Kakera Theory [Higurashi and Umineko Spoilers]

07th Discussion
#81

Firstly, I think the Kakera world of the Higurashi universe is centered and limited to only the timeline in which Hanyuu can travel in, so, the closest (but not exact) definition that’s presented for that in Higurashi, is 1978(Himatsubushi)-June 1983. I also think that this particular Kakera world is Rika’s Kakera world, cause only she can travel to its different fragments and only entities that are related to her are seen in it, Hanyuu and Frederica Bernkastel. Also, I think her friends’ consciousness passing on in the fragments is limited only to June 1983, that’s the part of the maze that they are trapped in, so like Hanyuu and Rika who can travel to any part of their limited teritory (1978-June 1983) and keep their memories intact, so can the other characters during their limited territory (June 1983), just that their memories are much more vague, of course. In the end though, I think all the previous fragments disappear and the one that remains is the Matsuribayashi one, so you can even see the characters remembering some things from the previous worlds, as the fragments being put together and their memories coming back to them again.

As for the worlds going on in the many fragments in which Rika was murdered, I think it’s all connected to the time that Rika has spent travelling through different Fragments. Rika says that 100 years have passed since she started repeating June 1983, so these 100 years did not just pass by in Rika and Hanyuu’s minds, they probably went on in the Fragments in which Rika died, too. For example, in the very first fragment, there would have passed one hundred years, in a fragment they left a bit later than that a little less, in one they left later than that less, and the sooner they left a fragment, less time would pass. For example, in Rika and Hanyuu’s minds, Tsumihoroboshi could’ve happened 20 years ago (the amount of years that have passed when Akasaka visits Hinamizawa) and only a few days would pass in the Minagoroshi fragment, cause they would solve everything in Matsuribayashi and the whole fragment system would not be needed anymore.

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#82

But by this interpretation, 20 years shouldn’t have passed in Tsumihoroboshi, right? Minagoroshi spans about two weeks. Matsuribayashi is about one week. So only three weeks or so should have passed after Rika’s death in Tsumihoroboshi before the fragment system ended.

#83

Life in a fragment continues on after Rika dies. Because we know that the worlds do not stop once Rika dies (Himatsubushi, Yoigoshi, Onisarashi and its variants, and the first three answer arcs all reveal that life doesn’t stop in a fragment once Rika dies). But it is possible that all of the fragments in Higurashi are Frederica observing and moving on once she’s bored with the fragment, since Minagoroshi (and that part in Matsuribayashi) shows that Rika and Frederica can observe fragments.

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#84

Hmm, you are probably right about that, so I suppose things in the past of the Tsumihoroboshi future we’re shown may have happened in a different manner, maybe? But I doubt that, so this theory of mine is probably no good.

#85

Well, I still haven’t heard a plausible reason for why Keiichi and the others remember other worlds if the worlds are completely separate. Any takers?

#86

I think it was stated that Keiichi, Rena, and Shion being the only ones outside of Hanyuu and the Rika’s remembering what happened in previous fragments is because they committed grave sins and being the good kids they are at heart, felt immense guilt over it, and those strong emotions (and even exact words) allowed them to remember and attempt to atone or right what went wrong. Since Mion and Satoko didn’t commit transgressions on the levels the other three did, they don’t carry memories over like the rest of the club does. (Would that apply to Satoshi at all if he wasn’t in a medical coma?)

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#87

Well, it’s not so much that I’m wondering why Keiichi, Rena, and Shion remembered and no one else did, it’s more that I’m wondering how they were able to remember at all. If Rika and Hanyuu are the only ones “traveling” from world to world, then there should be no way for anyone else to “remember” anything from other worlds, right?

I know it’s supposed to be a miracle, but I still think it should make some sense. For example, even if I could accept that Keiichi and the others randomly remembered stuff from other worlds, that wouldn’t explain why they only seemed to remember worlds that Rika had already been to (and only worlds that she had been to recently, at that).

#88

The magic of friendship, I guess.

Also, I think it’s worth mentioning in this topic that Kakera exist in both Hotarubi and TRianThology as well! The prologue of Hotarubi features Lambdadelta receiving a fragment from Bernkastel, a ‘game’ which she decides to challenge herself to. TRianThology starts with Alice complaining about being bored, and her slave Usagi fetches out three Kakera from a magical toy box that Alice hadn’t ‘played with’ yet.

Alice describes them as “Something like a crystalisation of ‘fates’ or ‘worlds’ or ‘possibilities’.” But to her, she thinks of them more like games or manga.

#89

This is mostly talking metaphorically, so I don’t know how much of it holds as a theory but since the fragments have the appearance of glass shards, they should have been shattered from a glass shape they used to be: a piece of glass, a mirror, the crystallisation of fragments or something. Thus, cause Rika and the other characters were trying harder to fight fate and survive after June 1983, maybe they were reconstructing this piece of glass to the the regular shape it should be, and with all the shards (fragments containing memories of the previous worlds) becoming aligned together again, their memories from the previous worlds started to come back. Now that I think about it, there is of course no confirmation of this being canon whatsoever, but maybe the fragments in the Higurashi and Umineko universes represent disorder and irregularity with all the shattered fragments scattered around and maybe at the end, when the fragment system is not needed anymore in both these respective universes, the shards take the form of a regular piece of glass again.

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#90

That’s a really interesting idea. It’s true that both ‘kakera’ in Japanese and ‘fragment’ in English suggest something incomplete. I wondered about that, but never actually tried to construct a theory from it.

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#91

I suppose so, though I mostly thought of it as just me talking in a metaphoric manner. Though you seem to know more about Higurashi than me, so you could probably come up with a good theory about my idea.

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#92

Omigosh sorry I’m so late in replying.

That’s essentially it, yes. It’s forbidden for supernatural agencies yada yada. Supernatural settings as a framework for storytelling are pretty great. If you look at When They Cry as a collection of unique stories told concurrently (even within the same Season, Arc, Episode- heck even sentence) you can see a supernatural story being established that doesn’t need to interfere with the plausible events of the mystery.

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#93

Whle reading this topic I couldn’t shake an impression I had - that the fragments we see in Higurashi are not the same as the “fragments” we usually deal with in Umineko. While there is fragment talk in Umineko, or rather things outside of the given fragment (like the library in EP8, the promise to Ange to find a fragment in which her family comes back, which necessarily has to be another fragment, not something related to the catbox), most of the story feels different.

This idea (I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a theory) sprung up from that impression. For the following I will use a different metaphor for fragments. Instead of the “sea of fragments” I will use the picture of “Forest of Fragments”, in which every tree is a single fragment. I will ultimately return to the canon expression, but I think it is easier to explain what I mean with a more directly available image. Be warned, this is going to be a longer ride.

Higurashi:

  • personally I cannot say too much about the nature of fragments, it has been too long since I read Higurashi, however:
  • I will, for now, assume that fragments continue after Rika and Hanyuu leave it and that there isn’t one true fragment (however, this assumption is NOT necessary, call it personal preference)
  • in any case, in Higurashi Rika and Hanyuu jump from fragment tree to fragment tree; not much to say here
  • ultimately they learn that they cannot just hope to find the right fragment, but have to bring about the miracle by themselves; fragments aren’t completely clear cut in their events and you try to influence the outcome of a given situation, although the starting position can change

Umineko:

  • in Umineko the talk about fragments ia a lot more muddled due to the strong authorship element
  • at the same time an Rokkenjima Prime is often assumed; Rokkenjima Prime is determined by Ange’s story in 1998 and her emotional journey, therfore all the catbox content are in this fragment that we often call Rokkenjima Prime; they’re not from outside the fragment, but from the inside (but as I said before, I do not assume that Rokkenjima Prime is even a thing, it is merely that for the entire story we mostly stay in one fragment)
  • so if there is no fragment jumping, how could we view the contents of the catbox without completely abandoning the metaphor? What is the difference between normal witches like Beatrice and voyager witches?
  • Personally, I think what Beatrice accomplished was to change the “fragment tree” she was on. Say, she added branches, which signifiy the various uncountable possibilites of the events on Rokkenjima 1986. And by not opening the cat box this part of “reality” becomes muddled and unknowable
  • This happened due to a) Natsuhi abandoning the child; b) Battler returning in 1986, when Rokkenjima will have an event regardless of whether Yasu did anything or not (EP7 tea party); c) two or more message bottles being found afterwards and sparked the Rokkenjima Mystery Craze
  • If we now return to the “Sea of Fragments” metaphor, what Beatrice did was create a sea of fragments WITHIN a single fragment (though of course this happens in every fragment in which the a, b and c happened, we just merely see only one fragment for the most part); the fragments being the various stories about Rokkenjima of which we see only the important ones; normal humans technically contribute to this small sea of fragments with their theories online, making it a man-made sea of fragments
  • therefore, Beatrice managed to become a witch due to Yasu writing those stories, hence Yasu taking the role of Beatrice and sparking the Rokkenjima Craze; and while she has power in this “small sea of fragments”, she is not a voyager witch and ultimately not much more than a plaything for the voyager witches. Additionally, Beatrice of course cannot leave her small sea of fragments, she cannot jump from tree to tree (or inbetween, like the library).
  • If we assume all this, have fun with the image that the entirety of Umineko is happening in many different fragments that fulfilled a,b and c; over and over, on a barely imaginable cosmological scale.
  • Keriaku brought up the point of fragments being portrayed as crystals. Well, crystals are among the natural phenomena that can exhibit fractal characteristics, so it could be assumed just by that mere image of fragments = crystals, that individual fragments contain fragments (crystals) as well (the keyword is self-similarity).

Problems that arise with this viewpoint (all EPs refer to Umineko):

  • EP5, Battler had to be invited to the gameboard. But one could say that he is a mere player at this point and cannot even traverse the small sea of fragments.
  • EP7, Lion. It is more of a question whether Lion comes from the small sea of fragments or from the big sea of fragments. Isae, with whom I talked about this idea beforehand, mentioned that Bern brought Lion “from a larger catbox”, so it might imply that Lion is from a different tree/fragment entirely. Bern would have the power to do this as voyager witch.
  • The real issue, as always (up to the manga version of EP8): Ange. Because really, what is the hell going on here. Even from a mundane perspective her story is a mess. Is it Tohya imagining what happened to Ange after she disappeared? Did Ange’s subconcious connect with Battlers soul? This raises the question whether these “branches” in reality always happen whenever an event cannot be explained or not. I have no answer on this.

Three last notes:

  1. I do not think that this is what Ryukishi intended and I do not think that is the “THE” answer, THE theory to solve this question. Just an idea that I kinda struggled to put into words for awhile (and probably am still struggling). Maybe someone else who is better acquainted with the internal logic of the magic layer can use some of these ideas - or maybe not. If you read all this, thanks!
  2. Ryukishi, fix your damn meta-/magic-world stuff yourself!
  3. I usually try to view Umineko from a pure mundane perspective but it speaks for this topic that it made me consider the internal logic of the magic perspective a bit more. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
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#94

You pretty much already know my thoughts on this, but I like it because I always got the feeling the fragments worked a bit differently in Higurashi and Umineko, and this idea makes it so they can coexist, and yet remain different.

The “tree” explanation also makes it really easy to understand.

It’s true Ange is a rough patch, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a theory that completely explained her parts of the story anyway.

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#95

Ange is easy enough if you think of her as being on a game board too.

I think of shards as pieces of broken glass. All part of one whole, individually unique, and able to be reconstructed into different shapes than they started as. And they can always be reshaped and broken up further.

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#96

Also an interesting visualization.

Indeed, she isn’t called the last Beatrice for nothing. In that sense it wouldn’t even be wrong for her to change her “tree”, to stick with one image, the same way Yasu did.
The issue I have when dealing with her is that I really need to reread to form an opinion of what approach I prefer in regards to her though. Especially her involvement in the meta-layer of EP4. Oh well, different topic really.

#97

Well, it’s the “Simple” version.

Viewing them as a forest, as you mentioned, might be a good analogy too. I said above the best way to describe their intricacies is that they’re both fractal (always able to be reduced or expanded) and modular (able to be built on each other to create new results). Trees can always grow larger or be cut down smaller.

In that respect, Higurashi is probably similar to a forest growing naturally that a few witches wandered into, whereas Umineko would be a cultivated tree sanctuary xD

#98

When you visualized it like that I actually wondered what “all the fragments together” form. I immediately thought of the library. From a meta-standpoint it might make sense. If the library is the whole of Ryu’s ideas, inspirations or impressions, all the fragments he uses for his stories ultimately come from there.
… I guess if we go to the forest, it’d be the soil the trees sprung from.

But nevermind the forest! I just used that picture to clarify what I meant in something that can be pictured, I did try to return to the original conception of a sea.
I’d expect that the more you go into details about the nature of fragments, the less the image of the forest really fits. Something more abstract (and thus, more flexible) like yours will probably hold up better in that regard.

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#99

I actually think the forest is a fine analogy, it’s even canonical in a way (remember in ‘Tsubasa’ -or was it ‘Hane’?).

I think topographically it might be the most accurate and intuitive at a glimpse.

#100

I don’t, never read any of the side-stories. Care to elaborate what the gist of it is, maybe with spoiler tags for those who wish to avoid them?