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Old 2011-03-11, 22:44   Link #61
Sherringford
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
It's called "Death of the Author", and it's the currently favored theory in literary criticism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author
THAT THEORY IS HAUNTING ME.

I just had to write a paper on that yesterday. It is interesting that in some cases, that theory is applied well, and in some...not so much.

For example, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury was actually more concerned with TV destroying interest in literature than he was with government censorship. Not that his intentions will stop any high school teacher from saying the novel is about censorship.

I'd say that it shouldn't be touched with a ten foot pole when it comes to the mystery genre, but that could be just me being overprotective of the genre since I like it too much and have an admittedly stubborn view of what a mystery should be.
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Old 2011-03-11, 22:53   Link #62
Chron
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I'd say no it isn't. You're possibly confusing "proof" with "evidence".

There's plenty of evidence against Erika being Battler's perfect self (chiefly: Battler thinks Erika is a complete bitch).

Crucial point: a theory can be more valid than another theory even if it isn't proved to be true.
How could it be? Ive just spent this entire time pointing out that there is no real evidence of anything, for anything, in all 8 episodes. Youre missing my point completely.

Youre referring to a general truth which just doesnt apply here.
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Old 2011-03-11, 22:57   Link #63
Leafsnail
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...No evidence of anything? What?

I guess if you're gonna just deny absolutely everything the author writes hs any meaning then there's none. But you could say the same of absolutely any story.
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Old 2011-03-11, 22:59   Link #64
naikou
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherringford
I'd say that it shouldn't be touched with a ten foot pole when it comes to the mystery genre, but that could be just me being overprotective of the genre since I like it too much and have an admittedly stubborn view of what a mystery should be.
There's some room for argument that the mystery genre is one of the few places where the author is not quite dead.

But then again, Umineko isn't a mystery, at least not a traditional mystery.

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How could it be? Ive just spent this entire time pointing out that there is no real evidence of anything, for anything, in all 8 episodes. Youre missing my point completely.
No, you've been saying that there is evidence, but that it isn't certain, so it's (apparently?) worthless.

For instance, earlier you said: "The problem is we have no way of knowing, and are being told to draw the conclusions ourselves. It's honestly not about the facts themselves, but the writing. We simply have no way of knowing what happened, we have no firm ground to base our conclusions upon, nothing. "

So there are facts, it's just that they aren't certain. In your opinion.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:02   Link #65
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Originally Posted by Leafsnail View Post
...No evidence of anything? What?

I guess if you're gonna just deny absolutely everything the author writes hs any meaning then there's none. But you could say the same of absolutely any story.
Did you read any of the points I made over these few pages?

Youre just generalizing. That isnt what I was doing, please follow what a persons saying when youre replying to them.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:02   Link #66
Renall
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Originally Posted by Sherringford View Post
THAT THEORY IS HAUNTING ME.

I just had to write a paper on that yesterday. It is interesting that in some cases, that theory is applied well, and in some...not so much.

...

I'd say that it shouldn't be touched with a ten foot pole when it comes to the mystery genre, but that could be just me being overprotective of the genre since I like it too much and have an admittedly stubborn view of what a mystery should be.
It can be kind of funny when a mystery has a viable alternate solution, though.

Plus, it's given me an idea...
Quote:
For example, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury was actually more concerned with TV destroying interest in literature than he was with government censorship. Not that his intentions will stop any high school teacher from saying the novel is about censorship.
Bradbury has contradicted himself on what his works mean often enough that I'm not sure even he knows. Plus "Usher II" is almost exactly the same premise as Fahrenheit 451 and that one explicitly says it's about censorship.

For the love of God!
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:02   Link #67
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Originally Posted by Chron View Post
How could it be? Ive just spent this entire time pointing out that there is no real evidence of anything, for anything, in all 8 episodes. Youre missing my point completely.

Youre referring to a general truth which just doesnt apply here.
While nothing is definite in the series, degrees of probability can be given out quite confidently.

I can claim that Gohda is the culprit, but I wouldn't that my Evil Chef theory isn't as probable as a Kyrie culprit one for example.

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Originally Posted by Renall View Post
It can be kind of funny when a mystery has a viable alternate solution, though.

Plus, it's given me an idea...Bradbury has contradicted himself on what his works mean often enough that I'm not sure even he knows. Plus "Usher II" is almost exactly the same premise as Fahrenheit 451 and that one explicitly says it's about censorship.

For the love of God!
Alternate solutions are great when they are taken into consideration(EQ was particularly godly at that) and funny at parodies, but they shouldn't be present otherwise, in my opinion at least.

Bradbury is just a flatout weird writer. I'm not sure he even believes in what he says or if he just likes to act like that.

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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
There's some room for argument that the mystery genre is one of the few places where the author is not quite dead.

But then again, Umineko isn't a mystery, at least not a traditional mystery.
Indeed. Even in Umineko's case however, I'd say the author should be at least as alive as Wesley was in The Princess Bride after Inigo found him.

In Umineko, the author is all dead. I think the series would have greatly benefited from the author being only mostly dead.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:09   Link #68
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
There's some room for argument that the mystery genre is one of the few places where the author is not quite dead.

But then again, Umineko isn't a mystery, at least not a traditional mystery.

No, you've been saying that there is evidence, but that it isn't certain, so it's (apparently?) worthless.

For instance, earlier you said: "The problem is we have no way of knowing, and are being told to draw the conclusions ourselves. It's honestly not about the facts themselves, but the writing. We simply have no way of knowing what happened, we have no firm ground to base our conclusions upon, nothing. "

So there are facts, it's just that they aren't certain. In your opinion.
...How did you get that? What i've been saying is that when all answers are equal, they are all equally worthless. I even say in that quotation that it's not about the facts presented, but our inability to filter good conclusions from bad on the basis of those facts.

Hence the puzzle analogy.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:12   Link #69
naikou
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Originally Posted by Chron View Post
...How did you get that? What i've been saying is that when all answers are equal, they are all equally worthless. I even say in that quotation that it's not about the facts presented, but our inability to filter good conclusions from bad on the basis of those facts.

Hence the puzzle analogy.
Like I said, "Death of the Author".

Every work of art is interpreted in through the eyes of a viewer, and it means something different to each person who views it. That's why authors don't have to explain what they mean. You won't find a "And the moral of the story is:" at the end of any good novel. So I don't see why you despise Umineko for not explaining itself, unless you hate all modern novels.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:13   Link #70
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All answers clearly are not equal though. As far as I can tell, you seem to be saying you need 100% certainty of "facts" before you start to think at all.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:30   Link #71
Renall
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
Like I said, "Death of the Author".

Every work of art is interpreted in through the eyes of a viewer, and it means something different to each person who views it. That's why authors don't have to explain what they mean. You won't find a "And the moral of the story is:" at the end of any good novel. So I don't see why you despise Umineko for not explaining itself, unless you hate all modern novels.
Allowing people to make their own interpretations does not absolve the writer of using that idea as a crutch.
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I submit that a murder was committed in 1996.
This murder was a "copycat" crime inspired by our tales of 1986.
This story is a redacted confession.

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Old 2011-03-11, 23:37   Link #72
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Right.

Are you suggesting Ryukishi is guilty of that?
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:40   Link #73
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I'd say he is definitely guilty of abusing that idea to some degree. The difficulty would be pinpointing how guilty he is. Was it premeditated? Was it an accident?
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:44   Link #74
Chron
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Originally Posted by naikou View Post
Like I said, "Death of the Author".

Every work of art is interpreted in through the eyes of a viewer, and it means something different to each person who views it. That's why authors don't have to explain what they mean. You won't find a "And the moral of the story is:" at the end of any good novel. So I don't see why you despise Umineko for not explaining itself, unless you hate all modern novels.
That's all well and good, but it ceases to matter once the author poses a specific question in the book, and challenges the reader to answer it, knowing full that for practical purposes there is no one correct answer. That's not an issue of interpretation, its false pretenses.

It's a troll.

Leafsnail, quit messing around and just read my posts already.
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:47   Link #75
naikou
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Eh. I don't think having an open-ended story is too abusive. I wouldn't accuse Christopher Nolan of being lazy by giving an Inception an open ending (because that is the point of Inception's ending, you can't be sure of reality). Umineko is going for a very similar effect.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chron
That's all well and good, but it ceases to matter once the author poses a specific question in the book, and challenges the reader to answer it, knowing full that for practical purposes there is no one correct answer. That's not an issue of interpretation, its false pretenses.
Refresh my memory - how was Erika in EP6 a challenge to the reader?
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Old 2011-03-11, 23:55   Link #76
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Eh. I don't think having an open-ended story is too abusive. I wouldn't accuse Christopher Nolan of being lazy by giving an Inception an open ending (because that is the point of Inception's ending, you can't be sure of reality). Umineko is going for a very similar effect.
Ah, I'm not referring to Ange's ending. I'm referring to all the locked rooms and games we've seen. He left them ambiguous while leaving us with some idea of what the answers were(which is something I've already ranted about) and I consider his lack of a proper summation to be a bit of an abuse of the interpretation clause.

Proper mystery or not, if you are going to say that the games had an author who wasn't quite dead(thematics aside, Beatrice was quite alive when she made them) and had intentions behind it, you better explain them. Otherwise it feels like you are afraid of how they'll seem, even if possible, rather shaky once you explain them in detail.

It feels that way even though he only gave us very summarized lines!

"That was one risky game," says Will.

That was his way of saying "yes I made a character do something many of you would consider a bit 'whaaaat' as part of the plan." He was preemptively defending himself from the reader, despite not even laying the truth bare to us.

For example, Benson Murder Case. Van Dine reveals not only the solution, but how Vance's thought process that allowed him to solve the case as early as chapter 5 was made. He didn't leave anything to hide. We saw everything. To show without hiding, in a mystery, is considered pride.

The ambiguous nature in the ending was something I was perfectly fine with. What I wasn't fine with was with the ambiguous summation. There is where I think he abused the concept of multiple interpretations.
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Old 2011-03-12, 00:00   Link #77
naikou
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Oh! That. Yes, I agree. That actually isn't so much an issue of authorial intent, I wouldn't think. Just too vague of answers to the riddles.

Well, who knows, maybe we'll get an "Umineko Rei" which provides really detailed answers to the locked room riddles. I hope we do.
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Old 2011-03-12, 00:01   Link #78
Chron
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Eh. I don't think having an open-ended story is too abusive. I wouldn't accuse Christopher Nolan of being lazy by giving an Inception an open ending (because that is the point of Inception's ending, you can't be sure of reality). Umineko is going for a very similar effect.

Refresh my memory - how was Erika in EP6 a challenge to the reader?
The final red of, "I am the 18th person!" and the problem of her existance in general. Its easy to forget since the reply draws our attention to shkannon, but she is undoubtedly "present". The question then is, who or what was Erika a placeholder for? Just like the closed rooms, just like the logic error, it's a challenge to the reader.

But unlike the other challenges, that one doesnt have a certain answer that we can do anything but speculate on.
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Old 2011-03-12, 00:04   Link #79
naikou
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The final red of, "I am the 18th person!" and the problem of her existance in general. Its easy to forget since the reply draws our attention to shkannon, but she is undoubtedly "present". The question then is, who or what was Erika a placeholder for? Just like the closed rooms, just like the logic error, it's a challenge to the reader.
Huh?

The answer to that is "Even if you join us... there are 17 people on the island."

So if Erika doesn't join them, there are only 16. She's not a placeholder for anyone.
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Old 2011-03-12, 00:32   Link #80
Chron
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Huh?

The answer to that is "Even if you join us... there are 17 people on the island."

So if Erika doesn't join them, there are only 16. She's not a placeholder for anyone.
Then who is she?
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