[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[witchfan]

Originally Posted by Renall

Meta-fictionally, all we have to go on is that Battler disappears when Beatrice no longer thinks she has any use for him, and when Battler doubts his own existence. This seems to mirror Erika's situation.

I think rationally, Meta-Erika could have reached the understanding that Erika is a fictional character. That's kind of self-evident, but it's easy to overlook in her position. She could then perhaps come to the "realization" that as a fictional character she doesn't really exist, and combined with her... disposable nature to Bern and her request which Beatrice agreed to grant could explain her conceptual denial.

That isn't to say that, as a fictional character, she cannot exist. She simply reached the level of self-doubt and temporary vulnerability that allowed her to disappear (similar to Battler and ep5 Beatrice, perhaps?). It's at least insinuated that she wanted to be erased.

I suppose we simply don't have enough material to work with. I do think it's a little too superficial to place Erika's reason to be erased on the realization she is fictional. As you said, that much is self-evident, and even she refers to herself as furniture... however related those two terms are. My own opinion, purely speculative, is that she gave up when she realized how even as the Witch of Truth, she could not see the truth. And then she Puffed Herself out of Logic, or whatever, after accepting as a logical contradiction the end of EP6.

In any case, whatever her motive was, you said yourself that conceptual denial does not equal conceptual impossibility. Unless we are given a reason that Piece-Erika cannot exist in her respective boards, I think trying to interpret those boards without her existence is going in the wrong direction. Like I said, I still think there may be something symbolic to Erika, but conjectures about that should be a separate matter. i.e., she can be both YASU (this will become a commonly used acronym) and a person on the board of EP5.

[Keriaku]

I disagree to an extent about Ryuukishi. I believe he /has/ thought this far. While Umineko can be very convoluted to us, I firmly believe he has a very clear concept of his meta world and how it works in his head. He's just slowly revealing it, or he'll leave it up to speculation, but I don't think he's just randomly throwing meta characters such as Erika and Kanon and Clair at us without knowing the implications of them. Based on the fact of how he's been able to set this up this kind of overarching story, not once, but twice with Higurashi, I have more then enough faith that the meta elements and how they're handled are all thought out.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Im still hoping for a MARIA v. ERIKA part deux, she usually keeps her promises and that scene in EP6 was very ominous.

[Jan-Poo]

The problem I have with Erika being erased because she understood she didn't exist, is the fact that there are strong hints that she already knew that to begin with.

In the first place she's always claimed to be Bern's piece, and to have been created by her. She also made evident furniture talks.


I also can't help but to notice that the assumption of this theory is that Erika wouldn't be erased otherwise. But then what was the purpose of the gun duel and all that lengthy explanations about the existence erasing bullets?
I think Erika and Beatrice were both well aware that they didn't exist as humans, but that alone isn't enough to kill a furniture. Hell even Kanon knows he isn't a human, that never made him to disappear.

[witchfan]

Well, Jan-Poo, to rehash what Renall said: it's implied conceptual denial, and not conceptual impossibility, is what's necessary to erase oneself from the meta-world.

I think the denial doesn't have to be one of your phyiscal existence, and you can erase yourself simply by doubting your sense of self; where you stand as a being (as in Battler's case). In light of this, one possible explanation is that Erika erased herself after having an existential crisis of sorts. My conjecture was that rather than realizing she cannot possibly exist, she saw that, while she is the Witch of Truth, she cannot see the truth. This is a problem as big, if not larger than the denial-in-red of Battler in EP4.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by witchfan

Well, Jan-Poo, to rehash what Renall said: it's implied conceptual denial, and not conceptual impossibility, is what's necessary to erase oneself from the meta-world.

I think the denial doesn't have to be one of your phyiscal existence, and you can erase yourself simply by doubting your sense of self; where you stand as a being (as in Battler's case). In light of this, one possible explanation is that Erika erased herself after having an existential crisis of sorts. My conjecture was that rather than realizing she cannot possibly exist, she saw that, while she is the Witch of Truth, she cannot see the truth. This is a problem as big, if not larger than the denial-in-red of Battler in EP4.

Don't forget that she started dying before Beatrice even brought that up. It was when she was disproven about her theory about the closed rooms that she started to melt.

I think it was "Erika failed at her job and thus faded into obscurity", etc. rather than "she knew she didn't exist at all".

Besides, she herself was the one who announced "Hey guys, I'm not really here at all".

[Jan-Poo]

There is still he problem that you think that Erika erased herself, while the evidence shows that even so the bullet was supposed to kill her instantly she still managed to survive for another few seconds through her will power.

Basically she knew she was already done for, but she managed to still stand to be "killed" in a more dramatic way.

This implies the opposite that you are suggesting. That is, that the bullet can still have effect while Erika maintains a strong will to survive.

[Cao Ni Ma]

I think Bern just wiped her out of existence by forgetting she even exists. Maybe that would explain her reaction in EP7, if she is forced to use the piece again she can bring her back.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

I think Bern just wiped her out of existence by forgetting she even exists. Maybe that would explain her reaction in EP7, if she is forced to use the piece again she can bring her back.

Based on what Bern said in ep6, she did not intend to completely erase Erika if she failed. She was going to do much worse. Asking Beatrice and Battler to finish her off entirely was clearly a sign that Erika preferred that they deny her utterly to whatever Bern was going to do.

My guess is that conceptual denial is something that still has to happen via someone else's actions (Beatrice denying Battler, Dlanor and Erika killing him temporarily, Beatrice finally fading out, Erika's disappearance), but requires a receptive state of mind. We actually have a fair number of examples of it, but no clear rules.

Originally Posted by Will Wright

Sometimes I just ask myself, what if Ryuukishi is retarded?

Then we wrote a better book than he did? That's an accomplishment at least.

[witchfan]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

There is still he problem that you think that Erika erased herself, while the evidence shows that even so the bullet was supposed to kill her instantly she still managed to survive for another few seconds through her will power.

Basically she knew she was already done for, but she managed to still stand to be "killed" in a more dramatic way.

This implies the opposite that you are suggesting. That is, that the bullet can still have effect while Erika maintains a strong will to survive.

I don't remember the scene too well, but, in the same way you might be stubborn about a chess game even after it's obvious you already lost, Erika could recognize her defeat and still strongly want to do something. Maybe she still wanted to say her "last words", or have a more complete funeral, I don't know. Maybe she still wanted to win. The requirement (IMO) is that she recognized there is no way she can make a comeback in her situation, not that she no longer wanted to win.

But my memory might be tricking me, and I'm completely wrong here. If you think I'm forgetting something obvious, you can let me know and I'll watch the scene again.

Originally Posted by Renall

Then we wrote a better book than he did? That's an accomplishment at least.

I know this to be true, at least to an extent! Some of the theories I read here are really f(rea)king good. Implausible as they may be.

[CrystalStarlight95]

Lol, Ryukishi is certainly not retarded. Heck, the fact that we are all debating over a fictional world in a fictonal world about a META world watching over ANOTHER fictional world but somehow related to that OTHER fictional world...

Haha, Ryukishi is amazingly genius for thinking this all up. Be thankful for him, for we wouldn't have such a juicy mystery to dissect today!

[AuraTwilight]

Yasu is not solvable by EP 4. I'm sorry, but that is bull. We didn't even learn of a child that Natsuhi received through Kinzo until EP 5 and without that part there's no way you can even think about a Yasu existing. Will said so himself: By EP 3 you knew there was a Kuwadorian Beatrice, but how could you possibly interpret there being a child. Just because Kinzo loved her doesn't mean we knew for sure that he got her pregnant. With the innocent way she was acting it also couldn't be interpreted that she was a mother and Rosa never mentioned anything about Kuwadorian Beatrice talking about a child. Only by EP 5 do we even know that it happened.

It doesn't matter. Does Yasu's parentage and history really matter outside of the bits that motivate her to pull the Shkanontrice stunt? No, not at all. It's just elaboration on something that was already guessed a long ass time ago. It just changes the question from "Why did Shannon do Shkanontrice?" to "Why did Yasu do Shkanontrice?" There is no meaningful difference in the context of the mystery.

Lol, Ryukishi is certainly not retarted.

>_>

[Kylon99]

Instead of Erika erasing herself, could her existence be denied because everyone else realized she didn't exist? From the metaworld and up, that is.

If you think about it, Erika was a tool for one side to attack the other. When the other side realized that she wasn't real, they could easily brush aside this character as irrelevant. This kinda words, right?

EDIT: Oops, Renall kinda mentioned this already.

[Renall]

The idea of meta-fiction isn't all that new. Untrustworthy narratives told by unreliable narrators stacked upon unreliable narrators. The question is, which of the famous works have influenced Ryukishi?

Spoiler for Obviously this would be spoiling lots of things...:

Spoiler for Nabokov's 'Pale Fire':

A novel about a poem by a fictional author (who may or may not exist in the context of the story) with footnote commentary by an individual whose comments strongly suggest him as the subject of the poetry... if any of that exists at all.

Spoiler for Danielewski's 'House of Leaves':

A story about a punk (who may not exist) who finds a movie review (by a man who may not exist) of a movie that, yes, may not exist. The movie narrative described in the review and footnotes conjures up supernatural weirdness in a house whose internal dimensions do not match its external ones.

Oh, and there's red and blue text in it. Watch for the minotaur.

Spoiler for King's 'Secret Window, Secret Garden' & 'The Dark Tower':

A man threatens and harasses a writer, accusing him of plagiarism... except it's not clear if that man exists. But if he doesn't, he's doing a damn good job of affecting reality and tearing down the author's life.

King also appeared - as himself - as a character in The Dark Tower, in which Roland (the protagonist of the novel) has to stop the villains from the novel from killing Stephen King to prevent him from writing the novel that everyone is in. Yeah. Also it's in continuity with The Stand... somehow.

The Dark Tower also directly addresses the reader at one point in the story, asking them if they really want to continue reading and recommending they stop.

Spoiler for Calvino's 'If on a winter night a traveler':

Which is about the reader reading a book, and also the book that the reader is reading. And I don't mean just you reading a book about reading a book. You are an actual character in the novel, and your story is about trying to read some novels (and the various things that happen to prevent you from finishing any of them). Then you read the actual novel excerpts... until something prevents you from finishing again.

There are others that are about fiction or fictionally-aware or which treat the subject matter as a narrative or are just plain bizarre: Infinite Jest, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Slaughterhouse Five, Foundation, Fight Club (arguably moreso the movie than the novel), A Clockwork Orange, "The Trial" by Kafka (which Dlanor channeled in ep6), American Psycho (more the novel than the movie), One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Garden of Forking Paths (though thankfully I don't think South American magic realism is something he's read or we'd be even more screwed).

I'm sure I'm missing a meta-fictional mystery novel (and probably some Japanese meta-fiction, as it's by no means a localized idea in 20th century fiction), but hopefully he's read something preceding it. If not, at least he's pioneering some genre mixing.

The point is (for those not reading spoilers), he could definitely be doing this sort of thing. It wouldn't be taking meta-fiction too far at all. Some of the greatest authors of the 20th century (and also Stephen King) have done it, so it's certainly not niche either.

Now, whether he's a Vladimir Nabokov or more of a Stephen King...

EDIT: Actually now that I think on it, it's quite easy to imagine Ryukishi considering the "message bottle" part of And Then There Were None and asking himself "What if the confession only coincidentally matched the evidence found? What if no evidence was found? The only thing 'proving' a mystery happened is the story that told the mystery itself..."

[Cao Ni Ma]

If the message bottle actually described the numbers in the parlor then the person must have been incredibly lucky or knows what those numbers actually mean. The probability of nailing 07151129 is one in 100m.

[CrystalStarlight95]

>_>

Whoopsie, did I mispell something? xD Sorry, my bad *killed by stakes*

[Uberzaki]

I have a question since I haven't read episode 6 or 7 yet; is Battler explicitly mentioned or make an appearance on episode 7's gameboard?

I just feel that the Shannon = Yasu is just too obvious, there has to be something new twist that could happen. I personally believe that a member of O7th Expansion started the Shkanon rumour and mentioned it regularly to makes it rise in prominence.

I believe the actual reason our Battler didn't return to the Island was because he WAS Lion/Yasu. What I believe happened was that if Natsuhi didn't accept Baby battler, a deal would be struck with Asumu to make her 'give birth' to Battler when both Kyrie and Asumu miscarried (or perhaps Asumu had a ghost baby (if that's the correct term)).

I believe this might make more sense with Battler's being the person from 19 years ago epiphany in EP5 after knowing that he wasn't Asumu's son. If Rudolf was aware of this, it would explain why he went to high lengths to get Battler to come when he had Battler as his son. (hope that doesn't sound too confusing)

If there was a Battler in EP7 then I could guess that he is another of Kyrie's sons called Battler since Rudolf would not have the obligation to marry Asumu and could therefore have a new child without original battler being annoyed.

Did anyone else think of this?

[Zekses]

Yasu is not solvable by EP 4.

Not exactly. There's at least a very subtle hint that Natsuhi didn't really understand why she disliked Shannon - that it was subconscious, in the first half of the 1st episode.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Problem is that we didn't even know the existence of the baby before EP5 and as stated you are able to solve the mystery before at the end of EP4. Even worse is that if Battler was really the baby then he would be the prime candidate for the actual culprit in EP5. Battler has time and time again been declared to not be the culprit in any of the games.

I do agree that Shkanon thing being a dead giveaway. A lot of the elements from the first 4 games felt to intentionally lead us in a direction so that we, using the internet, would elaborate and create possible truths with other readers. In essence we are the Witch Hunt, trying to find the truth and making crazy speculations in the process.

Originally Posted by Zekses

Not exactly. There's at least a very subtle hint that Natsuhi didn't really understand why she disliked Shannon - that it was subconscious, in the first half of the 1st episode.

She could dislike her for whatever reason she wanted.

[Zekses]

She could dislike her for whatever reason she wanted.

Maybe, but we were constantly reminded that it's a detective genre which basically makes a servant being an illegitimate child a very logical and highly probable development.

P.S. I'm of the opinion that there are no unrelated remarks in the first episode as it is basically the real world. All the later setups deviated from reality as witch needed to change character personalities at least a bit to make the board work differently.