
Well to put it another way if a detective is deceived from the start they are going to repeat lies that someone else told them. This works better in Battler's case since he's so trusting. Erika however is a complete stranger and doesn't trust anyone.
Except one bit.

Meta-Battler has his own Piece-Battler to see things with. Piece-Battler may be mistaken about these things, but it's something to base thinking on, Battler is just bad at it. All other scenes are shown to Meta-Battler by the grace of the gamemaster only, and it's the gamemaster who lies about them -- possibly, basing these lies on what the characters present would say have happened.

If Erika does not have her own body, but is just 'attached' to someone else's, everything Piece-Erika supposedly sees is actually seen through gamemaster's eyes - or the eyes of that person as told to a hypothetical someone else.

...come to think of it, is Erika's location different in any red statements? That is, is Erika ever stated in red to be anywhere other than the guesthouse -- possibly a specific room in one? Does 'Erika' actually move?
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Old 2010-05-22, 16:54   Link #10468
Thunder Book
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Before the family conference, Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa left the mansion and moved to the guesthouse.

This pretty much proves she was in the mansion at one point, right?
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:02   Link #10469
Oliver
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Originally Posted by Thunder Book View Post
Before the family conference, Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa left the mansion and moved to the guesthouse.

This pretty much proves she was in the mansion at one point, right?
Never says when, though.

If 'Erika' is an inanimate object - say, a mirror hanging in the guesthouse lounge -- she could have been in the mansion at one point before being finally installed for good in the guesthouse, which would still fit that one red fine.
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:14   Link #10470
Thunder Book
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"Before the family conference" is, a little vague, I guess.

However, in reference to the count of people now being 18, Furudo Erika only increases it by one person. That makes me think she is human.
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:19   Link #10471
Tyabann
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Originally Posted by Thunder Book View Post
However, in reference to the count of people now being 18, Furudo Erika only increases it by one person. That makes me think she is human.
She only increases the "person count" by "one person", yes.

Nothing in that sentence actually confirms that she's a real, living human being.
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:24   Link #10472
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So what's the definition of a person then? If it isn't "human," then all text like There are no more then 17 people on the island become worthless and allow for Culprit X, right?
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:27   Link #10473
Oliver
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Originally Posted by Thunder Book View Post
However, in reference to the count of people now being 18, Furudo Erika only increases it by one person. That makes me think she is human.
The maximum limit of people being 18. The first time an exact count is actually given completely unambiguously is the end of Ep6, and it is 17 then. So that is not really a very strong argument. The only way to prove that 'Erika' is animate and mobile is to find more red saying she in a specific location or is doing things an inanimate object cannot do.

I am inclined to discount the possibility of 'Erika' being inanimate but mobile, i.e. a transferable object, because pretty much the only things people give each other in Umineko are keys, guns, and the head ring. But the possibility of Erika being an immobile inanimate object -- especially one that is able to 'see', like a mirror - is intriguing...
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:31   Link #10474
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Well, there is that red text about Erika setting seals, unless there's a device that can set seals like Eva's.

Also, there's red text that the name "Erika" can only refer to the actual person, but I've not read the actual Episode so I don't know the context of the scene, and I guess you could always say "Furudo Erika" =/= "Erika".
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Old 2010-05-22, 17:34   Link #10475
Oliver
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Whether the red about seals really serves to confirm Erika being animate heavily depends on the precise wording though.
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Old 2010-05-22, 18:03   Link #10476
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Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
Whether the red about seals really serves to confirm Erika being animate heavily depends on the precise wording though.
No, I am really sure that Erika saw the people walking through the guesthouse. There is some red to confirm this, but I'm a bit too lazy to recover it.

She witnessed who walked in, so she has to have eyes and a functional brain.
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Old 2010-05-22, 18:45   Link #10477
Tyabann
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
She witnessed who walked in, so she has to have eyes and a functional brain.
Lady Erika's lookout in the lounge was perfect. There were no small gaps or carelessness or times when she looked away for even a second.

Hmm. Yeah. This and other, related red truths have to make her a real person.

This does not mean, however, that she is always the same person.
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Old 2010-05-22, 18:48   Link #10478
DaBackpack
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Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon View Post
Lady Erika's lookout in the lounge was perfect. There were no small gaps or carelessness or times when she looked away for even a second.

Hmm. Yeah. This and other, related red truths have to make her a real person.

This does not mean, however, that she is always the same person.
I realize this, just confirming that she does indeed have to be a real person, at least when "Erika" is in the lounge.
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Old 2010-05-22, 18:56   Link #10479
Thunder Book
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Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon View Post
Lady Erika's lookout in the lounge was perfect. There were no small gaps or carelessness or times when she looked away for even a second.

Hmm. Yeah. This and other, related red truths have to make her a real person.

This does not mean, however, that she is always the same person.
What evidence is there to say she isn't always the same person?
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Old 2010-05-22, 18:57   Link #10480
Tyabann
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What evidence is there to say she isn't always the same person?
That's the only way Erika can be on the island and not actually exist at the same time.

That said, she doesn't have to be changing bodies constantly. She's just most likely a different person in Ep5 than she is in Ep6.
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