2010-08-22, 01:02 | Link #542 | ||||
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In addition, once again, we're still left with the fact that Ange herself received such a money card after the incident had taken place. So it's not a servant thing, it's about the relatives of the deceased. Also this further strengthens the idea that Yasu-Beato was aware of things coming to a head like this ahead of time. So if she had the foresight to prepare this elaborate setup with the cash cards, preparing the message bottles isnt such a huge stretch. An act of condolence for the surviving relatives of the inevitable tragedy, and a roundabout dying message to reveal the true culprit? Either way, the exact circumstances of Yasu-Beatrice's involvement in this are incredibly murky, but indicate a good amount of certain forewarning. Quote:
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If it's personality death, followed by George killing Gohda for whatever reason (witness?), before a possible Yasu-Beato face heel turn on George, then that could certainly work. Maybe the manner in which Battler/Rosa's group found Shannon could be a failed suicide attempt? |
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2010-08-22, 01:09 | Link #543 | |
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The problem is that Yasu cannot be the culprit that easily unless there is some event that seriously changed her mindset, which I can't quite place my finger on yet. Yes there is the event in the flashback about her body being unable to love....but does that really guarantee a wish to kill? Especially when at the same time you cry for help? On the other hand think about how some things are quite odd when it comes to the other servants. In Episode 3 we already have Ronove openly going against Beatrice's orders (he even catches Kinzo's ring before she can) and Vargilia more or less forcing a strategy upon her. In Episode 4 it is basically the servants (if we asume the double-identity case) who are steering everything...even though I'm still lost on Gaap. If Shannon/Kanon was Yasu (was Beatrice) then it is even more strange why Vargilia would keep her prisoner, if it wasn't for a bigger reason.
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2010-08-22, 01:12 | Link #544 |
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The oddity of a killing motive in the Yasu story is that it basically has to crop up in the last two years. That pretty much fixes it to the George/Jessica relationships, but not very long into those either. Losing hope in Battler alone doesn't seem to establish the causal link.
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2010-08-22, 01:16 | Link #545 | ||||
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I don't believe we ever see Beato appear before Piece Battler in any of the games until after the deaths of Shannon and Kanon. The question we should be asking, is indeed, why Yasu-Beato and her known compatriots (Genji-Kumasawa) are acting to kill Shannon/Kanon? If we already know that at least Shannon and Yasu are the same person, why are they going after Shannon, but not Yasu-Beato? Edit: Quote:
"Because you abandoned me, I clung in desperation to these murderers for the affection you promised me but never gave." As Battler was no longer around to give Yasu-Beatrice the love she yearned for, she clung to George or Jessica for it. If one of those two are the true culprit, and Shkannon are simply the assistant, then Battler's Sin's connection also becomes clear. If he hadn't abandoned her, she would never have joined up with the culprit to begin with, thus setting the stage for the murders to take place. The only aspect this interpretation doesnt address is the reason why Battler's presence makes it worse. But that's simply due to a lack of information. |
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2010-08-22, 01:22 | Link #547 | |
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They could simply love 'Beatrice' too much to let her go. This is of course only one interpretation. But it would at least halfway explain why somebody who has miraculously survived during Episode 1 would kill exactly the three people who put him/her in that place in the first place ... and it would explain why Kumasawa is so terribly affraid
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2010-08-22, 01:24 | Link #548 | |
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But not Beato (who chose Natsuhi as a means of vengeance for the cliff thing, and even then bungled the "execution"), and not Battler (who opted to go for himself off camera). |
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2010-08-22, 01:29 | Link #550 | |
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Genji-Kumasawa have probably accepted Yasu-Beato in order to keep their counterparts alive. If you had an imaginary friend and you die, then naturally the imaginary friend will die too- unless they existed in the minds of someone else. This is Beato-3 passing on her furniture to Yasu, no? ...Um, Higurashi? (I'm not trying to pin the two stories together, but it just gave me that vibe.)
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Last edited by Helmet-kun; 2010-08-22 at 01:41. Reason: Realized my errors. |
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2010-08-22, 01:40 | Link #551 | |||
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2010-08-22, 01:45 | Link #552 |
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I meant that Yasu-Beato needs to exist so that Ronouve and Lia can exist as well. If you deny Beato, you're also denying the existence of her world- the world of magic.
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Last edited by Helmet-kun; 2010-08-22 at 10:27. |
2010-08-22, 01:49 | Link #553 |
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Yes, but if those alter-egos are simply parts that they're acting, rather than true alternate personalities (as hinted in Episode 6's early parts) then that doesn't really impact their motivation at all. It was just pretending, after all.
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2010-08-22, 02:27 | Link #554 | ||
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Ryuukishi said in one of the tips that wanting a fair mystery is like "a boxer who only fights against opponents he can win against." which is, in my opinion, a gross misunderstanding of the genre. I can accept that anyone has their own take of the genre, but that is a take I strongly disagree with. Van Dine said it best. Quote:
To make the playing field even, the author is bound by certain rules. Unspoken, but bounding nonetheless. Once you break them, you are cheating in this gentleman's duel. You may win, people may shout your name and praise you, but you have cheated. Wanting clues is not the same as a boxer wanting to fight against opponents he can win against. It's a boxer wanting to fight against someone in the same weight class. It's a boxer wanting to fight against someone using his bare fists, instead of a pterodactyl with a machine gun. Umineko is Ryuukishi's take on the genre. It is in my humble opinion, an arrogant assumption. A mystery should be solvable. Ryuukishi assumes that solving and guessing are the same thing. However, they are not. Umineko consists of around 80 pieces of a hundred-piece puzzle. Sure we can guess what the final picture looks like, but that is not the same as solving. Not everything will fall in place until the author decides to tell us. And that is a bastardization of the mystery genre. I have discussed this with a few friends who agree with me, but those friends are all mystery writers. Well, and our editor. So we tend to be a bit biased in arguments related to the philosophy of a mystery, and might be being arrogant ourselves. I think that Ryuukishi is growing arrogant. His novel sounds too elitist. He wants us to guess until we get the right answer without giving us clues, and he thinks he is winning his duel against the readers. He might be, but his Hand of God writing the tale will be met with very disappointed fans once the novelty wore out and they realize how he cheated. |
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2010-08-22, 02:29 | Link #555 |
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Out of curiosity, where and how do you suspect him of cheating? It's an interesting line of speculation, and I think one appropriate especially to the episode threads (you could think of it as a "review" if you like). I have some kernel of an idea what you mean, as I have considered it in the past, but I lack the literary background.
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2010-08-22, 02:35 | Link #556 | |||||||
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Which, mind you, it wasn't quite. Quote:
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I'm not expecting a Key plot, by no means... though Ryukishi actually wrote for Key too, just so you know. However, I am expecting that this is literature which has an important message to tell to the world, and "not actually literature" is the major criticism put out against detective novels in the West. What exactly this message is, in the end, I can't really tell. But the presence of Ange in the ending makes me think that Ep7 is not the message, but just artillery talking before the actual attack. Quote:
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It is one of the rare chances for a writer to be heroic as only a writer can, rather than his characters, which is one of the reasons I have settled in this opinion in the first place. Most other chances involve opposing something dangerous to life and limb, like a government ideology, this would just oppose attitudes of a great many individuals instead -- not dangerous to life and limb, but deadly to writer's career if he doesn't win. My opinion rests precisely on the assumption that Ryukishi plans to win. I can't claim to know whether he can win, and offer a solution that is more satisfying than what Ep7 offers. It may be that he can't. Quote:
It nevertheless avoids ridiculing love itself and still sticks to it as a value.
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2010-08-22, 02:40 | Link #557 | ||
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I believe Erika Furudo says at one point that "Mystery as a Genre was completed 50 years ago (in relation to the gameboard)", and Battler responds by stating that all other stories on their own are indeed worth reading, if only for the sake of the stories that they tell. In a lot of ways, I agree with your interpretation of what Ryukishi is doing with Umineko, but I wouldn't use the term "arrogant" to describe his stance. Probably more like "Ambitious" or "Presumptuous". Quote:
Think about all the times the "game" itself is compared to chess, even though it clearly is nothing like chess itself. And you can see that perhaps that's how Ryukishi views Umineko. Umineko is like a mystery, and uses a lot of the same parts and such, but ultimately is something altogether different? Or perhaps some kind of "evolution" of the genre as he sees it? I don't doubt that the situation you're talking about is something Ryukishi himself is fully aware of, hence why he's making sport of the "Rules" of the Mystery Genre, and then subverting them utterly while also adhering to them. Kind of like all of our theories regarding the truth of the Game Board needing to both work in conjunction with the Red Truth, while also working around the limitations they impose. |
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2010-08-22, 02:41 | Link #558 | |
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Ryuukishi has said that the novel is "solvable" as of episode 4. That is where I accuse him of cheating. He assumes that "solvable" and "guessable" are interchangeable. There are tons of solutions we could propose right now, of varying probabilities of being right. His recurring theme of alternate truths hinders the novel from being fair. He basically tells us that the answer is a number between 1 and 10, and wants us to guess which one it is. Sure we can get the right answer, but even if we do, it won't be because we solved his puzzle. By offering us "alternative truths" he is not giving us a chance to establish a solution. A true solution in a mystery novel must be such that all other solutions seem ridiculous in comparison. He gave us too many variables. He broke the most sacred Van Dine rule, while probably thinking he didn't. 5. The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker. Ryuukishi did not lay out the clues, he laid out a reality. It is within reason for us to guess who the culprit is based on said reality, but we are merely guessing not deducing. In the mystery genre, you are not allowed to make a clue that will leave your reader unsure of whether he solved it or not. Ryuukishi calls it cowardly, but he is the truly cowardly one. He is the same as a schoolyard bully trying to pick a fight with the weakest child there is. From the moment where finding the right answer becomes a matter of luck rather than deducing, as deductions don't point towards a decisive truth, he failed as a mystery writer. He insists he did not, but I disagree with it. |
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2010-08-22, 02:52 | Link #559 | |
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It was actually quite close to the theory of a friend and myself. We created this theory in its most initial form after EP3. And we could have solved the core mystery entirely if we didn't blind ourselves to aspects of the story because we didn't like what they were implying.
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2010-08-22, 02:54 | Link #560 | |||||
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The fact of the matter is that Ryukishi explicitly calls out readers who don't bother to think for themselves, and are content to have their answers spoon fed to them. Guessing based on (at present) incomplete information is a part of deduction. As is revising those opinions when new information comes to light. Quote:
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The very existence of the Watson represents the level of the average reader. Ryukishi is stating that a reader must reach the level of the Detective in order to be able to accurately deduce the one real "truth" amongst all the possibilities introduced up until this point. And this is especially true with regards to the Question Arcs themselves. The clues themselves were there, it's just that they were presented in such a way as to not draw immediate attention to them. On the other hand, it's clearly indicated in the later Episodes that a true "detective" would not let such a minor and positively earthshaking development escape their notice. If you're insisting that Ryukishi cheated by deciding to not hold our hands and lead us along, then I think that's simply highly arrogant. I welcome the challenge Ryukishi07 has presented to us, it's refreshing, trolltastic, condescending, taunting, and incredibly exhilarating to butt heads with. |
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