I decided to comment because Iâm not sure why people still consider Meta and Prime to be connected in any wayâŚ
Iâm firm about how I feel about the meta-world. Itâs simply the nature of what metafiction is which led me to reach these conclusions-- but Umineko is really subjective and my opinion or theory isnât more right.
META TLDR: No, the forgeries do not make any mention of meta. How could they? There is no overarching plot among forgeries as most were written by different people.
** Neither Tohya or Ange actually went to the meta in a realistic interpretation. I personally like to believe they all did and rest happily ever after in the golden land, but that is fantasy.**
Metaficiton isnât a setting, itâs a literary device for how you tell a story. The characters in Prime have never seen the meta and cannot know it exists, not even on a spiritual level. Tohya didnât invent the Meta World, Ryukishi07 did as a tool for the readers. If that doesnât make sense, read on.
Firstly, it doesnât seem like people have a good grasp of what meta is.
To quote wikipedia:
âAs a genre, metafiction is comparable to presentational theatre, which continually reminds the audience that they are viewing a play; metafiction continually reminds the reader to be aware that he or she is reading a fictional work.â
The Meta-World is constructed for the readers of Umineko to solve the cat box puzzle of Umineko. Itâs a tool for interpreting the forgeries which provides us techniques and hints for the reader to reach the Answer (which includes the Truth but is not limited to the Truth). It would be a bit silly to think purgatory, a religious land of the dead, is patrolled by angelic knights who fight using Ronald Knoxâs mystery guidelines. Purgatorioâs existence canât be independent of Umineko, so itâs not exactly a heaven or hell, itâs only stylized to look that way bc of ~aesthetic.
Umineko is so brilliant because it attempts portraying this tool as a setting. How boring would it be if Umineko were structured like Higurashi and we were just given Tips and lists of hints? The meta provides both an emotional resolution to Prime AND helps the reader to understand what happened during Prime.
Now that we have cleared that up, part of the function of the meta is to create an allegory for Tohya and Angeâs journeys to make sense of the Rokkenjima puzzle. They have the benefit of insider knowledge. WE have a visualized platform where the mystery can be engaged head on. The Meta is used to explore various aspects of the story to access information instead of following Tohya and Ange in a realistic journey to resolve inner conflict.
The relevant forgeries were written by Yasu and Tohya. I feel like people get hung up on Requiem because they canât rationalize why Tohya would know that much about Yasu. He doesnât. Requiem exists only to inform the reader.
I hope that helps clear some Meta things up. Itâs quite abstract.