I was getting tired of having to tag all the Higurashi spoilers in the Bernkastel thread, and I think this is a topic a lot of people are interested in, so feel free to discuss without any spoiler tags:
Rika and Bernkastel
Takano and Lambdadelta
Hanyuu and Featherine
Hibari 13 and Amakusa
Okonogi and…Okonogi
and any other connections between the two series.
Edit: I’d be interested how you guys think the Sea of Fragments works. Like, is there a fragment for every possibility?
Oh, nice. I’ve always wanted to discuss this!
Regarding Rika and Bernkastel, Ryukishi07 once said this in a Q&A:
“Q: What is the relationship between Rika and Frederica Bernkastel?
A: Bernkastel is composed of all the negative emotions and memories from the Rika that endured 100 years of torment in Higurashi. On a side note, he mentioned that Rika was BT’s favorite character, so he greatly enjoyed making Rika evil to see BT’s reaction.” (Source )
However, we still don’t really know her role in Higurashi.
I personally think that she also holds all of the memories from the loop so that Rika doesn’t break. Also she probably acts kind of like a meta-character controlling piece Rika.
Remember in Umineko’s EP8 when piece Ange was being controlled by the future Ange and she started saying things that were out of character? I think it’s the same thing. Whenever we see Rika drinking wine or saying things that she shouldn’t know, it’s probably just Bernkastel controlling her.
By the way… What do you guys think about Saikoroshi-hen? Do you think that Bernkastel stays in the “perfect” world while Rika goes back to the old world?
I’d like to read everyone’s opinion!
From Bern’s page on the Umineko wiki
It has been stated in an interview that she is the personality of the 100-year-old witch Rika seperated herself from in Saikoroshi-hen and is the crystallization of only the cruelest parts left over from the 100-year-old witch.
Oh, I hadn’t read that. Thank you!
I think her role in Higurashi was simply to be a sort of bridge between the story and the reader. For example, in Minagoroshi’s prologue she directly explains the rules of the Higurashi world to the reader.
I don’t think Bernkastel was controlling Rika, because with Ange in EP8 it looked like piece Ange forgot her meta knowledge when meta Ange stopped speaking through her, but Minagoroshi and a good chunk of Matsuribayashi are from Rika’s point of view, and we can see that she always has ‘meta knowledge.’
One question I have is, if Bernkastel wasn’t “born” until Saikoroshi, then who was the Bernkastel who appeared in the Minagoroshi and Matsuribayashi?
Maybe you’re right. However, Bernkastel is an entity of her own, so maybe they’re both in the same body and share the same memories? That would mean that Bernkastel really separated from Rika in Saikoroshi-hen.
Well, she existed before Saikoroshi. Rika mentions it in the VN. 
(Also I find it really interesting how Rika says that Bernkastel is “the part of her who lived a hundred years…”)
I think it’s a matter of perspective. Rika lived a hundred a hundred years and developed a different personality, which she eventually called ‘Bernkastel.’ At the end of Saikoroshi, Rika “reclaimed” Rika. This doesn’t mean that Rika is going to forget the hundred years she’s lived, it just means that Rika has stopped thinking like a witch; in other words, she has stopped thinking about things in terms of multiple worlds, and this caused Bernkastel to split off from her.
That’s my interpretation, anyway.
It’s kind of weird though, because I thought Rika parted with her witch self at the end of Minagoroshi when she decided to defend Satoko rather than run away and save her memories. But then again, Rika forgot about that in Matsuribayashi, so maybe she needed to part with it again…or something.
I feel like we’ve discussed a lot already about the Bern-Rika connection, but I’m more curious about some of the other connections.
In the other thread I already brought up Featherine-Hanyuu, and Lamda-Takano also seems like an obvious one (made even stronger by the prologue to Hotorubi)
However there are a few discrepancies. For example there are some obvious parallels between Lamda and Satako as well. From the wiki:
She shares the same distinctive laugh as Satoko Houjou from Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, and also as the same penchant for making traps.
Lambdadelta’s link to Satoko Houjou is strengthened in Twilight of the Golden Witch, when the pie riddle that stumped Satoko in Higurashi was said by Bernkastel to have been failed by Lambdadelta.
So does Lamda have 2 pieces in Higurashi? One on each side?
Also who is the GM of Higurashi? If we are to take Higurashi as Bern’s logic error (which based on the fact that she was a piece during her logic error and Bern the witch identity was born during the looping of Higurashi so it’s almost certainly true) then that makes Featherine the GM rather than Lamda.
However Lamda makes reference to being the GM of Higurashi, she says she only lost because she let Bern set up her pieces however she liked and Bern put them all starting on Lamda’s side. To me this invokes the final loop in Higurashi where everyone retained their memories. If Lamda is the GM then it would make sense for her to have multiple pieces.
One last thing is that Higurashi’s structure is very different from Umineko. Umineko was a tragedy that happened once and all the looping has a mundane explanation of simply being the forgeries. That mundane explanation does not invalidate the fantastical one, they exist side by side.
However in Higurashi when the loop ends everyone survives and lives happily. The game boards affect the end state, unlike with Umineko. Because of this there is no way to provide a fully mundane explanation for Higurashi. Especially considering in the last loop all of the characters have memories of prior loops. Higurashi’s board is inherently fantastical, which is interesting because it takes a lot longer for the fantasy elements to become overt (unless you include Hinamizawa syndrome, which as Lamda and Bern point out in Umineko may as well be magic)
One thing I’d like to know about the logic error is why didn’t the game freeze like the one in Umineko EP6?
The game Lambda says she was a GM of might have been some separate game from Higurashi. Actually, Ryukishi didn’t have all of Umineko planned from the beginning, so he probably just meant for this to be a throwaway reference to Higurashi, then he decided to retcon it later with Featherine being the GM instead of Lambda.
I don’t see how the characters having memories of other worlds has to do with the position of the pieces?
Well, EP6’s logic error is different from Higurashi’s logic error.
In EP6, it was caused by Battler’s logic, which had contradictions while in Higurashi there were no contradictions at all. If I recall correctly, Higurashi’s logic error was caused by Hanyuu after losing all hope. (Please correct me if I’m mistaken!)
I don’t think it ever says for sure. I could be wrong though.
Edit: Another thing I was wondering is, what’s the difference between a fragment created on a game board and a fragment that just exists out in the Sea of Fragments? Like, in Higurashi, it was made clear that Rika and Hanyuu were jumping from fragment to fragment in the Sea, but in Umineko it’s a game board instead?
Edit of edit: Okay, so I think I’ve come up with a way the worlds in Higurashi might work, and it’s even sorta compatible with Umineko.
First of all, in my interpretation, Hanyuu isn’t Featherine, instead she’s a piece that was “adopted”(but ultimately not used) by Featherine.
Okay, so let’s say Featherine discovers the Higurashi “stage” we’re all familiar with in the Sea of Fragments. We know from what Frederica says that the world of Higurashi is a rare case, in that it shows more possibilities than other times and places. Suppose that Featherine wanted to see if Rika and Hanyuu could defeat Takano if they were able to go back in time and keep their memories when they did so. This is the “game.”
So Featherine gives Hanyuu (a “supernatural” being) that ability in one fragment, and this is where all the Higurashi worlds we know come from, creating a sort of chain of fragments. Obviously, in this interpretation, Hanyuu didn’t originally have that ability.
However, Featherine didn’t actually help Hanyuu or Rika other than that, and so a logic error was created from the absence of the GM.
The miracle was that some of the pieces eventually remembered past fragments and learned from them, so Rika was able to fulfill the objective of the game without the GM.
As for Lambda, she could be the opponent of the game. Or it could just be Takano without a player controlling her. It doesn’t really matter either way.
This is a good point, and gives us more to discuss regarding Lambdadelta and Bernkastel’s relationship!
I think that Lambdadelta in Twilight of the Golden Witch is particularly reminiscent of Satako: after she joins the battle for the golden land on Battler and Ange’s side (the “good team”, and against Bern, too).
As for the Yamainu, [color=BLUE]we can only assume they’re all witches[/COLOR], seeing as their members seem to travel to different fragments… Okonogi, the Witch of Gardening? (this was a stupid joke I’m sorry)
I think that, assuming Amakusa and Okonogi aren’t just a simple cameo, their appearance is supposed to imply that the future/Ange part of Umineko’s story (ie, the Real World and not a fictional fragment) takes place in the same universe as Higurashi… Which is funny considering Battler mentions reading Higurashi, which would make it fiction in-universe? (Although this does take place in a fictional fragment part of Umineko, so we can’t confirm its accuracy)
So yeah, we’re probably supposed to ignore some of the smaller things and treat them as nothing more than a reference to Ryukishi’s earlier works. But the character parallels, which are constantly reinforced, clearly mean something.
My god! Why didn’t I see it before!? 
Well, I seem to remember Ryukishi saying that most of the “cameos” are just supposed to be like the same actor playing different movie roles, but that some of the witches have greater significance. I can’t remember where he said that though.
Edit: Also, here’s my alternate, Higurashi-only explanation of how Higurashi’s worlds work. Which is that Hanyuu is an alien with the power to travel to different “possibilities.” And she does this in an attempt to find a “possibilty” in which Rika doesn’t die, creating a chain of fragments. A miracle happens and a few of Rika’s friends remember previous fragments and learn from them, and Rika defeats Takano.
As an aside, don’t you just love Ryukishi’s self-references? They’re about as subtle as a brick to the head.
Say, why is Bernkastel so strongly associated with cats? I don’t remember Rika being likened to a cat that much in Higurashi…at least, not any more than the other characters.
There’s quite a lot of cat stuff in Umineko, which I though was a reference to this outfit from the punishment games:
That, and the fact that she says “mii~” a lot, which I took as some sort of cat-based onomatopoeia.
I’ve only read Higurashi and had some Umineko spoiled, but crazy theory here… But what if Higurashi actually isn’t the game board discussed in Umineko, but a completely alternate universe?
Supposedly Rika’s continuous births gave birth to Bernkastel. But if that is the case, that means Higurashi predates Umineko. Instead, the game that Bernkastel and Lambdadelta play are possibly a re-enactment of their previous experiences?
I’m only going by what I was told, but… the ending of Umineko itself states that the events of Umineko are not canon, and nothing more than a bunch of hypothetical scenarios. Considering the purpose itself of Umineko is an unsolvable mystery, it is likely that there is no connection to Higurashi to be found in the first place. There is also possibility of a paradox where in Battler’s interpretation of the world magic and witches are not real. Through that same logic, Bernkastel and Lambdadelta do not exist, and they are nothing more than a bunch of trolls. In either case, Lambdadelta and Bernkastel could’ve not impacted Higurashi because there is always a scenario where their involvement is nonexistent, yet the events of Hinamizawa still took place.
It might be because Battler’s a fan of Higurashi, and spoilers spoilers blah blah EP8 (but it’s funny because in EP5, Battler all but outright says his favorite is Shion). And Ryukishi said that his friend who had died loved Rika the most, so he wanted to turn the character who looked like Rika into a villain to mess with his friend.
sorry if it sound too obvious but i want to said it.
i’ve always think that those two series merely a game that played by Bern and Lamda. Lamda is player 1 and Bern is player 2. like we play console game compete in the game and changed the CD so we can play another game.
in epilogue they she said “we will meet again when something cry” i guess their game always related to it.
Whoops, didn’t even see this topic was a thing.
Ah, anyway…
I’ve always considered Higurashi and Umineko to definitely take place in the same universe, and a lot of my beliefs aren’t exactly popular, but…
I think the Higurashi name drops in Umineko are fanservice, and not meant to be taken to mean that they aren’t in the same universe. I think that viewing it that way is a terrible thing to do, because it kind of ruins Bernkastel’s character.
I also think that the majority of Higurashi expies are truly those characters. I think Bernkastel is the persona Rika abandoned in the Dice Killing Arc, and I think that Tsubasa makes it clear that Lambdadelta championed Takano in Higurashi. I even think that Okinogi and Amakusa are the same members of the Yamainu from Higurashi. Even though this manner of thinking has some flaws, it makes a lot of thematic sense, as Higurashi and Umineko create a sort of Yin and Yang of anti-fatalist messages.
The one thing that I’m not quite sure what to think about is Featherine and Hanyuu’s possible connection. I like the idea that Higurashi was a game between Featherine and Lambdadelta, especially when compared to the common belief that it was a game between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta. I like the idea that Featherine’s damaged memory unit was responsible for Hanyuu’s bizarre personality and uselessness. However, I don’t think it all adds up quite right. For one, Featherine’s memory unit is more like a helmet, and it reaches all the way across her head. The manga even goes out of its way to say that it is specifically unlike Hanyuu’s horns, and not be confused with them. Furthermore, Hanyuu continues to exist even after Matsuribayashi… Surely pieces don’t continue to meander around the gameboard after its packed up, do they? Erika did, but I assumed she was a special exception.
So if we take Tsubasa as canon, then basically the only reason Takano was able to do what she did in Higurashi was because she was helped by a god-like being? Can’t say I like the sound of that.
Edit: Also, if Featherine is so powerful, then how did her memory unit even get damaged in the first place?
