[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In other words while "it was Shannon" isn't completely incorrect, you still need to understand that "Shannon" is just a fake persona, and the real person behind the mask isn't a servant but the goddamn head of the family.

Why are the two mutually exclusive? And yes, it's easy to grasp his point; just because a person appears to be a servant doesn't mean they are a servant. But that really wasn't Van Dine's reason for using it any more than the argument against a career criminal means that every mystery's killer must be a person with a spotless past. It's about role operation, not status... yet we're only ever shown Yasu and/or her characters acting in one role until ep7. Any additional role played in the stories of ep1-4 is strictly implied. It's like the detective suddenly concluding that Father Jones can't be the killer because, as a reformed burglar who entered seminary (a fact we never heard about), he is an ineligible suspect. It's a stupid exclusion, yes, so why have Will say it in red? What's wrong with him just stating the rule? He does that plenty of other times.

By the way I'm not disagreeing with you, just springboarding.

That's exactly what I thought. Plus there was absolutely no telling on who could have known about scorpion charms and their properties. Since this isn't something that Maria simply came up with, you could speculate that anyone knew that. Or rather it was a given that the culprit knew that, whoever he was. It would have been a pretty stupid assumption to think that then the culprit must have been one who was shown knowing that stuff.

More to the point, we could speculate that anyone who was at the beach could have known about that. Why? Well... Maria has the charm. George recognizes it. Shannon confirms it. So that's three people who not only know of it, but know its function. Jessica and Battler were both there, so they heard George and Shannon and Maria all talking about the charm's properties. And Jessica gave the charm to Natsuhi.

So you have this hierarchy of knowledge where Maria had the charms, George and Shannon were intimately familiar with them, Jessica heard about them and was the one who knew Natsuhi had it, and Battler had heard about it. Why not any one of them?

Moreover, the interviewer moved immediately to the assumption that a person needed a master key and needed to have seen the charm on the inside of the door (and thus open the door in the first place) to choose not to kill Natsuhi. Here we run into several problems:

• What evidence is there that the door was ever actually opened, and if it was locked (was it?), what evidence is there it was unlocked?
• How do we actually know Natsuhi was an intended victim? If she was, as the interviewer suggested, who was chosen to replace her?
• If the marks were put on Natsuhi's door to create the impression someone tried to get in and failed because of the charm, why are the marks there in ep2 as well, when Natsuhi (1) never got back to her room anyway before death, (2) never had the charm that episode to begin with, and then (3) why make the marks when the room was - as far as we know - completely empty up until George/Shannon/Gohda were there?

I mean, we've gone over these sorts of questions before. Has Ryukishi? He's either severely underthought his own work or he's toying with his interviewer, which makes all the more specific answers a bit suspect.

[AuraTwilight]

"Umineko is 'the story of a single girl who arrived at that point because she imagined an incident because of the love and madness in herself.'" Imagined, eh? Not caused? I wonder if this is translation or a hint. Going by Author Theory we of course accept that Yasu imagined a number of incidents. What was she actually responsible for, though? The one doesn't necessarily follow the other. Love can make you torture yourself with terrible thoughts. Does it necessarily make you visit that torture on others with terrible realization?

I'm using this as a weasel to deny Yasu-culprit-theory now. Thanks! LALALALALA.

Regarding the Fukuin scene in ep8: "You may as well think of this scene as just showing something nice, as well as showing something sinister." Really. The interviewer didn't seem to really catch on that at all, but it touches on a few things people have brought up here. Is it sinister because of the way we're looking at it, or is there something more fundamentally "off" in the scene, the way Ryukishi sees it?

I took that to mean "Oh nice, Battler's reuniting with Beatrice agai-oh wait that probably means he died in his wheelchair, depriving Ange of her brother again."

Yeah but I'm very dissatisfied by Ryuukishi's answer to Keia, who btw forgot that we also have Kinzo own words that he doesn't like Maria.

Of course that Kinzo is an illusion, but so goes for everyone, including the Kinzo shown in Ep8. If we can't at least trust that the game master of the various stories at least tried to portray the real nature of the people involved then it's as if we don't know anything about anyone. Jessica could be a refined lady, George could be a demented slob (actually...), Maria could be an impressively level headed child and so on.

It's kind of disappointing. Kinzo was unfairly portrayed as a family hater for 7 episodes just because.

But then on the other hand, everyone else's personalities are publically verifiable while Kinzo was basically a shut-in who was left up to interpretation even by the people closest to him. It's not fair, but I find it appropriate for the narrative.

Moreover, the interviewer moved immediately to the assumption that a person needed a master key and needed to have seen the charm on the inside of the door (and thus open the door in the first place) to choose not to kill Natsuhi. Here we run into several problems:

What evidence is there that the door was ever actually opened, and if it was locked (was it?), what evidence is there it was unlocked?
How do we actually know Natsuhi was an intended victim? If she was, as the interviewer suggested, who was chosen to replace her?
If the marks were put on Natsuhi's door to create the impression someone tried to get in and failed because of the charm, why are the marks there in ep2 as well, when Natsuhi (1) never got back to her room anyway before death, (2) never had the charm that episode to begin with, and then (3) why make the marks when the room was - as far as we know - completely empty up until George/Shannon/Gohda were there?

I think what he's trying to say here is that since apparently no one was in the hallway to witness Jessica handing over the charm, the culprit had to have walked into the room (whether it was locked or not) in order to know it was there. Apparently we were supposed to take for granted that Natsuhi locked the door because Genji didn't enter the room or something, but...well, it's Genji anyway. I don't know.

As for who replaced Natsuhi, my bet was that Shannon stepped in.

[haguruma]

I just want to adress some of the things you brought up, because I don't know if it was the fault of my translation or if I just inserted my own interpretation....as well as giving some insight on original quotes.

Originally Posted by Renall

General somewhat snarky thoughts:[list][*]The whole discussion of Land, Virgilia, and Erika sort of makes me wonder just how much of anything he really had planned out from the start. I mean, it's one thing to say "I retooled the narrative to add a helper character," but he always insinuates he pretty much scrapped Land outright and started over.

Well when he said this he basically implied that he only ditched the narrative frame of Land of the Golden Witch, but kept the character-ideas, the tricks and the important plot-points. He only divided them up into EP3-6 (which explains why Vergilius became Erika and only came up 2 Episodes later), because he thought his audience couldn't deal with as much.
I still don't agree with him that he needed Vargilia for that. I always kinda disliked her for being there, especially she made us think way to hard about a person who is represented by Gaap. He later admits that there was no further purpose for Vargilia after that scene where she explains the catbox and logic puzzles and all...so why didn't he just make someone else explain it?!

But it doesn't really pose a problem for the question how much he planned in advance. It's like what Ronove/Genji (don't remember which of both it was) says to Battler at the start of EP6: An unlimited number of gameboards can be constructed from the elements that Beatrice/Yasu gathered, but for them not to fall victim to a logic error they still have to follow a certain law of coherence with reality.
Ryûkishi said he had the whole real-world story written at the start and then constructed all the Episodes around them. He also says he created many more tricks than he actually used. I actually believe him there, because it would have been a much bigger mess if he actually did make the story up as a whole while he went through it.

[*]I found the exchange about the latter half of ep3 kind of bizarre. "Hey, Will didn't talk about the rest of the murders in ep3. Was that important?" "I figured people could figure the rest out." "Well a lot of people couldn't." "Oh. Haha." Well was it important or not?

I think it was important and I think it can be solved in several ways, the problem is I think that EP3 hints in a whole other direction, which I thought of when I translated it.
Basically what defeats Eva-Beatrice is not that Beatrice says that witches don't exist, I think she is calling on a logic error similar to what happened during EP6. EP3 in itself is a logic error because it is not in coherence with what follows: Battler surviving, Eva being in Kuwadorian at midnight, etc.
Of course there are ways to make Yasu survive EP3 until the very end, which is included in my theory and explains both the Nanjô murder (who did nothing to help) and the rescue of Jessica by a Kanon she could not see but hear.

I think Ryûkishi was really struggling with himself not to reveal everything and that is one of the few places he could actually pull himself together. Maybe because, if my theory would be correct, because KEIYA is assuming something totally different.

[*]I'm not sure I fully understand, even after he talked about it, the difference between people "fighting for the truth" and the people who "want to tear everything down in search of the truth." What the hell is the difference? You tell people to never give up, then suggest the people who don't give up are somehow doing something bad. Which is it? If the difference is one wants to "make everything fit," it's already a dead-end approach because there's nothing for everything to fit IN. There really isn't enough information to take a Bern-like approach and have it make any more or less sense than any other truth.

For him it seems to be two totally different things if you don't consider what you might be exposing at all while searching for the truth. Very much like the witch hunters or Tôya did not care what their approach might do to Ange, or how Ange at certain points did not care if she had to destroy any happy memory she had as long as she learned the truth. I think that's what he means by those tearing everything down.
You might call this a very "Japanese" approach towards mystery solving, because it does not incorporate the classical orthodox mystery idea of: truth cleanses the people who survived from the evil of suspicion and codemns one true guilty culprit. But you have to remember that he also admits to read modern orthodox mysteries from Japan like Higashino Keigo or genre-rule breakers like An Offering to Nothingness.

Spoiler for On Higashino Keigo:

He actually often features no solution to his mysteries at all. Instead he has a sealed portion at the end of his books which you can cut open to get additional hints...still there is rarely a clear cut solution and while he insists on always creating the one solution he rarely spills the beans about it.
Though I have to admit that Higashino is heavily criticized by other big names in the genre like Nikkaido Reito, Ayatsuji Yukito or Maya Yukata.

[*]He kind of deflected the idea that people might be critical of his work with "Well everyone has to face criticism, and no work can please everybody." Yes, that's true. That doesn't actually address criticism, especially his handwave in response to that question. A lot of people are critical of the work, mechanically, genre-wise, morally (okay, I might be the only moral critic). No desire to confront those complaints?

I don't know if he wanted to say that (or if it was a flaw of my translation).
What he implied was, that he was hurt by so many critical voices on the internet claiming that his work Higurashi was just a matter of copy-paste and could have featured any kind of culprit and any kind of motive at the end...which he blames on the fact that many people just read a summary and never went through the game themselves.
So he wanted to create a game where criticism can easily be discerned between those who got to the truth and those who just tried to cut short. He's not expecting everyone to like it (though he seems unjustly hurt by those who didn't ), but he wants his criticism to be at least founded on the fact that those people put some effort into understanding what he wanted to do.

[*]The ep2 Second Twilight is a pretty lackluster revelation. It basically boils down to the idea that nobody checked very hard. This flies in the face of a lot of the assumptions that came up later in Chiru, where it's just implicit that nothing important would be overlooked.

Damn, I don't want to sound like somebody who's defending him all the time, but he actually hinted at something behind the makeup cabinet in EP2.
When Battler is checking Shannon's corpse there is no problem, but once he starts looking deeper and deeper (which I actually saw as him looking into her wound at first), Rosa storms up to him, rips him away and says he should stop fooling around, leave the crime scene alone and wait for the police to arrive.
If we assume that Rosa was an accomplice (which Ryûkishi bascially confirmed in the interview) she had every reason to knock Battler away (though I explained it before this interview by thinking Shannon might be alive somehow).

[*]Again George comes up as "saying things she didn't expect to hear." While he spins it a particular way later, it sure is oddly vague. Shannon having "questions" about George. Why is she questioning him? It can't all be about his unrealistic expectations for their love, can it? You wouldn't murder a man over that...

Well, maybe I'm just one of those melodramatic people Ryûkishi was expecting, but I can understand Yasu in that situation.
Imagine yourself being on an island where you cannot expose your true self, among people who are all selfish bastards who are ready to kill each other for money. The man you loved told you he'd come for you and take you away and then after 6 years of nothing he comes back and doesn't seem remember. Then there's this other man who you fell in love with, but he insists that he has to have children later on, not knowing that your body does not permit sexual relations.
Now you are so desperate you want to make everything go to hell and conspire with someone in that crazy family to kill them all...only to find out in the end that man No.2 actually would have given up his dream for you...only now it doesn't matter because you're a murderer.
I can imagine going crazy over that and murdering somebody.

[*]"Umineko is 'the story of a single girl who arrived at that point because she imagined an incident because of the love and madness in herself.'"

The original line was: 「一人の少女が恋と狂気であれだけの事件を妄想するに至るまでの物語」
So to be even more precise and even less grammatically correct: "The story of one single girl who, through love and madness, arrived as far as having the wild idea of an incident of such extent".
It never says that Yasu actually murdered anybody and I think that is part of the truth we have to find. It's like Ryûkishi hinted...why does it become easier when you blame the witch? Who is the witch? Yasu!
Her plan never was to kill them all, but because she knew of the hatred, the conspiracies, all those dark feelings within that family she expected the worst, that people would start murdering each other. But if it actually came to that she thought it would be better if everybody just straight went to the netherworld/the golden land and everybody left could blame her for all the sadness.
What was it that Eva saw on the island that she wanted to protect Ange from? Probably a truth close to the Tea Party of EP7, a truth where her parents are coldblooded murderers (at least in that instance). Why did Battler create EP8 for Ange in the end? Because it protects her from that terrible truth BUT at the same time keeps the dignity of the woman who loved him so much.

I am actually wondering wether the first twilight (in EP1, 2, 5 and 6) isn't a test by Yasu, who wanted to see if his accomplices played along or if they actually went around killing people. The tea party in EP7 shows how much fail-potential the family has...and in EP6 Erika goes around killing people too, "because it makes things safer and easier".

[*]"For example at the first twilight in EP1, when George was told by Hideyoshi 'You should not look at this corpse!' If he had gone in, not minding that there would be no face, he would have seen that there was no corpse." Right, so... why did Hideyoshi say that. Fake murder thing, or what?

He implies it but never says it out loud, but because KEIYA adresses it in his solution I think it might be true: Hideyoshi and Eva are the accomplices in EP1, they knew that "Shannon" was still alive.
There is a pretty obvious scene during the first twilight I only noticed recently. When George asks about wether there is another corpse and who it is Hideyoshi has no problem answering. But when George asks about if there is a ring, Hideyoshi begins stuttering "AH...uhm...wait a minute I have to look" and then Kanon points at something and only then Hideyoshi reacts "Ah, yes...there is a ring" and when asked where it is he hesitates again and only after some seconds he answers that it is the ringfinger.
I definitely have to reread EP5 when he is murdered while Natsuhi is in the closet, that might give some additional insight as well.

[cronnoponno]

I feel like I'm starting to get more and more of what Ryu might be trying to say about the ''truth'' of this story, but it's sorta hard to like, explain it, but it seems to have nothing to do with ''what really happened'', or how the tricks are solved.

Episode 8 only strengthened the feeling in the beginning, and I look forward to seeing the endings to see if what I think is viable.

Spoiler for Length:

Also, while I haven't read any Van Dine's, I don't think they'd put an awesome character, who has a strong love for mystery, in a ''good guy'' area. Will, probably is one of the most ''without love it cannot be seen'' characters in the whole series. He is always going on about how people should never neglect the heart.

I'm sure if we think a little, the Van Dine's rules would probably make Yasu's motive obsolete. For example, Renal's list(a very good one) was talking about the servant thing. This is a major point, if Yasu can't be the culprit because she is a servant in role, where does her motive lie? She became Beatrice in the first place entirely because she was bored of being a servant! She was forced into a servant role since birth. She figured she was unable to love, because she was just a servant, the people she loved were all from a wealthy family that did not want servants TOUCHING their children period, what would you do in this situation if your last hope of salvation was held back simply because you're a servant?

How can there be ''but one culprit''? Yasu has created fake persona's to play the roles that could never have been granted to her, it takes two to create a universe.

How can the reasoning be purely scientific and rational? If Yasu was not allowed to bet on a miracle, and act completely irrational, there would be nothing she could do to commit the crime, besides do something stupid and out of character like slaughter everyone.

''A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story''.
Yeah, not even going to explain why he'd not use this rule.


''A crime must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide''.
Can't defend Ryu here, this is a damn good rule for this scenario, but I believe that Yasu ''committed suicide when she was prepared to blow herself up with everyone else'' as well, or some other workaround.

The 19th one is really good, so Ryu probably wouldn't neglect this one.

The 20th one is something I personally think is good, I have actually found quite a few mysteries where they use a familiar dog, or stupid cigarette brand tricks.
Although they were slightly different each time(as if they were trying to make these come with a little more zazz so as not to bore the reader). I don't know how to approach this one, I know that Beatrice only wanted to point out that it was NOT the brand Rudolph smokes, but does that still violate the rule?

That is, not to say, that these rules are heartless or anything like that. Normally, you'd hate Ryu for this reasoning(and I'm not sure if this is what he was talking about), but I don't know, perhaps this is where we just need the love to see it.



(note this has nothing to do with the first little bit of my post at the top.)

[AuraTwilight]

But it doesn't really pose a problem for the question how much he planned in advance. It's like what Ronove/Genji (don't remember which of both it was) says to Battler at the start of EP6: An unlimited number of gameboards can be constructed from the elements that Beatrice/Yasu gathered, but for them not to fall victim to a logic error they still have to follow a certain law of coherence with reality.

That's not what Genji said at all. The gameboard that is constructed only has to be internally consistent with itself and make logical sense as a narrative; it can deviate from reality as much as you want.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I'm using this as a weasel to deny Yasu-culprit-theory now. Thanks! LALALALALA.

Heh, Renall does raise a valid point there. Plus they never actually discussed about what happened in the real world, or how we call it: "Rokkenjima Prime".

This becomes clear when Keia says that it's hard to imagine what actually happened in reality. Too bad they didn't really indulged on that point.

So yeah it could still be that they were merely talking about the Yasu culprit in the stories, which was already clear.

But with an almost complete lack of informations about the one single truth it's easier to think it's pretty close to what you can get from the fictional mystery.


Still EP8 shove on our face a bright red truth about the fact that Eva's diary definitely contains the truth, and the screenshots that are shown when Ange reads it do not suggest at all that Shannon was the culprit.

Ryuukishi doesn't really seem to have any intention of disclosing that truth in the end.

Anyway Aura, you sure can weasel out the Yasu culprit theory, but at the same time you can no longer say that the Rudolf+Kyrie culprit theory is denied.

(okay, I might be the only moral critic)

I gave up on the moral issue, it's clear enough at this point that Ryuukishi has a twisted morality, I hope that he only does that in his stories and doesn't actually apply that to his everyday life.


Ah BTW, you know if what Ryuukishi actually planned for "Land" was to introduce a character that was basically the male version of Erika, then of course we wouldn't have gotten Erika on Ep5.
If that's true then I'm glad Land was never made.

[Renall]

Well, assuming RK ain't just pissing in the wind, Eva probably wants to protect Ange from something that will hurt her. Although "<random family member> murdered the whole family" would probably hurt her in some way, you'd at least think it has something to do more specifically with a member of Ange's immediate family. Perhaps not all of them, but some.

Maybe love made Battler crazy.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Yeah, its probably someone thats very close to her. Her reaction just wouldn't fit if it was one of the servants or nanjo or whatever.

And if we take what RK said about the possibility that the content caused her to renounce all forms of magic and fall into cynicism and suicide it probably was very shocking and unexpected.

[cronnoponno]

All these spoilers are confusing me, so screw it, I might as well hear it completely.

Spoiler for Just incase:

Okay so, Hachijo Toyha is supposedly Battler, is this the ''female'' ''featherine'' who walked up and talked to Ange? Or was it her assistant that was with her at the time?

A youtube comment I read said there was someone named ''Hachijo Ikuko'' or something learned how to be a writer with Tohya's help, now is THIS Battler, and NOT Tohya?

I'd ask for more spoilers but this little part seems the most important to know.

[AuraTwilight]

Still EP8 shove on our face a bright red truth about the fact that Eva's diary definitely contains the truth, and the screenshots that are shown when Ange reads it do not suggest at all that Shannon was the culprit.

There's ways around that.

Anyway Aura, you sure can weasel out the Yasu culprit theory, but at the same time you can no longer say that the Rudolf+Kyrie culprit theory is denied.

Quoted: Jan-Poo not realizing I was being totally facetious.

@ Cronnoponno "Hachijo Ikuko" is the woman that Ange met and who is represented by Featherine.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Why are the two mutually exclusive? And yes, it's easy to grasp his point; just because a person appears to be a servant doesn't mean they are a servant. But that really wasn't Van Dine's reason for using it any more than the argument against a career criminal means that every mystery's killer must be a person with a spotless past. It's about role operation, not status... yet we're only ever shown Yasu and/or her characters acting in one role until ep7. Any additional role played in the stories of ep1-4 is strictly implied. It's like the detective suddenly concluding that Father Jones can't be the killer because, as a reformed burglar who entered seminary (a fact we never heard about), he is an ineligible suspect. It's a stupid exclusion, yes, so why have Will say it in red? What's wrong with him just stating the rule? He does that plenty of other times.

I missed this.

The problem here lies basically on the different purposes of the rules as they were intended by their authors and as they are used by Ryuukishi.

They were intended as mystery novel guidelines and not as detective tools.

"a servant cannot be the culprit" only makes sense as a mystery novel guideline, because you can't really be sure of someone's identity until the very end of the story.

So just because one character was introduced as a servant it doesn't mean he can't possibly be the culprit.

In the introduction of EP7 those guys of the court of the heavens weren't smart enough to realize it, and apparently Will took advantage of that. It was easy to dodge that red really, those guys just needed to say that there was probably more than met the eyes about that "maid".


Anyway if we read between the lines of what Van Dine really meant it isn't that "the culprit can't be a servant" but more like "the culprit can't be a mere servant".

So I don't think Dine would consider a violation of his rule the case of an important person that due to some circumstances finds herself in a humble position.

In other words more than a matter of "role" and "status" it is a matter of social importance and it is all finalized to give the best narrative impact when the culprit is exposed. Van Dine well understood that "the culprit is the maid" is a lot less climatic than "the culprit is the mayor". But "the culprit is the maid who is actually the family head's secret child born from an illicit relationship who was selected as the sole heir of his vast wealth"... I think it's climatic enough...

Other than this that red truth has no other purpose but screwing up with the readers and Ryuukishi basically admitted it.

@ Cronnoponno "Hachijo Ikuko" is the woman that Ange met and who is represented by Featherine.

I still maintain that Featherinne as well as the Hachijou Touya we have Seen before EP8 is the representation of the "authors" of the forgeries as Ange perceived them. In other words it's neither Ikuko or Tohya but both of them, or none of them, in the end it's an abstract concept just like Gaap.

I say this because Ikuko is definitely different from the Hachijou Touya of EP6, despite having the same appearance.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In other words more than a matter of "role" and "status" it is a matter of social importance and it is all finalized to give the best narrative impact when the culprit is exposed. Van Dine well understood that "the culprit is the maid" is a lot less climatic than "the culprit is the mayor". But "the culprit is the maid who is actually the family head's secret child born from an illicit relationship who was selected as the sole heir of his vast wealth"... I think it's climatic enough...

Other than this that red truth has no other purpose but screwing up with the readers and Ryuukishi basically admitted it.

I suppose you're technically correct, but as you said I don't really like it and Ryukishi seems to understand that there were people who didn't like it.

But again, I wouldn't even really have a problem if Will had just used the rule by itself without any force of red, or if the application of the servant clause hadn't been so... tangential.

I still maintain that Featherinne as well as the Hachijou Touya we have Seen before EP8 is the representation of the "authors" of the forgeries as Ange perceived them. In other words it's neither Ikuko or Tohya but both of them, or none of them, in the end it's an abstract concept just like Gaap.

I say this because Ikuko is definitely different from the Hachijou Touya of EP6, despite having the same appearance.

Well, there's a lot of things wrong with Ikuko/Featherine and ep8 doesn't really provide a satisfactory answer to a lot of them.

[Sherringford]

Now that I'm not driven by mad Ryu anger, I can agree that Dine's rules were more like, as Captain Sparrow would say, "general guidelines."

...Still don't like the way Ryu played around them though. Screwing with readers for the purpose of screwing with readers is not really cool to me.

One thing I never got is why he didn't just give detective rules a different color than red. It would work a bit better, where fairness and story are concerned.

Hell, just having them be gold would make sense.

[cronnoponno]

The part that made me mad was the epitaph riddle.
Although I can't complain since this is Japanese after all, I was really disappointed that the riddle took a turn towards the left, then spiraled downward into a massive hole. First, Japanese character differences, I can understand that, but that screws over my ability to solve it, but that's more my fault. BOOM IT'S SUDDENLY INVOLVED WITH TAIWAN AND YOU START PULLING OUT LETTERS IN A CHURCH WHERE THE GROUND OPENS UP AND LEADS TO A PILE OF GOLD.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

He basically did, since he keeps bringing up stuff like software/hardware metaphors and "You're right, Shannon wouldn't kill George, but what if the Shannon personality isn't in control? The clothes don't make the identity."

Everyone seems to have suddenly forgotten that EP1-2 were fictions, which means the one who has DID is the character Yasu, and that the author Yasu deliberately wrote her that way.

[cronnoponno]

What does DID mean anyway? Delusional Identity Disorder?

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

What does DID mean anyway? Delusional Identity Disorder?

Close, it's Dissociative Identity Disorder. Multiple personalities, basically.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Everyone seems to have suddenly forgotten that EP1-2 were fictions, which means the one who has DID is the character Yasu, and that the author Yasu deliberately wrote her that way.

Impossible, everyone says Beatrice is a good writer.

[AuraTwilight]

Also, Yasu wrote her as being two different people with a third illusionary ghost self. So that excuse doesn't fly. Disagree? Well "pieces can't act out of nature."

If Piece-Yasu has DID, the implication is that the person herself has the condition, or else this whole thing about writing veiled illusions to display the truth becomes even more nonsense than it already is.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Impossible, everyone says Beatrice is a good writer.

She was functionally 16 years old, give her a break. MPD isn't a horrible metaphor for getting her inner conflict down on paper.

The fantasy scenes were added by Tohya and Ikuko later, so illusory ghost Beatrice isn't really a counterargument.