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I mean, I'd hardly call any ending where everyone but Eva and Battler, and Battler spends the next twelve years in exile happy. Hell, if you just look at the events of the 4th and 5th of course there's no happy ending. Rokkenjima is not a place where happy endings occur. You have to get away from the island somehow, ugly and miserable, if you want to find something happy. Or to get a few steps further into the meta, does "This game" refer only to the events on the game board, and are the Tea Party and ??? separate?
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Sep 17, 2017 17:18
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There you go! But really, this last update is confirmation of my interpretation of this story as allegory, and not mystery of fantasy... I've figured out which part Berne and Co. play, and have gone over that already, but now I've pinned down Battler- specifically Meta-Battler- and what he represents and possibly always has represented. And that is part and parcel to figuring out just who the main character of this story is, a surprisingly tall order because of all of the viewpoint shifts- for EP1, Battler was the main character and viewpoint throughout, in EP2, this was mostly the same but he has to share double duty with Beatrice, but then Eva seemed to be the main character of the third game (and also Beatrice) and in the 4th Game, Ange seemed to be the main thread, sharing double duty with Maria... and then in 5 it was mostly Natsuhi and then and 6 it was back to Battler again... and then when Battler was missing this whole story, I was very nearly ready to declare this a story with no main character at all, which might still be true. But reexamining everything with our growing stock of information has caused me to give second consideration and to come to a conclusion- that there is a main character, but just like the last work of R07s, exactly who that is is part of the whole mystery. Well, I would like to advance a hypothesis on that front, and Battler... isn't it. Battler as we know him has always been a piece on the board or Meta-Battler, who seems to have many characteristics of Piece-Battler but at times acts like a wholly different character. I submit that the Battler in the meta-layer, the one above the fragments and who eventually became the Endless Sorcerer, was never actually Battler at all, but someone modeled off how Battler was remembered... or more importantly, a projection of Battler's ideal form from someone's mind. And I hold that the person with that projection is the only one who can observe this mystery and has a vested interest in solving it along with the audience. And that person... is Ange Ushiromiya, the last Ushiromiya. She was introduced in the third story, but my hypothesis is that just as Yasu's will and actions were represented in the story by Beatrice, so Ange's deductions and conclusions to this whole mystery are representative in the Meta-Battler- the ideal Battler, that seems to survive whatever is thrown at him by the witches. And how does he survive, you ask? Because he's not a person. He is the hope of a person, the hope that a person is still alive and can return to the side of a loved one. Meta-Battler is hope itself... Meta-Battler is Ange's Sakutarou. We've been do caught up in the references to Dante's Inferno that we kept calling Battler Dante, but as we've already pointed out that's wrong... we should have been calling him Beatrice, or perhaps Virgil, all along. It is Ange we should have been calling Dante... or more appropriately, Christian. Think about Battler in regards to this story, his purpose in it and how he develops... and think about how Ange holds him in her mind. Think about the evolution of the story from a grounded-in-reality-if-weird mystery in the first game to the highly symbolic fantasies the 5th and 6th game has become, and think about his journey in them, from skeptic to... um, whatever he is now. If you wish to follow the development of Battler solely as his own character, you can, but Battler also follows a pattern that we follow and that Ange follows too. Battler is portrayed as incompetent and contradictory in his views, and that is because Ange's hope is contradictory- she wishes for her family to come home, but she also doesn't want them to be murderers, and has a bias towards Eva already that she wants confirmed by the narrative- and that is why one of Battler's greatest and most painful struggles is divesting himself of the naive notion that there was somebody else who could have killed them: her pain at getting rid of that was Ange's pain. Think about how Battler is pout through the wringer, on the board and off- degraded, berated, tortured, but never killed. He can't die because Ange won't let him go: he is the strongest and most inviolable memory she has, and thus Battler is strengthened by Ange's belief- protects him from harm, she even makes him a And thus we find Ange a supplicant, literally represented as a kid in her brother's arms. In the beginning she was portrayed as so independent and strong, but who's strength mostly relied on pride and hatred- the hatred of her bullies at school, the hatred of her aunt and her suspicion of murder, and the hatred most of all of magic- of imagination, and the way it "betrayed" her when it wasn't enough to protect her from reality's ills. Anger and hatred might keep you warm, but as we saw at the end of episode 4, it proved no greater a shield from harm than whimsy was... and it fades with understanding. Ange could not hate Kasumi once she understood her, and in understanding her, understood Eva more, which transferred all of her hatred to Beatrice, but once Beatrice has been understood... who is left to be angry at and to hate? Kinzo is long dead and so is any other perpetrator of the island... and with no outlet for hatred, the void remains. This is a story about love, but it is also a story about hatred... and how continual anger and hatred just grind you down until there is nothing left but childhood dreams... the sole wish that you aren't alone, and that somebody loves you, stripped bare. That is where Ange finds herself in this chapel. And I suspect the final chapter will be an attempt to answer a question: how do you protect the best parts of yourselves when all you have is hope?
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Sep 17, 2017 18:36
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e: ^^^^ Resurgam, are you arguing that the entire Meta subplot is just Ange imagining her dead older brother falling in love with and getting married to a character created by her dead cousin-aunt, except also it's an allegory? But no, seriously, you're a gem, keep up with the good reading, etc. EagerSleeper posted:And I guess this image from rereading the TIPS finally came true. To be fair, that's just something I made up, not an actual R07 Joint. Though Superkiller Kyrie was definitely on my mind when I did it. Look forward to Honeymoon of the Golden Witch, coming soon. rko fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Sep 17, 2017 |
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Sep 17, 2017 18:41
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I'm interested to see how the thread reacts to EP8. It's very interesting, and also very divisive.
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Sep 17, 2017 18:42
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Predictions: * Turns out Krauss was dead from the beginning too; puppetry and hallucinogenic gas are involved * Battler dating sim * Gohda was really the only survivor, but then disguised himself as Eva for years, fooling everyone * The whole thing was a reality show all along
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Sep 17, 2017 19:35
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lol nice try Bern. The harder you try to deny it, the more narratively certain the happy ending becomes! 
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Sep 17, 2017 19:45
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idonotlikepeas posted:
Witches are real. The whole thing is a set-up by Bern, who's lonely and bored and wants an apprentice as Witch of Miracles, and runs her candidates through trials and the school of hard knocks. Who will remain standing?
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Sep 17, 2017 20:03
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I wonder what kind of character they could introduce in episode 8, and more importantly if they would be half as great as Lion and Will. It would be silly to deny the introduction of a new character at this point.
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Sep 17, 2017 20:25
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idonotlikepeas posted:* The whole thing was a reality show all along Man, Survivor has gotten hardcore.
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Sep 17, 2017 20:39
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resurgam40 posted:There we have what, exactly? Nice try, but enough bones have been made about the red truth and how it can be misused to create a false conclusion... or to create a trap for its user, either by walling off specific possibility or by creating a paradox due to a lack of proof. That's true. This thread has been quite adamant about worming around, poking holes in and suspecting wordplay with any and all red truth they come across ever since Beatrice first introduced it.
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Sep 17, 2017 21:03
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PetraCore posted:Man, Survivor has gotten hardcore. Ok, but when it comes time to vote someone off the island does Yasu get 1, 3, or 16 votes?
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Sep 17, 2017 21:11
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ZiegeDame posted:Ok, but when it comes time to vote someone off the island does Yasu get 1, 3, or 16 votes?
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Sep 17, 2017 21:28
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Which character is which Truman Show actor
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Sep 17, 2017 22:26
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Rodyle posted:Which character is which Truman Show actor Jim Carrey? Beato, he's the only living person who could contort his face in the same way she does
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Sep 17, 2017 22:29
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Rodyle posted:Which character is which Truman Show actor Fiji is the Golden Land
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Sep 18, 2017 03:55
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and featuring, Ed Harris as Genji
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Sep 18, 2017 04:56
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Maria is played by Steve Buscemi. Who did this? Who dared to make this? Who the hell did it? I am like the monkeys in Space Odyssey 2001 screaming at the monument, my brain overloading as it struggles to realize the full image, struggling to comprehend the divine enlightenment of this picture. EagerSleeper fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 05:03
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EagerSleeper posted:Maria is played by Steve Buscemi. Someone on deviant art. They made another.....  Also a bunch of other stuff I barely glanced at but nothing else Umineko related. Also this second one is nowhere near as good as Ginzo.
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Sep 18, 2017 05:08
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It's still very beautiful. A blessed picture. Many thanks! Can we speculate to the way that game ends, or is that against the spirit of letting people have fun?
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Sep 18, 2017 05:19
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Speculation uninformed by spoilers is always welcome.
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Sep 18, 2017 05:20
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Alright! Theory: This game is going to try and trick us with a 'it was all a dream' ending. That's my immediate go-to when I think of divisive endings in stories. I'm assuming this is where the part where Ange passing out on Rokkejima in the 90s comes into play. Ange is going to meet Battler and Yasu in that unsure-if-real reality. It's going to be the super happiest possible ending because 'gently caress you Bern and your red truth.' Ange won't be sure if she's still a piece on the chessboard or not, but that doesn't matter anymore to her, because she's been through a lot and just wants to enjoy what she has in front of her right now. However of course there's going to be a pullback into a meta layer on top of Ange's happy ending where magic is actually real so that way the game can have their cake and eat it too, and also to help resolve Will and Lion's situation. Will and Lion are at peace and must go their separate ways, but eh. ANOTHER pullback into a meta layer, and Bern and Auau are done again with their playtime, so Auau fucks off to oblivion. Maybe Bern thanks Lambadelta (in a really roundabout, double-faced way) for being with her through all this bullshit. Lambadelta says "it's cool," and offers to take Bern to the next place, somewhere more fun than this place, maybe eat some burgers at White Castle first, then look for some more people to torture. Things that will not happen: Battler ever touching a boob. Does not exist in any fragment or possibility. edit: Wait, is the reason why Battler has always been talking about his relatives' breasts because R07 has been slowly trying to warm us up to accepting the romance between Battler and Yasu the entire time? EagerSleeper fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 06:11
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EagerSleeper posted:edit: Wait, is the reason why Battler has always been talking about his relatives' breasts because R07 has been slowly trying to warm us up to accepting the romance between Battler and Yasu the entire time? by god, he planned for everything
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Sep 18, 2017 07:08
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Good god, I hope not. 
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Sep 18, 2017 17:05
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I used to be on #TeamBattler but definitely got more into #TeamCollege the more I learned about the whole Ushiromiya... thing.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:33
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rko posted:e: ^^^^ Resurgam, are you arguing that the entire Meta subplot is just Ange imagining her dead older brother falling in love with and getting married to a character created by her dead cousin-aunt, except also it's an allegory? No! ...And yes. Kinda. It's complicated!  (Though someonecertainly came up with the idea of the ideal Yasu and the personification of Van Dine's rules being pretty and possibly into each other...)In seriousness, though, the "love" thing wasn't really brought up until Chiru; in the first four episodes, his relationship with Beatrice is still decidedly antagonistic, even if that initially jagged relationship acquired some complication in spite of both of the parties involved. It's only after Beato goes comatose and fades away that love comes into it at all, or at least Battler remembers a relationship they've had... and of course, I have to raise again the point of whether or not we are even speaking about that specific kind of love. The one time the story explicitly goes into sexual activity, it's either in reference to Kinzo and his act, which is as far divorced of love or anything good as you can get, or it's in conjunction with Rudolph and his love triangle and the possible... all other, more "wholesome" relationships are almost chaste in that kind of old-timey, melodramatic way where being in love is taking comfort and security in each other, becoming a "helpmeet" for your partner. The romantic couples that are presented the best and that we are plainly meant to like and find wholesome- Krauss/Natsuhi, Eva/Hideyoshi, and... OK, yeah Will/Lion too, I'm only human- are emphasized by the time they spend alone and the way they want to help each other, the way they partner up, rather than any desire to boff each other or what have you- not even Battler, after he and Beato the Maiden get married, doesn't really care about her breasts or indeed any part of her, he just wants to help her do what she do. This story is about love, but it seems to be a "higher" form of love than sexual, almost hearkening back to this chivalrous ideal of love as an extension of God's blessing in heaven, and spiritual fulfillment found in servitude to another. Whereas the thing that kicks off the chain of events that leads to the island's destruction is an act of incestuous rape. So... yeah? The first four episodes could be imagined as allegories of Ange reading separate bottle stories and trying to figure out how Battler specifically could have escaped, as well as solving the mystery of what happened... after all, she is presented as a collector of theories of Rokkenjima. The 6th story is different because it was written by Tohya, not the bottle-person,* and I admit that the 5th story...really doesn't dovetail as an allegory into any real world effort of Ange's I can see, and I'm still kinda working out what everything means... maybe I need more information which the 8th story will shed. But long story short: in my allegorical interpretation, I'm sort of seeing Meta-Battler's changing feelings about Beatrice/Yasu not really as any conscious projection of Ange, but rather of Ange's own emotional journey of learning that the reason for blowing up the island was a lot more complicated than she thought, and trying to figure out where that leaves her. ... Sort of? Look I had a coherent thought process that sounded really good to me yesterday, but I lack the vocabulary to put it into words today- don't you hate when that happens? *So really, Tohya's the one who wants to see Battler and Yasu hook up, not Ange!  ... No, not really, even she shies far away from anything sexual, and even slips in that whole thing with Erica and the ring, which... look we all know what that was about, I'm not going to bring it up again, but I'd say it's germane to what I'm talking about.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:35
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Now that the Golden Witch's soul has been put to rest, it's time for me to offer my own two cents on a lot of this story's mysteries. There have been a lot of sticking points this thread keeps coming back to and discussing, so I want to address as many as I can. Remember that I am not an authority on any of this - I have not heard Ryukishi07's thoughts. These are all just my own interpretations of this story, and may have holes in them here or there. They are comments from the world of humans, where we don't have the luxury of the Red Truth. The Culprit Of course, it's Yasu, AKA Sayo/Shannon/Kanon/Lion/Beatrice. EPISODE 1 Accomplices: Hideyoshi and Eva Shannon's Body in the Shed Simple - it wasn't there at all. The CG is a fabrication of a magic viewpoint - the hand behind Hideyoshi in the CG is George, not Battler. Battler never sees Shannon's body. A risky move, as Will said, but that's not inconsistent with Sayo's methodology. The 'all unidentified corpses are guaranteed' red is doubly meaningless, because Shannon's 'corpse' was both identified and nonexistent. EPISODE 2 Accomplices: Rosa "There are five master keys, one held by each servant" If 'dead' can be abstract, so can 'held'. One key is generally carried by each servant. Sayo, being officially logged by Genji as two different servants, holds one for each role. If this statement meant that every servant always had to be physically holding exactly one key at all times, then every scene where one of them hands a key to someone else would be instantly invalid. This is absolutely consistent with how the red truth works elsewhere. Shannon's Death The manga actually shows explicitly how she did this one. Remember that the stake wasn't actually found in her head - just next to it. The stake was just a prop to evoke the idea that it was in her head at some point. Shannon tied something heavy to her gun, then shot herself, so that the weight would drag it back behind the desk and out of sight after she died (Rosa rushed everyone out before they could conduct a thorough search). It's a little wonky, but also an homage to a certain Agatha Christie book. EPISODE 3 Culprits: Sayo, Eva Accomplices: Hideyoshi (to Eva) The Circle of Locked Rooms The simplest answer is once again correct (a pattern that holds up for most of the series). Sayo faked her death (backed by Nanjo) in the first-floor, easiest-to-find room, then as soon as the people left, she ran over to the chapel, changed clothes, and played dead there as well. It's not even remotely a stretch to say that Yasu could move between two rooms and change clothes in the time that it takes the rest of the family to follow a chain of master keys and murder scenes across the entire mansion. Why does Beato keep killing after Eva finds the Epitaph? This one threw me for a long time - Beatrice says that she'll stop the killing once the riddle is solved, but she has to kill at least one more person (Nanjo) on that game board. So, why didn't she stop? The answer is, as usual, tied to the whydunnit and the purpose of the game. This is a game orchestrated by Yasu in order to reach Battler, so the Illusion of the Witch must be maintained for Battler. Eva finds the gold, but she never announces it, so as far as piece-Battler is concerned, the Epitaph remains unsolved. Thus, the killings must continue, so that the state of the game matches Battler's understanding of Beatrice's rules of play. Also: gently caress Nanjo, he had it coming. EPISODE 4 Accomplices: All the adults "All present saw and recognized the existence of Kinzo" Sayo: "I'm the new Kinzo, and I'm backing up this claim with this pile of gold and these shotguns" Everyone else: "Whatever you say, Kinzo" All the magic poo poo Lies told as part of some bribe-motivated scheme before Sayo turned around and killed everyone. EP4 is more about the overarching mystery of the series as a whole; its game board is pretty sparse, because Battler spends 90% of it taking phone calls in a locked room. Shannon's Death She was found sprawled over a well with a widely-spaced grating over it. Reach through, shoot self in face, let gun fall into well. Beatrice's Last Mystery She makes this sound super poetic, but it was, in fact, very large bombs. EPISODE 5 What the hell is going on There are two simultaneous schemes in EP5. The siblings are uniting in a conspiracy to stage a fake murder incident as part of a plan to force Natsuhi to let them into the study, so that they can prove Kinzo is already dead. Meanwhile, Sayo is in the shadows, quietly killing people who are hiding because they faked their deaths earlier. It's a bit iffy for Sayo's motives, but Lambda's game is one without love. Erika's Detective Viewpoint This is a deep, elaborate con, but it's absolutely solid. We never see Erika's viewpoint in EP5 - all of her Detective Observations are revealed by her later, not through the narration, which always observes her in the third person (the story is, after all, from Battler's perspective as he observes Erika's gameplay). This has precedent from Episode 2, when Kanon and Jessica's ghosts appeared in the same room as Battler in the omniscient narration, but he never reacted to their presence because he couldn't see them. Furthermore, Shannon and Kanon being separate is never relevant to solving any of EP5's mysteries. The letter/knock has them act together, and Lambda's red unilaterally rules out the possibility of either of them acting even if they were apart, so it doesn't matter there. In the big courtroom battle over the First Twilight, Bern guarantees that none of the people in the mansion left the mansion before 1:00, ruling both of them out of the proceedings simultaneously. From the start of EP5 to the suspending of the game, nobody on the board ever even says the names Shannon or Kanon in Erika's presence, or makes any reference to the specific number of people on the island. Shannon's presence is never acknowledged by Erika - the only time she talks to either of them on the game board is a one-line exchange with Kanon in the study. Erika has no reason to ever bring it up, and we never see her viewpoint - even if she doesn't see two servants in the room with her, who cares? Besides, stopping everything to debate how many servants the house has isn't relevant to Bern's plan to ruin Natsuhi's life, and therefore it isn't relevant to Erika. Her objective was never to uncover the truth of Rokkenjima, it was to help Bern win at ruining Natsuhi's life for no reason. EPISODE 6 The Seal on the Windows This is... one of the weirdest things in the game to me. What the hell was going on here? Why does Dlanor do what she do, only to undo it pointlessly later? From a meta standpoint, it happens because 'the rescuer escaped from the windows' needs to stay blocked until Beatrice sets up a situation where the only person who could have done it is Kanon, so that it supports S=K instead of just being a way out. But why does Dlanor go along with it? I honestly have nothing here. Honestly, I think this scene just happens the way it does because R07 needed a way to determine that the room ostensibly containing Kanon has intact seals, and was writing Episode 6 on a time crunch. Why didn't Battler just break the door seals and bring someone in to rescue him? There's a decent chance that Battler falling into the logic error was still part of his plan. He ended up trapped in a situation where the only way for him to get free was for Beatrice to realize the truth and come save him, thusly reviving her old self. Wheels within wheels??? The Contradictory Final Truths Man, EP6 is weird. I've heard a lot of theories about this. Erika tried to assert her existence, then fell into a logic error. 'Humans' and 'People' have different definitions. Battler, weaving the ending to the tale, ends it with one last demonstration of how Shannon and Kanon can flexibly count as one or two people as the red truth requires. Honestly, none of them quite sit well with me. I dunno, guys. I feel like it would have worked better and been less confusing if Erika's line had been blue instead of red, but instead I just have to shrug. I don't quite understand this one either. Who Threw Popcorn at Dlanor?  EPISODE 7 It's a confession, not a mystery, so this is mostly quite straightforward. Will explained most of the weird bits already. Maria's Testimony At this point in the timeline, Sayo has Genji and Kumasawa as accomplices. Beatrice could sometimes be Kumasawa, Shannon, or Kanon, as required to make this accurate. Anyone just needs to start talking like Beatrice, and Maria sees Beatrice. At no point does Maria specify seeing Shannon and Kanon together. "Kinzo got off way too easy with his death scene" This is very true. Regarding the 'no regrets' thing, though, if you take it in the context of the rest of Kinzo's dying dialogue, I'd interpret it less as "I think I did everything right in the end" and more as "There isn't anything left that I still want to do in this life". He certainly appears to both regret and not believe he's atoned for his sins, but he can't undo those no matter how long he lives, so he's free to die. In his mind, at least. This is Yasu's tale, and Yasu doesn't seem to be particularly interested in the question of to what extent Kinzo deserves to suffer for his sins. I think she just wants to be free of his legacy and all of its dreadful baggage. SAYO IN GENERAL "Knox's 8th--" Stop it! That's not how Knox's 8th works! You don't need explicit physical evidence of every single thing that happens in the story! All the 8th guarantees is that the information in the game is sufficient to conclusively reach the solution. If Hideyoshi is shown to NEED A LOT OF MONEY, RIGHT NOW and then later Hideyoshi claims something that makes a crime apparently impossible, that's generally sufficient clues to deduce that Hideyoshi is potentially an accomplice, especially if his behavior remains suspicious throughout the story once viewed from that viewpoint. You don't need a scene where a gold bar tumbles out of his pocket and he furitively picks it back up, that would be dumb. Beyond even that, in Episode 5, Virgilia makes a point of refusing to acknowledge that Beatrice's game - EP1-4 - follows the Decalogue. She only said that it was solvable. And it was - multiple people in the thread solved it quite handily, well in advance of the solution. "It doesn't help solve any of the closed rooms" S=K was never a tool to solve closed rooms, it was something that the game was made in order to make Battler uncover. The game board is full of clues towards it. Locked rooms are presented where shedding of alternate identities is the only way to solve them, drawing attention to the idea that people can 'die' without dying. Shannon and Kanon repeatedly stop just short of ever appearing in front of Battler at the same time. Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice keep talking to each other in ways that outline the killer's motives. In Episode 2, Shannon, Kanon and Gohda run off towards the cousins' room, but only Kanon and Gohda arrive. Every conversation Shannon, Kanon and Beato have with each other outlines different parts of Yasu's psyche and motive. The info is all there, and the game is solvable. Beatrice's final, ultimate question to Battler isn't "How did I do all these closed room murders?", it's "Who am I?" "They're being too OBVIOUS about it, so" You need to understand that we've been playing this game at the strongest possible pace for solving it. A day of discussion time between every scene, full access to the backlog of the game, and multiple people all on the same page discussing and analyzing each update. When you're playing it on your own, and just blasting through scenes, it's much harder to pick up on its hints. Sometimes, the solution the game is telling you is the solution during the 'this is the solution' chapter really is the solution. Natsuhi and the Servants To this day I don't understand where you guys got the idea that Natsuhi closely watches and cares personally about any of the servants. She's rich and stressed, she cares that the servants do a good job in general but I'm frankly astounded she knows their names. She had Genji backing her up and helping her with managing the shift schedule, and Genji is an accomplice, so he could say whatever he wanted about their availability. Just because Natsuhi is formally in charge with the servants doesn't mean she thinks carefully about the minutiae of who's scheduled on which day, or takes any time getting to know them as people. Jessica and the Servants This is probably the biggest sticking point with S=K, but honestly, I think it comes down to a combination of Kanon being super standoffish and Jessica being kinda dumb. I never really got the impression that they had regular conversations at any point - they seem to be practically strangers before the school festival event, and he shoots her down hard enough to put a bit of a wall between them after that. George=Kannon? This was probably my favorite of the oddball theories in the thread, but I'm curious how George was acting as Kanon multiple times a week during all that time when he was taking piano lessons and cram school and private tutoring while also attending school on the mainland, all without Eva knowing about it. Regarding Furniture 'Furniture' refers to magical life given to something that isn't alive, like an inanimate object (stakes, guns/rabbit figurines, duct tape) or an aspect of yourself (Shannon, Kanon, Beato) or an abstract concept (things going missing). The only exception, curiously, is Genji. To clarify on some claims made in the thread - Kinzo never calls Genji, or anyone else who actually exists, Furniture. The full set of 'real' people who say Furniture is, I believe, as follows:
There's another school of thought that Genji was in love with Kinzo, which I certainly can't deny. I think there's some kind of extra info on the manga regarding Genji's past, but I haven't read it past Episode 6, so I can't comment there. Regarding Sayo's Gender The story is careful to never gender Yasu in the backstory, just like it never genders Lion in the front half of EP7. I am not an authority, but if I had to give my own interpretation of what's going on with Sayo's gender identity, it goes like this: Sayo, in all timelines, has a pretty hefty pile of gender dysphoria. However, depending on the timeline, how that dysphoria is expressed varies. In the Lion branch, they deal with it via presenting androgynously. In the Beatrice branch, various factors lead them to develop a habit of compartmentalizing their problems into separate personas, so they deal with it by creating both Shannon and Kanon. It's possible to speculate about Sayo's assigned birth sex, but I feel like a viewpoint with love sees the question as largely irrelevant. What really happened on Rokkenjima? Look forward to Episode 8.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:48
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There's an extra TIP, Our Confession, and a corresponding lengthy canon section added to the EP8 manga, which come closer to telling you the tricks behind any of the actual locked rooms (aka the ones that aren't 'it wasn't locked' or 'Yasu faked their death and did it'). Though it's probably better to wait until more of the way through EP8 to talk about them in detail. But I think just about everything has a solution stated somewhere or other at this point.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:23
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I think it's definitely worth a reread of the first two episodes, they're like completely different stories once you know the truth and can decode the scenes that are secretly about Yasu's thoughts or conflict among the accomplices. It also makes a lot of things painfully obvious, like the constant prompting the accomplices get from the culprits.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:36
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ProfessorProf posted:Shannon's Death I refuse to give up my small bomb explanation. This is the hill I will die on. (By taping an explosive to my cheek.)
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Sep 18, 2017 20:08
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The existence of small bombs was never denied in red, so far be it from I to take this away from you.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:26
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resurgam40 posted:In seriousness, though, the "love" thing wasn't really brought up until Chiru; in the first four episodes, his relationship with Beatrice is still decidedly antagonistic, even if that initially jagged relationship acquired some complication in spite of both of the parties involved. It's only after Beato goes comatose and fades away that love comes into it at all, or at least Battler remembers a relationship they've had... and of course, I have to raise again the point of whether or not we are even speaking about that specific kind of love. Dude they were practically flirting the moment they first saw each other Why do you think the North Wind and Sun thing happened? Battler was getting so soft he was willing to just stop trying to solve Yasu's mystery and go to the Golden Land with Beatrice instead, which she never wanted.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:48
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Looking at Ep 1 as a story Yasu penned while plotting the real deal, it's almost hilarious how much of it in the end is author favoritism shining through. All the kids survive, Natsuhi gets to be shot in the face with a gun at point blank, everyone still "Witches exist." No, Battler, that's not what Beatrice really wants you to say. Acknowledge Beatrice. Tell Yasu you acknowledge them, that they exist.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:53
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A bit of an addendum to Prof's post:ProfessorProf posted:EPISODE 3 It's possible that Krauss and Natsuhi were Sayo's accomplices based on a few hints, such as their oddly calm behaviour. Not that they really matter much in that story. ProfessorProf posted:EPISODE 4 The manga claims that "except for Battler, everyone was bribed" which seems to be a bit of an oversimplification. Maria was, of course, in on it the whole time, but it's not clear whether George and Jessica were bought off early, late or at all. This simple explanation also leaves out Kyrie's seemingly more important role in that gameboard: for example, she curiously speculates that Kinzo might be coming up with a test before "Kinzo" even shows up that in the story. ProfessorProf posted:The Contradictory Final Truths How the manga explains this is that Erika was (unintentionally, since she hadn't figured the trick out yet) talking about the number of names or identities on the island, while Battler and Beatrice were talking about the physical bodies.
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Sep 18, 2017 21:12
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tiistai posted:How the manga explains this is that Erika was (unintentionally, since she hadn't figured the trick out yet) talking about the number of names or identities on the island, while Battler and Beatrice were talking about the physical bodies. If this is all the info we're getting on the subject, I have to go back to my original speculation: Rokkenjiima's humans refers to people who set foot on the island during the family conference, while people refers to those currently on the island at that time. So if Erika is the 17th human, the 16th human would be the boat captain, who was briefly on the island on the morning of the 4th. Unrelated, incompetence must run in the family, because Jessica practically lived with someone for 10 years, but they put on a wig and men's clothes and she can't recognize them at all.
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Sep 18, 2017 21:22
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ZiegeDame posted:Unrelated, incompetence must run in the family, because Jessica practically lived with someone for 10 years, but they put on a wig and men's clothes and she can't recognize them at all. "He's my brother, that's why we look so similar." "That makes sense and I will refuse to question it an iota further" I mean, I think it's hinted pretty strongly that Jessica is a little... for lack of a better term oblivious. Her grandfather has been AWOL and/or rotting in the freezer for two years and she hasn't so much as questioned it once. Regardless, though, Kanon and Shannon were "related", so looking that strikingly similar isn't too surprising.
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Sep 18, 2017 21:26
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KataraniSword posted:"He's my brother, that's why we look so similar." I got the impression that Jessica could go a whole year without seeing Kinzo even when he was alive. He basically became a hikikomori after Beatrice and (from his perspective) Lion died, and that was before Natsushi even got pregnant.
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Sep 18, 2017 21:31
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Regarding Episode 3, it makes the most sense to me that Eva simply solved the epitaph without Yasu noticing. Yasu puts the bank number code on the door later as an "apology" of sorts for continuing the murders without noticing it had already been solved (and thus breaks her own rules). I can't think of any "things went according to Yasu's plan" explanation for Episode 3 where painting the bank code makes any sense.ZiegeDame posted:Unrelated, incompetence must run in the family, because Jessica practically lived with someone for 10 years, but they put on a wig and men's clothes and she can't recognize them at all. This really isn't as difficult to believe as a lot of people make it out to be. Consider the following: - Jessica almost never interacts directly and up close with Kanon. You could probably count on one hand the number of times she spent much time with him - A person can drastically change their appearance with different make-up/clothes/wig. People do this in actual plays without the audience noticing - Most importantly other servants all corroborate the idea of Kanon being a real separate person. In real life, you wouldn't start suspecting someone who looks similar to someone else you know of being the exact same person, especially if other people who you have no reason to believe aren't trustworthy say "oh yeah, that's X, he/she's an orphan from Fukuin." It's possible someone would be able to tell Shannon and Kanon were the same if they looked at a picture of both of them side by side, but when you're seeing them at different times you would likely just think "hm they look kinda similar, wonder if he's her brother" or something (if that). edit: It is possible to speculate on whether people would notice if she actually started going through with her murders, though. She can solve the problem by quickly "killing" off either Shannon or Kanon, but if both are around I think people might start to notice just because they'd be paying extra close attention to such things. ProfessorProf posted:Regarding Sayo's Gender While the VN doesn't confirm, I think it absolutely makes the most sense to assume DMAB and also helps explain some stuff better. Basically, the gender dysphoria stuff and her creation of Kanon makes a million times more sense if you take into account the fact that she was DMAB and had the corresponding body (obviously minus a couple parts below the waist from the injury). While being DFAB with a body that can't get pregnant or have sex for some reason (it's a bit harder to conceptualize what sort of injury would cause this than it is in the DMAB case) would certainly be a reason for its own trauma, it wouldn't really explain the level of fear/disgust she has towards the idea of exposing herself to others (which is basically covered in EP2). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 21:45
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KataraniSword posted:I mean, I think it's hinted pretty strongly that Jessica is a little... for lack of a better term oblivious. Her grandfather has been AWOL and/or rotting in the freezer for two years and she hasn't so much as questioned it once. Regardless, though, Kanon and Shannon were "related", so looking that strikingly similar isn't too surprising. Another possibility is that contrary to how she often acts, she would actually prefer to avoid confrontation (faking ashtma to make people stop fighting etc.) and would rather stay willingly ignorant than face some hard truths. It's not impossible that she might have kind of noticed something weird was going on, but acknowledging that would mean that her dear friend Shannon has been lying to her the whole time for some bizarre reason. Similar reasoning with Kinzo. tiistai fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 21:50
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tiistai posted:Another possibility is that contrary to how she often acts, she would actually prefer to avoid confrontation (faking ashtma to make people stop fighting etc.) and would rather stay willingly ignorant than face some hard truths. It's not impossible that she might have kind of noticed something weird was going on, but acknowledging that would mean that her dear friend Shannon has been lying to her the whole time for some bizarre reason. Similar reasoning with Kinzo. One thing that I've always been curious about is exactly what motivated Jessica's reaction to seeing Kanon and Battler's meeting in EP1. It's possible to speculate that either 1. Jessica noticed Kanon was obvously attracted to Battler and realized "oh poo poo I don't have a chance do I" or 2. seeing his reaction to Battler made her begin to suspect Shannon = Kanon. I mean, the Battler-interpreted reason is just that she's nervous about Kanon looking bad to him, but I don't really buy that.
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Sep 18, 2017 22:01
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tiistai posted:Another possibility is that contrary to how she often acts, she would actually prefer to avoid confrontation (faking ashtma to make people stop fighting etc.) and would rather stay willingly ignorant than face some hard truths. It's not impossible that she might have kind of noticed something weird was going on, but acknowledging that would mean that her dear friend Shannon has been lying to her the whole time for some bizarre reason. Similar reasoning with Kinzo. An idea directly supported by the text of EP7, in which Jessica's entire vignette is about how she'd rather not believe the only possible explanation for something because it makes her uncomfortable. As for people realizing it in general, I invite you to watch a relatively famous video that will help to explain things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo As you can see, people often only notice what they're focused on. The Ushiromiyas, all of whom were wrapped up in various tragedies, were not particularly interested in the first place, and "I wouldn't put it past Kinzo" suffices for any questions regarding Yasu's presence on the island for such a long time.
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Sep 18, 2017 22:16
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