You are just interpreting things in an odd or simply wrong way. Now Im not too sure about Clairs true nature myself so I cant comment much on that, but you dont seem to bring any concrete evidence of why Clair would have nothing to do with Yasu apart from her being a ‘shell’ even though its been made clear that she is acting as a ‘substitute’ so that yasu doesnt need to show her ‘true pitiful form’, Clair exists because Yasu wants it so they are definitely connected.
You are also misunderstanding the word love in context of the story: love in umineko means to understand the heart and feelings of the culprit. ‘Without love it cannot be seen’ refers to if you cant understand Yasus character and her tragedy you wont be able to understand shannons and kanons (the culprits) nature and how the solution for the mysteries work with that in mind. Episode 7 is full of love because it is making you understand Yasu, yes her story is horrible and full of tragedy, but thats the point.
“Vorleser” implies you’re reading it aloud for someone else. It’s pretty neutral beyond that, I wouldn’t say there’s any preferred context for it regarding actual knowledge of what you’re reading.
Anyway, one big issue with this is Willard. There are zero hints he is particularly aligned with Bern and a million hints he is very much not. There are also no hints he’s some sort of pushover. And he… well, he saw no issue with what was shown whatsoever, all while claiming he’d reached the answer from the first four episodes. (where Bern was not the game master yet.)
You’d basically have to make Will a lying bastard or ridiculously incompetent for that to check out.
From a purely narrative standpoint it’d also be… a bit strange to have a BS episode of that magnitude this late into the game. Considering EP7 is described as only having “a bit of difficulty”, I… guess would be kind of funny if it was secretly just almost a complete lie, but yeah, don’t really see it.
Vell, aren’t you the one who is interpreting things in order to take everything back to Yasu ?
“Clair exists because Yasu wants it” … If I read a story where a character is talking about creating me do you really think it makes me the creation of this character.
The first argument is that yasu doesn’t exist nowhere except in a book. The second is that Clair is, as you said, a subtitute but not for yasu. As will said, she is a substitute for “The Witch” and one more time from a really neutral pov Witch != Yasu otherwise they would have said Yasu … But even if you say "yeah yeah but it’s just Ryukishi who is ambiguous and doesn’t say Yasu because it’s repeated enough before"
My answer : What’s the point of being ambiguous at this point if you want to reveal everything to the reader? Maybe it’s because you are not going to reveal anything.
And this is where I come to Blackrune answer :
The big issue is that Will said that everything can be solved with the first four episodes while Yasu’s story is only presented (not to say invented) in Ep 7.
I mean it’s written from an angle that yasu’s story is the revelation of the true story. BUT, Will said that those are only additional clues, and Bern also said it for Gameboard 5,6 and of course her own Gameboard.
One more time, what’s the point to reveal everything if it’s just “addtional clues” notice that a clue is not a revelation …
For the german word thank you to correct me I’m not a native German speaker.
Is “Yasu” quoted even once in the first four episodes?
We can stay here discussing the sound novel all day, but the reality is that Ryukishi himself proclaimed the manga version the ultimate truth to Umineko. Sayo’s story is canon, and there is no getting around that.
Shkanontrice, as ridiculous as it may seem to some people, is the canon truth.
Yes ! I was waiting for that !
Yes, the manga is canon I completely agree with you here !!!
But that doesn’t solve anything … Ryukishi let everything in Ep 7 as it was. So Yes, the manga shows even more how Shkanontrice theory is wrong. Otherwise, he would have added some parts in Ep 7 to explain every issues I showed you before.
Concerning the Confession Chapter because I already know you want to speak about that : You should REALLY pay attention how Ryukishi is fooling us here. The Confessions chapter is truly illogical by itself.
In ep 5 in red Virgillia says : it wasn’t a game for revenge // Confession Chapter : “kill him, kill her” and basically you have the scene with the motives of shannon where she says she wanted to kill everyone for revenge …
One more time, thank you Ryukishi because the manga is canon and it shows how impossible Shkanontrice is.
Everything is done on purpose.
Sayo did what they did out of a mixture of nihlism, self-loathing and just pure anguish and burden of being who they were, and the situation they were in. And even though they hated the adults, they cared and truly did love the cousins - even Battler. The murder game was the height of them not caring about their own existence - or much of anything anymore.
The epilogue of Rokkenjima Prime shown in EP8 literally makes no sense if Shkanon isn’t the case.
Neither does the sequence in which Erika solves the logic error from EP6 during the sequence of EP8, in which she practically spells out, clear as day, that Shkanon is a thing.
Then there’s Umineko: Our Confession…
Also, Clair is not irrelevant or just a “shell”. Bernkastel presents as a shell, sure - as stated before, a substitute for Sayo - but Clair very much did have a purpose - especially in the formation of the legend of the witch. To escape their loneliness, Sayo tried to abandon being a human and created the legend of a witch. This witch was Clair. Afterwards, to deal with Battler’s loss, the witch was given the appearance and form of Beatrice.
And even if you place all of that aside, the story becomes a joke without Shkanon. Thematically and story-wise, nothing shown makes sense or fits together when you take out Shkanon.
"Except… that’s not what Confessions shows at all.
Sayo did what they did out of a mixture of nihlism, self-loathing and just pure anguish and burden of being who they were, and the situation they were in. And even though they hated the adults, they cared and truly did love the cousins - even Battler. The murder game was the height of them not caring about their own existence - or much of anything anymore."
Easy argument, Ep 6: Duel of Love. If I take your pov, are you really saying that yasu was in love with Jessica and George and then she prefered George. Remember that this duel is here to ackowledge TRUE LOVE. But afterward she finally chooses Battler but actually no because George/Shannon is pure love. And the confession chapter is talking about Battler-Shannon. Where is the love here? One is true love, the other too and the last one is bullshit because they lost the duel ???
(Everything can be explained without Shannon, that would even be better but I’m not here for that)
“Neither does the sequence in which Erika solves the logic error from EP6 during the sequence of EP8, in which she practically spells out, clear as day, that Shkanon is a thing.
Then there’s Umineko: Our Confession…”
It’s especially in Ep6 that Shkanontrice doesn’t make any sense : I mean, Battler said he wanted to reveal everything he has understood so far and the culprit is even quoted in red there … Erika is the culprit .
I remember finding a weird explanation about how Erika is not the culprit and it’s actually Shkanon…
How can you explain the final red truth of Ep 6?
There are really 17 persons BUT Erika is the 18th, she says it in red “I am the 18th” so even though you try to discard Kanon to have 17 persons, you still cannot explain why she is the “18th” and not the “17th”.
"And even if you place all of that aside, the story becomes a joke without Shkanon. Thematically and story-wise, nothing shown makes sense or fits together when you take out Shkanon."
I think this is related to the fact that you are unable to read the story from a neutral pov. It is totally possible to explain the story with another pov. That’s why Vell said “you are interpreting in a weird way”:
I’m not interpreting in a weird way, I’m just interpreting from a neutral pov where Shkanontrice is not necessarily the absolute truth.
To be quite honest, I don’t think you really understand what the Shkanontrice/Yasu story actually is. You’re just seeing some contradictions in your understanding of it, not the bigger picture. And honestly I don’t think any of us is equipped to explain it, after all, Umineko takes over 100 hours to convey it to you.
I don’t understand what that has to do with what I’ve just said. We were discussing Sayo’s motivations for committing the murders. You grabbed onto the part where I noted Sayo did care about the cousins, but that wasn’t the main point.
The duel of love segment, in the end, showed off metaphorically what happened in the real world. The part of Sayo that was Beatrice would’ve lost because Battler never came back to the island and forgot about his promise. The end of EP6 itself pretty much tells you - with the part of Kanon himself narrating - that he didn’t really understand what exactly it is he liked about Jessica. The part of Sayo that was Shannon was the one Sayo had spent most of her life as and she and George formed the most natural connection.
If anything, the duel of love segment in the meta is there to show how things would’ve gone if Battler had never returned. Beatrice would’ve lost, and Sayo would’ve probably chosen George.
(Then again, it’s questionable how long Sayo’s life would’ve lasted before their mental health issues got the better of them.)
But in the end, not even that much matters. Shannon, Kanon, Beato - these are parts - extensions of Sayo that add up to a whole. Their inability to understand their own feelings, their gender, and the pain of heartbreak caused for them to recontextualize their feelings by dividing who they were into personas.
By the end of EP6, essentially everyone does end up getting what they want and everyone is reuinted with who they want to be. If nothing else, it did show the potential for Sayo to be happy with any of them. Or, you know - it’s essentially the afterlife so it doesn’t really matter.
The 6th game makes it pretty clear Erika killing everyone was not a part of Battler’s original plan. (We could go on and debating whether or not he pulled off a brilliant chessmaster and got himself stuck in a logic error for the sole purpose of resurrecting Beatrice, but that discussion is one I’m not particularly in the mood for and I think it’s been covered multiple times - I think in one of the other threads).
I think I saw a discussion on the 18th person thing somewhere around here and I think it was clarified a bit better than I could put it. It’s essentially wordplay.
I’m going with the solution that makes the most sense thematically, contextually and was essentially spelled out, clear as day, in the manga. If I’m not looking at other interpretations, it’s because they would turn the story into a farce - a pointless exercise in which an alternative solution for the murders may exist, but the journey of the characters and the love hidden in the story is made worthless and a charade.
The only part, in my mind, worth debating is Yasu and what parts of them were left up to the readers to determine. I’ve stated my own explanations here, but in my mind, nothing in the story itself flat-out denies or stands as a solid contradiction to make the whole thing fall apart.
Nice to see another person who read the story not just superficially. Did you too notice the contradictions and the small hints? I’d like to talk with you about the hidden stuff there. Of course, as some other people said, it will ruin the story for those who still bellieve that Shkanontrice is the solution (yeah, canon, but not the solution obviously) and I don’t want to ruin it for Ryukishi, but we can be really discrete.
Some examples: I discovered the issue with the time and the clock, passwords and much other stuff, maybe we could share
I’m confused if you’re trolling or not. If you say Shkanontrice is canon, that means you’re acknowledging that it is the true solution to Umineko. So how can you claim it’s not the real solution?
I’m not trolling, quite the contrary, I was asking you because I seriously couldn’t tell how you meant it.
It’s actually pretty easy. It’s like when a presented “solution” is adding further hints.
If you solved the passwords, do you know what does “1801440” mean because I wasn’t able to solve this one …
In Ep 1 there was the riddle of the bear hidden in the manga. (Chapter 2-3).
I saw that as a foreshadowing of the logic of EP 1 … pretty interesting
You know when Maria is poiting to the sky and says “bad luck” “bad luck”. This is already a hint.
What is your opinion on Will’s statement : it is possible to solve it with only the first four episodes as I quoted before.
This is the problem because I quoted a lot of issues with some logical interpretations directly linked with the text but no one was able to explain it. So I was just adding more and more issues to the conversation. (issues that are done on purpose of course, as always …).
Wow, ok, many smaller things at once. I don’t get everything you’re saying 1) 1801440? No sorry, I don’t know. As I said, I still have some questions …
2) No comment for the bear XD Seriously. I wouldn’t call it “riddle” though…
3) Will’s statement was kinda annoying because for the longest time it didn’t make sense. Until you have the right starting point that is. But it took me a while to puzzle the order of the events together. So yes, it is possible to solve it by the end of Episode 4, but that depends on the “level” you are on. For us, it’s possible, for the characters in the story not necessarily.
I dont’t think it makes sense to talk about too many things at once. There are things you have to talk about more extensively, and some other issues don’t make sense if you didn’t explain for example the riddles before. And you were, imo, avoiding some crucial parts (on purpose?) and started right in the middle.
