[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[battle22]

Originally Posted by ALPHA-Beatrice

Is your Seacat a way of creating a new Game based off the 8 Novels? If so, wouldn't that be similar to Battler's 6th game that he used to reveal the truth?

No, my Seacat is just a parody project.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by theforgot3n1

Still kind of odd that witches would yield to such a unstable "truth". Dlanor could have kept arguing against Battler if that is definition of golden truth. And if they were fated to find Kinzo's body later anyway, and it was stated in red that he was dead, then he should have been required to use a red to make Dlanor give up that thread. It is, technically, possible for Kinzo to be alive...

Maybe because while it is not aligned with the Mystery definition of truth, it is probably something like an Axiom. So when the Detective claims something very unlikely (like moving far, far away from the realm of plausibility and just introducing something for the case of a Why-Dunnit for example), but still possible in the context of a Mystery and not going against Knox, it can still be denied by the characters. "No matter what you say, they won't believe it, because of all them think otherwise". I guess golden truth is one of the "Anti-Mystery" aspects of Umineko, which is why it is sometimes "weaker" (Maria's candy trick) and sometimes "stronger" (Kinzo having a body double having no reason than to make matters complicated) than red truth. Maybe we can consider it as a counter-balance against Knox/Mystery elements abuse. It's strenght probably comes from the "Why-Dunnit" aspect. Like I already mentioned, Kinzo having a body double seems completely pointless and there doesn't seem to be any logical reason behind that idea, aside from "Mystery rules".

i.e. golden truths can beat red truths without a "heart".

It is like the Mystery goats from EP8. They "stopped thinking" and reached a point, where their points started to become fantasy again.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

I guess golden truth is one of the "Anti-Mystery" aspects of Umineko, which is why it is sometimes "weaker" (Maria's candy trick) and sometimes "stronger" (Kinzo having a body double having no reason than to make matters complicated) than red truth.

Yes, it is kinda anti-mystery in the sense that I would call it, "the power of belief".
The stronger and unshakable your belief in something is, the stronger the Gold Truth gets, so strong that it can even beat the undeniable Red Truth. This is Kinzo's corpse is something that everybody believed, so much that there is no reason arguing around it, everybody at that point believed it was Kinzo's corpse and everybody else was just playing around with possibilities if it "maybe wasn't".
Maria's candy trick was easy to shake because there was so much evidence against it, on the other hand Ange's belief in her family being alive in "any form whatsoever and be it spirits in her heart" was so unshakable, probably even a death certificate wouldn't have broken it.

It' basically the sword of the Later Queen Problem. There is always doubt that the truth uttered at the end of the novel is incomplete, built from a perspective or downright falsely constructed from the very beginning. And in that little gap of doubt the Gold can shine.

[GreyZone]

On that day... the Umineko community received a grim reminder... that we are caged in the retired section

Some threads are not locked yet though, so we can continue to discuss!

[battle22]

This is so sad. If we are retired, do we even exist? Hey... who are you people, where is this place, who am I?

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

On that day... the Umineko community received a grim reminder... that we are caged in the retired section

Some threads are not locked yet though, so we can continue to discuss!

Indeed, As long as Love exists, so will Umineko. The seagulls will cry once again.

[GoldenLand]

The MAD and images threads are locked.

At least a reasonable amount of the non-anime related threads are still open, but this is still rather concerning, especially if the site progresses to shut down further threads.

Are there any other Umineko forums that people hang out at? In case things were to all get shut down here, I'd like it if there was somewhere pre-determined that fans who post here could jump ship to.

Edit: There is /Seacats/, of course. When The Seacats Cry has surely taught us that properly! It's active and it's a nice place. But I don't think it would be a perfect substitute for the forums here. I find the image board style of discussion a little hard to read.

[Drifloon]

Unfortunately I think this is pretty much the only particularly active Umineko discussion forum that's still around, as far as I know? /seacats/ is there, of course, but most of their members aren't really interested in discussing Umineko itself any more. Tumblr seems to be the only place where there's still a lot of Umineko talk going on, but that's a completely different atmosphere to an organised forum like this.

It's sad, but it feels like Umineko's fanbase is slowly dying out; even this place hasn't seen much activity in the last little while. I shouldn't think that this forum will ever be completely shut down, though; it doesn't seem to have happened to any of the other forums that are in retirement.

[Thunder Book]

How much is there even left to say about Umineko at this point that isn't just a reiteration of past ideas?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all the discussion here immensely, but this seemed kind of inevitable, don't you think?

[AuraTwilight]

Yea, pretty much.

Personally, I blame Ryukishi for not having the balls to put a proper conclusion to all the plot-threads we set up. We can't even properly appreciate the themes, myth-arc of the characters, or otherwise analyze the novel in a satisfactory way because we can't get people to agree on basic fucking precepts.

[battle22]

^ No truer words have been said on this sub-forum...

Sigh, Ryukishi...

[Drifloon]

Well, I feel like the Stupid Goats readthrough has been doing a pretty good job of analysing the series in a comprehensive way that seems consistent with Ryukishi's intent. I'm not going to deny that Umineko could have been better executed in a lot of ways, but I don't think it's impossible to appreciate it for what it is.

I'm curious as to which particular basic precepts you're talking about though. At the very least it could prompt some interesting discussion.

[battle22]

I think what Aura meant is that every individual has their own view on something and when they post their interpretation, instead of a discussion it turns into an argument, because...we just can't agree xD And that's the problem.

[haguruma]

Though I don't know if that is something that Ryukishi was ever in any duty to do.
There is a town of open-ended mystery novels in the world that are still being discussed...I don't know why that is a problem here

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Well, I feel like the Stupid Goats readthrough has been doing a pretty good job of analysing the series in a comprehensive way that seems consistent with Ryukishi's intent. I'm not going to deny that Umineko could have been better executed in a lot of ways, but I don't think it's impossible to appreciate it for what it is.

I'm curious as to which particular basic precepts you're talking about though. At the very least it could prompt some interesting discussion.

Yea, that's the main thing. We can talk about stuff that seems to be Ryukishi's intent, but beyond his narrow road he's shut down most avenues for discussion without inevitably collapsing to arguments about basic points.

"I find the idea of Kyrie/Rudolf as culprit sort of interesting because IF they did it then all these bits change and--" "But there's several reasons why they can't be the culprit."

"Yasu's character becomes really interesting because she reacts to these things based on some uh....EXTREMELY vague and undefined sexual/gender issue she has.
Whatever the hell that might be."

[Thunder Book]

Yasu is a pretty emblematic of the problems with Umineko. Ryukishi at first seemed like he had something to say about gender identity and sexual orientation with that character, but then it just...doesn't go anywhere beyond being a backstory for the Shkanon solution (Which many people still don't even accept as an answer to the Game Boards. Let's not even get started on Prime). Is Ryu criticizing transgenderism with Yasu? Trying to endorse it as an acceptable way to live that Yasu was sadly unable to embrace because of social values in the 1980's? Or maybe Ryu's trying to say gender is as illusory as Kanon and Shannon's existence?

I have no idea, and its not because Umineko is some postmodern masterwork. It just teases these really interesting ideas and then because it offers no conclusion to many of its plot points...it goes nowhere with them.

[GoldenLand]

I'm curious about what people think that Ryukishi could and should have done better. Imagine: you are suddenly back in time, and in the perhaps unenviable position of being Ryukishi's editor, and magically (clearly, you as an editor are both a witch and a time traveler) he is both fully receptive to your editorial intervention and has plenty of time to write or rewrite. What would you have him do? In the end it's probably both a matter of what makes for the best story and what the magical editor personally wants from the story.

I don't have a handy answer for that question myself right this second, but I'll have a little think about it and stroll back to the thread later.

[Drifloon]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Yea, that's the main thing. We can talk about stuff that seems to be Ryukishi's intent, but beyond his narrow road he's shut down most avenues for discussion without inevitably collapsing to arguments about basic points.

"I find the idea of Kyrie/Rudolf as culprit sort of interesting because IF they did it then all these bits change and--" "But there's several reasons why they can't be the culprit."

"Yasu's character becomes really interesting because she reacts to these things based on some uh....EXTREMELY vague and undefined sexual/gender issue she has.
Whatever the hell that might be."

Well, I agree that it was like that for a while, but at this point haven't we pretty much reached a consensus on most of those major issues? Most of the main points have been confirmed by Ryukishi himself or the EP8 manga by now. I mean, we've had full confirmation of Rudolf and Kyrie being the culprits (or at least we will if the EP8 manga concludes without anything further being said on the matter), and the text seems to overwhelmingly support the idea that Yasu's issues come from being born male and then reassigned as female after falling off the cliff.

I guess maybe discussion has died out because most of the things we did used to spend time discussing have more or less got definitive answers now.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I'm curious about what people think that Ryukishi could and should have done better. Imagine: you are suddenly back in time, and in the perhaps unenviable position of being Ryukishi's editor, and magically (clearly, you as an editor are both a witch and a time traveler) he is both fully receptive to your editorial intervention and has plenty of time to write or rewrite. What would you have him do? In the end it's probably both a matter of what makes for the best story and what the magical editor personally wants from the story.

I don't have a handy answer for that question myself right this second, but I'll have a little think about it and stroll back to the thread later.

That's a very interesting question! I can't think of any specifics right now but I'd revise the heck out of EP6 and EP8, that's for sure. And part of me would want to just end the series at Breakdown of the Witch's Illusion, relegating EP8 to some sort of 'Umineko Rei' and the EP7 tea party to an extra TIP or something.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm curious about what people think that Ryukishi could and should have done better. Imagine: you are suddenly back in time, and in the perhaps unenviable position of being Ryukishi's editor, and magically (clearly, you as an editor are both a witch and a time traveler) he is both fully receptive to your editorial intervention and has plenty of time to write or rewrite. What would you have him do? In the end it's probably both a matter of what makes for the best story and what the magical editor personally wants from the story.

I don't have a handy answer for that question myself right this second, but I'll have a little think about it and stroll back to the thread later.

Answer the questions I raised in the novel. Really, that's just the bare minimum. Not just that mysteries should have answers, but also that plot-threads should have resolution. A lot of things Ryukishi drops in the novel are clearly not meant to be things we wonder about to the degree we do but his sloppy writing creates huge blanks in the narrative.

For instance, why the hell is Kumasawa so damn important, despite not being a One-Winged servant? How did she get Kinzo's utter and absolute trust he otherwise only shows Genji and Nanjo?

The narrative sort of implies she was connected to the original Beatrice but that seems to have tapered off and possibly even have been retconned out.

And, as Renall has covered quite well before, episodes 5 and 6 were primarily filler.

Also, he could've hired an editor. Fucking seriously, his pacing is god-awful. I can't even get most people to read Umineko because the first episode takes forever to get going, and it has no excuse for it. So much of the opening narrative is completely over-verbose.

Since Renall probably won't post in this thread any time soon, we have talked about what he and I would do if we were to rewrite Chiru: EP7 would come first, Erika would either be axed or her implementation would be entirely redone, episodes 5 and 6 would be vastly different, and EP8 would both 1) Give a definitive answer to things, and 2) probably wrap up the themes by having Will and Battler butt heads. Bern is an entertaining antagonist but she's so over-the-top in her vileness that she's basically a strawman. It makes the reader want to emotionally lurch and reject whatever she's saying, despite there being a very worthwhile discussion in the Truth theme of EP8.

Well, I agree that it was like that for a while, but at this point haven't we pretty much reached a consensus on most of those major issues? Most of the main points have been confirmed by Ryukishi himself or the EP8 manga by now. I mean, we've had full confirmation of Rudolf and Kyrie being the culprits (or at least we will if the EP8 manga concludes without anything further being said on the matter), and the text seems to overwhelmingly support the idea that Yasu's issues come from being born male and then reassigned as female after falling off the cliff.

I guess maybe discussion has died out because most of the things we did used to spend time discussing have more or less got definitive answers now.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO.

God no. For one thing, Rudolf/Kyrie as culprits, even if confirmed beyond a doubt (which it isn't), only raises MORE questions.

[battle22]

I agree with Aura, Ryukishi's pacing is terrible. It goes from slow to fast then slow and then fast and switches around endlessly. Though maybe I noticed this because I have read Umineko for like...10 times already XD. EP7 is the episode where I think everything was perfect. Pacing wise, mystery wise, fantasy wise and just everything.

Well.... let's bring another topic. What is your favorite episode? Mine is obviously Requiem.