2011-10-24, 04:04 | Link #25301 | |
Goat
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Gnawing away at Rokkenjima
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Beatrice may as well just drop whole game and just show us episode 7. |
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2011-10-24, 08:23 | Link #25304 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
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We don't rightly know. Several theories abound, but to try to generalize the ideas, and leeching off of someone else's useful attempt at explanation I can't prove Kyrie is dead, on the Gameboard. But it is a fact that she's dead. I can't prove Kyrie is dead, on the Gameboard. But it's extremely obvious to everyone present that she is. I can't prove Kyrie is dead, on the Gameboard. But it's integral (or more fun) to how I want to write this story that she is, so shut up and accept it. I can't prove Kyrie is dead, on the Gameboard, but that's the story everyone present decided to stick to. Keep in mind that I might be wrong. Also keep in mind that the Gold is so nebulous and admittedly sometimes weaker than the red (which is currently under debate here, anyway), and that's probably why it's only even used, like twice. If we take Lambda's comments at face value, gold truth is pretty close to the heart, or intent, of the author at hand, and it's considered "crude" to use it very much at all. In that sense, you might liken it to authorial handwaving of things in the plot. I dunno. |
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2011-10-24, 09:34 | Link #25305 | |||||
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...what? You never know. Recovered memories are a stone's throw from junk science. I suppose that would go with the Touya != Battler thing, but I don't care about that. Quote:
Oh. Snap. Now what? Oh, it's in the GM's hands? So Beatrice can tell Battler whether he can say he was born from Asumu. Could she subjectively make it so he can't say he's Rudolf's son, too? Apparently! Oh, and by the way... how did she know he wasn't born from Asumu, again? In fact, at what point anywhere in the text do we see anything to suggest anyone other than Rudolf knows this? And if she didn't know it, did she just arbitrarily decide to restrict that red solely to mislead Battler? Oh dear, I do believe she may have done precisely that. You know, if the red is wholly subjective. Admittedly, there is another way to read that scene, but then it merely becomes confusing and somewhat nonsensical. Better that than destroy Beatrice's credibility, I suppose. Quote:
So... again, it's an admission of a serious literary breakdown. Quote:
Now true, I suppose no judge would hold him in contempt for it, and no contract written with that mindset would be considered to have been done in bad faith. But although the law assumes a binary state, the mere fact that something isn't exactly done "in bad faith" doesn't mean it was done "in good faith."
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2011-10-24, 11:00 | Link #25306 | |
Senior Member
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If a famous detective-mystery author does that (like Ayatsuji and Arisugawa with 想看"綾辻行人・有栖川有栖からの挑戦状) they basically have their audience beforehand, because they've written so much in that field. Ryűkishi was basically expecting to play in the big league from the beginning. In Japan most of his fans were Otaku with a slight taste for mysteries, but no actual interest in engaging in mysteries. They are used to stories by Type Moon or Nitro (who write good stories, but no actual detective-mysteries) and didn't even start with the idea to engage in the story. Adding to that is how few people in the West have any understanding of international detective/mystery fiction, the whole Western community wasn't even at the point where he started at. In the latest interview he stated what I assumed for quite some time. He wanted to write for people who read mystery fiction in order to solve them themselves, people who want to beat the detective to the solution, not wait for him to solve the case. I like it how he compared this to the reading of a hero-novel instead of a detective-mystery. His interview partner Ôta is probably not even that wrong when he says that there might only be a few select thousand people who actually engage in mysteries AND are open to new approaches like Ryűkishi expected his audience to do. |
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2011-10-24, 11:38 | Link #25307 |
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I don't think that's really the problem. You act like people are stupid and didn't see his twists. Shit, I remember somebody basically guessing Shkanon exactly as it was around the time of ep4 (before ep5 was even out at all). And the Japanese (and then shortly thereafter several people here) effectively solved the epitaph. Pretty much all the answers Ryukishi had to offer were answers that had plenty of exposure.
The issue wasn't that people somehow couldn't reconcile it at the time with facts or something in the actual text. People did. People "got it." It's just that, almost universally, everyone couldn't reconcile all aspects of the idea because something or other felt off about it. Nearly everyone conceded that things could be the way they (more or less) actually turned out to be, but practically no one was satisfied with it. It isn't because they somehow didn't get something. It was precisely the getting it where Ryukishi failed to actually make things coherent, comprehensible, and care-worthy. A few years and some pity party gap-filling later, and a handful of people are willing to accept it (I would argue due to retcons and pandering, but I'm not going past that declaration right now). After four episodes of rehabilitation. And a bunch of people still don't. Not because they're not open to the ideas, but because the ideas were blindingly obvious but were dismissed as being too stupid to entertain openly. Your mystery elitism is failing you here, haguruma. This has nothing to do with that. Ryukishi isn't clever, he isn't a good mystery writer, he's sure as hell not a good romance writer, and the only reason the book hadn't been closed on him two years before he closed it himself is because (1) nobody thought he would actually consider his twists a good idea and thus assumed they were missing something that would make the work actually good, and (2) he lied solely to stir up contrarian debating that would guarantee his readers didn't reach consensus too quickly. EDIT: And just to be clear, anyone calling anything Ryukishi did in Umineko "novel" is simply incorrect. He offers no new approaches and employs no new techniques, and the only new perspective he offers is into his own extremely messed-up notions of romance and morality. I wouldn't even bet on him being the first person to write a disappointingly gimmicky mystery-romance with meta-fictional elements.
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2011-10-24, 12:21 | Link #25308 |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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I'll respond to other stuff later, but I want to correct this bit:
The part of the interview haguruma brought up is actually referring to what Ôta believes to be the size of the anti-mystery fanbase in Japan, based on his publishing knowledge. Namely, the people who would be likely to be happy with an ending that didn't give an explicit answer. It didn't have anything to do with Ryuukishi claiming his tricks were too "novel" -- actually, Ryuukishi himself says that he deliberately used mostly reflavorings of classic tricks.
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2011-10-24, 12:33 | Link #25309 |
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Nobody was really expecting an explicit answer (or at least, nobody was sure there'd be one) by the time ep5 was coming out, however. This notion of audience-selection that's getting bandied about in the thread right now seems entirely irrelevant to anything. It seems like casting a line in hopes a reader group that wouldn't find the entire thing a flop will bite.
Ryukishi knew his audience. If he decided to write to a different audience, that's fine, but he sure acts like he had to accommodate his actual audience to the detriment of his work. And if he did accommodate them, then he essentially made steps to betray his supposed "actual" target audience's expectations by altering the work to be more accessible. Which one is it? This whole conversation is absurd.
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2011-10-24, 12:39 | Link #25310 |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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People making assumptions based on out-of-context snippets of the interview is absurd. Which is why I haven't posted any more snippets of it, and won't until the translation is finished and I've had it checked by at least two other people.
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2011-10-24, 12:44 | Link #25311 | |||
Goat
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Gnawing away at Rokkenjima
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It's impossible for Henry to be the culprit, because he was with me all night. It's impossible for Henry to be the culprit, because I believe in Henry; he wouldn't do such a thing. Quote:
And I'm not trying to defend Beatrice on this point, just the logical consistency of Red. Using Red in the way she did in this particular instance was a cheap, mean, and abusive trick which she used because she was mad at Battler. I realize I have said before that Beatrice intentionally mislead Battler with S/K is dead, but perhaps I should rephrase. She didn't intentionally mislead, but she said things she was aware would be misinterpreted. Her goal wasn't to fool Battler, but to give him a difficult riddle and hope he would solve it. Of course you're free to call it a shitty riddle, and I wouldn't really argue with that. But it's different than lying. Quote:
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2011-10-24, 12:45 | Link #25312 | ||||||
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I'm responding to what he's actually saying, not necessarily to what he's basing it upon. If he is making mistaken assumptions, that's his problem. What I'm reading between the lines seems to be a desire to excuse poor execution with novelty or the insinuation that somehow the work just "isn't for" the people who find fault with it.
I try not to rip overly hard the people who just say "I dunno, I liked it overall, I thought it ultimately worked out," even though I disagree with their conclusion. It's this undercurrent that somehow nothing is wrong and that some select group can "get it" that is bothering me. Quote:
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That's exactly what Beatrice did. Quote:
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2011-10-24, 13:28 | Link #25313 | ||
Goat
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Gnawing away at Rokkenjima
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I don't understand your problem with Beatrice having this information. Sure, it wasn't explained, but that doesn't mean it is nonsensical. Maybe Battler learned it from Rudolf on the island in 1986, where Touya's memories are fuzzy, so part of Touya knows (Beatrice) and part doesn't (BATTLER). But personally, I think Ikuko=Yasu makes a lot of sense in times like these because it allows Beatrice to be an active external agent instead of just a shadow projection in Touya's mind. Quote:
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2011-10-24, 13:48 | Link #25314 |
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My main problem with the whole "what if Touya knew it" is that it escapes one problem (how Beatrice would've known it) and runs smack into another. Yes, Yasu/Beatrice doesn't need to have known it if it's an internalized thing specific to Touya's journey of self-discovery. But there's still one major issue I have with it.
Namely, why does this bother Touya? Ushiromiya Battler is a person he barely knows. His memories of Asumu may not even exist, or may barely exist (after all, we see almost no mention of her in the story). While it might trouble 18-year-old Battler to learn that Asumu wasn't really his birth mother after all, it shouldn't have such a surprising effect on 18+-year-old Touya. Thematically, what does Battler's temporary negation mean in such a circumstance? Why would this information make him stop thinking, or stop "playing" his internal game with the witch? Why would he believe the witch in his head would get upset with "Battler" and try to get rid of him? What about all of that would've made him have a sudden mental breakdown or change of heart, and then what was it that got him right back into it? It's easy to understand the motivation for Battler, but if we take it a layer up and claim it's actually about Touya, then the motivation must also be his own. What was that motivation and what effect did it have on him?
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2011-10-24, 14:11 | Link #25315 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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As author he's supposed to know who will receive his work and, if he's aiming at changing his target, he should find a way to warn his usual readers and his wanted readers beforehand. He's writing Umineko in order to sell it. It seems it didn't become a financial flop and didn't damage his career but not everybody is so lucky. It's sort of unfair toward the readers also as they paid to get Umineko and then discovered it was something that didn't fit their tastes. Maybe with Umineko he wanted to change his fanbase or expand it... and maybe fans in Japan had a fair warning and just failed to listen it so maybe I'm being unfair toward him just because I didn't have access to all the info they had still I get the feeling something went wrong in the comunication matter. Add his ideal readers were people who like "logic mystery fiction" and therefore wouldn't be upset if realism were to fail as long as the logic puzzle could still work and that weren't interested to check if the answer they got was right and I'll agree with you. |
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2011-10-24, 14:20 | Link #25316 | ||
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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You can argue about whether or not you think it was a good trick or that the hints were too obtuse, but I think the existence of people who reasoned it out before EP5 is sufficient evidence that Beatrice, and by extension Ryuukishi, did in fact put the hints there. The mystery contract wasn't broken. Getting back to what you said earlier: Quote:
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Last edited by LyricalAura; 2011-10-24 at 14:39. |
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2011-10-24, 14:24 | Link #25317 | |
Goat
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Gnawing away at Rokkenjima
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Touya's kind of an innocent bystander in all this. His motivation is purely a matter of moral obligation to Ange. He doesn't want to have anything to do with Battler, but he reluctantly accepts the truth that he is (was) Battler for Ange's sake. |
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2011-10-24, 14:25 | Link #25318 | |
Dea ex Kakera
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sea of Fragments
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Battler's existence failure might correspond to Tohya fleeing from that possibility and not wanting to think about it anymore.
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2011-10-24, 14:26 | Link #25319 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
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Maybe Umineko didn't explain things enough or maybe I can't connect enough dots but some stuffs leave me with an 'okay, so it went this way... but what's the logic about it going this way?'. Since Umineko doesn't offer a precise answer but let me wondering, I can make up my logical explanation but it still feels like I'm forcing things because, to make my logical explanation work, I've to assume too many things and I might still be far from the target. In Ep 3 Nanjo lied about Shannon and Kanon being dead. Why? I can come up with several answers but none of them feels convincing. Shannon and Kanon are the same person. How Yasu managed to pull this off? Again, I've my own explanation but can I prove it being right? And we go on and on till I feel more and more like I'm in a guessing game instead than in a mystery. |
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2011-10-24, 14:41 | Link #25320 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Let's assume Rudolf told him on Rokkenjima, which is what the game seems to hint. Why did he wait until they were on Rokkenjima? Battler was back home by some time, wasn't it easier to tell him while they were at home? Why waiting the family conference? Did he also told Kirye? In Ep 7 it seems he didn't even if Kirye was sort of threatening to kill Battler. If he didn't why did he told Battler and not to Kirye? I'm left assuming a whole scenery for a situation I don't really know well (we've no clear idea of what happened on Rokkenjima Prime) in which I've to search answers I'll find satisfing and that I'll be in no way able to check if are right. Although a part of me have fun at searching the answers, the other side grows frustrated at not being able to check them. In the end I perceive the whole as 'the author gave him this knowledge but didn't bother explaining how he got it because he didn't bother planning how he would get it'. I might be wrong and maybe Ryukishi planned everything but I fear I'll never know what he actually planned... |
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