Discussion topic for Erika Furudo, detective and Witch of Truth. Feel free to discuss the entirety of Umineko without [spoiler] tags, but please tag references to outside works, providing adequate context in parenthesis. This topic will contain massive spoilers, so if you have not finished reading Umineko yourself proceed with caution.
Even though my favorite character is Beatrice, I still find myself being drawn in by Erika. She is a character that can (and just might be) hated for certain things, but itâs how I was still able to empathize with her character and relate on some aspects of her that made her such a strong character.
It seems that she enjoys what she gets to do, like when she reveals the âperfect autopsyâ with Dlanor. That was a really creepy moment for me, and one that showed the lengths that Erika was willing to go to just so she could have the satisfaction of winning and being better than Battler. I first saw this as just a selfish act that made me despise her, but when you see how she is treated by Bernkastel later on, it felt to me that she is kind of being forced to act this way, to serve her master and maybe see the hope of living freely.
When Erika was granted the title of Game Master and Witch of Truth, I wonât deny that I was a bit happy. She overcame the incredible pressure that was put on her by Bernkastel to win and, for a short amount of time, she was better than everyone.
I guess what Iâm saying is that I like Erika, because Iâve never encountered a character where Iâve hated them one moment, felt great for them another and then cheering for her enemy when she gets the living tar beat out of her. To me, that is really good character writing.
Erika is in my top 3 Umineko characters. I like that sheâs a parody of putting self-insert characters that have the plot revolve around them, are constantly praised, and the people who see them as bad are treated horribly (in other words a Mary Sue/Gary Stu). I find that her ruthlessness and endless pursuit of the truth is fascinating, and it really shows that she is Bernkastelâs piece with how little empathy she has for others, if at all (does âA heart? Whatâs that?â Ring a bell?). I generally like characters who will stop at nothing to win, and that kind of attitude was what made End so fascinating. Sheâs arrogant and her VA makes her all the more scary, with Erika speaking so softly and politely about death and mystery in a callous manner (and when Erika gets to be obnoxious, itâs hilarious and wonderful). I like that she abhors love so much that she only shows love towards Bern (who clearly doesnât love her back). Sheâs clever, cruel, and so interesting to me.
Erika is one of the more fascinating characters in Umineko. Even though she is a âhumanâ on the board she exists as a representation of many things, and has a clearly defined role in the story. She is an extreme Mary Sue, but a deconstruction of the concept. She is near perfect in everything she does, except in the way she treats others and unlike typical Mary Sueâs this is not overlooked. Furthermore she is a criticism of a certain type of mystery reader, the type that rips everything apart to solve the mystery, without taking into account the story itself. She is an embodiment of genre-savviness and does not hesitate to exhibit unnatural behavior based on her knowledge that this is a mystery and people will die. Many readers see a part of themselves in Erika, and think âWow, I was like that when I started this storyâ, so she serves as a way to show readers how much they have grown by listening to Uminekoâs philosophies on truth and love.
However that is not all there is to Erikaâs character. She offers a compelling rebuttal to the constant refrain of âWithout love it cannot be seenâ and presents her own, perhaps pessimistic viewpoint on truth and love.
Erika may be a Mary Sue on the surface, but she has her own philosophy, past traumas, and motivations. She also serves as a much needed antagonist on the human side as Battler transitions to the witchâs side of things. She develops interesting relationships with Dlanor, Battler, Beatrice, and Bernkastel, allowing her to play off of much of the cast quite well.
Itâs a real testament to Ryukishiâs writing ability that such an inherently unlikable and frustrating character ends up often being among peopleâs favorites. A character that seems shallow and âperfectâ at first comes across as flawed and relatable with a minimal of backstory to ground her.
Erika is actually my favourite character of the story. Especially in arc 5 where she ends up being the antagonist simply with her mind alone. If I knew her personally Iâd probably hate her, but viewing her as a character in a story, a deconstruction of the role of detective, and the power she has over things with her presence and mind alone, I feel like sheâs the best character introduced in the story.
Also : her facial expressions are the best.
One important part of her is that she is the embodiment of intellectual dishonesty that is too common. She has great intelligence, but rather then being actually rational, she uses her intelligence as a weapon to serve her emotions, such as her hatred, jealousy, etcâŚ
Itâs easy to see that sheâs full of herself, but itâs really hard to actually fight her reasoning due to how she tends to construct them. An unusual brand of antagonist that is refreshing for a mystery story in general.
waifu
quality post right here. Saying everything that needs to be said in only a single word
Erika strikes me as someone who would be the epitome of a alternate reality game player. An alternate reality game is a type of game where players progress the story by solving real-world mysteries. For example, maybe Iâll post a series of cryptic numbers and letters in a book I know Erika would read, and when decoded the message leads her to a building in the middle of a deserted city where sheâll find another mystery which needs to be solved in order to progress.
Erika is one of my favorite characters, but everyone here seems to have already brought up what makes her awesome so I wont go into that.
However what was the one thing she supposedly knew about that Bern and Lambda didnât? Iâm holding off my second read-through until the steam releases get patched but this one detail keeps bugging me. It shouldnât have been anything about Rokkenjima since Lambda had been the game master. Or was it related to her past somehow? Was she just referring to her relationship hell? I donât know but it seemed to be something bigger than thatâŚ?
Seems like im the only one who hates Erika with a passion hehe. Yeah you got cheated on (or maybe you didnt she doesnt even know she just thinks she is being cheated on), then she gets all bitter and starts beheading people at least in the manga (not sure if she beheaded people in the VN too) just to disporve Battler and prove shes right, i know the people she killed were just pieces but cmon. Just because she suspected she is being cheated on she goes all psycho, compared to Anges pain whose entire family got killed and she got abused and bullied her whole life its nothing and Ange still regained her composure and moved on in the end. However i like her only because she is smart and her deductions were interesting. Thats the only positive thing i find in her. Sorry for my rant 
Unpopular opinion time: While Erika is undoubtedly entertaining, sheâs so over-the-top that to me she comes across more as a caricature than a human being. And maybe thatâs the point, but that isnât the sort of character that I personally prefer.
It might have helped if her backstory had been fleshed out more. As it is, her almost complete lack of it, coupled with her name, really make it seem like Bern invented her on the spot.
Seconded. I havenât finished reading Umineko yet, so my opinion may change after a while but she is very over the top, and while I really like cunning and intelligent characters, Erika is just⌠well, easily offended and makes others look at her as if sheâs superior rather than just letting herself naturally seem superior to them, not to mention she does it in a very annoying way. She has some good points though, such as being a very sharp detective and I really like reading her investigation scenes, theyâre pretty interesting. Anyways, I may appreciate her more later but I donât think Iâll ever come to like her much.
I hate Erika, and that feeling that she was invented on the spot was something I felt too. Having such a key antagonist appear so late in the game and be so freaking annoying, and yet so clearly created to be crushed by Battler makes it feel more like padding than anything else to me.
Oddly enough, she wasnât. An âErikaâ-style character was supposed to show up earlier, in EP3, in the scrapped Land of the Golden Witch. The name of that character was Virgilius, although with a slightly different role. He was supposed to be a second detective, with a different perspective from Battler, arguing against his reasoning.
If you want to check this information, go to Virgiliaâs page on the umineko wikia, in the trivia section. Or check the âAnswer of the Golden Witchâ.
If anything, the decision to include Virgilius after all is what mightâve been a shorthanded.
Mind, I agree that Erika appeared too late and added too little to the mystery portion. Aside that I appreciate her as a parody, or deconstruction as UsagiTenpura put it, of the detective character. And her over-the-top offensive behavior also helped slowly shift the perspective of the reader: while Beatrice in EP2 (and the beginning of EP3) is the epitome of the evil witch, Erika is the epitome of the âevil truth/truthseekerâ (⌠I am bad with naming things, you get what I mean).
She just needed to appear earlier. Oh Land of the Golden Witch, you are missed.
⌠also she reminds me of someone I know personally. Sharp intellect, really good at discussions, but overall doesnât even care what he is discussing about - only winning the discussion matters. And heâll go to any lengths for that.
I know this is a little off topic, but I have a lot of thoughts about this personally and Iâve become increasingly convinced of this since reading the episode 8 manga. Do any of you think that Erika is intended as a foil character/shadow archetype for Ange?
Because even outside the basic character and narrative traits that they have in common (both pieces of Bern, witches of truth, witches that doubt magic exist, rival characters to Battler, kinda-detectives, young girls who may have killed themselves) Erika seems to be positioned as a character to show the type of person that Ange could become, if she let her desire for the truth blind her as well. Erika is a character that believes that love blinds people from the truth and needs to be thrown away and that seems to be a point of view Ange is always fighting with herself about. Itâs one she rejects at the end of episode 4 but something that sheâs always consistently tempted by. I think that Erikaâs main position in this series, other than the acting detective in the fifth and sixth games, is as the type of person that Ange could become.
Iâve never played the fighting game, but according to tvtropes, in the ending where Ange and Erika are partners, Erika turns out to have been Angeâs imaginary friend. I donât think thatâs the case in the series itself (episode 6 TIPS pretty much confirm that Erika was a real person), but I think itâs pretty interesting. Do you guys have any thoughts on Erika and Ange?
Guys I think I found Erikaâs image song:
As it is, her almost complete lack of it, coupled with her name, really make it seem like Bern invented her on the spot.
Without getting too much into headcanon territory(anyone whoâs talked to me on Discord knows sheâs one of my favorite characters and am a major Erika apologist), this is the main basis that informs my reading of Erika. Itâs implied that blue isnât her natural hair color, and we also know that Erika-Prime was a girl who fell off the party boat during the storm and (presumably) drowned.
Which is to say, she had no real choice in becoming Bernâs piece(it should be noted from this point weâre speaking strictly from a fantasy perspective, obviously none of this works in a mystery setting). Bern held all the cardsâeither serve me, or drown. And since we know her hair is likely no actually blue, itâs by no means a stretch to think Bernkastel changed her piece in other ways at all.
Which is to say, I believe the âFurudo Erikaâ we see in Umineko is a constructed persona by Bernkastel and not representative to who the original âFurudo Erikaâ was. I wonât go any further because we go into 100% unsupported headcanon territory, but this is how I saw her when I first read through part 5-6, and in a lot of ways it makes her one of the most heartbreaking characters in the entirety of Umineko for me.
Many years ago, when I was an immature high school kid and played Umineko for the first time, I hated Erika with a passion. I really wished she would be crushed like the disgusting, parasitic bug that she was. She was bratty, annoying, and pretty much a Mary Sue.
A couple of years ago I decided to read the Umineko manga and Erika became a sort of paradox for me. I guess I had grown up as a person in the meantime. As a reader, I kept disliking her at first glance. As someone who understands the meaning behind Umineko⌠I got to appreciate her double role. She was both the caricature of Umineko readers that didnât care about the heart and the necessary evil for Battler and Ange. The more you learn, the stronger the antagonist you need; I think she arrived at the right time in the whole series. It was the halfway point of Umineko and a pretty decisive moment to turn the chessboard on the overall theme: Without love, it cannot be seen. With love, you see things that arenât there.
Also, as someone whoâs also been writing my own stories for quite a while⌠I absolutely love Erikaâs over the top attitude. She is like Beatrice on steroids. I imagine Ryukishi had immense fun writing her. Not many writers would be able to pull off a character like Erika and get fans divided on whether they absolutely love or absolutely hate her.
While you might be right-and Iâm not to deny the possibility that Bern definitely twisted Erika to suit her own needs-pieces still canât act outside of their original personality. So maybe Erika wasnât as horrible as she was in-series, but she certainly isnât an angel.
Though I do wonder if it is possible for her personality to be completely constructed as she died before anyway really got to know her.
I thought pieces could act out of character, but they excelled at actions that fit their original personalities or something like that?
Iâm not 100% sure, though.