Bravo to your whole post Pepe, it’s actually a pet peeve of mine when people approach When They Cry as though the mystery is the primary thing that matters and certainly when they forget to look at the story from a human perspective. I wanted to riff off of your point about Shion failing to protect Hinamizawa in her heart, which I also did in the Spoilers topic: indeed, I think considering Shion’s view of and experiences with Hinamizawa is a pivotal part of understanding her and this chapter, but I’m inclined to sympathize with her on this front. Namely, while not excusing her actions, we can see Shion was isolated and abused by her family and made to feel very small. Can we really blame her for jumping to conclusions here about them executing the curse after how they treated her, on both emotional and logical fronts? I’d also like to recall the scene where Shion screams at Mion for not protecting Satoshi when the Sonozakis supposedly killed him. This was a particularly moving scene (I recommend hearing it voiced on YouTube if you haven’t), and I saw it as Shion using Satoshi as a vessel for her own feelings, as she talks about Mion putting up a front for the family and not protecting him, the same way she did when Shion was forced to rip out her nails. I can’t imagine the effect it would have on you to be twins yet to have your family treat one of you so vastly differently. Moreover, I actually took the tip at the end with Akane talking about Oryou to be Mion pretending to be Shion. As we know full well after this chapter, they often switched places, and it was exactly that kind of communication that could’ve prevented the entirety of this chapter’s tragic events. And yet, not even their own mother could tell Mion and Shion apart. Nobody could, but even so, Shion was treated as though she was so much less.
I do not ultimately empathize with Shion’s actions in this chapter, but I definitely see her as a victim too, and I think those who see her story as one of a cold-blooded murderer rather than an all-round tragedy might want to take another look at her past and how it led her down this road. There is certainly no way of understanding Higurashi even from a mystery perspective if you do not think about the characters’ emotions, however uncomfortable it may be to do so.