2014-05-04, 03:38 | Link #34421 | ||
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Looking at one of the panels (considering that they are probably accurate) there are about 3-5 pages per bottle...so really nothing much. Especially if you consider that the final score will probably already have taken up one page (for effect). Also, she wanted to be found, that's why she send out the stories on October 3rd, in case a miracle happens and somebody finds one of them early, they could also come to the island or at least report it. |
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2014-05-04, 04:17 | Link #34422 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Ruins of the Golden Land
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Wow, a million thanks haguruma!!!!
I must say, confession really makes me like Yasu a lot less (because what the hell?), but love her a lot more as a villain!!! Quote:
But if that is the case, then what about the Forgeries? Are they just short messages as well, or are they fully fleshed stories? EP6 sure seems to imlpy the latter.
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2014-05-04, 05:12 | Link #34423 |
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I imagine the forgeries are full stories, some of which are based on the brief ones in the message bottle. It would explain Ep 3 a little, as Tohya was just working with the end scroll and filled in the gaps.
Did the mislabeled key trick ever get used? It sounds like they are making it out to be Jessica's Key in Ep 2, and actually right from the start I thought it was suspicious how Ryu emphasised that all the keys looked the same, but I never needed to use that info... |
2014-05-04, 05:12 | Link #34424 | ||
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I suppose the first few forgeries by the Hachijo's were probably only a short story of a few pages, so something like a more elaborate account of what was in the 2 message bottles that were officially found. If we assume that Ikuko really did find the CotGW bottle and made BotGW from it (which is kinda possible considering that Sayo described the possibility of this modus operandi and also described the locked room in it as her personal pride), then it would have probably only been a short story. In the VN she also says to Tohya that she's only dabbling and doing it for fun (since she got rejected) and he mentions that he went through her story in only a few hours...so I doubt it'd be something like a whole 300-400 page manuscript. More something like a 30-40 page short story. Some forgeries will probably fully drop the whole "this is ACTUALLY REAL" angle and go for a more creative approach, since people will get tired of hearing the "true story" schtick for the hundreth time. But hey...they even sell the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as "based on a true story" and some people are swallowing that. Also, if we consider that Ange might have actually gone to Ikuko's house and read a new script, going by gameboard rules it should have at least been possible for her to read it in that time, so it's unlikely it was more than a short story. To be fair, short stories are EXTREMLY COMMON on the Japanese market, especially in the crime, mystery, and horror department...so I think that's what they are Quote:
Spoiler for Solution for the Garden Shed Murder:
Jessica's room is constructed with Shannon's master key, since she only needed to leave Kanon's master key in the room. It is also revealed that the food in the chapel during EP2 was poisoned, that Shannon called Dr. Nanjo in the guesthouse during EP3 and made him forward the call to George (who then went to the mansion and was shot by her). |
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2014-05-04, 08:28 | Link #34425 | ||||
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So... hum... Shannon called Nanjo who handed the call to George or Nanjo just told George that Shannon was alive and had called him? Quote:
I see her as someone going through the 5 stages of griefs. When she started writing she was at the second stage but as she claims she wants to be stopped I think she has moved to the third and soon she'll be at the forth. If she had had the time to reach the fifth she would have probably dropped the idea entirely. |
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2014-05-04, 08:46 | Link #34426 | |
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Location: United Kingdom.
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If the perpetrator put a fake key in the room, and could have used the servant's key, it gives the impression that either they were trying to put suspicion on the servants (which is odd since Yasu is a servant). Or that they were trying to make us think they were trying to put suspicion on the servants, so we would not suspect the servants... arrgh! So we have one or more conclusions to gain from this: 1) The perpetrator is not a servant. Or was a servant trying to put suspicion on themselves (considering that this is a Beatrice' game, this is possible) In writing this I realised that: 2) The perpetrator needed Jessica's key for later on when the all the master keys would be given to Rosa in order to perform the 4th, 5th and 6th twilights. I would love if anyone could suggest alternatives. I may wrong about Jessica's key being able to act as a master key (the labeling could have been switched around, so we don't know what key is a master key and which is any other key).
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2014-05-05, 07:25 | Link #34427 |
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The confession made me like Yasu's character even more. Can't wait to buy this once Yen Press translates EP8.
Shame we don't have this in VN. Maybe Ryukishi is interested in Episode 9 with just this confession. I'd welcome that idea with open arms.
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2014-05-05, 08:10 | Link #34428 |
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It's really disappointing (and fun, of course) how much better the manga seems to be compared to the VN. I really like the emphasis we have on Yasu and her suffering. Much easier to understand her. I just bought the entire ep 1-3 manga from Amazon. I plan on buying the next Episodes too.. Hope Yen Press translates Chiru too.
Can someone explain what she means with the telephone though (In order to make it seem like it was disconnected). I didn't quite understand that part. |
2014-05-05, 10:06 | Link #34429 | |
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This is also why some people said that it explains a little bit better why Kyrie would not be that stupid in killing people before the bomb went off (at least if she already killed at least one person) because the chance to call for help IS there and she was right to suspect that. Yeah, I think we all agree that the manga is finally delivering the finale that Umineko deserved back then. I also love how the Confession chapters are weaving the whole spider and butterfly theme back into the narrative, with Yasu seeing herself as a spider caught in her own web and her thought of becoming free by abandoning her boy/killing herself being symbolized by a butterfly. I'm also really looking forward to the next EP7 chapter in a week, since I suppose it will not only contain the EP2 part but also at least EP3 and I am kinda still wondering about some of those parts (though Confession made it pretty clear that in the first 5 Episodes it is always Yasu). |
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2014-05-05, 17:48 | Link #34430 |
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I actually... don't agree, regarding the finale, at least so far. I'm more disappointed in the ending now than I was before. If anything, I think the moral is even darker, more pointless, more cynical, and more worthy of condemnation, unless he's holding something major back to shake everything up. I also tend to think the characterization has gone off the rails to the point of finally - in this tale of witches and locked room mysteries - breaking my suspension of disbelief. It's almost like Ryukishi was afraid to tip his hand with respect to Prime because he thought some people wouldn't buy into it, and I completely don't. I'd go so far as to say his conception of Prime as it seems to exist is basically less realistic than the in-universe fictions, and that destroys everything for me.
For example: I grasped by the end of ep7 that Yasu's life sucked. I could understand that. Conclusions could be drawn about her state of mind but ambiguity remained as to how much of it was real and how much of it was embellished, and how that might've influenced her actions. The manga has gone too far in that direction, putting her in some kind of Dickensian Hell where everything in the universe conspires to spit in her face and stomp all over everything she has ever wanted or been or done. In such a situation, why wouldn't you give up? It prevents any purchase into the whole "she couldn't see the way out" tragedy because there wasn't ever a way out if her life (and the world) really did suck that bad. It's just... too much. I can no longer accept even the remotest plausibility of her character and can no longer empathize. The ambiguity allowed me to read in humanizing interpretations, but at this point it's just kind of silly and I can no longer convince myself it isn't. The alleged behavior of the adults is the same way; they behave more rationally in the stories than they supposedly do "in reality." Genji goes from a cipher to a completely ridiculous monster. It goes on and on and none of it in the second half of the ep8 manga has actually deepened my appreciation for the characters like it did in the first half. And all this to say... what, exactly? That's really the last stroke and the manga's last real shot at making something of the ending that isn't just a cynical shrug. The way it's building up, it makes Battler's speech about living look like deliberate mockery of his optimism, but I have trouble believing that would've been put in there if it didn't mean something. But in the context of all the new manga information it just seems like the conclusion is something akin to "life sucks, people are terrible, there is no point and no escape, and anyone who claims that people have a better nature is either a dumbass or a fraud." I want to think that's not how it will actually end, and since it isn't over yet there's obviously a fair bit left to show, but at the moment I'm decidedly down on it. Unpopular opinions are hardly uncommon with me, I realize, and I'm not by any means saying I necessarily prefer the VN ending. They're both just... not very good, for different reasons. The only real possibility of salvaging things is that the manga isn't over yet, so it could just be building up all this absurdity for some greater end. If it is, though, it's going to take one hell of a refutation to get me back in line. The only reason I haven't written Yasu off entirely is because I've always been pretty sure she couldn't really go through with what she believed herself capable of doing, but I need to see that. Otherwise driving her to the ludicrous brink of suffering means nothing more than it did before in the VN, where she was already suffering plenty. It's tragedy porn and I'm not buying into it.
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2014-05-05, 18:58 | Link #34431 | |
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You don't like it because Sayo's life is too messed up to be realistic, you don't like it because it's so messed up whatever she does there's no way out, you don't like it because people are poorly characterized or you don't like it because people are monsters? Or all of the above? |
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2014-05-05, 18:59 | Link #34432 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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Nah, Im with you in the general sense that Yasu is a hell of a lot harder to empathize with now than before in part because the manga is making a really good case that she was legitimately insane. But I still prefer the way the manga is handling things over the vn.
What I dont get is how they'll reconcile everything thats going on right now with the magic ending, if they ever will. Nothing good seems to have come out of Maria's/Beatrice way of thinking and having Ange fall into that trap and still treat it as a good thing would be incredibly cynical. Not only that, Ange would be spreading it to others. Quote:
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2014-05-05, 19:08 | Link #34433 | |
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I mean, can anyone say Genji's behavior is even remotely sensible if even half the shit Yasu says he said and did is true? He actually comes across as more human when given less agency within the stories, because at least he isn't acting like a complete asshole for no apparent reason. And story-Genji is a robot, for crying out loud.
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2014-05-05, 19:13 | Link #34434 | ||
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But there's to say the magic ending gives me the feeling that it's just a delusion or a tale to let Tohya met his sister again... and let Battler feel at peace... sort of like Ange gave Sakutarou to Maria. The two scenes are interesting as back there Ange wanted Maria to leave the Golden Land and Beatrice (pointless as Ange is dead and it's just wishful thinking she can leave the GL... unless that GL represent more Maria's spirit not resting in peace and Ange trying to give it peace)... while here Ange ends up carrying Battler to the Golden Land and to Beatrice (either she killed Tohya or allowed the Battler inside him to rest in peace). Not mentioning we've the oddness of Ikuko not looking old... Quote:
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2014-05-05, 19:30 | Link #34435 |
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Well, it's not over, I acknowledge that. But there's quite a few things that were not in the VN that they'd have to address because of what they've brought up as new information in order for me to see something more positive in how it's going thus far. It could be a case of being darkest before the dawn and all that, but the dawn has to actually break before we can say that's what it was.
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2014-05-06, 06:00 | Link #34436 | |||||
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Well, it}s nothing new for me to disagree with Renall, but I think that comes from a different place than "right ot wrong" (even if Renall himself might disagree ) and more from a difference in genre-preference and preference-based expectations.
Let me explain before anybody goes through the roof again: Quote:
I know it's nitpicky, but I think it's important to keep these things apart when you criticize on a high level, like you are doing. Quote:
Much of this "Dickensian Hell" is also a hell of Yasu's own making. She still could have escaped it, just that circumstance raised her into being unable to speak up about it. Yes, she had reason enough to be petrified in a state like her's, but wasn't that the story of Beatrice from the very beginning? A "woman" trapped by the house of Ushiromiya who is finally, through chance, going to reclaim everything in retaliation for what was done to her? Quote:
Does that make him guilty of what happened to a lot of people on the island (at least including Beatrice II, Yasu, Natsuhi, and Rosa)? Yes, it does. He would and should be found guilty for a lot of crimes. But I can't say I find him impossible to believe as a character...he is certainly a heavy trope in mystery fiction, but it's not like servants like this didn't exist. Quote:
The hide-and-seek portion, along with other scenes on Battler's gameboard made quite clear that these people DID have good sides. I also believe that the story we heard in EP7 about Kinzo and Bice's first encounter was true on an emotional level. I haven't really got the money to invest into the older magazines, so I have to wait for the next EP8 tankobon to come out, but there's also still some dialogues between Lion and other characters coming up, so we shouldn't take Confession too much as the center of everything. The thing is, life doesn't suck, which is shown when Yasu is with the cousins, people aren't always terrible, which is shown in a lot of scenes during all Episodes, there is a point and there is an escape (that is not death), the problem is that it sometimes takes courage and understanding. When people don't attempt to understand each other, tragedy occurs. Quote:
What else about "Prime" do we know so far? The rest of Confession still contains things that Yasu assumed about them, those were the characters in her story, which were based on her perception of these people...and if Umineko should have one message then it is that our perception of people never paints the whole picture. |
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2014-05-06, 09:39 | Link #34437 | |||||
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I think we were supposed to see this as the sincere and real backstory to the actual events, but seeing it as-is just comes across as silly. I can't take it seriously anymore. He took complaints against the lack of information as reason to go so overboard on things that he forgot to leave necessary ambiguity in place, and that leaves him vulnerable to someone taking him at his word and rejecting it as too ridiculous to accept. As I understand it, that's not even a new criticism for his work. Quote:
Plus, the overblown nature of it sort of robs her of agency and dramatic importance. "Why couldn't she just write a letter?" is certainly a valid criticism of the VN as it stood, but when the manga reveals the answer is "Because literally everything that ever happened to her in her entire life was the most horrible thing you can possibly imagine" it doesn't work because it's basically pushing it to the point of "couldn't" (in the sense of inability) rather than "didn't" (in the sense of could have, but had reasons to choose not to). She's not a character tragically but believably flawed and unwilling to do what would help her because of her inability to trust that the outcome will be what she desires, but a sad clown ground beneath the boot-heel of life who really has no reason to expect anything good would ever come of her actions because so little ever has. I had trouble with her character before and I won't deny that. I always found her implausible and melodramatic. But I accepted it for various reasons, not the least of which that I was always pretty sure she was innocent of actual crimes. I still think that, but the way I'm being asked to read the rest of her character is just too much and I've slid from "I can't empathize, but I can feel pity" to "this is just silly, does everything really have to be that bad?" I've lost connection to the character and just see the story structure she's designed to support. In general the manga has at this point so marginalized the actions of Battler and Yasu that I have to think there's still something left to be told about their activities on that weekend. If they both basically barely did anything while a tragedy happened around them, it will be a genuinely terrible resolution. The obvious path from here would be to show what Battler actually did, and reveal the truth we've never gotten and that Eva wouldn't have known. But as I said above, I don't have a lot of hope for this anymore. I'm starting to think the author is just a pretty cynical person. See below. Quote:
I suppose the intention was to sacrifice his character to try to salvage Yasu's, but it ends up breaking Genji to just make Yasu less believable. And Yasu already required some suspension of disbelief and acceptance of genre convention. That's gone now. Could this be fixed? Yes, maybe, if it turns out a lot of stuff here was just overdramatization on Yasu's part. Should it have gotten this bad in the first place? No. Quote:
Ep4 had this revival of hope with Ange. There was a moment of understanding there and a degree of critical character growth. She made sense of tragedy, empathized with those who had hurt her, forgave them, and changed. Presumably either Battler needs to have gone through this sort of moment or Yasu did with Battler observing and assisting it. If we lack that, if we aren't shown that, then a non-cynical reading of the text seems like wishful thinking. Particularly when the VN version of ep8 features an Ange who has completely forgotten that growth. I mean I won't hide that I think ep1-4 are better, but this is one of the many reasons why they are. It will be quite difficult to salvage a decent ending out of Chiru, and while I had hope in the ep8 manga in the first half of the run it's fallen pretty flat on its face right now and needs to get back up and really blow everything away. But that assumes that the author wants us to draw that conclusion, and at this point I just don't know. He has to put a refutation in the story to make the notion that he intends to say understanding and love can come through believable. The narrative must rise to a new high point in order to show us that this section was a low point. It has to make the Battler who begged Beatrice to live out to be more than a chump who thinks people are better than they are and capable of more than they can really do. Quote:
It's one thing to argue that she's drawing the wrong conclusion from Battler's behavior, because we know she doesn't have all of the facts. It's another thing to see Kinzo's skeleton pile and Genji's seeming indifference to it and not think that your father was at least a crazy asshole and at worst a mass-murdering asshole, and his best friend an amoral enabler. A number of conclusions she draws are histrionic and unreasonable, but others seem completely reasonable given the not-insignificant information she actually has. If we take her observations as true (and we have no reason not to), even if we filter out her conclusions, it's hard to draw different ones about some facts she knows. And what we get seems, well, completely ridiculous for what we're told is "reality." You might be able to accept it and roll with it but the story was already pushing it for me with bomb clocks and Yasu's ep7 backstory. To believe that things were actually not merely worse, but that much worse, and that Genji was basically too stupid and insensitive to grasp even the importance of basic human dignity... now it's tumbling over the edge. It'll take a hell of a rope to haul it back up.
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2014-05-06, 11:20 | Link #34438 | |||||||
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Again, I get that you are a very passionate reader and especially passionate about topics like moral, ethics and the basic desire to believe in the good in people, and I also don't want you to think that I am placing my view of the story over yours. Still, I also wanna express that your way of expressing your opinion as "the right way to read it", fires up my desire to respond.
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Give me at least an example of what you think doesn't make sense with him? That he supported the family only to have the head of the household decide to kill everyone? Well, in his moral codex it was her given right to decide that...more than that he likely also felt like he owed it to her. That he kept the child from Kinzo though being so loyal to him? Being loyal doesn't mean that he can't be torn about what would actually benefit both Kinzo and the child. And he still can be wrong...like everyone in this story is wrong about almost everything. Quote:
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Understanding isn't impossible, but it didn't happen and that is both the cause and the core of the tragedy. It is possible and it could have prevented this tragedy from happening, but it didn't. That is the message that at least I can take from this, to not fall into the traps that the Ushiromiya clan fell into, to not force your idea of the world unto others but allign it with others, communicate with others, care for the feelings of others. This hope remains in form of Ange. She can still decide to believe in the good that was in her family and carry it on, or if not that at least take a lesson from their wrongs and do it better. Yes, Kinzo failed, Genji failed, the Ushiromiyas failed, the cousins failed, Battler failed, Yasu failed...but does that mean that Ange has to fail as well? Quote:
And another thing, what is this basic human dignity that Genji is too stupid to grasp? |
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2014-05-06, 11:46 | Link #34439 |
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The examples should be self-evident and have been done to death. I don't have a script handy to pull all of them out. I suspect you know exactly what I mean and are just trying to be coy about it.
But alright, let's look at Genji. Genji's treatment of Yasu for her entire life is just absolutely crazy and in no way resembles any plausible human being's thoughts, behaviors, or actions.
Come on, you're smart enough to acknowledge this is just a wee bit silly. Genji does things because certain things had already been established but left vague, and to explain them necessitates an actor. Genji is designated as that actor and the result is that all of these actions he has undertaken have to be explained. And they can't be, because they clearly weren't that well thought-out in the first place and a number of them are retcons.
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2014-05-06, 19:20 | Link #34440 |
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I've to admit that I agree with Renall about Genji. I can wave away some actions Genji make with various excuses but the whole bunch is... just too much.
You don't need to be a genius to know that things won't be easy for Sayo and that many of his actions (hiring her to work for the Ushiromiya when she's too young, let her grow in the belief she's a normal girl who would have no problems living a normal girl's life, doing nothing when she started to show interests in the opposite sex and when she started to show problems with her body and sexual identity) made it even worse and then we even have him force her into a mummery to please Kinzo without her having no explanation whatsoever, then Karma conveniently kills Kinzo right in front of her and they catch this chance in which she's already likely vulnerable to drop on her a long chain of unpleasant truths, part of which she should have known already while the other part instead is made of painful truths she really didn't need to know. And then they go and tell her they want her to be happy? How? And how did they act to help this wish of her to turn true? Honestly, my best theory for Genji is that he also was a believer of the roulette of fate. He just dropped Sayo in fate's hands and washed his hands clean of her, doing only the minimum necessary and most of it was for Kinzo's benefit. But while the roulette of fate can work to explain some choices, some others are just a plea for a horrible life falling on Yasu. Honestly I prefer to think at Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo as villains, I prefer to think they didn't really care about Sayo, Genji was just sent on helping Kinzo not to make the same mistake and Kumasawa and Nanjo were in for money than to assume they were good people, who cared for Sayo but didn't realize if they acted like that they would only made her desperate. That or somewhere we should be informed they were retarded. The fact that Sayo's life is the embodiement of Murphy's law as said previously didn't come to me as a surprise as there were enough hints to figure out nothing ever went well with her. It's a fact I had to deal with prior to the last revelations and that annoyed me back then as really, she has the luck of Donald Duck only she's not in a commedy but in a tragedy. Honestly the only part that I totally didn't expect was Genji randomly showing her corpses and letting her be traumatized by it. It's... well, the last drop. They aren't trying to help her becoming happy, they're trying to push her to insanity. Genji has to be completely void of human feelings to think it was okay to show her that... or okay to tell her the truth about it. And what's Genji sudden need for telling the truth? He lied and hid truth from Sayo and Kinzo for 17 years of their life and now he has to tell her everything in all its horrible details? She didn't need to see the skeletons and if she were to see them by accident he could have made up an explanation for why they were kept there. Instead Genji is just... following the flow. After arbitarily deciding to take Sayo away from Kinzo, place her in an orphanage, have her sex switched and then have her called back to Rokkenjima he just... stand there and watches as the Titanic will hit the iceberg. Yes, maybe we don't know all the truth about Genji, as I said maybe he said he would play along but actually he tried to save her and give her a happy life as he claimed he wanted her to have instead of just watching the show maybe he tried to toss her a glove like Ronove does with Beato in Ep 6 or solve the closed room like Gaap attempted to do and... failed. Maybe Sayo was so desperate that after learning the truth she didn't notice everyone's attempt to cheer her up so we're missing facts. But still, we have some facts and those do not pain a nice picture. As for the understanding... I get haguruma's point but somehow the situation in Umineko is so bad that expecting understanding to happen feels like expecting a miracle. Rosa should have understood Maria. Rosa however was damaged herself and even if she should have understood Maria and maybe wanted to do so, she kept on failing to do so because her repressed anger blinded her so much that she acted before thinking. We see more than once that she beats Maria without even realizing she's going overboard. Rosa loses control and I don't even know if there was someone she could go to get it back since on her own she couldn't get it back. Natsuhi should have accepted the baby. Natsuhi however was a mess at the time and she too lost control to the point she wasn't even secure if she had pushed the servant or not. George should have figured out Shannon had issues. George however failed to question Shannon, believed in how she apparently looked okay and couldn't really picture all those issues. Battler should have contacted Sayo 6 years ago. Battler however had some serious issues to deal with. As for solving the epitaph sooner or figuring out she sent Beatrice's letter... I'm not even sure he could. Ange should have understood Eva... but she lacked the necessary maturity and was in a lot of pain. Eva should have understood Ange... but she was likely traumatized by what had happened and her life was hell. In short... although understanding is still possible... in such situations I don't expect people to understand each other. It would be better if they were to do it but... I'm not sure they can. |
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