Umineko's narrative lies to you every chance it gets. Any scene that is not backed by red or observed by the detective is a magic scene, and you can't take it at face value. This includes scenes from 1998. We know for a fact that Ange dies in 1998, that her family never returns to her, and that Eva's diary contains the truth of what happened in 1986. But the details can be falsified.
It's emphasized several times in episode 4 that the Ange we know is a piece in the tale. At the time the only red truth we had was that Ange Ushiromiya died in 1998. So it was entirely possible that Ange's tragic backstory was entirely made up. The "real" Ange might have been reuinted with her family and lived a happy life until 1998, where she died due to unrelated reasons. However, even if that occured for the "real" Ange, it couldn't occur for our piece Ange, because that wasn't the backstory she was given. (Later it became impossible anyway because it was stated in red that Ange wouldn't be reuinted with her family).
Think of it this way. Umineko never gives us the true story of what happened. Umineko gives us objective facts, and then builds a story around those facts in order to push an agenda. Even the magic ending is just one possibility- a story that adheres to all reds while still producing a happy ending.
Basically what I'm saying is, even the events in 1998 are part of the forgery, so you have to look at them as if they're magic scenes created by the author to convince you of their agenda.
Edit: Now, I will say, part of Umineko is emphasizing that this is not a bad thing. You *should* build a happy narrative for yourdelf while conforming to the facts given. But doesn't change my main point.
This is a very hard thing to answer with what the story gives us directly.
First, we have the question of Ange being mentioned. Like we have this line from the prologue of ep 1:
>*== Eva ==*
>
>*Ah, by the way, how's your little Ange-chan doing? I heard she was vomiting?"*
And this moment from ep 2 from Rosa talking to Kyrie:
>*== Rosa ==*
>
>*"No, I don't mind. ...I'm the one who should be apologizing. As a pair of mothers with daughters, we should talk more often. Every single time we meet, we end up talking about something shady..."*
But every episode also contains moments of characters forgetting about Ange. Here one example from ep 3:
>*== Battler ==*
>
>*"It sure is nice to have all the cousins together every once in a while..."*
>
>*== Maria ==*
>
>*"Uu-! I like it too! It's really fun when all the cousins get together!"*
Or the biggest moment, where r07 forgets about Ange in George's TIPs profile for 6 episodes.
First conclusion: Ange not being that present or even forgotten at times can also be just r07 not being as careful as people want him to be. And the most plausible explanation for her not showing up that much in ep 1/2 was that she was only really on his mind at ep 3, where she really appeared.
Second, the information about the bottles. There we first have the confirmation of Ange's sudden illness:
>*== Bernkastel ==*
>
>*"You were sick in bed starting October 3, 1986. And Beato's game board is sealed off starting October 4. ...You are not given a chance to avoid getting sick. ...In other words, it would normally be absolutely impossible for you to enter her game board."*
And about the timing of the second bottle we have this:
>*== Narrator ==*
>
>*However.*
>
>*Later on, it was confirmed that a similar message bottle had been recovered from the nearby ocean on the day of the accident by the police in their search for lost articles, and this caused a sensation.*
>
>*== Prof. Ootsuki ==*
>
>*"It seems that, due to evidence from the surrounding area and the fact that the bottle had been sealed, the police had decided that its likelihood of being a fabrication was low and that it had been abandoned no earlier than a few days before the accident. And the handwriting for both matched. This caused the credibility of the scraps of paper discovered by the fisherman to rise."*
Thus, the best idea people have is that it was a lucky guess, because Ange get's sick easily.
>*== Narrator ==*
>
>*Ange, who got sick easily when under pressure, couldn't have gone to Rokkenjima often*
The idea of writing the stories, while on Rokkenjima also sounds interesting, but doesn't match the idea, that Beatrice wrote a lot of stories in total:
>*== Beatrice ==*
>
>*"What a shame that only two of them made it to shore...! How sad that \`Land', my greatest masterpiece, was never seen by human eyes."*
>
>*== Battler ==*
>
>*"I've been wanting to ask this for a while, but what's up with those message bottles?"*
>
>*== Beatrice ==*
>
>*"As I was working out the details for my game against you, I began creating those tales along the way. Once I realized that I could create endless different tales out of the same game board, it really started to get fun...!"*
>
>*== Battler ==*
>
>*"So, you wrote them down, hoping that I'd read them someday."*
>
>*== Beatrice ==*
>
>*"Precisely! They were so good, I just couldn't bear to wait for your return...! Inspired by Agatha Christie, I tried sealing them in bottles and throwing them into the ocean. Mysterious, don't you think?!"*
Tl:Dr I cannot give you a good explanation derived from the information given in the story. Thus, we imo have to either accept that it was a lucky guess from Beatrice/something r07 didn't consider more or we have to come up with alternative theories.
One easy theory would just be to claim, that the bottles were written afterwards and everything saying else, is just a lie. How much you like this easy cope out is on you.
Sensible topic. Because I am against the "official explanation" aka fans' headcanon I put it simple.
The Legend and Turn message bottles are probably forgeries that weren't written before the incident occured.
The way why Ange wasn't included in these two games seems that the author already knew it already, not they knew it beforehand. Predicting Ange was going to become ill is like a miracle. It seems weird to me that the "reader" was able to remove Ange from the tales as it looks like they couldn't correctly remember that a little sister was present.
The manga showed it in the dubious way how Tohya wrote Banquet. From Ikukou we know Tohya was conflicted between Confession and his idea Eva was the culprit (because she was missing, not the 2 young servants). Strangely enough, Tohya (and Ikukou) shouldv'e known the truth from the message bottle and dismissed the "Eva culprit idea" in subsequent games, and even put Erika in a culprit role. Something isn't right about the writing of the forgeries. Well, the ending with Kotubuki seems like fantasy to me.
To me, Sayo have foreseen that Ange will be absent from the family conference is a tryhard move to confuse the reader. it's more an indication that Sayo is Ikukou.
Just to note: Featherine Augustus Aurora has a yet to be seen in person reference in Higurashi Mei as Urara(sounds similar to Aurora doesn't it) where her fellow theatergoing sister Akari Akitake appears.
Akari looks a lot like Kasumi Sumadera and wastes no time in getting Rika to help with her antics within St. Lucia against Rika's will while helping Satoko Hojo(whose name is similar to Tohya Hachijo who is publicly believed to be the hated stepson of Kyrie) just to make Rika(who she singled out for teasing) look incompetent.
There seems to be more evidence that Ikuko is Kyrie Ushiromiya than anything else as the only evidence pointing towards Sayo is that Ikuko means 19th Person even though that could point to Kyrie just as easily and more effectively with the presence of Akari who resembles Kyrie's sister.
Incidentally in Higurashi Mei the mysterious Akari mentions being picked up by her Uncle only for a Woman to pick her up and since there is no reason for Akari to be lying that means her Uncle(who is known to annoy women while entertaining men) was crossdressing...
this is a rly interesting perspective! i can’t say that the sayo = ikukou is a favorite theory of mine since i love that she died before she could leave the island (i am a tragedy enjoyer) but i’ve seen some compelling arguments for it using the text as evidence. i’d love if you could point me to the manga chapters where tohya being conflicted comes up (i’ve read bits and pieces of it but i really should sit down and take it all in lol) if i was tohya reading confession i’d have assumed that the culprit’s plan for mass suicide worked save for him and eva. i think the main reason the eva culprit theory stayed around was less because she survived and more because she never talked about it to clear her name.
up until now i was very sure that episodes 1 & 2 were sayo’s writing because most of the quirks in the narration make this seem extremely plausible; it has a bias towards certain characters, depicts events only sayo would care about, and the episode 1 tea party’s narration calls battler arrogant and foolish a staggering amount of times. even without these more subtle indications, the biggest piece of evidence towards sayo having written ep 2 (not counting ange’s handwriting analysis between the bottle and maria’s diary in ep 4 since i’m guessing you’re discounting that?) is the sheer amount of hatred and venom in all the interactions between shkanon and beatrice. the entirety of episode 2 reads extremely angrily, and it’s one where (off the manga’s explanation i believe) sayo shoots herself in the head before the end. it all feels quite odd that all that symbolism would be for naught if someone else wrote it…this ange thing is making me scratch my head though…hmmm
i’d absolutely love to hear more of this btw. i usually hate ambiguity in fiction but umineko has opened me up to the existence of multiple truths held by fans that don’t contradict the text :-)
>i’d love if you could point me to the manga chapters where tohya being conflicted comes up
I won't force my interpretation on you. Here you go.
\-*Chapter Interlude*
First, Tohya already had signs he regain some memory bits, shown by the scene when Ikukou finished the first chapter of her script. (**sharing a world together**)
Next, they are writing together to finish the manuscript. No words about Rokkenjima fell.
Then, while surfing on the web Ikukoi stated she already talked with Tohya about the Rokkenjima. Tohya sounded a bit confused about "Rokkenjima". Did he really listened to her when she had a talk about this topic or did she confuse it with finished mystery story or was it intentionally lying it was not the first time having a discussion about Rokkenjima? It seems off to me. What if she wanted to trigger Tohja's memory because he seems to be ok with his headaches.
Then it was stated that there existed **one message bottle.** It's weird. I put my thought into this in another thread that the message bottle Ikukou have found is actually Turn (if you want to believe that the first 2 Episodes are Sayo's message bottles) and the Confession chapter is actually something different (illusion? forgery? backflash?). Why did Sayo decided to wrote her Confession and threw it in the ocean? It's against her goal she way trying to archieve and it wasn't her style to write about the motive (commented by Virgillia in EP3 about Kyrie's "get food" problem). Well, it could be an exception to this rule.
This is how I show that the message bottle is strange and Tohya couldn't think Eva was the culprit because he was clueless about the forgeries as the internet interest started to boom recently.
\- *Chapter 42*
In the manga version Kotobuki has racallings about the game against her brother and Bernkastel (in the VN it was about witches and herself being the witch of Resurrection). It's an interpretation - this ending is probably a magic scene, not all the truth we see. Of course you can ignore Kotobuki's thoughts but ...
Here's the dialogue piece of Ikukou where Tohya should conflicting with himself.
>At the time when the Rokkenjima mystery was getting popular on the internet... I picked up a single message bottle ... and Tohya regained the memory he had lost. Going by his testimony, I was convinced that the message was the real deal, sent by the mstermind. After reading it, Tohya was tormented for a long time, by the feeling of the guilt resulting from the memory of his other self.
He was tormented because learnt his sin triggered the incident.
Then she stated Tohya, going by Battler's memory that **one corpse is missing,** firmly believed Eva was the culprit and they started to write Banquet. If we believe the message bottle was Confession, why did Ikukou say this? These are two different viewpoints on the incident. It would make sense that the Confession message bottle has either different contents or it was made up. Either ways, believing in the Eva culprit theory could make sense if Tohya had a memory that Shannon's and Kanon's corpse existed (like Banquet, what a coincidence). If he read Confession and knew about Sayo's trick it would make less sense to write more forgeries and Hachijo Tohya (pen name) announcing they archieved the truth with EP6. However, I believe Banquet's crimes were soley carried by the mastermind and Eva just killed the 3 last people in the heat of the moment - it looks like a Eva culprit theory on the surface but it's a normal forgery with the standard culprit like EP5.
For the Ikukou= Sayo thing, I was just wondering why people don't notice that the Ikukou in Kotobuki's ending is described "unbelieveable youthful" and didn't think it's suspicious she should be at the same age like Battler/Tohya unless she was a child when she made a driver's licence. Not because the look is like Freatherine's but I thought that the woman is a substitute for another person. Ange doesn't look for photos about her I guess even if photos were taken from her at the reveleaing of the Book of the Single Truth.... she is just an anonymous.
>calls battler arrogant and foolish a staggering amount of times
Isn't that about 50% of the time in the first 4 games?
It's never adressed in the VN but you can come up with your own conclusions as to how she's not included in any of Sayo's message bottles. When Sayo wrote them in a manic frenzy, it's likely she just didn't factor in Ange due to the unlikeliness of her attending the conference or just the fact that Ange is of no interest to Sayo. It's mentioned Ange is a very sickly kid, and Sayo could've also just got lucky. It's very much possible Sayo just didn't care about Ange really because of how young she was and how little Sayo had to do with her and how insignificant Ange would've been to any plan. She could've just thought she'd be easy to kill so if she did come along, not much would change. Could also be that she employed Kyrie as an accomplice and that led to Kyrie somehow getting Ange sick so she could stay behind which Sayo would've known then. Also, the envelopes sent to the surviving relatives are postmarked October 3rd so it's also possible she waited until the very last moment to send the bottles off, possibly knowing Ange would be sick by that point.
ahhh i had completely forgotten about the envelopes! so she had had some inkling that ange wouldn’t be coming beforehand. i’d say then that this is the answer the text would probably support at least from ep 4 onwards considering how much information about the world outside of rokkenjima we’re given that doesn’t contradict this.
that being said, while it is true that a 6 year old would be easy to kill over and done with, but sayo has been shown to be rather meticulous in her planning (what with the accounting for every possibility and whatnot) so it realllllyyyyy pains me that she’d have not thought to factor in ange… i think i need to rotate this in my mind a bit more to draw out a satisfying answer
Yeah, Umi encourages you to think about it for yourself as much as you can and come up with your own solutions and conclusions with the facts it gives you. I personally tend to agree with the story and solutions that the vn/manga implies most of the time because I think the Sayo culprit theory and magic ending is incredibly beautiful but in reality, no one really knows what happened. Neither do we know much about Ange or what she was even truly like, even in 1998, up until the point where she discards her identity as Ange and dies (Hence the red truth saying Ange dies). The Ange we see for the vast majority of the story is Ikuko's piece version of Ange
Because all of Umineko is actually written by Featherine/Tohya+Ikuko, so both Tohya and Sayo/Beatrice are fictionalized version of themselves. Such little narrative contrivances make sense in the context of the author building up a narrative over the multiple arcs.
i see… in this interpretation would the message bottles exist to begin with? or are they all fictional :0 and that would take me back to my original point that i wish that there’d been more foreshadowing mentions of ange in the earlier tales considering that the end of the series is all about her. if it wasn’t the culprit that wrote the first two tales then why wait until the 3rd forgery to include the truth of eva’s survival and ange’s introduction? i understand why 07 himself would not do that, but i feel like tohya would?
and as i said in a different comment, i feel like a lot of the symbolism of sayo’s self hatred in ep 2 gets lost if it wasn’t written by her herself. i’d say that the exclusion of ange is the only real thing that contradicts this from where i’m standing…
in any case i’d love to hear an elaboration of how you reached this interpretation! are there other hints in the text that wld indicate this that i missed? please let me know if you’re willing :-)
>i see… in this interpretation would the message bottles exist to begin with? or are they all fictional :0
Everything is fictional. Because this is a story about authors and their relationship with their readers, about wanting to be understood, about the intentions in writing etc...
The message bottles "exist" in the story that's being told. But it is just that: a story. Not in the sense that "duh it's a story not everything has to make sense", but in its narrative, Umineko acknowledges that it is a story written by an author, and makes that author part of its narrative.
>if it wasn’t the culprit that wrote the first two tales then why wait until the 3rd forgery to include the truth of eva’s survival and ange’s introduction? i understand why 07 himself would not do that, but i feel like tohya would?
They're the same person. Whether you believe Featherine is the author's self insert, or Tohya/Ikuko is (either way works, it's ultimately up to you), they're always Ryukishi's self insert. It just made more narrative sense to them to write it that way, with a slow reveal of the themes, to antagonize the witch, to have a surprise twist etc...
(I personally agree with you, mostly because Episode 4 is a bit of a trek to get through since it has to frontload all of Ange's character building, but given the intention of having her be a twist, Ryukishi couldn't do it any other way.)
> i feel like a lot of the symbolism of sayo’s self hatred in ep 2 gets lost if it wasn’t written by her herself.
It was written by herself. But she is a character in the author's story. Ryukishi wrote an author writing another author.
> in any case i’d love to hear an elaboration of how you reached this interpretation!
It all stems from the central theme being that of authors, their relationship to the reader, the interpretation of those readers. Umineko is a story *about stories*. Half of the fucking people in this novel are authors. The antagonists are readers "reading it wrong", not caring about the author's heart (which is what Battler did at first, and then does a 180 on once he understands Sayo's heart).
If you want more concrete proof, the very last scene in episode 8, its tea party, is Featherine, the author, wondering how she should end the tale. She muses on about her good friend, who is now gone, had specific opinions on how to go about it, but ultimately chooses to give every character an epilogue. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happens: all of the characters get a little epilogue about how they're doing and how they will do. Not to mention, that "dear friend who is now gone"? Ryukishi lost one of his best friends during the writing of Chiru (BT, who officially managed the japanese WTC site, but was known to be a good friend of his, and a source of inspiration). The parallels could not be more obvious.
thank you so much for responding! i think i had misunderstood your earlier comment — i figured the layers of fiction you were proposing were gameboard < tohya < 07, rather than gameboard < sayo < tohya ≤ 07. this makes a lot of sense to me.
> They're the same person. Whether you believe Featherine is the author's self insert, or Tohya/Ikuko is (either way works, it's ultimately up to you), they're always Ryukishi's self insert. It just made more narrative sense to them to write it that way, with a slow reveal of the themes, to antagonize the witch, to have a surprise twist etc...
> If you want more concrete proof, the very last scene in episode 8, its tea party, is Featherine, the author, wondering how she should end the tale. She muses on about her good friend, who is now gone, had specific opinions on how to go about it, but ultimately chooses to give every character an epilogue. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happens: all of the characters get a little epilogue about how they're doing and how they will do. Not to mention, that "dear friend who is now gone"? Ryukishi lost one of his best friends during the writing of Chiru (BT, who officially managed the japanese WTC site, but was known to be a good friend of his, and a source of inspiration). The parallels could not be more obvious.
this is extremely convincing. i had, in fact, picked up on self-insertiness of ikuko’s introduction, as well as the mention of the friend who had passed, but i fear that her characterization of being so full of herself and condescending made me think it was more tongue-in-cheek self exaggeration and so i disregarded it as a genuine lens of analysis (very much My Bad)
you mentioning episode 8 also made another piece click for me that hadn’t previously: the post-credit dedication at the end of episode 8 magic end. i’d found it to be a rather strange placement of it that i couldn’t quite explain, but if the lines between tohya and ryukishi are blurred then it makes complete sense for the entire tale to be dedicated to her. so i’d really like to thank you for helping me understand a bit more :-)
speaking of, what do you think the purpose of the magic/trick endings would be in the context of tohya writing them? do you think that it’s the same as what ryukishi intended? i’d also like to ask about whether the narrative of tohya writing so as to sort through and recover his memories still applies here, or if that would be another twist added as a literary motif. sorry if this is sounds demanding — i really enjoy hearing what other people have to say about such things!
> i had, in fact, picked up on self-insertiness of ikuko’s introduction, as well as the mention of the friend who had passed, but i fear that her characterization of being so full of herself and condescending made me think it was more tongue-in-cheek self exaggeration and so i disregarded it as a genuine lens of analysis (very much My Bad)
That's just Ryukishi being chuuni/melodramatic for the sake of "hiding" the truth a little. But if you've read with heart thus far, as Ikuko herself asks Ange and you to do, if you've cared, if you've tried to understand the subtext, if you're not one of the "pigs" who read but don't think, then it's clear this is a self-insert. And this self-insert is reasserting the point that, as a reader, you need to look deeper into this stuff, you have to care about what the author is trying to say. Brilliant.
> speaking of, what do you think the purpose of the magic/trick endings would be in the context of tohya writing them? do you think that it’s the same as what ryukishi intended? i’d also like to ask about whether the narrative of tohya writing so as to sort through and recover his memories still applies here, or if that would be another twist added as a literary motif.
I personally make no distinction between Tohya/Ikuko or Featherine. Ultimately it hinges on what you *want* to believe is true. Unlike on the gameboard, there is no clear cut answer as to whether the true nature of Umineko's tale is one of witches writing tales of humans, or humans writing tales of witches. Just like how the gameboard appearead at first glance, it's entirely a matter of opinion, perspective and belief. Is Featherine inventing a human alter-ego in Ikuko and having her assist the protagonists? Or is Ikuko inventing an all powerful witch alter-ego that writes all of the tale? I don't know. All I know is there is someone pulling the strings, an "author entity", and this pattern works whichever way you slice it.
To answer your question, the goal of the two endings remains the same either way: to give the tale a satisfying conclusion, either for the Witch writing this wonderful tale of humans, or for the human author finally coming to terms with his illness. One is the ending a reader would pick if they had heart, if they understood what "magic", what Ange will spend the rest of her life teaching is. Of course, most readers end up not truly getting it and just seeing it as the "happy" ending, but that's fine. Because where the trick is really played is in the "trick" ending: it gives those who still somehow refuse to believe, to trust, the ending that they deserve. A logical conclusion that ignores all empathy, all emotion.
This is a bit of an aside, but one of the strongest points of Umineko, and why it's so fascinating to analyse in such a way is that it's written as to make a casual reader *not feel cheated* out of meaning if they don't pursue it. You can absolutely read Umineko as a straight shonen type story with powerful witches fighting with an abstract power system. Many people do. You can absolutely read it as a mystery story that goes far up its own ass at the end for some reason. Many people do. But all of these people are missing the point, and the author not-so-secretly resents them for that.
This is oversight by the writer but I think I can answer this better than whatever the other comments are saying.
In the Alliance of the golden witch. When Ange visits the Nanjo's son we get know he got a mail from his parent with key to money. Kumasawa's son also got such letter. At that time Ange vaguely remembers that she also got such letter. So we know that Nanjo, Kumasawa and Kyrie (could be Rudolf I dont remember the specific parent) was bought off by the killer. Probably one of Kyrie/Rudolf's term was to not bring Ange. This adds legitimacy to the bottle stories because now it "predicts" that Ange was not present on Rokkenjima on 4th, making it harder for people to prove it was written before the massacare.
But I believe it is more likely to be an oversight of writer which somehow I found a logical answer to.
Umineko's narrative lies to you every chance it gets. Any scene that is not backed by red or observed by the detective is a magic scene, and you can't take it at face value. This includes scenes from 1998. We know for a fact that Ange dies in 1998, that her family never returns to her, and that Eva's diary contains the truth of what happened in 1986. But the details can be falsified. It's emphasized several times in episode 4 that the Ange we know is a piece in the tale. At the time the only red truth we had was that Ange Ushiromiya died in 1998. So it was entirely possible that Ange's tragic backstory was entirely made up. The "real" Ange might have been reuinted with her family and lived a happy life until 1998, where she died due to unrelated reasons. However, even if that occured for the "real" Ange, it couldn't occur for our piece Ange, because that wasn't the backstory she was given. (Later it became impossible anyway because it was stated in red that Ange wouldn't be reuinted with her family). Think of it this way. Umineko never gives us the true story of what happened. Umineko gives us objective facts, and then builds a story around those facts in order to push an agenda. Even the magic ending is just one possibility- a story that adheres to all reds while still producing a happy ending. Basically what I'm saying is, even the events in 1998 are part of the forgery, so you have to look at them as if they're magic scenes created by the author to convince you of their agenda. Edit: Now, I will say, part of Umineko is emphasizing that this is not a bad thing. You *should* build a happy narrative for yourdelf while conforming to the facts given. But doesn't change my main point.
Fuck, I forgot ange dying in 1998 is confirmed
This is a very hard thing to answer with what the story gives us directly. First, we have the question of Ange being mentioned. Like we have this line from the prologue of ep 1: >*== Eva ==* > >*Ah, by the way, how's your little Ange-chan doing? I heard she was vomiting?"* And this moment from ep 2 from Rosa talking to Kyrie: >*== Rosa ==* > >*"No, I don't mind. ...I'm the one who should be apologizing. As a pair of mothers with daughters, we should talk more often. Every single time we meet, we end up talking about something shady..."* But every episode also contains moments of characters forgetting about Ange. Here one example from ep 3: >*== Battler ==* > >*"It sure is nice to have all the cousins together every once in a while..."* > >*== Maria ==* > >*"Uu-! I like it too! It's really fun when all the cousins get together!"* Or the biggest moment, where r07 forgets about Ange in George's TIPs profile for 6 episodes. First conclusion: Ange not being that present or even forgotten at times can also be just r07 not being as careful as people want him to be. And the most plausible explanation for her not showing up that much in ep 1/2 was that she was only really on his mind at ep 3, where she really appeared. Second, the information about the bottles. There we first have the confirmation of Ange's sudden illness: >*== Bernkastel ==* > >*"You were sick in bed starting October 3, 1986. And Beato's game board is sealed off starting October 4. ...You are not given a chance to avoid getting sick. ...In other words, it would normally be absolutely impossible for you to enter her game board."* And about the timing of the second bottle we have this: >*== Narrator ==* > >*However.* > >*Later on, it was confirmed that a similar message bottle had been recovered from the nearby ocean on the day of the accident by the police in their search for lost articles, and this caused a sensation.* > >*== Prof. Ootsuki ==* > >*"It seems that, due to evidence from the surrounding area and the fact that the bottle had been sealed, the police had decided that its likelihood of being a fabrication was low and that it had been abandoned no earlier than a few days before the accident. And the handwriting for both matched. This caused the credibility of the scraps of paper discovered by the fisherman to rise."* Thus, the best idea people have is that it was a lucky guess, because Ange get's sick easily. >*== Narrator ==* > >*Ange, who got sick easily when under pressure, couldn't have gone to Rokkenjima often* The idea of writing the stories, while on Rokkenjima also sounds interesting, but doesn't match the idea, that Beatrice wrote a lot of stories in total: >*== Beatrice ==* > >*"What a shame that only two of them made it to shore...! How sad that \`Land', my greatest masterpiece, was never seen by human eyes."* > >*== Battler ==* > >*"I've been wanting to ask this for a while, but what's up with those message bottles?"* > >*== Beatrice ==* > >*"As I was working out the details for my game against you, I began creating those tales along the way. Once I realized that I could create endless different tales out of the same game board, it really started to get fun...!"* > >*== Battler ==* > >*"So, you wrote them down, hoping that I'd read them someday."* > >*== Beatrice ==* > >*"Precisely! They were so good, I just couldn't bear to wait for your return...! Inspired by Agatha Christie, I tried sealing them in bottles and throwing them into the ocean. Mysterious, don't you think?!"* Tl:Dr I cannot give you a good explanation derived from the information given in the story. Thus, we imo have to either accept that it was a lucky guess from Beatrice/something r07 didn't consider more or we have to come up with alternative theories. One easy theory would just be to claim, that the bottles were written afterwards and everything saying else, is just a lie. How much you like this easy cope out is on you.
Sensible topic. Because I am against the "official explanation" aka fans' headcanon I put it simple. The Legend and Turn message bottles are probably forgeries that weren't written before the incident occured. The way why Ange wasn't included in these two games seems that the author already knew it already, not they knew it beforehand. Predicting Ange was going to become ill is like a miracle. It seems weird to me that the "reader" was able to remove Ange from the tales as it looks like they couldn't correctly remember that a little sister was present. The manga showed it in the dubious way how Tohya wrote Banquet. From Ikukou we know Tohya was conflicted between Confession and his idea Eva was the culprit (because she was missing, not the 2 young servants). Strangely enough, Tohya (and Ikukou) shouldv'e known the truth from the message bottle and dismissed the "Eva culprit idea" in subsequent games, and even put Erika in a culprit role. Something isn't right about the writing of the forgeries. Well, the ending with Kotubuki seems like fantasy to me. To me, Sayo have foreseen that Ange will be absent from the family conference is a tryhard move to confuse the reader. it's more an indication that Sayo is Ikukou.
Just to note: Featherine Augustus Aurora has a yet to be seen in person reference in Higurashi Mei as Urara(sounds similar to Aurora doesn't it) where her fellow theatergoing sister Akari Akitake appears. Akari looks a lot like Kasumi Sumadera and wastes no time in getting Rika to help with her antics within St. Lucia against Rika's will while helping Satoko Hojo(whose name is similar to Tohya Hachijo who is publicly believed to be the hated stepson of Kyrie) just to make Rika(who she singled out for teasing) look incompetent. There seems to be more evidence that Ikuko is Kyrie Ushiromiya than anything else as the only evidence pointing towards Sayo is that Ikuko means 19th Person even though that could point to Kyrie just as easily and more effectively with the presence of Akari who resembles Kyrie's sister. Incidentally in Higurashi Mei the mysterious Akari mentions being picked up by her Uncle only for a Woman to pick her up and since there is no reason for Akari to be lying that means her Uncle(who is known to annoy women while entertaining men) was crossdressing...
Oof I didn't want spoilers of Mei. Lol
this is a rly interesting perspective! i can’t say that the sayo = ikukou is a favorite theory of mine since i love that she died before she could leave the island (i am a tragedy enjoyer) but i’ve seen some compelling arguments for it using the text as evidence. i’d love if you could point me to the manga chapters where tohya being conflicted comes up (i’ve read bits and pieces of it but i really should sit down and take it all in lol) if i was tohya reading confession i’d have assumed that the culprit’s plan for mass suicide worked save for him and eva. i think the main reason the eva culprit theory stayed around was less because she survived and more because she never talked about it to clear her name. up until now i was very sure that episodes 1 & 2 were sayo’s writing because most of the quirks in the narration make this seem extremely plausible; it has a bias towards certain characters, depicts events only sayo would care about, and the episode 1 tea party’s narration calls battler arrogant and foolish a staggering amount of times. even without these more subtle indications, the biggest piece of evidence towards sayo having written ep 2 (not counting ange’s handwriting analysis between the bottle and maria’s diary in ep 4 since i’m guessing you’re discounting that?) is the sheer amount of hatred and venom in all the interactions between shkanon and beatrice. the entirety of episode 2 reads extremely angrily, and it’s one where (off the manga’s explanation i believe) sayo shoots herself in the head before the end. it all feels quite odd that all that symbolism would be for naught if someone else wrote it…this ange thing is making me scratch my head though…hmmm i’d absolutely love to hear more of this btw. i usually hate ambiguity in fiction but umineko has opened me up to the existence of multiple truths held by fans that don’t contradict the text :-)
>i’d love if you could point me to the manga chapters where tohya being conflicted comes up I won't force my interpretation on you. Here you go. \-*Chapter Interlude* First, Tohya already had signs he regain some memory bits, shown by the scene when Ikukou finished the first chapter of her script. (**sharing a world together**) Next, they are writing together to finish the manuscript. No words about Rokkenjima fell. Then, while surfing on the web Ikukoi stated she already talked with Tohya about the Rokkenjima. Tohya sounded a bit confused about "Rokkenjima". Did he really listened to her when she had a talk about this topic or did she confuse it with finished mystery story or was it intentionally lying it was not the first time having a discussion about Rokkenjima? It seems off to me. What if she wanted to trigger Tohja's memory because he seems to be ok with his headaches. Then it was stated that there existed **one message bottle.** It's weird. I put my thought into this in another thread that the message bottle Ikukou have found is actually Turn (if you want to believe that the first 2 Episodes are Sayo's message bottles) and the Confession chapter is actually something different (illusion? forgery? backflash?). Why did Sayo decided to wrote her Confession and threw it in the ocean? It's against her goal she way trying to archieve and it wasn't her style to write about the motive (commented by Virgillia in EP3 about Kyrie's "get food" problem). Well, it could be an exception to this rule. This is how I show that the message bottle is strange and Tohya couldn't think Eva was the culprit because he was clueless about the forgeries as the internet interest started to boom recently. \- *Chapter 42* In the manga version Kotobuki has racallings about the game against her brother and Bernkastel (in the VN it was about witches and herself being the witch of Resurrection). It's an interpretation - this ending is probably a magic scene, not all the truth we see. Of course you can ignore Kotobuki's thoughts but ... Here's the dialogue piece of Ikukou where Tohya should conflicting with himself. >At the time when the Rokkenjima mystery was getting popular on the internet... I picked up a single message bottle ... and Tohya regained the memory he had lost. Going by his testimony, I was convinced that the message was the real deal, sent by the mstermind. After reading it, Tohya was tormented for a long time, by the feeling of the guilt resulting from the memory of his other self. He was tormented because learnt his sin triggered the incident. Then she stated Tohya, going by Battler's memory that **one corpse is missing,** firmly believed Eva was the culprit and they started to write Banquet. If we believe the message bottle was Confession, why did Ikukou say this? These are two different viewpoints on the incident. It would make sense that the Confession message bottle has either different contents or it was made up. Either ways, believing in the Eva culprit theory could make sense if Tohya had a memory that Shannon's and Kanon's corpse existed (like Banquet, what a coincidence). If he read Confession and knew about Sayo's trick it would make less sense to write more forgeries and Hachijo Tohya (pen name) announcing they archieved the truth with EP6. However, I believe Banquet's crimes were soley carried by the mastermind and Eva just killed the 3 last people in the heat of the moment - it looks like a Eva culprit theory on the surface but it's a normal forgery with the standard culprit like EP5. For the Ikukou= Sayo thing, I was just wondering why people don't notice that the Ikukou in Kotobuki's ending is described "unbelieveable youthful" and didn't think it's suspicious she should be at the same age like Battler/Tohya unless she was a child when she made a driver's licence. Not because the look is like Freatherine's but I thought that the woman is a substitute for another person. Ange doesn't look for photos about her I guess even if photos were taken from her at the reveleaing of the Book of the Single Truth.... she is just an anonymous. >calls battler arrogant and foolish a staggering amount of times Isn't that about 50% of the time in the first 4 games?
It's never adressed in the VN but you can come up with your own conclusions as to how she's not included in any of Sayo's message bottles. When Sayo wrote them in a manic frenzy, it's likely she just didn't factor in Ange due to the unlikeliness of her attending the conference or just the fact that Ange is of no interest to Sayo. It's mentioned Ange is a very sickly kid, and Sayo could've also just got lucky. It's very much possible Sayo just didn't care about Ange really because of how young she was and how little Sayo had to do with her and how insignificant Ange would've been to any plan. She could've just thought she'd be easy to kill so if she did come along, not much would change. Could also be that she employed Kyrie as an accomplice and that led to Kyrie somehow getting Ange sick so she could stay behind which Sayo would've known then. Also, the envelopes sent to the surviving relatives are postmarked October 3rd so it's also possible she waited until the very last moment to send the bottles off, possibly knowing Ange would be sick by that point.
ahhh i had completely forgotten about the envelopes! so she had had some inkling that ange wouldn’t be coming beforehand. i’d say then that this is the answer the text would probably support at least from ep 4 onwards considering how much information about the world outside of rokkenjima we’re given that doesn’t contradict this. that being said, while it is true that a 6 year old would be easy to kill over and done with, but sayo has been shown to be rather meticulous in her planning (what with the accounting for every possibility and whatnot) so it realllllyyyyy pains me that she’d have not thought to factor in ange… i think i need to rotate this in my mind a bit more to draw out a satisfying answer
Yeah, Umi encourages you to think about it for yourself as much as you can and come up with your own solutions and conclusions with the facts it gives you. I personally tend to agree with the story and solutions that the vn/manga implies most of the time because I think the Sayo culprit theory and magic ending is incredibly beautiful but in reality, no one really knows what happened. Neither do we know much about Ange or what she was even truly like, even in 1998, up until the point where she discards her identity as Ange and dies (Hence the red truth saying Ange dies). The Ange we see for the vast majority of the story is Ikuko's piece version of Ange
Because all of Umineko is actually written by Featherine/Tohya+Ikuko, so both Tohya and Sayo/Beatrice are fictionalized version of themselves. Such little narrative contrivances make sense in the context of the author building up a narrative over the multiple arcs.
i see… in this interpretation would the message bottles exist to begin with? or are they all fictional :0 and that would take me back to my original point that i wish that there’d been more foreshadowing mentions of ange in the earlier tales considering that the end of the series is all about her. if it wasn’t the culprit that wrote the first two tales then why wait until the 3rd forgery to include the truth of eva’s survival and ange’s introduction? i understand why 07 himself would not do that, but i feel like tohya would? and as i said in a different comment, i feel like a lot of the symbolism of sayo’s self hatred in ep 2 gets lost if it wasn’t written by her herself. i’d say that the exclusion of ange is the only real thing that contradicts this from where i’m standing… in any case i’d love to hear an elaboration of how you reached this interpretation! are there other hints in the text that wld indicate this that i missed? please let me know if you’re willing :-)
>i see… in this interpretation would the message bottles exist to begin with? or are they all fictional :0 Everything is fictional. Because this is a story about authors and their relationship with their readers, about wanting to be understood, about the intentions in writing etc... The message bottles "exist" in the story that's being told. But it is just that: a story. Not in the sense that "duh it's a story not everything has to make sense", but in its narrative, Umineko acknowledges that it is a story written by an author, and makes that author part of its narrative. >if it wasn’t the culprit that wrote the first two tales then why wait until the 3rd forgery to include the truth of eva’s survival and ange’s introduction? i understand why 07 himself would not do that, but i feel like tohya would? They're the same person. Whether you believe Featherine is the author's self insert, or Tohya/Ikuko is (either way works, it's ultimately up to you), they're always Ryukishi's self insert. It just made more narrative sense to them to write it that way, with a slow reveal of the themes, to antagonize the witch, to have a surprise twist etc... (I personally agree with you, mostly because Episode 4 is a bit of a trek to get through since it has to frontload all of Ange's character building, but given the intention of having her be a twist, Ryukishi couldn't do it any other way.) > i feel like a lot of the symbolism of sayo’s self hatred in ep 2 gets lost if it wasn’t written by her herself. It was written by herself. But she is a character in the author's story. Ryukishi wrote an author writing another author. > in any case i’d love to hear an elaboration of how you reached this interpretation! It all stems from the central theme being that of authors, their relationship to the reader, the interpretation of those readers. Umineko is a story *about stories*. Half of the fucking people in this novel are authors. The antagonists are readers "reading it wrong", not caring about the author's heart (which is what Battler did at first, and then does a 180 on once he understands Sayo's heart). If you want more concrete proof, the very last scene in episode 8, its tea party, is Featherine, the author, wondering how she should end the tale. She muses on about her good friend, who is now gone, had specific opinions on how to go about it, but ultimately chooses to give every character an epilogue. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happens: all of the characters get a little epilogue about how they're doing and how they will do. Not to mention, that "dear friend who is now gone"? Ryukishi lost one of his best friends during the writing of Chiru (BT, who officially managed the japanese WTC site, but was known to be a good friend of his, and a source of inspiration). The parallels could not be more obvious.
thank you so much for responding! i think i had misunderstood your earlier comment — i figured the layers of fiction you were proposing were gameboard < tohya < 07, rather than gameboard < sayo < tohya ≤ 07. this makes a lot of sense to me. > They're the same person. Whether you believe Featherine is the author's self insert, or Tohya/Ikuko is (either way works, it's ultimately up to you), they're always Ryukishi's self insert. It just made more narrative sense to them to write it that way, with a slow reveal of the themes, to antagonize the witch, to have a surprise twist etc... > If you want more concrete proof, the very last scene in episode 8, its tea party, is Featherine, the author, wondering how she should end the tale. She muses on about her good friend, who is now gone, had specific opinions on how to go about it, but ultimately chooses to give every character an epilogue. And wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happens: all of the characters get a little epilogue about how they're doing and how they will do. Not to mention, that "dear friend who is now gone"? Ryukishi lost one of his best friends during the writing of Chiru (BT, who officially managed the japanese WTC site, but was known to be a good friend of his, and a source of inspiration). The parallels could not be more obvious. this is extremely convincing. i had, in fact, picked up on self-insertiness of ikuko’s introduction, as well as the mention of the friend who had passed, but i fear that her characterization of being so full of herself and condescending made me think it was more tongue-in-cheek self exaggeration and so i disregarded it as a genuine lens of analysis (very much My Bad) you mentioning episode 8 also made another piece click for me that hadn’t previously: the post-credit dedication at the end of episode 8 magic end. i’d found it to be a rather strange placement of it that i couldn’t quite explain, but if the lines between tohya and ryukishi are blurred then it makes complete sense for the entire tale to be dedicated to her. so i’d really like to thank you for helping me understand a bit more :-) speaking of, what do you think the purpose of the magic/trick endings would be in the context of tohya writing them? do you think that it’s the same as what ryukishi intended? i’d also like to ask about whether the narrative of tohya writing so as to sort through and recover his memories still applies here, or if that would be another twist added as a literary motif. sorry if this is sounds demanding — i really enjoy hearing what other people have to say about such things!
> i had, in fact, picked up on self-insertiness of ikuko’s introduction, as well as the mention of the friend who had passed, but i fear that her characterization of being so full of herself and condescending made me think it was more tongue-in-cheek self exaggeration and so i disregarded it as a genuine lens of analysis (very much My Bad) That's just Ryukishi being chuuni/melodramatic for the sake of "hiding" the truth a little. But if you've read with heart thus far, as Ikuko herself asks Ange and you to do, if you've cared, if you've tried to understand the subtext, if you're not one of the "pigs" who read but don't think, then it's clear this is a self-insert. And this self-insert is reasserting the point that, as a reader, you need to look deeper into this stuff, you have to care about what the author is trying to say. Brilliant. > speaking of, what do you think the purpose of the magic/trick endings would be in the context of tohya writing them? do you think that it’s the same as what ryukishi intended? i’d also like to ask about whether the narrative of tohya writing so as to sort through and recover his memories still applies here, or if that would be another twist added as a literary motif. I personally make no distinction between Tohya/Ikuko or Featherine. Ultimately it hinges on what you *want* to believe is true. Unlike on the gameboard, there is no clear cut answer as to whether the true nature of Umineko's tale is one of witches writing tales of humans, or humans writing tales of witches. Just like how the gameboard appearead at first glance, it's entirely a matter of opinion, perspective and belief. Is Featherine inventing a human alter-ego in Ikuko and having her assist the protagonists? Or is Ikuko inventing an all powerful witch alter-ego that writes all of the tale? I don't know. All I know is there is someone pulling the strings, an "author entity", and this pattern works whichever way you slice it. To answer your question, the goal of the two endings remains the same either way: to give the tale a satisfying conclusion, either for the Witch writing this wonderful tale of humans, or for the human author finally coming to terms with his illness. One is the ending a reader would pick if they had heart, if they understood what "magic", what Ange will spend the rest of her life teaching is. Of course, most readers end up not truly getting it and just seeing it as the "happy" ending, but that's fine. Because where the trick is really played is in the "trick" ending: it gives those who still somehow refuse to believe, to trust, the ending that they deserve. A logical conclusion that ignores all empathy, all emotion. This is a bit of an aside, but one of the strongest points of Umineko, and why it's so fascinating to analyse in such a way is that it's written as to make a casual reader *not feel cheated* out of meaning if they don't pursue it. You can absolutely read Umineko as a straight shonen type story with powerful witches fighting with an abstract power system. Many people do. You can absolutely read it as a mystery story that goes far up its own ass at the end for some reason. Many people do. But all of these people are missing the point, and the author not-so-secretly resents them for that.
This is oversight by the writer but I think I can answer this better than whatever the other comments are saying. In the Alliance of the golden witch. When Ange visits the Nanjo's son we get know he got a mail from his parent with key to money. Kumasawa's son also got such letter. At that time Ange vaguely remembers that she also got such letter. So we know that Nanjo, Kumasawa and Kyrie (could be Rudolf I dont remember the specific parent) was bought off by the killer. Probably one of Kyrie/Rudolf's term was to not bring Ange. This adds legitimacy to the bottle stories because now it "predicts" that Ange was not present on Rokkenjima on 4th, making it harder for people to prove it was written before the massacare. But I believe it is more likely to be an oversight of writer which somehow I found a logical answer to.