Well gee, coming from a guy who already knows the story, that kind of takes away the fun in it 
Do you at least have any counter-proof for this one?
Now that’s an interesting theory! Sad that we have no way of confirming it as of this point
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Not from this early in the story, otherwise I would have used it.
As host it’s my duty to ensure that I eliminate any theories that completely stagnate critical thought. Everyone was buying into that dumb theory way too easily and not considering alternatives. Pretty much everyone from #higurashi-spoilers has my back on this one.
Try harder!
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. I just personally find it incredibly dumb that the only way to eliminate this theory is to have knowledge of the actual cause. Which again pushes why I hate deduction in cases like these: you can think of an inifinitely many theories to answer all these but still have absolutely no confirmation from the game whatsoever.
Whose to say that the next theory that we cook up won’t have counter-proof either but would still be wrong?
Aspi said that there’s already something that has been foreshadowed much more apparently.
Maybe we should think a bit harder?
The only thing I can suggest is that, as was stated in the VN somewhere (I can’t remember exactly), the swamp is connected to an external source. The intro of himatsubushi does support this: as they did show a floating body which obviously came from the swamp in a river somewhere else . This thus implies that somebody could have pushed noxious gases into the swamp causing the disaster…
But I can’t exactly prove that either.
Discussion’s sure been lively, so I started thinking about the GHD again and came up with some stuff I had missed early on. Funny, considering I was the one dismissing it in my earlier post, but from now on, I’ll accept it as fact.
Although it’s presented as a “natural” occurrence, all of us are trying to pin the blame on a person, which makes sense because first, that’s just how our brain works when presented a mystery, and second, because it’s a story about people. What I’m trying to say, is that I believe we don’t really have a clue as to how it could have been made to happen, but we do have a couple of characters that we could blame for it.
The first impression you get when beating the game is “Well, everyone’s dead, so who do we blame?”. It’s natural to assume that if someone caused it intentionally, then they’d either do it out of a great enough sense of revenge that they don’t mind dying alongside it, had some plan to survive that went wrong, or… they had a plan to survive, and actually did. After all, 20 people have gone missing according to the last report in Tatarigoroshi. Missing doesn’t mean dead. If anyone caused this, they’d certainly be missing, as they’d have to flee Hinamizawa. So, as a first theory, I believe that if we’re going to be blaming anyone, it should be someone’s that missing. And from those, there are a couple of very suspicious individuals.
First of all, Takano. We’ve been told her body has been found, but as others mentioned before, I don’t believe that report is actually enough proof to say she’s dead. She probably knew she was going to be wanted dead soon, and her scene in the car only makes her more suspicious.
Satoko’s brother, Satoshi, is also listed as missing. Satoko kept asking for her nii-nii to come back, and just maybe he did. It should be noted that Satoko herself is also listed as missing in the titles, so it’s not impossible that she was saved by someone. Or maybe she just ran off away and casually survived it.
Finally, Ooishi and Kuma-chan, both went missing right before shit hits the fan. The previous two were “demoned away”, so it makes sense that they’d be missing, but Ooishi and Kumatani just happen to disappear, and I don’t believe for a second that Keiichi and his “mind powers” had anything to do with it. Slight Himatsubushi spoilers: Why I think this is the big one? Ooishi is very casually shown alive after the events of the GHD happen. You could just sweep it aside if you claimed it as a different timeline with different events, maybe in Himatsubushi he just happened not to be in Hinamizawa at the time, but we know that at least, in Tatarigoroshi, he should have, and while I pretty much ignored this point while reading Himatsubushi the first time, now I can’t help but think that it might have some relevance.
Other two characters, Chie and Kameda, are listed as having died while fleeing. I’m not sure what the relevance of this could be, maybe just a red herring. I don’t even remember who Kameda is. The school principal?
@Aspirety: I think, this being a Spoiler-free thread, you shouldn’t dismiss theories with full knowledge of the series. I’ve only read up to Meakashi and I try my hardest not to use any points brought up further ahead when coming back to these threads, but I also wouldn’t like someone who knows how everything happened to just tell me I’m wrong because he knows how I am.
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That’s induction vs deduction for you. When there’s not enough information to deduce what’s the right answer and what can’t possibly be that doesn’t mean reasoning is pointless, it just means that maybe it’s time to turn your thinking around and think about what answers have the most pointing towards them. You won’t get confirmation, sure, but you might just realize, for yourself at least, that you’ve arrived at the truth.
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It wasn’t a decision I took lightly, but it’s one that most of the veterans seem to agree was necessary to keep discussion moving in a constructive direction. You’re welcome to resent me for it, but I stand by my decision.
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