[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Renall]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And what about the relatives of the servants? We don't really hear about it but what if Nanjo or Genji or Kumasawa or Gohda had also been suspected?
What if Nanjo's grandaughter grew up suffering the same bullyism as Ange or a similar one?

I'm not talking of just their need to know who killed their relatives but their need to have their relatives' reputation protected.
In Ep 4 it's implied their relatives might have been paid with a huge amount of money. Nanjo likely hid Kinzo's death.
If this were to be known it would be enough to suspect them to but culprits.
Wouldn't it ruin the peace of your mind to suspect your mother or your father might have been responsible of so many murders?

If only the Ushiromiya had been killed and only Ange were to be kept in the dark, I might understand it as knowing and not knowing are equally harmful for her. But there were other people and for them knowing would/might be better than not knowing... though Ryukishi didn't raise this issue at all.

Yeah, this is my "Gohda's Mom" argument and you've said it just as pointedly as I have. There are other people who died and they were probably innocent (at least in Gohda's case, surely he had no idea what was going on!) and they probably all had friends and families, and none of those people apparently matter at all or have any say in things because they're not the rich siblings of main characters. We not only can assume their families are harmed by the lack of closure, we know it for a fact in at least one case.

Remember Nanjo's son? The one who said he saw the money in the box and didn't want to touch it because he was concerned it was dirty money? How do you think that would've made him feel about his father? Was his father somehow involved? Was his father a criminal? Even if that scene is itself strictly metaphorical or fictional, it seems that for Nanjo's son, at the very least, the idea that his father might have been involved in a murder is psychologically damaging. And because the truth has been concealed, it's something he will never be able to know for sure.

If his father was guilty, he'll feel little worse for it (and might actually feel better knowing his suspicions were confirmed, as he is presumably a busy and mature adult and doesn't have time to dwell on something that can't change). And if his father was innocent? Well at least he'll know that his father didn't turn into a criminal just to save his granddaughter's life. Oh yeah, said granddaughter would be his daughter. His daughter died, also not knowing why her grandpa died. So he lost his father and his daughter and he has no idea why. Great ending for Dr. Nanjo Jr., huh?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Wrong. Yasu could've stepped out of her delusion, picked up the phone, called Battler, and put the matter to rest before all this shit got out of the gate. She didn't do this, however, because of her delusion that God was testing her and she should have faith that Battler would be her prince, seeing him as a magical rescue from all her problems.

If not for that, she could have overcome everything herself and prevented the tragedy that is Sayo Yasuda. She could've atleast TRIED, but her delusions pushed her into learned helplessness.

Maria could've realized that magic isn't going to solve things, stopped doing things she knew set off her mother's anger, and possibly salvage her relationships with others; it was infact her interest in magic and the occult that made her bullied in school, along with her infantilism.

If Ange wasn't pretending to play word games with her imaginary friends, she could have finished studying and gotten a better grade, and then her classmates wouldn't of bullied her.

The idea that these characters had no recourse but escapism, or that their escapism actually helped them, is complete and total bullshit. But Ryukishi wants us to advocate it because it made them feel good about themselves.

Maybe I didn't express myself well. I don't mean it's right or your best choice.
I mean that many people in such pityful conditions chose escapism as a way to deal with problems that are too big for them.

I mean it can be viewed as realistic in the same way at it can be viewed as realistic that a kid would lie to avoid troubles.
I also mean that in a way it works, as it stops your brain from receiving a certain damage, especially when you're as young as Maria. In the long run however it'll do more harm than good.

Ryukishi presents us with many characters that aren't living in what I would call a normal environment and some of them are also pretty young.

To ask to a 8 year old who's likely already mentally scarred to stop misbehaving so her mother wouldn't get angry, although logical is technically impossible.

Normal 8 year old kids end up misbehaving here and there, emotionally neglected, mistreated kids often never learn to control their bad behaviours and develop rituals that they assume will protect them and that instead might be more harmful than good.

Rosa's hard to predict behaviour makes it even harder for Maria to figure out what she has to do.

If Rosa for example had avoided beating Maria but had remained firm in her idea Maria shouldn't act in certain ways Maria could have figured out how to behave. However when Rosa tells her not to do something and Maria fails to comply Rosa beats her and leaves her then comes back and says SHE is sorry and SHE is a bad mama. In short the message Maria gets is conflictual as she likely translated it as 'Maria you were right in behaving as before and I was wrong into yelling/beating you' therefore enforcing Maria's bad behaviour because the 'good mama' doesn't view it as wrong. It's the bad mama who complains about it.

Maria's behaviour is 'expected', 'normal for her environment'.

Not that it does her much good, though considering how Rosa is messed up and in need to vent, I'm not sure Maria wouldn't get abused even if she were to behave perfectly.

So, while you're right in saying that there are better ways Maria could use to cope, they wouldn't be the normal ways a child of 8 would use.

Ange uses escapism when she's 16. While she's a bit too older for having imaginary friends she's presented as if on the verge of breaking down.
She lost her parents when she was 6 and this caused her to suffer a trauma, a trauma from which she never managed to heal probably also because Eva wasn't in the shape to help her, as she too underwent a trauma. To make matter worse Eva apparently mistreated her, secluded her and she ended up as victim of bullying.

Ange's condition might be due to her mistakes but also due to emotional wounds that not only never healed but went worse.

She can be blamed more than Maria for chosing escapism over facing reality, though we don't know her personal history so well to express a judgement on her behaviour. She might have been bullied even if she were to be the first in her class. Sadly bad grades aren't the reason for which one get bullied. A bully uses them merely as an excuse. In real life and other stories you can see kids with good grades being bullied as well. -_-
Her behaviour damaged her relationship with Eva when she was too young to control it. She should have learnt how to fix it but it's possible she never managed.

In short Ange has a legittimate reason to chose escapism and note that she's the only one who also does a legittimate effort to reject it when it does her no good.


Personally the one I find the hardest to excuse is Yasu.
I can accept that as a kid of 9 (okay she believed to be 6 but she was technically 9) she might have used escapism. She was orphan, she wasn't healthy, she was in an unfriendly environment, she was forced to work, okay, it can be accepted.

However her mind apparently never grew up from it. Sure, it could be that although we're presented with 'Battler never came to get me' as the root of all her troubles, the truth was she was abused by Kinzo (as implied in Ep 7) and that discovering her menomations as well as the fact that she was Kinzo's daughter and that Natsuhi tossed her down of a cliff caused her to go temporally insane. She shifted the blame on Battler because if Battler had come to rescue her nothing of this would have happened.

Put in this way is psychologically plausible. Again, not a good plan but something a person can do. It's psychologically acceptable and fair since it's realistic.

However, if it's just because Battler forgot a promise he made when he was 12 short after he underwent the trauma of losing his mother, discovering his father cheated with her, leaving his family, losing his grandmother, losing his grandfather, living 6 years away from the Ushiromiya... well, she should simply grow up and deal with it because it's perfectly normal for Battler to forget about her while caught up by such personal problems.

It's all a matter of how you view Yasu's personal story. If you believe she had more than one issue, it's acceptable for her to resort to escapism. If her only issue was Battler... really, I know it sounds cruel but she should deal with it either doing something or forgetting Battler.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Ryukishi is basically saying that positive reinforcement and high self-esteem should be encouraged no matter our fuckups.

Positive reinforcement and high self-esteem should be encouraged. Escapism can be understood but definitely NOT encouraged.
It's just a resource the mind use when it's not able to cope with the problems, not the solution to the problems.

It can be accepted that left on their own devices Maria, Ange and Yasu chose escapism because they didn't know any better or because they couldn't do any better.

It can't be recommended or allowed to continue as it would cause them to disconnect from reality.
In fact, while Maria, Ange and Yasu's fantasy tone down their pain, it doesn't help them to improve their conditions.

It's like taking painkillers without even trying to cure the wound. The wound will get worse and the painkillers will slowly lose effect and create dipendence.

Painkillers per se aren't bad but they can't be the cure in the same way as escapism can't solve problems.

Does this make things any clearer?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You're kidding, right? Have you SEEN the anime industry?

LOL I have.
However I don't really know what they're discussing out of the anime industry.
It's possible at the moment in Japan there's a huge debate that demonize anime and escapism as the rooth of all evil.

Ryukishi's novel might be an answer to this.

I know here there were psychologists saying things like 'Sailormoon and Rayearth will turn each girl who see them into lesbian' and 'Dragonball promotes paedophilia' so it's possible in Japan there are debates about how people has not the right to have fantasies, not even small ones.

Haguruma said we aren't keeping into consideration the context in which Umineko was written so I tried to picture one in my mind that would push Ryukishi to feel the need to advocate escapism... though it's enirely possible Haguruma meant something different.

And anyway I said 'maybe'. It was a theoretical idea as I've no idea what's going on in Japan right now.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah, this is my "Gohda's Mom" argument and you've said it just as pointedly as I have. There are other people who died and they were probably innocent (at least in Gohda's case, surely he had no idea what was going on!) and they probably all had friends and families, and none of those people apparently matter at all or have any say in things because they're not the rich siblings of main characters. We not only can assume their families are harmed by the lack of closure, we know it for a fact in at least one case.

Remember Nanjo's son? The one who said he saw the money in the box and didn't want to touch it because he was concerned it was dirty money? How do you think that would've made him feel about his father? Was his father somehow involved? Was his father a criminal? Even if that scene is itself strictly metaphorical or fictional, it seems that for Nanjo's son, at the very least, the idea that his father might have been involved in a murder is psychologically damaging. And because the truth has been concealed, it's something he will never be able to know for sure.

If his father was guilty, he'll feel little worse for it (and might actually feel better knowing his suspicions were confirmed, as he is presumably a busy and mature adult and doesn't have time to dwell on something that can't change). And if his father was innocent? Well at least he'll know that his father didn't turn into a criminal just to save his granddaughter's life. Oh yeah, said granddaughter would be his daughter. His daughter died, also not knowing why her grandpa died. So he lost his father and his daughter and he has no idea why. Great ending for Dr. Nanjo Jr., huh?

Exactly. Definitely not a good ending.

Even if Nanjo Jr. isn't trying to search for an answer likely due to lack of possibilities and fears of unpleasant truths, if Battler/Toya knew the asnwer he should share it with him, Kumasawa's son and Gohda's relatives.

Of course this could cause them to wish not to keep the secret and demand compensation for the death of their relatives to Battler and Ange which I guess could damage both Toya and Ange.

Anyway in short hiding the truth in this case doesn't help the relatives of the servants, merely protect Toya and Ange becomes a selfish act way worse than Krauss hiding Kinzo's death (though I don't really approve what he did... -_-).

[AuraTwilight]

Each time we're shown a character who's using escapism, we're also shown his condition is pityful and would be worse without it.

Thjis is what you said, jjblue1, and I'm saying it's wrong. Escapism made all of these situations WORSE. It did nothing to help these people except make them put up with their suffering when they didn't have to.

And Ryukishi is saying this is okay.

Everything else you said is irrelevant, I'm sorry.

Positive reinforcement and high self-esteem should be encouraged.

Only when it's been earned. Unconditionally praising people is very damaging and emotionally destructive in the long term. Anyone who works with children will tell you that.

When someone does nothing to change their horrible situation even when they have the power to do so, and you say "HEY IT'S OKAY BECAUSE YOU GOT THE WHITE MAGIC TO SMILE NO MATTER WHAT", you're telling them to grin and bear it no matter what goes wrong, and that you should just put up with it and focus on feeling good about yourself.

That hurts people. It accomplishes nothing but making the person learn to be helpless and never try and better themselves.

It's possible at the moment in Japan there's a huge debate that demonize anime and escapism as the rooth of all evil.

There isn't. I'm saying pretty much the entirety of Japan's economy is dependent on moe culture and kawaii sensationalism and other forms of escapism. That country is so infantile that I've seen a grown businessman jack off on a public train to manga and NO ONE BATTED AN EYE. Not even a mother with a baby in her arms. Japan is suffering a critical social situation where escapism is so encouraged and validated by the surrounding world that the workforce is collapsing slowly and more and more people are becoming unproductive NEETs.

To say that Ryukishi is championing the healthiness of escapism in moderation against an anti-escapist country that blames escapism for all it's woes is completely inaccurate. He's part of the problem, and he advocates otaku-style escapism because it's how he makes his business. He profits off people being in love with his anime lolis. He sees popular culture as a means unto itself.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah, and that's fine if you're playing Iago in a presentation of Othello and everyone knows it's an act. It is fun to play the bad guy then, and the more you revel in Iago's evil the better your portrayal is. We enjoy the presentation of evil because it can be cautionary and exciting, and because we know no one is actually getting hurt.

It's not so much fun when the guy playing Othello isn't aware he's in a play.

Indeed, I agree. I just find this statement interesting when thinking about how Bernkastel being a villain is related to what she metaphorically represents (a metaphysical force of the Universe). It's kind of akin to the various roles the Force of Gravity might play, sometimes as the "villain" that causes a person to fall to their death.

Originally Posted by Renall

The world doesn't revolve around Ange, not even in her own story. And if those who wanted "truth" didn't want the actual truth, it just demonstrates that the opposition was not adequately established. That's the whole point behind my calling it a strawman. There's not anybody who, at the end, can position themselves to say "I think Ange is wrong and there are valid reasons that I think so, but in the end I didn't win this argument so my points will have to stand unresolved but relevant." That's basically left to the reader, if they are in disagreement with Ryukishi's point. Which doesn't really help.

Note that I didn't mention any evil characters in my earlier post refuting your claim. That's because the evil "truth seekers" are an entirely different animal; they were used to make a different argument about "truth"- that what is convincingly presented to us as the "real" truth is still quite often itself a product of manipulation, subjectivity, and bias; or even outright wrong. Will is the contrast to this.

Also (and this is the third time I've said this) if you have to say "in the end" about RK07's argument then you're not saying anything but that his conclusion was faulty. And whether or not an argument is a straw man argument has no formal logical connections with the conclusion drawn from refuting it.

I'm getting mixed messages. Is your complaint A) that the arguments RK07 made for the opposition were cherry-picked and poor to begin with (strawman) or B) that the arguments made for the opposition were relevant but not refuted well enough to justify RK07's presented conclusion? Because I am OK with the latter.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

As far as I'm involved I agree with the others on the fact that Umineko supports escapism vs. accepting reality.

I don't think anyone is disputing this.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

He does, present, however, "Hey Maria, your mom hates you, and you're retarded" from Erika and "YOU'RE JUST IN DENIAL YOUR LIFE SUCKS AND I KNOW BETTER THAN THE PERSON WHO LIVED IT WHY AREN'T YOU SAD LIKE ME" from Ange.

You are exaggerating Ange's tone. Maybe sometimes they she was like that in her criticism, but not always.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You say that, but BATTLER never gets any sort of moral comeuppance when he tried to convince Ange from seeking the truth by deceiving her and manipulating her emotions, and even when he physically tried to keep the truth out of her hands. The only reason he conceded at all was because she tried to commit suicide over it, but no one gave Battler a smack to the face and called him a jackass for it.

Personally, I trust that BATTLER would let Ange make the choice once he had his say. You can call that wrong because he was forcing Ange to hear him out, and Ange did just that.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

EVERYONE WHO IS PRO-TRUTH IS BEING DEPICTED AS MORE CHILDISH AND LESS GROWN-UP/WISE/MORAL/OR OTHERWISE OF EQUAL CHARACTER TO THE PRO-FANTASY SIDE.

The only characters that I would even qualify as "pro-truth" in any real sense are Ange and Will, and maybe BATTLER for some of episode 4 when he learns about Ange. Oh and Erika briefly when it was about her boyfriend. RK07 is saying that most people who present themselves as "pro-truth" really aren't. It's an important distinction from saying "these are what pro-truth people are like."

Pro-truth ANGE is presented as more mature than BATTLER in episode 4. Will is presented as more mature than pretty much anyone... although he fills a kind of middle ground because he's not pro-truth in all cases. On the other hand, escapism characters are also frequently portrayed as immature. Take BATTLER's early inability to suspect anyone he knows, for example. Meanwhile, Maria's creepy babble about Beatrice and magic all while her family is being brutally murdered does not help the case for escapism; and until BATTLER's switch, she's the only real advocate for the escapism side.

By the end it's a lot more one-sided, but that is because RK07 is delivering the conclusion to the discussion he opened. You seem to disagree with his conclusion, and that's fine with me.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Wrong. Yasu could've stepped out of her delusion, picked up the phone, called Battler, and put the matter to rest before all this shit got out of the gate. She didn't do this, however, because of her delusion that God was testing her and she should have faith that Battler would be her prince, seeing him as a magical rescue from all her problems.

If not for that, she could have overcome everything herself and prevented the tragedy that is Sayo Yasuda. She could've atleast TRIED, but her delusions pushed her into learned helplessness.

Exactly. It was obvious to all of us that her escapism here had bad consequences. RK07 is not the idiot some people think he is; he's well aware that it's Yasu's fault for not being the least bit pro-active. Did RK07 beatify it? Yes. Did RK07 hide it? No. He just presented the situation exactly as Yasu saw it and that's why I say he's so good with subjectivity.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Maria could've realized that magic isn't going to solve things, stopped doing things she knew set off her mother's anger, and possibly salvage her relationships with others; it was infact her interest in magic and the occult that made her bullied in school, along with her infantilism.

If Ange wasn't pretending to play word games with her imaginary friends, she could have finished studying and gotten a better grade, and then her classmates wouldn't of bullied her.

Again. RK07 didn't hide this stuff, he just beatified it.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The idea that these characters had no recourse but escapism, or that their escapism actually helped them, is complete and total bullshit. But Ryukishi wants us to advocate it because it made them feel good about themselves.

Ryukishi is basically saying that positive reinforcement and high self-esteem should be encouraged no matter our fuckups.

Yes. This is a legitimate complaint and I won't defend RK07 on this.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

There isn't. I'm saying pretty much the entirety of Japan's economy is dependent on moe culture and kawaii sensationalism and other forms of escapism. That country is so infantile that I've seen a grown businessman jack off on a public train to manga and NO ONE BATTED AN EYE. Not even a mother with a baby in her arms. Japan is suffering a critical social situation where escapism is so encouraged and validated by the surrounding world that the workforce is collapsing slowly and more and more people are becoming unproductive NEETs.

It's true. Relationships are down. Birthrates are low. Pornography is rampant. NEETs, Hikikomori, and homelessness are on the rise. This has been a trend since their economic bubble burst in the late 80s- and I would even say that it has its roots in the defeat of Japan in WWII. I wouldn't blame everything on anime and manga (they are still niche hobbies among adults), but the Japanese people as a whole are really facing a deepening existential crisis.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Thjis is what you said, jjblue1, and I'm saying it's wrong.

Escapism made all of these situations WORSE. It did nothing to help these people except make them put up with their suffering when they didn't have to.

I guess our opinions differ then.

You're proposing escapism vs. 'doing something useful and productive' or 'fighting the environment you're in'.

In the case you can do something productive or can fight the environment you're in escapism is undoubtely the wrong choice which would make you right.

However the cases Ryukishi proposes aren't really the ones of people who are in the condition of rationally judging their situation and making the right choice as Maria is too young and likely has mental troubles and Ange seems to suffer of depression and using escapism as a last choice.

So, although yes, Ange and Maria could have acted differently, more likely they didn't have the mental maturity or the rationality to realize it.

Since you're supposed to break if you undergo under too much emotional pain the mind, when unable to pick up the RIGHT option, has at its disposition assorted defences one of which is escapism.

Escapism is a form of defence of the mind so, at first, it protects it from serious damage, which, IN LACK OF THE ABILITY TO CHOSE BETTER OPTIONS, makes it the 'right' choice for Maria or Ange as long as it's a temporal choice.

However yes, escapism is a way to cope with problems, not to solve them. In the long run escapism made the situation worse.

Usually, mental mechanisms to cope with pain are meant to be used for a short term. This is why it's considered acceptable for a kid to have an immaginary friend or a favorite toy he drags everywhere or even Linus' blanket but, as the child grow, it's not acceptable anymore.

The problem with Ryukishi is that he moved using escapism from 'a form of mental defence that the mind uses in a situation in which you can't think of any better to cope with the pain' to 'the right way to always deal with pain'. We see characters fall into escapism but none of them manages to grow out of it.

THIS IS WHAT IS BAD, WHAT IS WRONG as far as I'm concerned.

He presented a situation in which his characters are encouraged to use it. He turns them into Dr. House of some sort as he seems to encourage them to use Vicodin to deal with the pain and to keep using it uncaring they might develop an addiction because hey, being in pain is bad so it's better to become Vicodin addicts.

What he proposed isn't even the Pollyanna's game in which you try to look at the positive side in everything. He suggests to make up a positive interpretation of reality or to ignore the bad interpretation even if it's the objective truth. ALWAYS. FOREVER. It's not, 'take some time then, when you're ready, deal with it'. It's 'never bother to deal with it'.

This is what bad in my opinion which is influenced by what I've studied in psychology.
You're however free to think different.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Everything else you said is irrelevant, I'm sorry.

Everything I said is my opinion. Can you please not blow it out? It's difficult to have a discussion if you imply I either have to agree with you or shut up.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Only when it's been earned. Unconditionally praising people is very damaging and emotionally destructive in the long term. Anyone who works with children will tell you that.

Hey, wait a moment. Positive reinforcement isn't supposed to be encouraging you with praises to follow a certain behaviour (which is supposed to be good)? It's clear if I praise you when you're doing nothing (or something wrong) I'm encouraging you to do nothing (or something wrong).

In short, Rosa shouldn't praise Maria for saying Uhhh Uhhhh since that's not a behaviour she wants to reinforce but she should praise her for let's say preparing her breakfast as in the Tanabata story.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

When someone does nothing to change their horrible situation even when they have the power to do so, and you say "HEY IT'S OKAY BECAUSE YOU GOT THE WHITE MAGIC TO SMILE NO MATTER WHAT", you're telling them to grin and bear it no matter what goes wrong, and that you should just put up with it and focus on feeling good about yourself.

That hurts people. It accomplishes nothing but making the person learn to be helpless and never try and better themselves.

On a theoretical level you're right. Continuing on that way is harmful.

However if you go and tell Maria she fails at life it's unlikely she'll drastically change her ways. Same for Ange.

You're supposed to go for grades, reinforce what she's doing that's positive and encourage her to do other positive stuffs.
In short you've to present her with another option that's not 'white magic'.
Now, Rosa isn't a good mother and Maria depends too much from her to find other options.
Ange on the other side is older.
She could have tried to make like Jessica, who tried to cut for herself a space in which she could devote herself to something she liked, singing (although again Ryukishi attempted to present this as escapism, not as devoting yourself to an activity you like, that bost your self exteems and that allow you to positively interact with others but as building up some other personality).
Same for Yasu, who could have left Rokkenjima and gone to search for Battler. The kid lost his mother and left his family. Maybe at the moment he was the one who was more in need to 'be saved' than her.

If she didn't feel like phoning to him as a potential girlfriend she could have done it as a friend who was worried about how he was feeling.

She claims about preparing herself to becoming his wife and then she's not there when he might be needing comfort?
That's why I don't like how the whole Yasu/Battler story was handled. Battler had a legittimate reason to not return in Rokkenjima and forget about the promise but all the blame is placed on him. It's not like he never came because he was busy flirting with other girls. He had a legittimate reason. He lost his mother and left the family. He couldn't show up on Rokkenjima anymore unless he were to make up with his father and his grandfather was trying to make the argument worse and Yasu didn't bother worrying for his suffering enough to call him to say 'I'm sorry for your loss'.

It's all 'oh, he lost his mother and left his family? How horrible this means he won't come to get me? Oh well, maybe he's suffering so I should think about this but... what about coming to get me?'

In the end, although she tried to think he was suffering she persuaded herself he was fine and just forgot her.

Though maybe she felt she wasn't allowed to call him because she was a servant with low self extreems. That's a part of the Japanese culture I don't know.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

To say that Ryukishi is championing the healthiness of escapism in moderation against an anti-escapist country that blames escapism for all it's woes is completely inaccurate. He's part of the problem, and he advocates otaku-style escapism because it's how he makes his business. He profits off people being in love with his anime lolis. He sees popular culture as a means unto itself.

If that's the case then it's pretty sad... -_-

[haguruma]

Please bear with me only answering to select points.
I'm going to ignore the rest of the debate, because I'm getting seriously tired of arguing about the moral implicatures of Umineko. The different camps have such different opinions on the nature of certain morals...I really haven't got the time.

Originally Posted by Renall

I don't care about any of this. You talking about it will not make me care until you explain to me what the hell your point is talking about it.

Then you may as well not care for any context to any narrative or work of art ever created. But if you look at fiction as completely removed from society, you might as well disregard it's impact on society as well.

What I am talking about is, that there are certain terms, certain implications and certain presumptions in a narrative as lodged within a certain consumer culture as in Umineko's case...esepcially if you consider the ideal audience that Ryûkishi seems to have had in mind. Approaching Umineko without any consideration of the presence of those aspects warps the original intention into something else where every blank is filled by your own conjecture.
It's as if I just passed by you in the hall and handed you a tissue. You don't know what my intention is, what it means or what you are supposed to do. The only thing you can do is suppose and fill in the blanks, but all of that is merely conjecture and might as well be completely false. Knowing about a certain background helps you reconsider some of your points and make them secure apart from "that's how I see it". Of course you're allowed to view any cultural product on a purely subjective basis, but then attacking something for using a subjective approach seems wrong to me.

Let's take the term Gamemaster for example. There was much debate about what a Gamemaster actually can do, when the term itself is quite closely defined in Otaku studies.
Gamemaster is a term used by Ôtsuka Eiji (one of the defining people in modern Otaku and Otaku Culture Studies) in his Essay on Consumption of Narratives. It uses this term similar to how it is used in tabletop RPGs in Japan. A Gamemaster is somebody who, different from an author or creator, cunducts a preexisting world (世界) when guiding consumers (消費者) through a narrative (物語). He is therefore of course chained to the agreed logic of that world and must act on this contract in order to fulfill his duty as Gamemaster, but he does not need the creative power of an author as he only acts as a conductor to a game among an indefinite number of people. The Gamemaster is also limited to proposing choices to an active consumer who participates in this game of consumption, for example by giving him the choice to fight or to escape.

Things like this can make it easier when attempting to understand a narrative like Umineko and are most likely presumed to be existent by an author like Ryûkishi. This is a common flaw when reading Otaku fiction and discourse. Most of it is written with a certain audience in mind and uses a high amount of special terminology, which makes it hard to discuss for outsiders.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

To say that Ryukishi is championing the healthiness of escapism in moderation against an anti-escapist country that blames escapism for all it's woes is completely inaccurate. He's part of the problem, and he advocates otaku-style escapism because it's how he makes his business. He profits off people being in love with his anime lolis. He sees popular culture as a means unto itself.

Oh please, that argument is absolutely one-sided right-wing talk. On the very same page I could argue that Japan is still unable to process the possibilities of modern or post-modern culture because there are still book-burnings in remote villages on a regular basis. If we're going to have this talk let's do it without those extremes.
Of course Otaku culture has developed a very strong notion of escapism from traditional prescribed roles in society. But in how far these movements are healthy or unhealthy is much more multi-layered than only saying that escapism results in a failing economic situation. Escapism peaked in the 1990's for example because the economic situation had worsened after the bubble burst in '91...the escapists weren't the sole problem but a society who had failed to foresee certain economic changes.

To reduce modern popular culture to "a means unto itself" is as arrogant as denying popular culture the term "culture" at all. Of course this is an ailment that should be considered when discussing the current development of for example moe-culture, but reducing it to this point is ignoring any countermovement or any creative potential in even those products who emphasize the economic aspect.

EDIT:

I should've clarified that I see the anime industry as more of a symptom than the cause; however, because the anime industry keeps reinforcing these behaviors, it's kind of aggravating and encouraging it. Similar to how Western pop culture encourages anti-intellectualism.

You're method of exageration and generalization amazes me again and again.

[AuraTwilight]

Indeed, I agree. I just find this statement interesting when thinking about how Bernkastel being a villain is related to what she metaphorically represents (a metaphysical force of the Universe). It's kind of akin to the various roles the Force of Gravity might play, sometimes as the "villain" that causes a person to fall to their death.

Gravity doesn't enjoy when people suffer.

Note that I didn't mention any evil characters in my earlier post refuting your claim. That's because the evil "truth seekers" are an entirely different animal; they were used to make a different argument about "truth"- that what is convincingly presented to us as the "real" truth is still quite often itself a product of manipulation, subjectivity, and bias; or even outright wrong. Will is the contrast to this.

And Will doesn't mind things being left covered up since it's none of his business.

So there's no one in Umineko who wants to uncover the truth as a moral good. You see the problem?

Also (and this is the third time I've said this) if you have to say "in the end" about RK07's argument then you're not saying anything but that his conclusion was faulty. And whether or not an argument is a straw man argument has no formal logical connections with the conclusion drawn from refuting it.

The conclusion is faulty.

The argument is faulty.

The method is faulty.

The conclusion effects all the rest of this. You don't have an argument without a conclusion.

I'm getting mixed messages. Is your complaint A) that the arguments RK07 made for the opposition were cherry-picked and poor to begin with (strawman) or B) that the arguments made for the opposition were relevant but not refuted well enough to justify RK07's presented conclusion? Because I am OK with the latter.

Why not both? He makes strawmans, and regardless he refutes the arguments with feel-good sophistry. He doesn't really have any argument against the Truth-Seekers is that they're big dumb jerks.

You are exaggerating Ange's tone. Maybe sometimes they she was like that in her criticism, but not always.

It was for the most part. She calls Maria foolish because she's denying the obvious truth that Rosa is a total dick, but she has no suggestions for what Maria should do differently except to accept that she's miserable and her life sucks. Of course if that's her only option why shouldn't Maria delude herself?

And then Ange eventually changes her mind and embraces Maria's fantasies because she feels bad for telling her that toys can't talk.

Personally, I trust that BATTLER would let Ange make the choice once he had his say. You can call that wrong because he was forcing Ange to hear him out, and Ange did just that.

He was being extremely underhanded. He was taking advantage of her emotional vulnerabilities that we can't relate to. He's presenting her family being nice, warm, and loving to her, and telling her "Either accept this or lose it. Give up on the truth or your family is going to be monsters. DEAD monsters.

Also they really love you, so why would you do that?"

It's fucking blackmail, whether he intended it to be or not. He loaded the dice.

The only characters that I would even qualify as "pro-truth" in any real sense are Ange and Will, and maybe BATTLER for some of episode 4 when he learns about Ange. Oh and Erika briefly when it was about her boyfriend. RK07 is saying that most people who present themselves as "pro-truth" really aren't. It's an important distinction from saying "these are what pro-truth people are like."

And how do we make this distinction? Erika, Bernkastel, Featherine, and the Goats are all interested in the truth. They're willing to create false truths, but that's a means to an end for their bullying, rather than the endgoal.

They want to deny magic, and magic is "the happy lies of fun delusion".

Will is the only person who cares about the truth for it's own sake, and he thinks that innocent lies should be left undisturbed.

By the end it's a lot more one-sided, but that is because RK07 is delivering the conclusion to the discussion he opened. You seem to disagree with his conclusion, and that's fine with me.

It's unbalanced the whole way, really. The conclusion just rewrites everyone's characterization into polarized extremes, demonstrating that Ryukishi doesn't think that these more moderate depictions are worth anything.

The truth of the future overwrites the truth of the past. It doesn't matter what he says in the middle of the story if he doesn't believe in it, and he doesn't want us to, either.

Exactly. It was obvious to all of us that her escapism here had bad consequences. RK07 is not the idiot some people think he is; he's well aware that it's Yasu's fault for not being the least bit pro-active. Did RK07 beatify it? Yes. Did RK07 hide it? No. He just presented the situation exactly as Yasu saw it and that's why I say he's so good with subjectivity.

He validates it, and expresses it as an acceptable, if not admirable, course of action. Subjectivity, aside, Yasu's decisions are made to be 'correct' ones, even if not 'optimal.'

I wouldn't blame everything on anime and manga (they are still niche hobbies among adults)

I should've clarified that I see the anime industry as more of a symptom than the cause; however, because the anime industry keeps reinforcing these behaviors, it's kind of aggravating and encouraging it. Similar to how Western pop culture encourages anti-intellectualism.

Everything I said is my opinion. Can you please not blow it out? It's difficult to have a discussion if you imply I either have to agree with you or shut up.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. What I meant by that is that your large block of text was responding to something I didn't mean, so I didn't see a need to respond to it because it was either not attacking my argument or something I agreed with. It was irrelevant to my responses, not to things at large. *apologetic bow*

Hey, wait a moment. Positive reinforcement isn't supposed to be encouraging you with praises to follow a certain behaviour (which is supposed to be good)? It's clear if I praise you when you're doing nothing (or something wrong) I'm encouraging you to do nothing (or something wrong).

In short, Rosa shouldn't praise Maria for saying Uhhh Uhhhh since that's not a behaviour she wants to reinforce but she should praise her for let's say preparing her breakfast as in the Tanabata story.

You're right. Which is why this white magic stuff is really damaging. Maria, Ange, and Yasu tell this stuff to themselves to raise their own self-esteem and turn their mistakes into stuff that isn't their fault, or even something totally good. It's positive self-reinforcement.

In short you've to present her with another option that's not 'white magic'.

You're completely right. But no one in the story ever does this. The only options given in Umineko are Sweet Illusions or Hopeless Despair. Ryukishi never presents the "Be Accountable For Your Own Problems" side of the argument.

NEVER.

Oh please, that argument is absolutely one-sided right-wing talk. On the very same page I could argue that Japan is still unable to process the possibilities of modern or post-modern culture because there are still book-burnings in remote villages on a regular basis. If we're going to have this talk let's do it without those extremes.

That's not even comparable. Ryukishi is a doujin writer who specifically targets the anime demographic with his content. He knows his audience, and his work is full of stuff that is only there to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the otaku subculture, complete with speckles of 2chan memes. He is one of them, even if he managed to find international success, but he owes his success to his familiarity with otaku culture, and whether he likes it or not, that includes by necessity the ups AND downs of it.

So I'm not really surprised that he's encouraging escapism, because the anime industry is pretty much a big self-referential escapism engine.

Of course Otaku culture has developed a very strong notion of escapism from traditional prescribed roles in society. But in how far these movements are healthy or unhealthy is much more multi-layered than only saying that escapism results in a failing economic situation. Escapism peaked in the 1990's for example because the economic situation had worsened after the bubble burst in '91...the escapists weren't the sole problem but a society who had failed to foresee certain economic changes.

Cool. It's so awesome I never said that or else my argument would be fucked.

To reduce modern popular culture to "a means unto itself" is as arrogant as denying popular culture the term "culture" at all.

Well, it's true the world over, unfortunately. Look at America; popular culture doesn't exist to say, scrutinize the world at large, or prompt thought on real world matters, or anything. People watch the Kardashians and American Idol for it's own sake. Entertainment has no purpose but itself. The same goes for anime. The shows that go out of their way to make a point are the exception, not the rule. I can atleast respect Ryukishi for trying to say something with his novel, but it turns out the thing he's trying to say is extremely horrible.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Indeed, I agree. I just find this statement interesting when thinking about how Bernkastel being a villain is related to what she metaphorically represents (a metaphysical force of the Universe). It's kind of akin to the various roles the Force of Gravity might play, sometimes as the "villain" that causes a person to fall to their death.

Well, on a psychologically point of view it might be that Bern becomes a villain in Toya's mind because he decided to support the other option 'not telling the truth' then whatever impulse he had into revealing the truth because an unpleasant temptation/feeling or was perceived as 'evil' because if he were to tell the truth he would hurt people.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

You are exaggerating Ange's tone. Maybe sometimes they she was like that in her criticism, but not always.

Well, Ange's tone and way to express herself wasn't exactly nice. So wasn't Maria's when she confuted her words. Though it can be argued they were merely reproducing their childhood arguments.

"Mom said magic doesn't exist!, You fail!" "No, you're wrong and mean and pitiful!" "No, you fail and I'll go play with someone else!"

All said in other words but that was more or less the concept.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Personally, I trust that BATTLER would let Ange make the choice once he had his say. You can call that wrong because he was forcing Ange to hear him out, and Ange did just that.

More than forcing her to hear him out he tricked her into hearing him out.
In the beginning she listened him believing he would tell her the culprit but he never had any intention of telling her that.

Technically this remind me of how readers expected red truth to be true and it wasn't and they got angry with it.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

The only characters that I would even qualify as "pro-truth" in any real sense are Ange and Will, and maybe BATTLER for some of episode 4 when he learns about Ange. Oh and Erika briefly when it was about her boyfriend. RK07 is saying that most people who present themselves as "pro-truth" really aren't. It's an important distinction from saying "these are what pro-truth people are like."

I don't know if Will can be defined as pro-truth as he's more 'versus lies that damage others' in the first bit and, in regard of the Umineko matter, he's dragged by Bern to find out the truth. Otherwise he wouldn't have cared.

However for me a pro-truth character is a character who wants to seek the truth and not one who's asked to seek the truth so maybe that's the difference between you and me.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Exactly. It was obvious to all of us that her escapism here had bad consequences. RK07 is not the idiot some people think he is; he's well aware that it's Yasu's fault for not being the least bit pro-active. Did RK07 beatify it? Yes. Did RK07 hide it? No. He just presented the situation exactly as Yasu saw it and that's why I say he's so good with subjectivity.

Not just Yasu.
Will also placed all the blame on Battler. As far as I'm involved, although I can understand Yasu had her issues, I think Battler too was dealing with some other issues. They're both to blame.
Will should be an external observer and therefore represent impartiality but he's definitely picking up Yasu's side against Battler.
He doesn't gently tell Yasu that if Battler couldn't keep his word it was because he had issues and therefore she should have tried another approach to the problem, he tells her something along the line of Battler being despicable because he forgot her promise.

In short he legittimates the fact she placed the blame of everything on Battler. This in the context of the narrative, seems to imply external observers should agree with him, who's agreeing with Yasu.

Since I didn't need an extra subjective vision I would have apprecciated if Will had avoided doing that. If he felt the need to comfort Yasu he could have found different words. In that situation I felt nudged to embrace his point of view on the fact, and since I disagree with it I didn't aprecciate being nudged.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Gravity doesn't enjoy when people suffer.

Neither do "miracles" or "certainty". I'm talking about a metaphorical personification of gravity, yo.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And Will doesn't mind things being left covered up since it's none of his business.

So there's no one in Umineko who wants to uncover the truth as a moral good. You see the problem?

See here I was talking about a different issue regarding truth, that advocates of the "real truth" are often just full of shit. Will is a contrast to this in that he doesn't go around pretending to know everything, yet ironically is closer to the truth than any of them.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The conclusion is faulty.

The argument is faulty.

The method is faulty.

The conclusion effects all the rest of this. You don't have an argument without a conclusion.

You're logic is faulty. It basically amounts to: "He has a one-sided conclusion, therefore he used a straw-man argument." You can have one without the other.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Why not both? He makes strawmans, and regardless he refutes the arguments with feel-good sophistry. He doesn't really have any argument against the Truth-Seekers is that they're big dumb jerks.

I'll say it again: the so-called truth-seekers that are big dumb jerks just aren't seeking the truth. I mean, how obvious can it be that Erika, for example, is precisely an advocate for untruth when her entire case against Natsuhi was such a sham?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

He was being extremely underhanded. He was taking advantage of her emotional vulnerabilities that we can't relate to. He's presenting her family being nice, warm, and loving to her, and telling her "Either accept this or lose it. Give up on the truth or your family is going to be monsters. DEAD monsters.

Also they really love you, so why would you do that?"

It's fucking blackmail, whether he intended it to be or not. He loaded the dice.

Yeah he took advantage of the situation, but you can't blame BATTLER if Ange's second option sucks; it's not BATTLER's fault if Ange's family really are monsters.

Honestly, I think what BATTLER did was reasonable. Once Ange learns the real truth, there's no going back. Forcing her to look at the escapism option before she commits herself to the real truth is not so bad if you ask me.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And how do we make this distinction? Erika, Bernkastel, Featherine, and the Goats are all interested in the truth. They're willing to create false truths, but that's a means to an end for their bullying, rather than the endgoal.

They want to deny magic, and magic is "the happy lies of fun delusion".

Exactly. Their goal is the denial of magic, not the truth.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It's unbalanced the whole way, really. The conclusion just rewrites everyone's characterization into polarized extremes, demonstrating that Ryukishi doesn't think that these more moderate depictions are worth anything.

Maybe the characters changed the way they did so that the story would you know... resolve?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It doesn't matter what he says in the middle of the story if he doesn't believe in it, and he doesn't want us to, either.

What the fuck? We should just ignore anything he says about any merits there are to reality-facing as a matter of course, simply because it runs contrary to his final message? First you accuse him of not making good arguments for the other side, but now you say he's not even allowed to make arguments for the other side in the first place.

I think this is all because you just hate him.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You're completely right. But no one in the story ever does this. The only options given in Umineko are Sweet Illusions or Hopeless Despair. Ryukishi never presents the "Be Accountable For Your Own Problems" side of the argument.

NEVER.

It's mostly implicit. For example, any idiot could see that Yasu could have gotten Battler's phone number. If RK07 wanted to avoid that, he would have contrived some kind of circumstance where she couldn't.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Since I didn't need an extra subjective vision I would have apprecciated if Will had avoided doing that. If he felt the need to comfort Yasu he could have found different words. In that situation I felt nudged to embrace his point of view on the fact, and since I disagree with it I didn't aprecciate being nudged.

Fair enough.

[AuraTwilight]

Neither do "miracles" or "certainty". I'm talking about a metaphorical personification of gravity, yo.

Bernkastel isn't literally miracles; she may have power over it like a goddess, but she doesn't define herself by the concept. She doesn't even BELIEVE in miracles. She literally does not think they can exist. And Lambdadelta is very similar.

Interestingly, both of them seem to have had their personas inverted by their experiences in Logic Errors. Lambdadelta is no longer certain of anything, and Bernkastel has no faith in miracles.

See here I was talking about a different issue regarding truth, that advocates of the "real truth" are often just full of shit. Will is a contrast to this in that he doesn't go around pretending to know everything, yet ironically is closer to the truth than any of them.

You don't have to know the truth to desire it. And if you say you have the truth, and you're incorrect, how can you KNOW unless the truth comes out?

You're logic is faulty. It basically amounts to: "He has a one-sided conclusion, therefore he used a straw-man argument." You can have one without the other.

I've already explained why he uses a strawman argument; he misrepresents the Pro-Truth side of being composed almost entirely of malicious bullies and doesn't treat anyone like they deserve to know the truth unless they're entirely willing to let things be.

I'll say it again: the so-called truth-seekers that are big dumb jerks just aren't seeking the truth. I mean, how obvious can it be that Erika, for example, is precisely an advocate for untruth when her entire case against Natsuhi was such a sham?

The case against Natsuhi was not an end unto itself, it was a means to an end. It was effectively blackmail as much as it was anything else. Natsuhi could have stopped the whole thing by TELLING THE TRUTH.

It's her own damn fault things got as far as it did. This is what self-deception gets you.

Yeah he took advantage of the situation, but you can't blame BATTLER if Ange's second option sucks; it's not BATTLER's fault if Ange's family really are monsters.

Honestly, I think what BATTLER did was reasonable. Once Ange learns the real truth, there's no going back. Forcing her to look at the escapism option before she commits herself to the real truth is not so bad if you ask me.

So Ange should just plug her fingers in her ears and ignore everything? She should just love these facsimiles of her parents that never actually existed?

That's terrible. You're asking her to embrace a lie that makes it so she can't love a single family member for the people they WERE. It's exactly this sort of lie that made her unable to love Aunt Eva, who was otherwise pretty innocent and willing to love Ange like her own daughter.

Everyone can be legitimately held as innocent if the one guilty person is exposed, and if she understands the reasoning, maybe she can cope with it. What Battler is doing is putting the baby in a soft padded room so it never has to deal with a hard object for it's whole life. But if that child ever escapes and end up hitting itself on a hard surface and hurts itself, it's not going to be prepared to deal with it.

Battler is hurting Ange. There's no arguing it.

Exactly. Their goal is the denial of magic, not the truth.

Ryukishi treats them as the same thing. You either embrace magic, or you deny magic. Truth is subjective. There's no one in the story who represents a pursuit of Objective Truth, not even WILL.

Maybe the characters changed the way they did so that the story would you know... resolve?

There's a difference between character development and turning characters into facsimiles of a viewpoint. Why is Battler suddenly some wise all-knowing patronizing wizard douche? Why is Ange suddenly being treated like an irresponsible child willing to betray her brother because of what BERN of all people says? What the fuck is with Eva-Beatrice or really any other meta-character for that matter?

People act the way they do because Ryukishi says so, characterization consistency be damned. And given that it's meta-fiction I can excuse that for the sake of storytelling, but when he's butchering people's personalities for the sake of making his point about Truth, turning every Truth-seeker (INCLUDING ANGE) into a psycho asshole willing to kill over it...well...

What the fuck? We should just ignore anything he says about any merits there are to reality-facing as a matter of course, simply because it runs contrary to his final message? First you accuse him of not making good arguments for the other side, but now you say he's not even allowed to make arguments for the other side in the first place.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

He brings up arguments he doesn't even support to oppose these other arguments. It's a Bait-And-Switch. We're told that Maria's delusions are good, then Ange says they're bad, then Ange changes her mind, then it turns out the reason Ange was convinced Maria's delusions were good are entirely different from what Ryukishi actually believes and wanted us to take away from that.

Maria's white magic was ostensibly accepted by Ange, for instance, because Maria's kindness kept her from hating people and continuing a cycle of abuse. But not only is that NOT REALLY TRUE, but it's not even the reason Ryukishi wants us to accept magic. And even if it WAS, it wouldn't pan out because Maria's magic doesn't stop abuse, it just CONDONES it. It's the same fucking reasoning a battered wife tells herself so she doesn't leave an abusive husband, insisting he'll change if she keeps treating him well.

I think this is all because you just hate him.

I don't hate Ryukishi, and if you're just going to start ignoring my argument so you can attack me personally than you can go fuck yourself. This isn't the first time you've done this to me, and it's extremely goddamn rude. I haven't been calling you an idiot, or blaming your personal feelings for anything.

It's mostly implicit. For example, any idiot could see that Yasu could have gotten Battler's phone number. If RK07 wanted to avoid that, he would have contrived some kind of circumstance where she couldn't.

Yasu could have called Battler. She doesn't. The reason the story gives us is that it's better to hold out hoping than to be devastated with disappointment. Every character who gives their thoughts on this issue agrees, and beatifies her decision as her suffering nobly and admirably, and that the whole world was horrible to her.

This is the same Episode, by the way, that says it's impossible for Yasu to be happy unless she's born as Lion.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Bernkastel isn't literally miracles; she may have power over it like a goddess, but she doesn't define herself by the concept. She doesn't even BELIEVE in miracles. She literally does not think they can exist. And Lambdadelta is very similar.

Interestingly, both of them seem to have had their personas inverted by their experiences in Logic Errors. Lambdadelta is no longer certain of anything, and Bernkastel has no faith in miracles.

Sure. Lots of irony. And yes they aren't exactly representations of "miracles" or "certainty", but they are forces (perhaps "probability" and "determination" would better describe them).

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You don't have to know the truth to desire it. And if you say you have the truth, and you're incorrect, how can you KNOW unless the truth comes out?

Ah yes, this is true, but beside my point (I blame myself for being unclear).

Not only is what the evil truth-seekers espouse to know about the truth bullshit, but even their ostensive desire for truth is bullshit. Witch Hunters, for example, just want to increase their lore to entertain their imagination; they do not want to know what actually happened. This is how Ange judged Ootsuki and why she, as someone who really wanted to know the truth, was so disgusted with him.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I've already explained why he uses a strawman argument; he misrepresents the Pro-Truth side of being composed almost entirely of malicious bullies and doesn't treat anyone like they deserve to know the truth unless they're entirely willing to let things be.

You have also said that it's a strawman because by the end everything is really one-sided. That's what I'm making this point about.

What you are describing here sounds more properly described as a character assassination fallacy, which is itself somewhat different from a strawman fallacy.

Also, as explained above, I don't think RK07 engages in any logical fallacy here, because the evil characters are not intended to represent a pro-truth argument. They are truth-abusers, and their "truth" rarely is real anyway. In other words, they are depicted as people who respect nothing-not subjective truth, or Objective Truth. They can't be the avatars of Objective Truth! They are false avatars of Objective Truth and depicted as such. If they respected Objective Truth but still acted evil, I would completely agree with you.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The case against Natsuhi was not an end unto itself, it was a means to an end. It was effectively blackmail as much as it was anything else. Natsuhi could have stopped the whole thing by TELLING THE TRUTH.

It's her own damn fault things got as far as it did. This is what self-deception gets you.

Yet another argument derived from Umineko for facing reality.

And Erika was perfectly happy with Natsuhi refusing to admit that Kinzo was dead.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

So Ange should just plug her fingers in her ears and ignore everything? She should just love these facsimiles of her parents that never actually existed?

That's terrible. You're asking her to embrace a lie that makes it so she can't love a single family member for the people they WERE. It's exactly this sort of lie that made her unable to love Aunt Eva, who was otherwise pretty innocent and willing to love Ange like her own daughter.

Everyone can be legitimately held as innocent if the one guilty person is exposed, and if she understands the reasoning, maybe she can cope with it. What Battler is doing is putting the baby in a soft padded room so it never has to deal with a hard object for it's whole life. But if that child ever escapes and end up hitting itself on a hard surface and hurts itself, it's not going to be prepared to deal with it.

Battler is hurting Ange. There's no arguing it.

Well, yeah this is the general, and highly questionable, moral message that RK07 gives us. I just think that Battler was forcing Ange to look at that option, but as an option. I'd be happy to discuss this later, but right now there's other things to work out.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Ryukishi treats them as the same thing. You either embrace magic, or you deny magic. Truth is subjective. There's no one in the story who represents a pursuit of Objective Truth, not even WILL.

Well, this seems to be a main point of contention, because I don't think he treats them as the same thing. And it's the evil characters' aforementioned lack of respect for both subjective truth and Objective Truth that is why.

Ange represents a pursuit of Objective Truth, at least until near the very end.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Maria's white magic was ostensibly accepted by Ange, for instance, because Maria's kindness kept her from hating people and continuing a cycle of abuse. But not only is that NOT REALLY TRUE, but it's not even the reason Ryukishi wants us to accept magic.

It's not? Can't it be a reason? Why are you saying it isn't?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And even if it WAS, it wouldn't pan out because Maria's magic doesn't stop abuse, it just CONDONES it. It's the same fucking reasoning a battered wife tells herself so she doesn't leave an abusive husband, insisting he'll change if she keeps treating him well.

Well, then he's wrong. I find his moral/health conclusions questionable too, you know, but it does not mean I should automatically dismiss everything he says on the issue.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I don't hate Ryukishi, and if you're just going to start ignoring my argument so you can attack me personally than you can go fuck yourself. This isn't the first time you've done this to me, and it's extremely goddamn rude. I haven't been calling you an idiot, or blaming your personal feelings for anything.

No, but you did once call me academically dishonest. I really didn't like that.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Yasu could have called Battler. She doesn't. The reason the story gives us is that it's better to hold out hoping than to be devastated with disappointment. Every character who gives their thoughts on this issue agrees, and beatifies her decision as her suffering nobly and admirably, and that the whole world was horrible to her.

There was a lot of one-sided beatification in this instance; I'm not arguing against that. I'm saying that regardless of the beatification, an intelligent audience would instantly see that Yasu could have done something about her situation and that the story was intentionally written such that we would make this observation. You, me, Renall etc. all came to this conclusion- it's just a matter of reading between the lines.

After all, so much of Umineko is about seeing the Objective Truth behind the Subjective Bullshit; that's how the objective side is meant to be seen.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

This is the same Episode, by the way, that says it's impossible for Yasu to be happy unless she's born as Lion.

It's a good point. I'd have to reread to judge exactly how "impossible" it was depicted for Yasu to be happy, though.

[AuraTwilight]

Sure. Lots of irony. And yes they aren't exactly representations of "miracles" or "certainty", but they are forces (perhaps "probability" and "determination" would better describe them).

They're characters with jurisdiction over those forces. They may represent those forces, but they do not personify them.

Not only is what the evil truth-seekers espouse to know about the truth bullshit, but even their ostensive desire for truth is bullshit. Witch Hunters, for example, just want to increase their lore to entertain their imagination; they do not want to know what actually happened. This is how Ange judged Ootsuki and why she, as someone who really wanted to know the truth, was so disgusted with him.

This really doesn't hurt my argument. People who seek the truth are depicted as evil, insincere, or both. There is no one who properly represents the Pro-Truth side of the argument, which is why I'm accusing Ryukishi of misrepresenting and strawmanning the debate he set up. He constructed opponents he can defeat, instead of the opponents that would exist in this situation.

You have also said that it's a strawman because by the end everything is really one-sided. That's what I'm making this point about.

What you are describing here sounds more properly described as a character assassination fallacy, which is itself somewhat different from a strawman fallacy.

A strawman fallacy is when you misrepresent the other person's argument and fight against something no one would really posit, instead of the argument that is being (or would be) presented.

But yea, Ryukishi does commit the character assassination fallacy too. Thanks for reminding me that Umineko is propped up by buttloads of Ad Hominems. How is that supposed to change my mind, here?

Also, as explained above, I don't think RK07 engages in any logical fallacy here, because the evil characters are not intended to represent a pro-truth argument. They are truth-abusers, and their "truth" rarely is real anyway. In other words, they are depicted as people who respect nothing-not subjective truth, or Objective Truth. They can't be the avatars of Objective Truth! They are false avatars of Objective Truth and depicted as such. If they respected Objective Truth but still acted evil, I would completely agree with you.

It's nice to know you can read Ryukishi's mind so you can tell us what he intended.

You're right though; they don't seek an Objective Truth; but NO ONE DOES. Not a damn character is presented as actually desiring the truth for any moral reason. The only character who comes close is Ange, and, again, she only wants the truth that she can accept, and she acts like a petulant child that doesn't really know what she wants, flipping back and forth on the issue depending on who most recently gave her a pep talk.

This is why I accuse Ryukishi of misrepresenting things.

Yet another argument derived from Umineko for facing reality.

And Erika was perfectly happy with Natsuhi refusing to admit that Kinzo was dead.

Unfortunately, Natsuhi coming forward with the truth is never presented as a 'valid' option. She could've done it, at the expense of losing everything she worked for, and validating Erika's point of view, or causing Beatrice to lose the game or whatever else. And her decision to keep her mouth shut is treated as morally good.

Well, yeah this is the general, and highly questionable, moral message that RK07 gives us. I just think that Battler was forcing Ange to look at that option, but as an option. I'd be happy to discuss this later, but right now there's other things to work out.

Fair enough. I'll point out, however, that he is very much pressuring her to make the decision HE wants her to make, and there's no hard evidence he'd of ever allowed her to pick any other option if Bern hadn't crashed the party.

Maybe he'd keep going "You're still not ready" and give her more sermons and illusions and happy tales.

Well, this seems to be a main point of contention, because I don't think he treats them as the same thing. And it's the evil characters' aforementioned lack of respect for both subjective truth and Objective Truth that is why.

Ange represents a pursuit of Objective Truth, at least until near the very end.

The thing is, there's no Objective Truth argument anywhere. Even Ange wants a truth that she likes, and Bernkastel demonstrates this in the EP7 Tea Party.

The only options we're really given, here, are Magic or Shit. Do you want Magic, or do you want Shit? If you don't pick Magic Ange will go crazy, kill people, and starve to death on a boat. Don't you want Ange to pick Magic so she can be happy? Pick Magic. Otherwise you don't have Love.

And if you disagree you're a Goat and you don't get it and can't think.

It's not? Can't it be a reason? Why are you saying it isn't?

Because it's contradictory to what he says later. Magic can either change things, or it doesn't. It can't be both. Don't tell me that Maria's magic could change the whole world, then turn around and tell me Yasu was absolutely unable to change her situation no matter what she did.

Well, then he's wrong. I find his moral/health conclusions questionable too, you know, but it does not mean I should automatically dismiss everything he says on the issue.

Why should I listen to someone on morality and mental health issues if everything they've said up to that point was wrong and self-destructive?

No, but you did once call me academically dishonest. I really didn't like that.

Did I do so in THIS conversation? Because I'm pretty sure I apologized the last time I did so. I have a short temper because I'm pretty much constantly bleeding out of my face or some other part of my damn body and the blood ain't always red.

There was a lot of one-sided beatification in this instance; I'm not arguing against that. I'm saying that regardless of the beatification, an intelligent audience would instantly see that Yasu could have done something about her situation and that the story was intentionally written such that we would make this observation. You, me, Renall etc. all came to this conclusion- it's just a matter of reading between the lines.

But the point is, Ryukishi doesn't advocate such a course of action, nor did any of the characters. It's intentionally misleading in a way that's incredibly harmful.

After all, so much of Umineko is about seeing the Objective Truth behind the Subjective Bullshit; that's how the objective side is meant to be seen.

So he claims, but because everything is subjective and red is bullshit, there IS no Objective Truth to see; there's only what you think you're seeing, expecting to see, or desire to see.

No one can prove anything now because Ryu broke his own novel.

It's a good point. I'd have to reread to judge exactly how "impossible" it was depicted for Yasu to be happy, though.

To the point that the Witch of Miracles declares that there shall never be a miracle. That's pretty much a death sentence in Ryukishi-verse.

[Wanderer]

I reorganized some of your quotes to make for better flow.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

They're characters with jurisdiction over those forces. They may represent those forces, but they do not personify them.

Different interpretations. I think it's more interesting if they are personifications, though.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

This really doesn't hurt my argument. People who seek the truth are depicted as evil, insincere, or both. There is no one who properly represents the Pro-Truth side of the argument, which is why I'm accusing Ryukishi of misrepresenting and strawmanning the debate he set up. He constructed opponents he can defeat, instead of the opponents that would exist in this situation.

And I'm saying they don't misrepresent anyone. He's not saying these are the kinds of people that are Pro-Truth; he's saying that these kinds of people aren't even worthy of being considered Pro-Truth.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But yea, Ryukishi does commit the character assassination fallacy too. Thanks for reminding me that Umineko is propped up by buttloads of Ad Hominems. How is that supposed to change my mind, here?

It's not supposed to change your mind. It's just for clarification. My real arguments come from different paragraphs.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Unfortunately, Natsuhi coming forward with the truth is never presented as a 'valid' option. She could've done it, at the expense of losing everything she worked for, and validating Erika's point of view, or causing Beatrice to lose the game or whatever else. And her decision to keep her mouth shut is treated as morally good.

I'm not so sure that covering up Kinzo's death itself was really depicted as morally good; overall I thought it felt kind of neutral, really. The other points are certainly true, yet still the option to confess was obviously there, and, at least to me, obviously not a bad one.

Incidentally, Natsuhi's confession about the maid and baby-Yasu was depicted as morally good and mentally healthy.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Fair enough. I'll point out, however, that he is very much pressuring her to make the decision HE wants her to make, and there's no hard evidence he'd of ever allowed her to pick any other option if Bern hadn't crashed the party.

Maybe he'd keep going "You're still not ready" and give her more sermons and illusions and happy tales.

Yeah, there's no hard evidence. That's why I said I'd trust BATTLER. At least enough to see his "final game" to its conclusion. I'd call him out if he started filibustering.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Because it's contradictory to what he says later. Magic can either change things, or it doesn't. It can't be both. Don't tell me that Maria's magic could change the whole world, then turn around and tell me Yasu was absolutely unable to change her situation no matter what she did.

Well, speaking objectively, magic can't change anything except subjective perceptions, and depending who you ask and what time of day it is, they may answer that that means "changing everything" or "changing nothing".

So, yeah, it can be both. And yeah it's flimsy and weird and self-contradictory and illogical and a "cheap" way for an author to just say whatever, but that's just how subjectivity works.

And I don't care who said what about it, but the idea that Yasu couldn't change her situation is preposterous. Keep in mind that RK07 characters are not directors. Not even Will. Their comments are their own opinions (or lies) and not the Objective Truth about RK07's world. In a way RK07 is knowingly making a weak argument for subjectivity because the Objective Truth in Yasu's case is so easy to see as contrary to what is being said by the characters.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Did I do so in THIS conversation? Because I'm pretty sure I apologized the last time I did so. I have a short temper because I'm pretty much constantly bleeding out of my face or some other part of my damn body and the blood ain't always red.

It was in that whole conversation about "deconstruction". And no, you never apologized. And no, I never expressed how much it bothered me until now so maybe you didn't even realize you offended me, but I was really mad. On the other hand, I was also really taken aback at how defensive you got when I started pushing back. I figured it was fair play to be a little condescending to you since I felt you were being that way to me.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It's nice to know you can read Ryukishi's mind so you can tell us what he intended.

Yeah well it's just my judgment. Disagree if you want.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You're right though; they don't seek an Objective Truth; but NO ONE DOES. Not a damn character is presented as actually desiring the truth for any moral reason. The only character who comes close is Ange, and, again, she only wants the truth that she can accept, and she acts like a petulant child that doesn't really know what she wants, flipping back and forth on the issue depending on who most recently gave her a pep talk.

This is why I accuse Ryukishi of misrepresenting things....

...But the point is, Ryukishi doesn't advocate such a course of action, nor did any of the characters. It's intentionally misleading in a way that's incredibly harmful...

...The thing is, there's no Objective Truth argument anywhere. Even Ange wants a truth that she likes, and Bernkastel demonstrates this in the EP7 Tea Party.

It's true that there is very little in the way of explicit anti-escapism arguments, but there are anti-escapism arguments made implicitly all throughout. It was escapism, for example, that lead to Kinzo raping his daughter.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

So he claims, but because everything is subjective and red is bullshit, there IS no Objective Truth to see; there's only what you think you're seeing, expecting to see, or desire to see.

No one can prove anything now because Ryu broke his own novel.

Making the "Everything is subjective" argument always runs into this problem. Still, I think it's a valid and useful way to look at things, as is the counter viewpoint that "there is a knowable absolute reality". I have a unique (I think) philosophical position on ___jectivity that would take a while to explain. I might do it later.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The only options we're really given, here, are Magic or Shit. Do you want Magic, or do you want Shit? If you don't pick Magic Ange will go crazy, kill people, and starve to death on a boat. Don't you want Ange to pick Magic so she can be happy? Pick Magic. Otherwise you don't have Love.

Yeah, I didn't like the two choices given at the end either.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

To the point that the Witch of Miracles declares that there shall never be a miracle. That's pretty much a death sentence in Ryukishi-verse.

Haha, even though she doesn't believe in miracles. You're the last person I would expect to lend any credence to what Bern says.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Also (and this is the third time I've said this) if you have to say "in the end" about RK07's argument then you're not saying anything but that his conclusion was faulty. And whether or not an argument is a straw man argument has no formal logical connections with the conclusion drawn from refuting it.

I'm getting mixed messages. Is your complaint A) that the arguments RK07 made for the opposition were cherry-picked and poor to begin with (strawman) or B) that the arguments made for the opposition were relevant but not refuted well enough to justify RK07's presented conclusion? Because I am OK with the latter.

On point one, I don't understand your objection. His conclusion is faulty "in the end" because his premises are misguided and the steps he takes to reach his conclusion are misinformed and biased. It's not merely "based on the same assumptions and the same facts, I think Ryukishi drew the wrong conclusion." I'm saying "I don't agree with his assumptions and I think he's twisting the facts, and as a result he draws a ludicrous conclusion." It's definitely critical all the way down.

If you fail to understand why this is a problem, it's because a conflict is created (it's essentially the climax of the ep8 meta-story, even) between two sides in apparent opposition. However, one of these sides is not reasonably portrayed. If your argument is "Well, that's different from portraying actual Truth-seekers," then you're conceding that no such characters are portrayed. However, "truth"-seekers indeed are portrayed. To the imperceptive reader they could easily be believed to be one and the same. And their arguments are presented as wrong and possible to dismiss because they have bad motives. What they say is less important than who they are, and conveniently, they are bad people. This makes it a whole lot easier for Ryukishi to dispense with that side. That's essentially strawmanning objections to his arguments.

As to the second, I would say A) simply because I don't remember a single character who even advocated for that side in a positively-portrayed way. Will came the closest, but Will did not have as a higher goal the actual pursuit of Truth-with-a-capital-T. He was basically doing someone a favor. It wasn't his job or desire to make waves. And that aside, he wound up agreeing with all the good guys in the end anyway.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Exactly. Their goal is the denial of magic, not the truth.

The seeker of Truth by necessity must expose magic for what it is, but their motive isn't just tearing something down. Note that this makes for a much stronger character motivation as well and allows for such a person to be portrayed sympathetically despite being an effective antagonist to Battler and Beatrice. Bern is acting out of petty grudges, Erika out of intellectual elitism and insecurity. And the goats are... I dunno, dicks? The motives of the villains who actually exist are pretty flimsy, other than Dlanor (if you count her as a "villain" in ep5), and her motive is purely meta-fictional.

It's worth noting that most of the people who pursue the truth - including the good guys - do it for selfish or purely personal motives. Bern to hurt the people who are hiding it, Erika to prove how smart she is, Ange for personal closure, Touya to understand what he fears, the goats to prove they were right. Will, who doesn't do it for personal satisfaction, nevertheless does it for others' personal reasons (sympathy for others' desires for understanding and acceptance).

However, it's possible to desire the revelation of the truth for entirely impersonal motives. For example... you know, justice. Seeing the guilty named and the innocent vindicated for no other reason than it being the right thing to do for the people who didn't do anything bad that weekend. Or to silence the awful speculation for no other reason than that it's wrong and only the truth can put it to an end. Or the desire to preserve and protect history that is in danger of being lost and unknown forever. Or to know what went wrong so that the tragedy can have a positive effect informing the future of the tragedies inherent in human nature. Or simply for Truth as an end unto itself.

In the R-Prime universe, there must exist people who hold motives like these. You can't tell me there's not some ex-cop out there who just wishes he could have found more evidence the day he responded to the island, if only so that the public wouldn't have to consider all of the victims murder suspects. These characters have no apparent voice, however, in the dialogue.

What the fuck? We should just ignore anything he says about any merits there are to reality-facing as a matter of course, simply because it runs contrary to his final message? First you accuse him of not making good arguments for the other side, but now you say he's not even allowed to make arguments for the other side in the first place.

Who actually does this and is shown to positively benefit from it? Maria never has a chance. Eva apparently snaps. Natsuhi breaks down. Erika is hurt by it. Ange is hurt by it. Yasu is hurt by it. Touya is afraid of it.

Who exactly puts into practice facing the reality they live in and succeeds in this narrative? The Natsuhi example is the only time I can think of anyone being harmed by refusal to face reality over being truthful, and I don't think being truthful would've even helped her case since it was rigged against her.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

It's true that there is very little in the way of explicit anti-escapism arguments, but there are anti-escapism arguments made implicitly all throughout. It was escapism, for example, that lead to Kinzo raping his daughter.

Remember when Kinzo was punished for that act?

...No?

Hrm... come to think of it, neither do I. Oh, yes, that's because he never was. All of Kinzo's suffering (which was also escapism) was caused by his own actions (which, according to you, were also escapism). So... he tried to escape from his problems and inflicted suffering on himself. But he was never actually condemned for this by anyone but himself. Self-inflicted suffering is not punishment and it is not justice unless you have actually learned something from it and made an effort to repair your wrongs.

Again, if those facts are true, Ryukishi is portraying an old man who imprisoned and raped his own daughter as suffering because he wants to see her again, but not exactly because he's simply sorry. I suppose you can argue he regrets after her death, but there's no indication he ever intended to make it up to Beatrice-2 while she was actually alive. It's easy to want to apologize to the person you can no longer hurt, but it doesn't mean you'd actually have stopped hurting them had you never lost them. There's no indication that Kinzo was ever truly repentant for doing what he did (whether all the allegations about Beatrice-2 are true or not, she appears to have at least been confined), and the narrative neither requires that he be nor does it make any effort to condemn his behavior. Arguably, ep7 and ep8 whitewash it (with Kinzo dying fulfilled - essentially getting away with his crimes - and then being portrayed as Awesome Grandpa).

[AuraTwilight]

Different interpretations. I think it's more interesting if they are personifications, though.

I like them as personifications too, but they don't really demonstrate it in any meaningful way, unfortunately.

And I'm saying they don't misrepresent anyone. He's not saying these are the kinds of people that are Pro-Truth; he's saying that these kinds of people aren't even worthy of being considered Pro-Truth.

And yet they're the only people who try. So is he saying there is no Pro-Truth?

Because subjectivity lol?

I'm not so sure that covering up Kinzo's death itself was really depicted as morally good; overall I thought it felt kind of neutral, really. The other points are certainly true, yet still the option to confess was obviously there, and, at least to me, obviously not a bad one.

Incidentally, Natsuhi's confession about the maid and baby-Yasu was depicted as morally good and mentally healthy.

By the way let's hope the infanticide thing wasn't a delusion to blame herself for a horrible accident, lol.

And I don't care who said what about it, but the idea that Yasu couldn't change her situation is preposterous. Keep in mind that RK07 characters are not directors. Not even Will. Their comments are their own opinions (or lies) and not the Objective Truth about RK07's world. In a way RK07 is knowingly making a weak argument for subjectivity because the Objective Truth in Yasu's case is so easy to see as contrary to what is being said by the characters.

Except for the Personification of Miracles saying that Yasu is hosed in every possible timeline.

It was in that whole conversation about "deconstruction". And no, you never apologized. And no, I never expressed how much it bothered me until now so maybe you didn't even realize you offended me, but I was really mad. On the other hand, I was also really taken aback at how defensive you got when I started pushing back. I figured it was fair play to be a little condescending to you since I felt you were being that way to me.

I'm not trying to be condescending; If I am, it's because I think the argument is inferior, but I usually try not to hold it against the person. Anyway, I apologize for what I said, I thought I had amended for it due to this shitty memory of mine. Please accept my most heartfelt apology for taking the lower road in a discussion.

It's true that there is very little in the way of explicit anti-escapism arguments, but there are anti-escapism arguments made implicitly all throughout. It was escapism, for example, that lead to Kinzo raping his daughter.

Or mental illness.

Making the "Everything is subjective" argument always runs into this problem. Still, I think it's a valid and useful way to look at things, as is the counter viewpoint that "there is a knowable absolute reality". I have a unique (I think) philosophical position on ___jectivity that would take a while to explain. I might do it later.

I'd be very interested in hearing it, though I make no promises that I won't strongly disagree with it.

Haha, even though she doesn't believe in miracles. You're the last person I would expect to lend any credence to what Bern says.

Unfortunately, Bern has power over miracles regardless of her beliefs. She can make them happen and deny them from happening.

And given that it's Bern, saying the truth would be more hurtful, in her mind.

Arguably, ep7 and ep8 whitewash it (with Kinzo dying fulfilled - essentially getting away with his crimes - and then being portrayed as Awesome Grandpa).

Kinzo is forced to spend hell surrounded by the family of vultures he resented so much, and he can't even detest them. His emotions are bottled up as his face is forced to smile, and his mouth compelled to speak sweet words. He cannot curse them or lash out at them, and he can only watch as they suck the marrow from his bones and leech off his fortune and 'compassion'.

He has no mouth and he must scream.

[James Lame]

Originally Posted by Renall

Arguably, ep7 and ep8 whitewash it (with Kinzo dying fulfilled - essentially getting away with his crimes - and then being portrayed as Awesome Grandpa).

I don't know why, but i never really thought of it that way. That's pretty damn twisted.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

If you fail to understand why this is a problem, it's because a conflict is created (it's essentially the climax of the ep8 meta-story, even) between two sides in apparent opposition. However, one of these sides is not reasonably portrayed. If your argument is "Well, that's different from portraying actual Truth-seekers," then you're conceding that no such characters are portrayed.

It's not a point I am unwilling to "concede". I never took a strong foothold on that position anyway; the only really decent example is Ange, and she goes back and forth about it.

There are implicit arguments for facing the Objective Truth to be found in Umineko, they just don't have avatars.

Originally Posted by Renall

However, "truth"-seekers indeed are portrayed. To the imperceptive reader they could easily be believed to be one and the same. And their arguments are presented as wrong and possible to dismiss because they have bad motives. What they say is less important than who they are, and conveniently, they are bad people. This makes it a whole lot easier for Ryukishi to dispense with that side. That's essentially strawmanning objections to his arguments.

It's bludgeoned upon the reader that Erika is happy to knowingly construct a complete falsehood in order to have Natsuhi suffer. I don't care how imperceptive you are, Erika's arguments are so blatantly deceitful and false that there is no way that you would misconstrue her as a legitimate representative of the Truth-seeking side of an argument.

Originally Posted by Renall

In the R-Prime universe, there must exist people who hold motives like these. You can't tell me there's not some ex-cop out there who just wishes he could have found more evidence the day he responded to the island, if only so that the public wouldn't have to consider all of the victims murder suspects. These characters have no apparent voice, however, in the dialogue.Who actually does this and is shown to positively benefit from it? Maria never has a chance. Eva apparently snaps. Natsuhi breaks down. Erika is hurt by it. Ange is hurt by it. Yasu is hurt by it. Touya is afraid of it.

The truth hurts sometimes; that's an indisputable fact, and presenting it as so is hardly a reason to call RK07 biased. The fair question to ask is: Which response to these painful truths was depicted as correct, escapism or acceptance? Is it always escapism? No.

• Battler starts off depicted as naive for his escapism from the possibility that someone he knows committed murder. He completely switches to the point of view that it's best not to know. Overall, chalk one for escapism.
• Maria is not mentally developed enough to even choose acceptance. Does the story suggest she should never grow out of it? Not really. Chalk a small one for escapism.
• Eva- nothing good comes from her escapism. Maybe some things bad. Overall, chalk a small one up for acceptance.
• Natsuhi's delusions about Kinzo was the greatest source of her strength. Chalk one for escapism.
• Erika's acceptance of "the truth" about her boyfriend twisted her. Chalk a big one up for escapism.
• Kinzo refused to accept Beatrice I's death, so he made Beatrice II into her replacement in his mind and raped his own daughter. Chalk a big one for facing reality.
• Touya actually goes the acceptance route for the sake of Ange despite being afraid of it. What a hero. Chalk one for facing reality.
• Krauss is a failure and can't admit it, and it drags his household into financial trouble and a dangerous coverup. Chalk for acceptance.
• Rosa basically has two modes: Pragmatic responsible adult who loves and takes good care of Maria; and immature, irresponsible child who blames Maria for all her problems. That's one for facing reality.
• Kyrie's acknowledgement of her "loss" to Asumu makes her bitter (and maybe even twisted). This one goes to escapism.
• The beatification of Yasu's escapism. A point for the escapism side.
• And finally, Ange and her "trick" and "magic" endings. That's a really big one for escapism; I'll count it as 3 points.

Final score: Escapism 9, Acceptance 5. That's not all that disparaged.

I know that this "scoring system" is extremely arbitrary and I could be biased or negelecting certain points etc., but you get the gist of my argument: Acceptance of objective reality in face of adversity is not infrequently depicted as the "correct" path in Umineko. This usually occurs when the character in question has a responsibility to another person.

Originally Posted by Renall

Remember when Kinzo was punished for that act?

...No?

I've not said anything about whether justice was met for Kinzo's sin, just that his act was wrong. It was obviously wrong; does the story need to spell this out for us? Does anyone think "Oh no one condemned him so what he did was OK"? Fuck no. It was fucking creepy enough to think about in the first place.

He did try to apologize to Beatrice II (I?), but used Yasu as a proxy (yet more harmful delusional escapism). That was pretty fucked up, and it really fucked up Yasu even more than she already was. Come to think of it, Genji really fucked up letting that happen.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

And yet they're the only people who try. So is he saying there is no Pro-Truth?

Because subjectivity lol?

Well, even red was subjective, ultimately. To be completely honest, I don't have a well-formed idea on RK07's views regarding "everything is subjective". In any case, I'll buy the "everything is subjective" message before I would see characters like Erika as legitimate, or even illegitimate, avatars of Pro-Truth.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Except for the Personification of Miracles saying that Yasu is hosed in every possible timeline.

Then Yasu sucks at accepting reality in every timeline. Or Bern is being deceitful and manipulative.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Please accept my most heartfelt apology for taking the lower road in a discussion.

I appreciate it. I also apologize for being passive-aggressive and immature.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Or mental illness.

Is there much difference? Regardless of why he trapped himself in escapism, it still turned out to be a very unhealthy coping mechanism for him that resulted in him doing immoral things.

[AuraTwilight]

It's bludgeoned upon the reader that Erika is happy to knowingly construct a complete falsehood in order to have Natsuhi suffer. I don't care how imperceptive you are, Erika's arguments are so blatantly deceitful and false that there is no way that you would misconstrue her as a legitimate representative of the Truth-seeking side of an argument.

She's constructing a falsehood so terrible as to coerce Natsuhi to confess the Truth. You can still very easily argue that Truth is Erika's number one motive, if you wanted to.

Eva- nothing good comes from her escapism. Maybe some things bad. Overall, chalk a small one up for acceptance.

What's Eva's escapism, in this example? I honestly don't think we can compare Eva to the other characters because she never really deludes herself.

Kinzo refused to accept Beatrice I's death, so he made Beatrice II into her replacement in his mind and raped his own daughter. Chalk a big one for facing reality.

Kinzo is also heavily insinuated to be mentally ill or outright insane. That's a LARGE bit different from deliberately choosing a falsehood over the truth, since crazy people don't really have a choice.

Touya actually goes the acceptance route for the sake of Ange despite being afraid of it. What a hero. Chalk one for facing reality.

Does he? He accepts meeting Ange, but he still doesn't really accept that he's Battler.

Krauss is a failure and can't admit it, and it drags his household into financial trouble and a dangerous coverup. Chalk for acceptance.

And the coverup is the only thing keeping his family off the streets. Escapism +1.

Rosa basically has two modes: Pragmatic responsible adult who loves and takes good care of Maria; and immature, irresponsible child who blames Maria for all her problems. That's one for facing reality.

What escapism is Rosa engaging in, here? She loses her temper with Maria and vents her frustrations on her, she's not engaging in the acceptance of falsehoods. You're making the 'Escapism' side into ONE HELL of an umbrella term.

Final score: Escapism 9, Acceptance 5. That's not all that disparaged.

If we used my adjusted score, it's 10, 0.

I've not said anything about whether justice was met for Kinzo's sin, just that his act was wrong. It was obviously wrong; does the story need to spell this out for us? Does anyone think "Oh no one condemned him so what he did was OK"? Fuck no. It was fucking creepy enough to think about in the first place.

He did try to apologize to Beatrice II (I?), but used Yasu as a proxy (yet more harmful delusional escapism). That was pretty fucked up, and it really fucked up Yasu even more than she already was. Come to think of it, Genji really fucked up letting that happen.

AND EVERYONE COVERED IT UP.

ESPECIALLY IN LION'S WORLD WHERE NOT ONLY IS IT COVERED UP BUT EVERYONE LIVES HAPPILY-FUCKING-EVER AFTER.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

Is there much difference? Regardless of why he trapped himself in escapism, it still turned out to be a very unhealthy coping mechanism for him that resulted in him doing immoral things.

The mentally ill and the insane do not have a choice in their delusions. You cannot in good, moral conscience hold them to the same standards as people who CHOOSE to be deluded.

[Keriaku]

I would usually stay quiet for these kinds of discussions, but I have something I think is important to add here. This isn’t directed at anyone in particular; rather it is about the debate as a whole. The discussion of subjectivity vs. objectivity, the morality of escapism that Umineko presents, what Ryuukishi is saying with the series, etc.

I want to set aside the ideas of truth and falsity taken for granted here. What I want to examine is separate to these concepts. I want to look at the choice of Fantasy vs. Mystery, unburdened with discussion of truth.

In my mind, Umineko presents a world where fantasy could be real. In relation to morality as discussed, this has major implications. The fantasy perspective is a fully fleshed out, parallel perspective to take on the world of Umineko opposite to the mystery one. And I believe this duality is one of the bigger, over-arching messages that Ryuukishi is trying to present, that supersedes the smaller subset discussions that appear when you already fundamentally take one side. To be more specific, I think that the debate going on here about the morality of escapism that Ryuukishi is presenting is already limiting and obscuring Ryuukishi’s actual message. And that is fine, as long as one realizes that it is only a subset argument.

From the beginning, Ryuukishi has talked about Fantasy vs. Mystery. This is so obvious in the series that the point seems moot and beaten to death. But I believe that it is at the core of how one regards every part of the series thematically, and it is certainly relevant to the discussion at hand. To reiterate what I stated above, it seems that judging what Ryuukishi’s message is about morality under the light of escapism is already showing some steadfast assumptions of fantasy NOT being real, and the world working exactly like our own – a mystery perspective. And again, this is a perfectly legitimate discussion to have, but it’s only half of what the series presents, and therefore should not be taken to be Ryuukishi’s whole message.

Under the mystery-reality perspective, I think everyone here makes good points. Fantasy is not real. People are using psychological barriers to protect themselves from the harshness of their situations. These situations and the people’s choices can then be examined under a notion of escapism and what this means for people, whether or not this method makes sense within the context of society.

But I believe this is not a primary message within Umineko. What is a primary message is whether or not people will allow fantasy to exist. And it seems like many events in relation to this primary message are what is disrupting the discussion about escapism. This is simply because not all the characters take a mystery-reality perspective. That is why there is so much tension between what characters do or how they act in relation to the basis of this discussion. This is a main reason why I think this parallel perspective should be brought up in people’s minds. What seems like baseless optimism or terribly immoral acts in encouraging people come out in a completely different light if we take into account the fact that Ryuukishi is actively trying to uphold both perspectives within the series.

Under the fantasy-reality perspective, the Fantasy that we see is real. Under this interpretation, the idea of escapism is completely irrelevant. It’s not escapism if it’s true. It instead becomes a different situation, where the Truth can’t be expressed to others because they won’t understand/accept it; it inevitably won’t be true to them.

The point here is that a logically consistent world of magic exists to explore. Vessels are needed, people need to believe it, magic-toxins affect the magic, etc. The laws governing magic are up for debate/interpretation, but even the fact that the magic has to correspond to a real possible event can be consistent. Under this perspective, the Rokkenjima Prime could very well be a story of Beatrice killing everyone. Even though the possibility of a human culprit might be a prerequisite for the magic, that doesn’t mean that there ever had to actually have been a human culprit. Maybe all the prerequisites were met and in actual truth Beatrice was revived and killed people, as we saw. This is a possible line of reasoning for the fantasy-reality theorist.

The series never actually forces you to believe it is a world with workings exactly like ours. There is no undeniable evidence for this. To see the world exactly like ours is a choice we make as readers. It may or may not be a choice for the characters inhabiting this world, but it is most definitely a choice for us. Both Mystery and Fantasy are equal and complete options. Know then that assumptions are being made when you examine the morality only on one side, such as with ‘escapism’.

And even this parallel perspective leads to its own subset discussions of morality or otherwise. Taking Fantasy as true, we can examine the characters differently. The big case that stands out in my mind is Kinzo. Maybe it’s true that Beatrice 2 could have been a vessel for the soul of Beatrice 1. We can still ask the question of whether or not what he did was right. Do the ends justify the means, caging her and controlling her life as a new individual, even if she might eventually realize a new self as Beatrice 1? This is all topped off with it being known that Kinzo has the worst affinity for actual magic, so he would never actually succeed even if it was possible. And this inevitably leads to him raping her. The morality of this situation isn’t something you can attribute to Ryuukishi, this is something you can attribute to Kinzo as a character.

This of course also leads into over-arching discussions of subjectivity vs. objectivity. This runs down through both sides, with different implications for each. This also runs headlong into questions about truth and other epistemological questions, again with different implications for both sides. But a key theme is that we can’t really take one side over the other without a choice, or even worse, relying on unexamined beliefs and assumptions. The duality exists and is never going to disappear.

In a sense it could be seen as a choice for the characters themselves as well, with things like Devil’s Proof towards the existence of magic everywhere. Nobody can prove that Sakutarou isn’t real. This train of thought leads down the line to questions about what reality is and other metaphysical concerns for what the world is like for these characters. And luckily, we even have material to work with in that regard within the world of Umineko through the existence of the meta-world and witches like Bernakstel or Featherine.

In the end, you don’t have to agree with the fantasy-reality perspective, or even be interested in discussing it. As long as you understand it, and know it’s implications before making widespread judgements about the content of Umineko, or what Ryuukishi is saying.

I think the existence of these two parallel readings of the series was Ryuukishi’s main goal, and he definitely accomplished it in my mind.