You are free to discuss the entirety of the eight main arcs of Higurashi without tagging spoilers in this thread, but please tag spoilers to other works.
I have a question Iād like to pose to you guysā¦ This is something I, in my lack of experience with Higurashi, am struggling with a bit.
When does Higurashi become āsolvableā? And by solvable, do we have a definition of that? Does it refer to these ārules x y and zā that Iāve heard so much about?
Well, if we go by the question-answer format, then it should be solvable after Himatsubushi. Whether it actually is, Iām not sure.
By the way, hereās the three rules: http://whentheycry.wikia.com/wiki/Universe_Rules
(The wiki tends to get a lot of things wrong, but this page is accurate.)
The thing all these rules have in common is the Hinamizawa syndromeā¦ So maybe it would it would be easiest to just say Hinamizawa syndrome is the solution.
Though I wouldnāt say that someone has solved it if they just say something vague like āmaybe Keiichi and Shion were sickā but rather they would have to pinpoint it as a local disease, with ties to the legend of Oyashiro-sama.
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Mmmm, I would say that Higurashi isnāt solvable in the traditional sense. (Umineko Spoilers) This is because unlike Umineko, Higurashi does not follow the rules of Knox, nor is it designed to be a fair play whodunnit mystery.
As someone who is familiar with the mystery genre, there are a couple main reasons why Higurashi wouldnāt be considered āfair playā, though it doesnāt really need to since its more of a modern mystery rather than a Golden Age Detective mystery, which is a rather specific subset of the mystery genre.
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First and foremost, it violates the rules of Knox, who is a very influential writer when it comes to fair play whodunnits. The most notable violation I can think of is of the 4th rule of his which states āNo hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.ā This is notably violated with both Hinamizawa syndrome and the vaccine for it. Both of these are not things the reader could reasonably be expected to have knowledge of the properties of beforehand, which violates this law in spirit.
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It does not seem to give all the clues necessary to reach the who and why in due time before the reveal, in my opinion. Again, this is not strictly necessary as it is of a different genre than the fair play whodunnit, being a modern mystery and all, but it would be a mistake to say that it is something that should be referred to as āsolvableā for that very reason.
Theres probably more I am not thinking of off the top of my head, but while yes it probably is fairly easy to suspect Takano, I sure did rather early on in fact, its far harder to -prove- her involvement before the story really gives you the information rather outright due to how everything is set up in my opinion.
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Iām not an expert on mystery rules, but if I recall correctly, wasnāt there some exception or other for clues and foreshadowing? For example, you could have a hidden door if there was enough clues?
I would say thereās quite a few clues that point towards Hinamizawa having a local disease, especially in the Watanagashi arc. Such as when Shion tells Keiichi and Rena that the villagers were persecuted because people believed they were diseased.
In limited fashion, yes, for the secret door. Unlike in (Umineko Spoilers) the revised rules of knox for umineko the rules for a hidden door under knox specify no more than one, and only if it is foreshadowed heavily. However, there is no such exception for things such as local diseases, poisons, etc. and that is because while the presence of one can be inferred from clues, its easy enough to make it work very much in a way that isnāt easily predictable.
Its a bit of a fundamental difference as to -why- the things are banned. While it would be hard to infer the existence of a secret passage, and it allows for rather lazy writing as well, the specifics of a secret passage are rather easily understood and universal. They allow passage from one area to another. The specifics of hard to understand scientific devices and unknown poisons and diseases, on the other hand, are not, and sort of act as a bit of a non-magical magic so to speak.
At least, this is what I have found in my own exploration of the genre. As I said, its not really a problem in higurashi though since it was not designed to follow the same conventions as a golden age detective mystery, so it isnāt exactly bound to them. It works very well as a modern mystery, its just not solvable in the classic fair play sense.
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Higurashi is solvable, because it was solved before the truth of it fully came out.
I could elaborate on it, but that enough is proof. Mystery rules arenāt universal things, as long as thereās clues to solve something it can be solved.
Now as to āwhen it is solvableā I would say it technically is after arc4, yeah, like was said earlier, but I think itās the case where most who originally solved it reached a decent amount of certainty after arc5. However I believe the āmain culpritā was strongly suspected right in arc3.
Iām interested in how you think itās āsolvableā and what you mean by that.
Itās like with Little Busters. Thereās a mystery there, but itās almost impossible to reach a decisive conclusion on the true answer because itās very fantastical. When I was reading I was able to identify sone core truths like a mastermind, but like in the case of Higurashi, is it really possible to conclude the existence of the Hinamizawa syndrome, the true nature of Oyashiro and the factions working in the shadows? If it is then Iād like to explore how.
Iād be interested to hear as well. At least, I think exactly 0 people figured out the whole Queen Carrier thing, or if someone did figure it out, they deserve a freaking medal.
Didnāt we already establish that was a red herring in the tatarigoroshi spoilers topic? But I mean, even if it is real thereās evidence in the chapters to lead to that conclusion.
I think the first thing we need to do is identify the truths that the reader is required to solve, and work backwards to determine what reasoning is required to reach those conclusions.
Letās seeā¦ I guess the most important is identifying Takano as the mastermind. Youād also need to identify the existence of the Yamainu, the nature of Hinamizawa Syndrome, and perhaps the nature of Oyashiro (though Oyashiro might not be part of the mystery, you can probably get through all of Higurashi assuming sheās just a byproduct of the syndrome).
I thinkā¦ itās probably solvable under those parameters.
Iām not saying that the Queen Carrier hypothesis is necessarily true (and itās definitely at least somewhat false), but the belief in it is why everyone in Hinamizawa was murdered when Rika died.
But not everybody dies in Watanagashi even though Rika was killed.
Thatās because the Yamainu couldnāt get permission to gas the villagers if Rika was just missing, rather than dead. And by the time her body was found, it was 48+ hours after her death.The theory was that the villagers would go mad within 48 hours after Rika died. But this was proven wrong, so the plan to gas the villagers wasnāt carried out.
Therefore the queen carrier hypothesis is bullshit?
It doesnāt entirely seem to bullshit. After all, apparently the virus is different in Rika than in other people, and the ācureā was created from her.
My guess would also be that Rika can probably never develop high levels of the syndrome, although it never really says one way or the other.
Takano is pretty easy to pin down as being someone likely to be the culprit (especially in Tatarigoroshi due to her BEING ALIVE AND HELPING KEIICHI GET HOME WHEN SHEāS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD ACCORDING TO HER PLAN, but luckily for her, Keiichi really wasnāt willing to investigate it, and yāknow the whole body dead for a day before the festival). And her appearances in the Answer arcs up to Minagoroshi only further make Takano suspicious (what with giving Shion and Rena notebooks about her research on the village), so a reader with a keen eye will at least probably figure out that Takano is up to some shady stuff like probably killing Tomitake since she has his bike. We just canāt pin Takanoās motives until the final arcs. The Yamainu show up in Onikakushi as the people in the van that nearly ran Keiichi over (and the people who punch Keiichi when heās running from Rena), but they donāt come back into much of a focus until Tsumihoroboshi, where Rena (correctly) guesses that the Yamainu are following her and keeping tabs on her, and they hang around the school under the guise of being gardeners. We donāt know theyāre even called the Yamainu or that theyāre really connected to Takano until Minagoroshi (but can assume theyāre connected to the mastermind) spells it out, though. We can guess the various stages of the Syndrome, since weāve had it from many first person experiences, seen it second hand (in the case of Satoko in Tatarigoroshi, Satoshi in Meakashi, and Rena in Tsumihoroboshiās school takeover scenes), and seen what itās done, but we canāt put a name to it. And we know that Oyashiro-sama is the āextra footstepā, and that people who are incredibly unstable can hear Oyashiro-samaās steps and even hear Hanyuu apologizing (Keiichi hears her at the start of Onikakushi as he returns back, and Renaās heard her before).
So, while we canāt discern motive, the names of the Yamainu and the Syndrome, and just who/what Oyashiro-sama is besides the local deity, we can discern those facts with everything up to Tsumihoroboshi.
Actually, the Yamainu are mentioned by name in Tatarigoroshi. Irie asks what staff are on site at the clinic to help subdue Keiichi, and the doctor responds āOne Yamainu (Mountain Dog in the new TL)ā. So itās possible to determine the name of the organisation from this; it is a pretty unusual term after all.
The one thing I canāt buy yet is this:
How are we meant to conclude that? Iām also pretty sure that many of the readers are actively trying to avoid supernatural answers since itās very anti-mystery, heh.
Oh, I completely forgot that! So it is possible to determine that the Yamainu/Mountain Dogs are some sorta organization in white vans up to no good way before theyāre confirmed as such!
I wonder if it is possible to have an anti-fantasy answer for Higurashi at all, since a lot of it, especially Matsuribayashi, runs on shonen and magic, unless one were to say that Hanyuu is ultimate personification of HS like Iāve heard that the new Hou arcs seem to imply?
I really ought to re-read Higurashiās later arcs again, as I canāt remember if itās discussed in Minagoroshi or in Matsuribayashi about Oyashiro-sama being the extra footstep. We can at least be sure that Hanyuu tends to follow people well into the late stages of the Syndrome from time to time, since itās said somewhere in those two arcs that Hanyuu tended to do that (which could open up a lot of things about why Hanyuu didnāt utilize that fully). I know in Renaās flashback to her suicide attempt in Tsumihoroboshi, sheās said that when she nearly succeeded, she heard Oyashiro-samaās voice calling her back to the village (assuming it IS Hanyuu, because if it is, dang, Hanyuu has some range to go all the way to Ibaraki), and in Onikakushi, Ooishi said that when he was digging up Renaās past, he found that Rena mentioned being watched by Oyashiro-sama in her sleep in her records with whatever doctor she was seeing, and there were mentions of forgiveness. (Though to be fair, since Rena is an Oyashiro zealot, it isnāt exactly reliable proof of Hanyuu following people).
As for Keiichi hearing Hanyuu at the start, Keiichiās on the train back to Hinamizawa and states that heās been hearing a female voice apologize over and over again, and it annoys him, leading him to say in his narration that he believes that everything is forgivable and if she canāt fix whatās been done, itās all the more reason to forgive her. She also kind of appears later on when Renaās outside Keiichiās window, where it;s been stated (somewhere, Iāve only seen it confirmed on the wiki and I forget if itās confirmed in later arcs, so it might not be correct after all), and Keiichi thinks he sees Rena apologizing, but hears āIām sorryā repeatedly (and Ooishi is rightly weirded out on the other line).
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Well, I donāt think you could have an anti-fantasy answer for all of Higurashi, but I actually do have an alternate explanation for the footsteps.
If I remember correctly, itās never outright stated that Hanyuu is the one causing the footsteps. Itās just sort of implied when Rika makes an offhand comment in Minagoroshi about how Hanyuu likes to follow people around. But itās not like she would only be able to follow people around at point-blank range.
Also, in one of the Onikakushi-hen TIPs, Keiichi describes the footsteps as sounding like bare feet. You could just say that maybe he was wrongā¦but it seems unlikely that he wouldnāt be able to tell the difference between bare feet and geta of all things. Especially since heās in a store at the time.
Then thereās Rikaās description of Hanyuu in the light novel version of Minagoroshi-hen. She describes Hanyuu as a being that floats around. Why would Hanyuu go to the trouble of walking any great distance when she can float?
So if the footsteps/presence arenāt Hanyuu, then what are they? I tend to think of the footsteps/presence as a sort of shadow-self, born from the Syndrome (or at least given substance by it). Sort of how itās presented in Satoshiās chapters in Matsuribayashi. Anyway, I kind of like this because you can think of it as something supernatural, or all in the personās head.
But there are also times when itās Hanyuu without a doubt. The banging sound in the Saiguden in Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen is definitely Hanyuu, for instance, as is the presence that Keiichi attacks in Onikakushi-hen. Hanyuu is the one making the repeated apologies as well.
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Interesting, so the footsteps might not be Hanyuu at all? I like this theory.