Umineko Episode 4 Full Series Spoilers General

07th Discussion
#36

Yeah, I gotta say, I’m impressed by how the non-spoiler people are reaching these conclusions with just the core arcs when I recall that a lot of the Shannon is Kanon hints really start popping up in Chiru. I know in one of the EP1 side story TIPs (something about how Gohda said he didn’t fear Beatrice to Kanon and that night, Gohda was haunted by Beatrice) strongly implied that connection between Kanon and Beatrice.

And to be fair, during the time Umineko was first released, characters like Sayo were far from common in Western media and almost nonexistent in Eastern media (and in many cases, the characters were generally portrayed as jokes), and it feels like a rather shallow motive at first (especially with how in EP7, they keep hammering that it’s Battler’s fault for coming in 1986 when really, that was just the spark that lit the powderkeg, so people are naturally gonna be like “Really? Are you serious?”. And a lot of people most likely get annoyed by the fact it’s miscommunication to create drama, because that’s an overused trope that’s rarely done right. Plus, not a lot of people have experienced that sort of wanting to wait for someone to come back. I know if my childhood friend suddenly got back in contact with me after saying she’d call back but never did after twelve years, I’d be ready to fight her.)

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#37

i mean… i agree with you that first time readers may think that it’s simply annoying miscommunication drama at this point. but i still think that it’s sad that people think that that’d be a shallow motive? like, for context, i’m an lgbt person & i’ve experienced suicidal ideation because of my sexual orientation & internalized homophobia & i know many other lgbt people who’ve felt the same way. & i’m a mentally ill abuse survivor so i totally get sayo’s sense of hopelessness… i get that a lot of other people wouldn’t think it was a big deal at first but from my perspective, it makes total sense.

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#38

can someone explain the whole without love it can’t be seen thing? its said that beatrice cant be seen without love… but how

#39

It also doesn’t help that the VN really did a terrible job of portraying Sayo’s issues as being more than “Battler didn’t come back for me, so I’m killing his family” because it really does keep hammering “IF BATTLER HADN’T COME BACK NOBODY WOULD HAVE DIED IT’S ALL BATTLER’S FAULT” when it’s actually a whole bunch of deeply-rooted stuff (it wasn’t until we had Confession available that her struggles and what led up to them were properly explored, and much better than the VN), and the fact that at the time, most people weren’t fully aware of transgender people existing. That’s most likely why people think it’s shallow, besides the fact that most people aren’t ever in positions to where they’d hope for their crush to come save them, and Ryukishi’s way of doing it in the VN reminds the readers (well the ones that didn’t have Confession at the time) of a spoiled teenager who thinks their parents are abusive because they won’t pay all the money so the kid can have a luxury car for their birthday and want the kid to try to save up to pay for half of it. I know it seems pretty messed up in hindsight, but Sayo’s motives were poorly explained in the VN (all the while Ryukishi’s interview in Answer of the Golden Witch had him call his fans who just wanted some sort of answers lazy, mindless goats, and it’s hard to feel sympathy for a character who was responsible for setting up the events of that October when the author does a poor job of explaining her motives while excusing her actions that even Sayo herself condemned), combined with all this, it’s really no wonder that there were a lot of bitter Umineko veterans who didn’t find Sayo sympathetic until Confession came around.

Well, for the most part, the “without love, it can’t be seen” is generally a way of looking at the events of Umineko without a cold, uncaring eye to what occurred. Like, when it’s first introduced, Okonogi uses it as a suggestion to get Ange to look at the massacre of her family through the eyes of somebody who actually loved Eva, and not somebody like Ange who wanted Eva to be the culprit. So, basically, it’s more of like looking through a more objective lens and being able to view things without completely condemning the person(s) responsible.

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#40

yes that is one interpretation, but im wondering about how in episode 2 where it says beatrice herself can’t be seen without love… for example the part where beatrice is right behind kinzo while hes crying for her to come back.

#41

Well, in the context of that scene, Kinzo was wallowing in his own pain so much that he couldn’t ‘see’ that ‘Beatrice’ was right behind him in the form of Kanon. That scene is pretty darkly hilarious in hindsight.

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#42

one more question i have is how everything was supposed to make battler remember his promise

#43

Hmm…
Well for one thing, Meta!Beato’s goal isn’t to just make Battler remember his promise-it’s to resurrect his soul. If you’ve read EP6, you likely know that Beato and Battler have the same mindset.
Also, Sayo had a lot of reasons for not telling Battler the truth upfront. One of them being afraid of rejection and that she was torn between letting him go or staying with him forever.

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#44

Disagree. The VN did a good job of telling you Sayo’s struggle. In fact, I think EP7 actually encouraged readers to go back through the previous arcs and piece together the culprit. EP2 is a fantastic goldmine for figuring out what made Sayo who she was, its just in the background a bit.
If you want, I know Akatokuro from tumblr used to have amazing analysis on Yasu’s character.

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#45

i think so too. just because umineko was really subtle & made you truly figure out sayo for yourself doesn’t mean that it’s poorly written.

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#46

Seraphitic is pretty sharp. I haven’t listened to the episode 4 podcast yet, but he definitely has better understanding than I did after 4 episodes. Based on his posts, at least.

Update 1/18/17: Ok, as I was reading BrokenBongo’s post, I was convinced that he was actually spoiled because it was so accurate. Until about halfway through, then it goes off the rails.

He understands what Beatrice wants Battler to ask. The “Why done it?”

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#47

I know of akatokuro’s Goats Re-Reading Seacats blog, and unfortunately, it only goes up to EP5. I also highly recommend seeing s2gtiger’s Umineko liveblog that just finished up recently (they finished EP7 and intend to start up EP8 in October). Since you guys aren’t getting at what I’m trying to say about how the Umineko fanbase was like long before we ever had the manga to clarify things (and why a lot of people from pre-2013 Umineko fandom found Sayo Yasuda to be terribly unsympathetic), I highly recommend looking at s2gtiger’s liveblog, as their tags and posts on the series really show what it was like in the time and why there are so many things from that time about how a lot of the fandom found things in EP7 and 8 to be ridiculous (and why a lot of people didn’t like Sayo).

And I wouldn’t say that the VN did a really a good job of portraying that Sayo is technically transgender. EP2 has a lot of her gender identity issues (hello the Beatrice versus Shannon entirety), but one wouldn’t know that the person behind the murders is transgender. Ryukishi may be subtle at times, but if you reread his stuff, he’s as subtle as an 18-wheeler semi-truck in a bubblewrap factory (and as I’ve said, back when the VNs were released, people weren’t as aware of transgender people as they are now, especially in a positive light as Ryukishi portrays her.) Don’t get me wrong. Ryukishi is a great writer, but he has a lot of weaknesses like his subtlety being far too subtle (honestly, how many people could have solved the epitaph before EP5 where the biggest hint for solving it was located, and even then, it was put in a scene where you were more likely to pay more attention to what kind of person Krauss is away from his family), and his repetitiveness is… well, I explained it already.

#48

i am getting at what you’re saying. i just disagree. & tbh i feel like you’re making it sound like umineko came out a long time ago when it’s only been a decade, & trust me, lgbtq activism was definitely a thing (including in japan) a decade ago. it’s not inherently a bad thing to be ignorant about certain issues but i’m saying that, as a person from the lgbtq community & who relates to sayo in a lot of other ways, her story does make an enormous amount of sense. i get that it must have been extremely confusing for many people when umineko first came out. but i’m just saying that i think it’s frustrating when people dismiss sayo as being oversensitive or whatever.

yes, i have reread umineko & i agree that ryukishi isn’t a perfect writer. but i think it makes sense that he wanted to be extremely subtle about many things in umineko because of how controversial so many of its themes are. (i’m asian, btw, so maybe i understand this point better than westerners.) his writing definitely could use some editing but that doesn’t take away the fact that umineko is solvable if you read critically. (& i guess i’m in the minority because i think that ep 8’s overall message is fine but… yeah, it has its flaws.)

also i’d agree that sayo can’t clearly be labeled as transgender because even she’s not sure about how she identifies. but in addition to her gender issues, let’s not forget that sayo’s bisexual too which is also incredibly stigmatized & more reason why ryukishi may have wanted to be very subtle about writing umineko.

basically: agree to disagree on ryukishi’s writing?

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#49

anyway i also really like how ep4 talks about cycles of abuse & its permanent psychological effects. i’ve found myself rereading maria & rosa’s interactions in ep4 a lot &, god, rosa is an incredibly vile character but she’s really well-written. so much of umineko is about how misogyny destroys people & relationships & how it can fuel abuse & self-hate…

i mean, rosa, natsuhi, & eva had so many issues because of the misogyny & abuse they’ve faced. & they’re technically among the most privileged women in japanese society. but that doesn’t shield them from kinzo & krauss’ hateful attitudes or, in rosa’s case, intense stigma against female sexuality. then let’s think about sayo… if rich women like rosa, natsuhi, & eva can’t escape misogyny & abuse even though they’re cisgender women who can bear children, then sayo will only face a million times more stigma & hate…

anyway, there’s so much to unpack re: gender & abuse in umineko.

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#50

Regarding the main gameboard plot of this episode, how far involved do you guys think Kyrie was? The “test” is clearly called back to in the Episode 7 Tea Party where Kyrie and Rudolf used it as an excuse to call out the cousins one by one and kill them off.

Do you guys think Kyrie was actively and knowingly involved in murdering people in this episode? But if that was the case, why did she still bother going along with the ‘script’ in the end and tell Battler to believe in witches? What do you guys think happened here?

#51

I do have a question about Rosa and the man she meets with in EP4. As far as I remember, it isn’t stated who this man is, correct?

Is…this Maria’s father? Or could Rosa be pregnant with a second child? Or, maybe this is just a typo?

It is said Maria’s father probably went on to build a family after he left Rosa, and this man appears to be married.

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#53

That guy is incredibly cold if he’s Maria’s dad. He spends the entire time talking like he doesn’t even know her, and doesn’t seem to have any sort of interest in her.

I’ve always assumed that he’s some random guy that Rosa’s dating, though that is a very depressing possibility.

#54

I believe that man is a person Rosa was trying to have a relationship (although it would be several layers of god, what a messed up man if that person WAS Maria’s real father, like, damn, pay your child support!)

Also, with the revelation from a certain just-released game on how illegitimate children and their parents are treated in Japan (spoiler alert: it’s very bad), it really puts Rosa and Maria in another light to me. Not saying it excuses what they’re doing, but it does add another layer of meaning to their actions (particularly Rosa’s rant of wanting happiness as a woman). I do kinda wonder if Ange also had that stigma of being an illegitimate child (since Kyrie got pregnant with Ange before Asumu died), and if that contributed to how Ange was treated.

#55

Just spent the last few hours writing up a blog post about the Episode 4 Tea Party, cause I felt like it.

For anyone who’s interested: Link

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#56

That was a nice read.