#I do wonder why Erika’s face is erased throughout the game

[lynxfrost13]

I genuinely wonder about Ariane and the Itous friendship they’re such a delightful little trio of outcast weirdo kids to me

[kyuu-rereads-umineko]

Ep6, Chapter 2 (Part 1)

I’ve got (some) momentum here, let’s not waste it!

Lambda, Bern, Erika, and Dlanor are hanging around in Beato’s smoking room, waiting for Battler to present his gameboard to them. Bern talks about crushing it, because of course she does.

“I kept making strange faces all the time last game thanks to you... Thought I might start getting wrinkles.” lmao

“Th-there’s no need to worry. The beauty of my master’s face is without peer, no matter how wrinkly it may get.” and bern looks pissed, lmfao

Dlanor expresses remorse over Beato’s death, Lambda basically says “that’s the way it goes,” and Bern looks smug as she comments that no one remembers who invented chess. that sums up their personalities pretty well tbh

“If Battler’s kept us waiting this long, he must be pretty confident in his plan.” See, this, coupled with Battler’s knowledge of the truth, is part of why I feel like he knows what he’s doing in this episode. Battler may be rash and impulsive, and he may be emotional and prone to losing his cool, but he’s not stupid. Hell, if the end of Ep5 is anything to go by, once his anger’s dissipated and he starts looking at Beato’s game with a critical lens (i.e. Knox’s decalogue), he’s able to figure things out pretty quickly. He might not have expected Erika to be crazy enough to fucking kill people to corner him (though I will say that yes, he should’ve expected it, because that girl’s got problems), but I don’t think he’s incapable of solving the logic error on his own. It’s really quite trivial when it comes down to it, especially compared to the narrative viewpoint fuckery going on in Ep5 itself.

Anyways. Gold butterflies, human shape, and... SURPRISE! Beato’s here!

(only not quite)

Bern muses that this Beato must be Battler’s piece, while Dlanor says that piece or not, she’s still Beato. dlanor why did you have to get teamed up with someone as awful as erika :(

“Father will be here very soon. I ask that you wait for just a short while longer...” urk

Lambda laughs, thinking it must be a scheme like the one she pulled back in Ep3, and Erika immediately goes for her by calling Battler “incompetent”. i mean it was declared in red like four episodes ago, so

“I’m sure Father understands it quite deeply. He really is good at that sort of thing.” Erika is... less than happy with her response, and states that Beato is “just one of Battler’s delusions, so I’ll erase every part of you and knock you down into the abyss of oblivion.” good sportsmanship

“I too cannot allow you such an easy victory. ...I, uh, look forward to having a good, clean fight.” lmfaoooo

At that, everyone clues in that this Beato isn’t just Battler’s piece or something like that. Lambda asks, “Just who... are you?”

funny how beato’s support in the first half of the series is asking the same question beato wanted battler to answer huh

Poor chick Beato, though. “Am I somehow different... from the Beatrice everyone was expecting? [...] I... I was only born recently, so I have no memories at all... H-however, I will study hard... in order to become the Beatrice you all expect...”

And in comes Father Battler, telling her off for leaving her room like a strict parent would. this is certainly awkward in hindsight

Chick Beato says that she only wanted to help, calling him “Father” again. Kinda like in Eps1-4, while I can deeply empathize with Battler here (the word “Father” would have some really disturbing connotations to Yasu herself), I still feel sorry for Beato. She can’t understand what it is she’s doing wrong, but he pushes her away anyways...

...And, understandably, tells her off for calling him Father. She lets out a sad “yes” and leaves.

“...This is a pretty weird plan.” lmao thanks bern

“Let’s start the 6th game. ...Erika, and you too, Bernkastel. This will be my tale, proof that I’ve reached the truth about Beatrice. Lambdadelta, please oversee this game, as a former Game Master.”

Battler announces the title of the episode - Dawn of the Golden Witch. Given that Episode 3 was originally called Land, it can’t have been intentional on Ryukishi’s part the whole time, but I do wonder if the B A T T L E R ‘ D thing was completely unintentional or not...

Even the narrative points out that Battler’s a lot more subdued than usual, and we jump back to Ange and Featherine.

“Ange. Beato seems very different from the way she was before.” YOU DON’T SAY

Ange comments that she’s surprised Beato’s even alive, given that she died at the end of Ep5 before Battler reached the truth. Yeah...

“There are two kinds of death in this world. One of them is when a piece is taken from the gameboard. This is only a death within the bounds of the game, and these lives can revive over and over again each time you start a new game.”

After a bit of talk about pieces and vessels (using Sakutarou as an example), Ange asks what the second kind of death is. “That’s the death of beings outside the gameboard. To continue with the Sakutarou example, this would be like Maria’s death. [...] It doesn’t have to be her death. Loss of interest or concern would have the same effect... When Maria grows up from playing with stuffed animals, then ‘Maria the game player’ will die.”

“I see... In that case, ‘Beato the player’ completely gave up on winning during the last game... so she died and vanished. If so, and if Beato thinks she has a chance of defeating Onii-chan again, she’ll come back to life, right...?”

Featherine basically says that the concept of time is the problem, and Ange catches on quickly, using skipping school as a metaphor. “Skipping school for one day might not be a problem, but if you skip for three days in a row, it’d be really hard to convince yourself to go back.” Featherine asks how it’d be if that period of time stretched on for a thousand years, as it does in the world of witches.

“You would never again... be able to regain the self that you once were. It would never revive.”

“Beato lost any chance or hope of winning... Even though she knew this, she pretended not to, and kept on fighting for many, many games. So, Beato will not return. Her hopes were crushed. She’s spent all of the willpower that she might have used to regain the will to fight. Therefore... that Beatrice will never revive again.” Ange realizes that the Beato who was hanging around with empty eyes throughout Ep5 was her “corpse”, but eventually even that was erased.

The Yasu parallel here is pretty obvious, but at the same time, the differences are kinda interesting - namely, Yasu’s “thousand years.” Not the fact that they were stretched over six years, but the fact that there are numerous moments that could be argued to have “killed” her - Battler not coming back after the first year, Battler forgetting to write her a letter, her developing feelings for George and moving on, starting to realize there was something wrong with her body, solving the epitaph and having her entire sense of self ripped away from her, and of course hearing about Battler’s return in 1986.

I suppose you could argue that Beato getting her hopes crushed so many times over - particularly when Battler got stuck at the end of Ep3 and when he responded cluelessly to her big question in Ep4 - are the Meta-World’s “equivalent” moments, and that’s probably what Ryukishi was aiming at, but... Hmm. 

At any rate, Ange realizes that that’s why Lambda shackled Beato to the game towards the end of Ep4 - if Beato had died at that point, the gameboard itself would’ve disappeared. Once Beato’s will to fight was gone completely (Ep5), Lambda usurped her position as Game Master, and “Beato’s existence” stopped being a necessary condition for the gameboard’s existence.

“So... when Onii-chan managed to reach the truth... it was one game too late for him to tell Beato about it.” And in many ways, that sentence right there is the tragedy of not just the Meta-World, but Rokkenjima itself. Not one person even got close to figuring out the truth of Yasu’s heart before it was too late, and as a result, almost everyone died.

“The 5th game was a form of charity on Lambdadelta’s part... She merely showed Battler some mercy as the Witch of Certainty, acknowledging his strong desire to reach the truth no matter what...”

Ange disagrees pretty strongly, but gets back to the point. “...This weird Beato isn’t the player Beato. She’s just a piece Beato.” Featherine points out that if that’s the case, she should be the same trollish, cackling Beatrice we all know and love. Ange gets her point immediately - Battler doesn’t want an imitation of Beato that just does whatever he expects her to, so this Beato isn’t just a piece.

“Battler... might be trying to revive Beato in the truest sense. It is the never-dying dream held by children of man.”

Ange immediately takes issue with that, since Featherine herself denied the possibility in red, and she basically replies that there’s a difference between “Beato’s revival” and “Beato’s rebirth”. “Have you forgotten? I believe that Bernkastel herself revealed Beato’s true form at the end of the 1st game...”

“Now I remember... She said something about how Beato exists as the incarnation of the rules.” “Information began to be accumulated based around that rule, and in the end, it took the form of the witch known as Beatrice. If that pattern is followed once more, the same Beatrice will be born again, and perhaps one could call that a resurrection...”

“And that means... this pure and lovable kid will eventually grow up into that screwed up, crazy witch...”

Featherine muses that having Ange read to her is “far from boring,” and Ange quips that she seems to know all the answers already, and they trade a few more barbs. trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls etc. etc.

“Anyway. From what we learned in the 4th game... there’s no doubt that there’s some kind of antagonism between Beato and Onii-chan in the past. Learning about this Beato might give us a key towards finding the truth.” Featherine expresses interest in reading about chick!Beato’s story, and we jump to Battler in... uh, the meta version of Kinzo’s study, I guess? i dont even know okay. At any rate, more Battler/Kinzo parallels.

He finishes up creating the 6th game, and says to Genji (who’s there for whatever reason, probably because parallels), “I always thought being a Game Master meant you could make the tale however you want... but this is seriously harder than I thought it’d be.”

“You must write up multiple tales and make the inner and outer sides of the story match.” I really like this line. It’s a pretty good way to describe how the two sides of the story mesh together to create the “third” side - the fantasy tale and the mystery tale together make up the heart of the story. You can’t have one without the other, and you can’t reach the truth without both.

We get a bit of exposition on logic errors (i.e. don’t make them battler you fucking moron), and then Genji says that chick Beato - who Battler confirms is a personification of the rules - has awoken.

The way Battler lights up and starts smiling immediately once he hears that Beato’s awake... it’s heartwarming, but really sad at the same time, knowing how mistaken he is about what “Beato is awake” means...

“There was no trace in his expression of the hatred he had once felt towards Beato for murdering his family...” lmao

Ange and Featherine interrupt, with Ange saying, “In a way, that was the final riddle of the 5th game,” which, indeed, it is. “When Battler reached the truth, there was a great change in his impression of Beato.”

Ange wonders if that means that there really was something between the two of them six years ago, then recalls that that was denied in red back in Ep4. “We can read this as saying that Beato did not exist six years ago, or it could simply mean that she had no connection to Battler at that time. However, either way, Battler did not visit Rokkenjima at all for the next six years...”

Ooh. I’d forgotten that Featherine proposes that “Battler’s sin” was what led to Beato’s “creation.” “Almost as though... Beatrice was Battler’s piece.”

“Battler sinned six years ago. Because of that sin, people died. The killer was Beatrice... If you consider the possibility that everything is connected to Battler’s sin six years ago, then the one who created Beatrice was Battler himself.”

Ange expresses confusion, seeing as the culprit’s response to Battler’s “sin” (whatever it was) was a serial murder. Featherine replies, “The weight of a sin depends on the person measuring it,” but also goes on to say that even she thinks that’s “a bit excessive” as far as responses go. you don’t say

In hindsight, I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that Battler’s sin was “the first straw,” if you will. Battler and his dumb pony promise and return six years later influenced the form of the tragedy, but not whether or not it would happen. I’m tired, I hope this is making sense.

Anyways, Ange wonders if Battler’s sin is hidden in the story up to this point. Featherine says she has a theory about it, then laughs and refuses to tell her. these two get along well don’t they

(Though yes, Ange, Battler’s sin is explicitly mentioned, so go looking for it!)

“Just what kind of connection do Onii-chan and Beatrice have with each other? Understanding that... will probably give me a massive clue towards finding the truth of this world.”