Discussion topic for Featherine Augustus Aurora, the Witch of Theatergoing. 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.
I find Featherine to be one the more entertaining characters. Being the most powerful witch that is shown in the VN, I feel that she acted as good character to lead Ange in the right direction to searching for her truth. But I don’t feel like she did this out of kindness, but merely out of staying her boredom, since she is so tired of living. I feel like she is the closest to a “god-like” being in the gameboard, but only for the powers that she controls. Like a sort of all powerful mediator of the battle, and if something happened that she didn’t want, she could just change it. I think I was the most surprised when she, not won, but ended the battle against Lamdadelta. It was basically her not wanting to deal with it and just hand waving it the entire encounter. In this sense, it kind of reminded me of [The Lady of Pain] (http://torment.wikia.com/wiki/Lady_of_Pain) from Planescape Torment and D&D.
With these powers, though, I think it might be fair the say that Ikukko wrote a bit of a Mary Sue character with Featherine, which I can understand, seeing as it’s based on her. Who wouldn’t want to at least indulge and put themselves in a story? I was tempted the first time I read Umineko to call it bad story telling to just add yourself in and stir up trouble, but I feel like she only effects the meta story and the parts with Ange in Chiru. She does not directly involve herself with the Rokkenjima gameboards until EP8 because that’s the kind of Witch she is. The Witch of Theatregoing, Drama and Spectating. I feel like those are the only things she tries to live for anymore, to try and stave of her never ending boredom of life.
(Higurashi Spoilers) I believe it’s been talked about in [another forum] (Higurashi in Umineko [Spoilers for both series]), but I do feel that Hanyuu was the piece of Featherine during the Higurashi game. It even says in her description in game that her memory device has broken before and she has changed personalities. Very similar to the broken horns of Hanyuu.
I still find Featherine an interesting character to look at and analyze. I like to see people talk about Featherine battle other god-like beings and seeing their opinions on her power. I always felt that her powers would solely be in the gameboards she controls, but I could be wrong.
Since you talked about Featherine as a witch, I’ll talk a bit about Ikuko as a human. Staving off boredom is I believe also Ikuko’s reason for writing stories, or at least it was until Tohya arrived. To me it seems clear that writing the stories was a therapy of sorts for Tohya, a way to deal with his memories of Battler. But it was something different for Ikuko.
It’s not until episode 6 that she directly inserts herself in the story, and not until much later that she involves herself with Battler. Episode 6 is Battler’s time to prove he understands the truth. Tohya has completed his journey through Battler’s memories to understand the events of Rokkenjima and the nature of Yasu. So Ikuko takes on the role of an observer for his answer, but also as a guide for Ange.
Featherine is often cruel to Ange in the story, usually through Bernkastel as her proxy. She does seem to be guiding Ange on her journey but in a different way than Battler. I think this is a fundamental difference in how Ikuko and Tohya think Ange should approach the truth. Tohya doesn’t think the truth is important for her, especially when it cannot be proven, what is important is the future. Ikuko thinks Ange should face the harsh reality of what happened, even if it is not 100% guaranteed to be the real truth. Tohya’s stance seems to be based on his memories as Battler making him take a softer approach. Ikuko’s approach seems more like a tough love.
But I think there is possibly another motive. Ikuko wants to protect Tohya from Ange. We know Tohya turned her away when she tried to meet with them because he was afraid that Battler would replace him. Ikuko probably fears this as well and wants crush Ange’s hope that Battler will return and end her search for the truth so that the risk of her meeting with Tohya goes away.
Ikuko’s actions with the witch hunters also show this kind of sentiment. She brings them all together to shame them about the way they act. The effect this will have is to decrease the mania over the events of Rokkenjima which would in theory provide stability to both Ange and Tohya. The less people clamoring over the truth the less she has to worry about anyone learning Tohya’s secret and the less Ange will be driven to investigate it herself.
That was a bit more rambly then my comment usually are, but it’s nearly 1AM I should go to sleep.
I feel like this is going to be a rather short post, but I’ve always heard people refer to Featherine as Ryukishi’s “self insert character”, while I do get that vibe from her a little bit, I don’t feel like that’s entirely accurate. Some things that Ikuko (And Featherine by extension) have done/said sort of reflect things that Agatha Christie has done. The rant she went on about how her fans only care about solving the mystery and only read her works to pretend to be intellectuals is very Christie like. I feel she reflects authors like Agatha Christie FAR more than she does Ryukishi himself, although there is still a little bit of Ryukishi in there. Anybody notice other quirks/traits from other mystery authors that can be reflected in Ikuko?
I agree. I think rather than self-insert she was an author-insert character. She didn’t necessarily represent Ryukishi, but authors in general, especially mystery authors. That said her opinions were still very much Ryukishi’s view on what it was to be an author. And as the author himself that does in a way make her a self-insert, if only indirectly.
I think we need to once and for all put our heads together and figure out how to kill Featherine.
You could probably do it if you stole her memory headpiece thing
Though that in itself would be difficult.