2013-08-26, 10:09 | Link #32921 | |
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There's no way to know for sure, since we don't know two things: What Genji's actual motivation was in structuring Yasu's life (since we never get into his head), and whether Yasu's body image issues are based on something real or imagined (since we don't know what the "flaw" specifically even is). I think Ryukishi probably intended us not to question it, but it's so stupid it's hard not to. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to Yasu whether it's true or not, as Yasu believes that it is true and acts accordingly. But it might say a lot about Genji and Kinzo if a lot of the backstory Yasu has filled in for herself is imagined. That said, it seems highly likely there actually was a baby as otherwise everything Natsuhi is feeling guilty about doesn't exist, and that guilt must come from somewhere. As I said, likely and probably intended, but it's odd that he's left enough of a gap to doubt by being so vague. And the existence of a baby doesn't necessarily mean Yasu was the baby. After all, Yasu can never know that.
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2013-08-26, 10:46 | Link #32922 | |||||
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It's also possible to assume that Beato was Beatrice's daughter but Beatrice could have conceived her with an Italian officer, which would explain why, to Kinzo, she looks so much like her mother. Since often foreigns look all the same if Beatrice resembles her mother and doesn't have Japanese features she can look completely like her mother to Kinzo after so many years he's also not seeing the original Beatrice. Kinzo might be unaware she's not his daughter or might know but decided to pretend he doesn't as he doesn't like the idea the first Beato might have loved another man and raised second Beato as his daughter. However, when he fall for her, he might have decided that, since she wasn't really his daughter, it was okay to court her. Not that it matters for Beato since, regardless of Kinzo telling her the truth or not, she views him like a father figure and not like a lover. As for Yasu resembling Beato... she was dressed up like her, was wearing a wig and make up. And Kinzo was old, probably sick, with not so much time to live. It was night and we don't know how well the place was lighted but, more important, Kinzo wanted to believe she was Beatrice. Maybe even if Genji had dressed up like Beato he would have believed him to be Beatrice. After all if we compare Yasu's behavious in that scene it doesn't seem to match with Beato 1 at all and it doesn't match well with Beato 2 either. The real problem is the red that comes after. Quote:
Or it can be a truth of the gameboard and therefore not be related to Prime. Still, it's the hardest point to wave away. Quote:
Honestly I would have preferred if Yasu wasn't Kinzo's child considering she ends up being forced to work as a maid at such a young age in the house in which she was supposed to become the head. Instead, if she wasn't Lion, I could accept more easily how Genji thought it was okay to have her working as a maid for the Ushiromiya. Also, if she really somewhat resemble Beatrice, she's defined a girl and work as maid for the Ushiromiya, it's way more easy for Kinzo to persuade himself she's Beato reincarnated and make a move on her and in her condition it would be even harder for her to refuse him. Considering he said he hid her because he feared this... hiring her it's like if he handed her to Kinzo on a silver platter. Quote:
Still this would require to have another doctor involved in a sex reassignment surgery... it'll be interesting if the manga were to show us there's such a person. Still... why to lie to Yasu as Kinzo dies short after? If Yasu were to claim to be Lion Natsuhi and the other siblings would, for sure, check if she really is who she claims to be or not. Unless Genji plans to blackmail Natsuhi, who knows the baby was a male, into silence due to her guilt? LOL, Will wouldn't be happy with me but evilmastermind Genji is a fun theory! Quote:
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2013-08-26, 11:11 | Link #32923 | |||
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Dramatic red, and also a lot of it is descriptive, predictive, or opinion. I am sure Yasu believed all of that, and sees herself as having some injury. Doesn't prove it's true. Yasu can't know it's true. The only people she has to get information from are Genji and Nanjo, who are known liars, and Kumasawa, who we aren't sure enough about to say how much she could have or would have known and told her.
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Ultimately if Yasu were to claim it's true, there's basically no evidence for it and thus nothing to find, and any evidence that does exist has been under Genji's control and could therefore have been doctored. There's basically no way for Yasu to prove anything if the adults choose not to accept her claim, but there's also no easy way for the adults to dismiss her claim, especially since Rosa knows for a fact that a woman did live on the island in the 60s. The only sure test would be a genetic one, which should turn up... interesting results if Kinzo was both her father and grandfather. As well as interesting information about Yasu's biological sex. But good luck getting a sample from an asploded person. Quote:
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2013-08-26, 11:19 | Link #32924 | ||
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Also, this doesn't seem to be a full-on sex change operation we're talking about here. Actually, I imagine it probably basically just amounted to a castration, done out of necessity because of the irreparable genital damage. I'm pretty sure that there are actual cases of boys being accidentally castrated at a young age and subsequently raised as girls. You are both right that Genji's plan is pretty screwed up and nonsensical regardless, though. But it's not like Yasu not really being the baby makes that any less the case, so by Occam's Razor it seems better to just assume that she is. |
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2013-08-26, 11:37 | Link #32925 | |||
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A better question is why, even if we assume everything is true, anyone ever told her in the first place? Like try to envision for yourself a scenario in which Genji or Nanjo feel compelled to even bring this up. Why? Why would you do that? It only seems rational in response to Yasu confronting them about something, be it her perception of her own body or some knowledge she's learned from Natsuhi or Kumasawa or somebody which calls into question what Genji and Nanjo are up to. At that point why would you give that particular story? If they're telling the truth that's unbelievably cold, and if they're making up a lie it's an absurd one. "You were born like that" isn't good enough for them? If she was just like "Hey, something about my body doesn't seem normal, do you know why?" I can think of plenty of nicer lies that will get her to stop asking than "Yeah you were originally Kinzo's male son with his own daughter but Natsuhi pushed you off a cliff and Nanjo had to castrate you because of the injury and then we introduced you to an orphanage as a girl and brought you back here to work for a decade in and around the environment where your rapist dad lives. Our bad." Quote:
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2013-08-26, 11:50 | Link #32926 | |
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2013-08-26, 11:54 | Link #32927 | |||||||
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Of course it's also possible to consider that red as 'Yasu really said so'. Or, even more easy, on Beatrice's gameboard that's true, in Prime it's just Yasu being deceived by Genji. LOL, it's rather amusing how 'untrustworthy' can be red for being 'simply the truth'. Without context a truth really doesn't mean much. Quote:
As for the motive of this lie we have: - he wanted to please Kinzo - he aimed to use Yasu to control Kinzo's fortune ... though ultimately he doesn't do it officially... he's using Kinzo's money as Yasu can put it into bank accounts so... was he maybe taking much more of it and, where he to be discovered he would use Lion/Yasu as excuse? Or maybe Kinzo's suddent death was a problem for his plan because Kinzo didn't manage to write a document officializing Yasu's position as heir so he gave up on controlling Kinzo's fortune but, by then, Yasu was persuaded she was Lion? Quote:
Though I don't really know how law in Japan work and if Kinzo can kick out of the family his legittimate children and acknowledge as heir Yasu. And, after all Genji might not know as well and think it'll work. Surely Kinzo seemed to think he could make Lion his heir if he were to find him... though Kinzo might think so because he believed no one would argue with his decisions and not because his decisions are supported by law. Quote:
If Natsuhi wanted to be alone all she had to do was to say she wanted to go for a walk alone, if the servant suggested to come with the baby all she had to say was it would be better to make the baby rest indoor. But that's secondary. All we can prove is that a servant died on Rokkenjima. We can't really prove how. I wonder if the police investigated about it because if she didn't we can't even prove where. We've just Genji's word. Probably it's possible to prove Rosa was on a schooltrip and Krauss was out working without Natsuhi so likely Natsuhi was on the island. It seems no other maid apart from Kumasawa and the one she died saw the baby so it can be the maid really was victim of an unfortunate incident, like Genji said to the husband. We can't prove if Natsuhi felt guilty for her death or if she was with her but there are other ways for her to feel guilty for her death that doesn't include her pushing the maid off the cliff. Maybe Natsuhi knew that place wasn't really safe but she forgot and sent the maid there... or she didn't warn everyone that place wasn't safe so when the maid went there she met her death. Quote:
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Ergo Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo make up an unbelievable story that feed further Yasu's fantasy. Quote:
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2013-08-26, 12:09 | Link #32929 | ||
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So really, maybe Nanjo is the best doctor ever but Umineko doesn't present him as such a great doctor... and I would think a sex-changing operation on an infant, or even just its castration, isn't exactly that easy he could do it with no problems. Though maybe it's a lot easier than I think. Quote:
He might think he had repaid his obligations to Kinzo by serving him and to Lion by sparing him a destiny like his mother. |
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2013-08-26, 12:17 | Link #32930 |
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If Yasu and Lion had the same chromosomal disorder, due to inbreeding, that may not have been easy for a family physician to diagnose in the mid-80's. This is more plausible than injury, since any damage to that area would shatter the pelvis more certainly than the genitals. Hir walking pace would be noticeably hobbled if hir junk was wrecked by blunt force trauma.
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2013-08-26, 12:32 | Link #32931 | |
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2013-08-26, 12:56 | Link #32933 | |
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Treachery of Images is such a prevalent theme in this story that I can't tell if the differences really appear this drastic to anyone within the setting, or if that's just for the sake of distinguishing the characters for the audience. |
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2013-08-26, 13:03 | Link #32934 | ||||
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Genji is a big fat Later Queen Problem staring everybody in the face, and it's probably one of the more Anti-Mystery aspects of the solution as presented. As long as we don't know his heart, his head, it's hard to know if everything we've been presented is even true. All the things Yasu knows about herself, all the things she relies upon, are fundamentally controlled by a gatekeeper who has chosen to present a particular story as the truth, to no apparent gain to himself. Now we can say "well, he really is just that loyal," but we can't know that, especially after Kinzo dies. Hell, we don't even know how many things Genji does are his idea or not. He can and does justify everything as the "Master's wishes," but he's always evasive on which master he's talking about and we never see those orders being conveyed. Is Yasu the new master, the hidden heir, manipulating matters from behind the scenes? Or is she a dumb kid with a fanciful imagination who has jumped to a series of wild conclusions about her life and played right into somebody else's hands? Who filled in the gaps in all of these disparate facts about a submarine base and a girl living on the island in the 1960s? Who knows everything? Who can confirm everything? Yasu can't, but there's one man who can... but did he? We have no idea, and no way of knowing. It's hard to accept robot-Genji and the submarine story and the three generations of Beatrice and all of that knowing that it's a tainted informational line that only a tiny number of people actually knew (half of them dead). And Yasu may not be as clever as she thinks she is... or at least Genji might not think she's as clever as she thinks she is. Thought about this way, we suddenly have a very different Yasu Culprit angle that might, perhaps, be more justifiable... or maybe nothing of the sort was going on at all and all of this speculation is nonsense cooked up by Witch Hunters to try to explain a silly game gone wrong.
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2013-08-26, 13:29 | Link #32935 |
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Huh. Ignoring Knox 8th not only lets you rest your case with the easy conclusion, it also lets you bewilder yourself in rats mazes never laid out by the text. What's the material implication of "if solution exists then clues to that solution exist"?
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2013-08-26, 13:35 | Link #32936 | |
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But Ryukishi can release a new TIP at any time called "What Genji Was Really Thinking" and completely alter our understanding of who was doing what. I'm not saying he will do that or that he even wants to do that, but he could. He's even said as much.
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2013-08-26, 13:38 | Link #32937 |
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But we do understand that game mechanics apply in a game, and if the narrative specifically flags those mechanics for you, we should just ignore that, cherry pick from points of view known to be unreliable, and speculate wildly on the unsubstantiated. Good luck.
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2013-08-26, 13:41 | Link #32938 | |
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He may not have meant for that to happen, but sometimes the coolest parts of a text are accidental or unintended. Keep an open mind, especially when you don't even know what you're arguing against.
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2013-08-26, 13:59 | Link #32939 |
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Turning the board around on the assumption that the moves made are by Genji's design doesn't reveal any character significance. He may look suspicious at points, but in the broader scope, any influence he may have had did nothing to serve him. His role is parallel to his alter ego Ronove, he has no stake, so he simply observes the dynamic with his dignity.
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2013-08-26, 14:05 | Link #32940 | |
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Note that any scheme he may have had may have been immaterial to events as they actually played out.
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