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Old 2011-10-24, 04:04   Link #25301
Wanderer
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Originally Posted by AuraTwilight View Post
The whole "Shannon and Kanon are dead thing doesn't even help Battler understand anything; it doesn't even help him understand HER, like she's trying to get him to do. It's just a piece of misdirection that slows down his progress, but does not actually serve to aid his understanding.

There's no reason for it other than to dick around with him. That's why it's dishonest.
Was there any puzzle in the first 4 games that couldn't just as easily be viewed this way?

Beatrice may as well just drop whole game and just show us episode 7.
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Old 2011-10-24, 05:09   Link #25302
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Maybe she should've. But that's a different argument.
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Old 2011-10-24, 06:07   Link #25303
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can someone tell with what's the diference between gold truth and red truth?
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Old 2011-10-24, 08:23   Link #25304
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Originally Posted by battle22 View Post
can someone tell with what's the diference between gold truth and red truth?

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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Old 2011-10-24, 09:34   Link #25305
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Originally Posted by LyricalAura View Post
He's not the Game Master. The GM is the arbiter of what gets accepted as red truth, so in the end everything would have to fit Beato's interpretation.
Once again, you are admitting that the only standard that matters is "what the GM wants." If that is the standard, and subjectivity rises to the level of objectivity (red), any GM who wields their subjectivity to intentionally mislead the player(s) (and failing to make it obvious that they are presenting their subjective interpretation is misleading, full stop) is dishonest.
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Originally Posted by haguruma View Post
Though you could argue that this could have been the subjective memory triggered by what he read as the content of the message bottle. It is a good point though.
Or a fabricated one...

...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.
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Originally Posted by haguruma View Post
These are two different things. Battler was not "given life from the womb of Ushiromiya Asumu", but Kanon "passed away in Jessica's room". It's something that you can consider...killing a part of yourself is not a complete redefinition of death, it's one of many meanings that this word can hold.
Children are shaped as adults by the influences of their parents. For example, Asumu and Battler share a fear of traveling in vehicles. Without that guidance, a person would become entirely different. One could say that the adult a child becomes is "born" from the influence of his or her parents. Therefore, Ushiromiya Battler was born from Ushiromiya Asumu. EDIT: And by the way, this metaphorical definition of being born is used in ep6, so I'm not pulling this from my ass.

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.
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Originally Posted by LyricalAura View Post
But by the end of EP5, Battler was able to figure it out. In other words, Beato put enough information and hints in her stories that she didn't NEED to tell him directly.
She didn't need to tell him. Battler is not the reader. Most people, even people who kinda thought they had an idea what was going on, did not understand what it was Battler realized. In no small part because Battler was privy to information that the audience did not get until after ep5. Battler knew something we couldn't possibly have known ourselves. Oh, we could have guessed Shkanon, we could have guessed she was behind this or that, we could've even guessed Author Theory (and did), but "I suspect this person is important and central to the story" is a far cry from "And then I knew everything about this whole affair."

So... again, it's an admission of a serious literary breakdown.
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Where exactly is the promise that "trusting the author" means that they must have exactly the same worldview as you do? Trust is about believing that the author is trying in good faith to communicate with you, it's not a guarantee that you'll automatically start out understanding them or even that they'll communicate in a clear and straightforward manner. The author might have a good reason to be roundabout while still wanting you to understand.
Are you seriously trying to argue that Ryukishi is acting in good faith? Dude. The things I could tell you about bad faith...

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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Old 2011-10-24, 11:00   Link #25306
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Are you seriously trying to argue that Ryukishi is acting in good faith? Dude. The things I could tell you about bad faith...
I think we can safely say that Ryűkishi merely overestimated what his readers would (like to) do. He didn't write a novel, he was more or less writing a challenge without selecting a proper circle of receivers.
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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Old 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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Old 2011-10-24, 12:21   Link #25308
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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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Old 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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Old 2011-10-24, 12:39   Link #25310
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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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Old 2011-10-24, 12:44   Link #25311
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Originally Posted by battle22 View Post
can someone tell with what's the diference between gold truth and red truth?
Red is factual belief. Gold emotional belief.

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.

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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
Once again, you are admitting that the only standard that matters is "what the GM wants." If that is the standard, and subjectivity rises to the level of objectivity (red), any GM who wields their subjectivity to intentionally mislead the player(s) (and failing to make it obvious that they are presenting their subjective interpretation is misleading, full stop) is dishonest.
I think subjectivity = objectivity was kinda the point. Beatrice could think of Battler as being "born" from Asumu metaphorically, but she just doesn't. Call it convenient, but that's how subjectivity works.

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.

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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.
He's a very good subjective perspective writer. Onikakushi-hen was especially brilliant in this regard, IMHO.
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Old 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.
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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
Red is factual belief. Gold emotional belief.

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.
Note that this is just an assumption, but honestly, Wanderer and Kealym's ideas are more concrete than anything the author actually gave us.

Quote:
I think subjectivity = objectivity was kinda the point. Beatrice could think of Battler as being "born" from Asumu metaphorically, but she just doesn't. Call it convenient, but that's how subjectivity works.
But... what possible reason does she have to have that subjective belief? And what is her basis for the factual foundation of it? It doesn't even make sense if you assume it's one of Touya's internalized conflicts.
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.
True, which is one reason why I'd be willing to forgive a cheap trick in that instance. The problem I have is with the foundation of it. That is, I have no idea how Beatrice knew that to make such a snipe against Battler's psyche.
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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.
That's what intentionally misleading means. When you say something that could be misinterpreted, and don't correct a person's mistaken assumption, you've misled them. If you know in advance their assumption will be wrong, and still mislead them, you've done so intentionally.

That's exactly what Beatrice did.
Quote:
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.
A poor lie is just a shitty riddle whose solution is "You're an asshole."
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He's a very good subjective perspective writer. Onikakushi-hen was especially brilliant in this regard, IMHO.
I was targeted in my criticism. He does some things well, I agree.
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Old 2011-10-24, 13:28   Link #25313
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But... what possible reason does she have to have that subjective belief? And what is her basis for the factual foundation of it? It doesn't even make sense if you assume it's one of Touya's internalized conflicts.

True, which is one reason why I'd be willing to forgive a cheap trick in that instance. The problem I have is with the foundation of it. That is, I have no idea how Beatrice knew that to make such a snipe against Battler's psyche.
I don't know how she knew this either, but from the setup it is quite clear that she did know. It's not like Battler ran into the Red-block when he just happened to bring up Asumu by coincidence; Beatrice steered him to it.

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.

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That's what intentionally misleading means. When you say something that could be misinterpreted, and don't correct a person's mistaken assumption, you've misled them. If you know in advance their assumption will be wrong, and still mislead them, you've done so intentionally.
I could argue with this, but I also see where you are coming from; I guess it just boils down to semantics.
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Old 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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Old 2011-10-24, 14:11   Link #25315
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I think we can safely say that Ryűkishi merely overestimated what his readers would (like to) do. He didn't write a novel, he was more or less writing a challenge without selecting a proper circle of receivers.
I generally think that's an error.
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.

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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.
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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Old 2011-10-24, 14:20   Link #25316
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That's what intentionally misleading means. When you say something that could be misinterpreted, and don't correct a person's mistaken assumption, you've misled them. If you know in advance their assumption will be wrong, and still mislead them, you've done so intentionally.

That's exactly what Beatrice did.
Yes, but deliberately misleading the detective is what a mystery is fundamentally about. The contract of a mystery novel is that we as readers know that we are going to be deceived somehow, but also that the author will include enough hints that we can uncover the deception. The only difference in this case is that we were mislead in a new domain that we weren't expecting, because detective novels don't normally play in the metafiction realm to the extent that subjective and objective truth become objects for discussion.

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:
Originally Posted by Renall
Once again, you are admitting that the only standard that matters is "what the GM wants." If that is the standard, and subjectivity rises to the level of objectivity (red), any GM who wields their subjectivity to intentionally mislead the player(s) (and failing to make it obvious that they are presenting their subjective interpretation is misleading, full stop) is dishonest.
Just because a tool could be used dishonestly doesn't mean that it was used that way. A standard mystery author could throw in an evil twin brother that nobody knows about and spring him on the reader at the end without any hints; that would be dishonest. But it's the lack of hints that makes it dishonest, not that the author didn't have the twin show up at the beginning and say "Hello, I'm the evil twin brother."
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Old 2011-10-24, 14:24   Link #25317
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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.
Does it bother Touya? BATTLER's disposition does not reflect Touya's disposition, but rather the metaphorical disposition of "Battler" as an abstract concept. What really distressed Touya was Ange's attempt to contact him: It made BATTLER more motivated, and a stronger BATTLER is usually a bad thing for Touya.

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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?
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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Old 2011-10-24, 14:25   Link #25318
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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?
To see that, I think you can look at Beato's accusation at the time. Tohya knows he was on the island because he has fragmented memories of it, but all this time he's thought it was because he was Battler. If he wasn't really Battler, why was he there? Did he really come there as part of some financial scheme? Given that he didn't want to accept any of the family members as murderers, does that mean he's the murderer himself?

Battler's existence failure might correspond to Tohya fleeing from that possibility and not wanting to think about it anymore.
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Old 2011-10-24, 14:26   Link #25319
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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.
I guess I agree with you here. There are answers in Umineko that I know are right but simply don't feel logic enough to be right.
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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Old 2011-10-24, 14:41   Link #25320
jjblue1
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
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).
No, it's not nonsensical how Battler could have known it. What I find annoying is how I've to figure out a scenario in which he could have learnt it and find one that I will deem logic enough.

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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