#Shion Murasame

[hyasynthesis]

Seraphim Call

Dengeki G's Magazine

Issue 28 (November 1999)

Cover

Sakura Murasame

Shion Murasame

Artist: Nanase Aoi

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Gou Episode 17 Part I - The Human Culprit

Nekodamashi is now 4/4 for going completely the direction I didn’t expect yet I didn't care because I loved it anyway.

And, now that we finally have the start of the mystery’s solution, I have a lot of thoughts about it.  Enough that I'm breaking this into two posts!

First up, let's talk about everything not related to Umineko. Also - despite liking the main twist of this episode, this half is also going to get pretty critical!

So much for Takano (and any newcomers)

I’ve mentioned before that I rather like Takano, so I'm a little disappointed at how irrelevant she appears to be in Gou.  

I assume that the opening flashback to Minagoroshi was meant to imply Takano has also been getting cross-Fragment flashbacks like Keiichi, and that was the thing Rika "wouldn't understand" that makes her change her actions in every Gou loop. 

And I do kind of like this as the cause! It's an established mechanic with Shion that a former villain can come to an epiphany in one Fragment that is strong enough to change their behavior in every subsequent world. It's a reasonable way to allow character development to not feel wasted, and Takano sure did have some major epiphanies in Matsuribayashi!

I just wish Takano's big change wasn't, you know, dealt with in a handful of seconds right before the episode ushers her completely offscreen, never to return. :/

As for the broader implications of the reveal... @murasaki-murasame already said basically everything I was going to about this in his post. Episode 17 spoils the entire original Higurashi solution - even incidental details like Satoshi! - despite not especially needing to. Now, keeping that solution so vague beforehand looks entirely pointless, with Gou  shooting its own pacing and Rika's characterization in the foot for no good reason.

Even for newcomers, it would probably have been more friendly if they'd dropped lots of hints in Season 1 that Rika was dealing with Takano and the whole conspiracy, rather than suddenly speeding through everything all at once. It would have been far more interesting for series veterans too - instead of rehashes of the original question arcs, I'd much rather have had an all-new arc of Rika running around trying to stop the conspiracy and being flummoxed when Takano herself decides to help.

Dammit I want my team up, haha

Now for the big news - Satoko Looper Theory confirmed! Congratulations to everyone who called this!!  :DDD

As for me, I have some rather mixed feelings.

On the one hand, if you look at my old bingo board, Satoko as a looper is something I've been super hype for since literally episode 2.

On the other hand, I've also been fairly critical of the Satoko looper theory as I've commonly seen it stated.  And, while I’m very excited for looper thunderdome shenanigans, none of this episode actually put my criticisms of the theory to rest.

So now that it's relevant, let's examine the theory in more detail!

What is the Satoko looper theory, as I understand it?

Some time after the events of Matsuribayashi, and Rika leaving for St. Lucia’s, Satoko is lonely because all her friends have left. She feels Rika abandoning her is the last straw.

Satoko receives a vision from a supernatural being (probably from Umineko) posing as Oyashiro-sama. The supernatural being manipulates Satoko into starting a loop where she kills Rika to keep Rika by her side in Hinamizawa.

After being sent to the past by "Oyashiro-sama", Satoko obtains a syringe of H173, possibly from Takano (...somehow).

Satoko uses H173 on a random person each loop in order to have them kill Rika.

Satoko then dies herself after confirming Rika is dead in order to follow Rika to the next world.

(Insert various scenes from Season 1 with Satoko acting mildly different/suspicious as proof.)

Repeat this plan until the Episode 16 loop, where Satoko decides to make herself the Designated L5 of the world. (Either real or faked.) She tortures Rika and reveals her motive.

Rika then says she won’t leave Hinamizawa, so Satoko (and her supernatural patron) are finally satisfied and ensure Rika’s life goes smoothly in the next loop.

What I like about this theory:

-Law of Conservation of Detail: Satoko is the major club member that the series has done the least with.  Even “her” arcs like Tatarigoroshi/Minagoroshi tend to be more about Keiichi and Rika, while Satoko spends most of them offscreen and passive. So even if I'd never seen Gou, I would have picked her (or Mion) as the character to get extra focus.

In Gou specifically, there’s also the question of “who has been acting suspicious?” Any and all “hints” to Satoko were very tentative at best, but her consistent deaths were one of the very few patterns we did have.  Basically, if it wasn’t Satoko, we were quickly running out of time to establish another culprit with any clues.

-Unbroken Statue: Such a seemingly minor detail, but such intriguing implications.  Given how closely Gou has hewed to the original visual novel, the statue in the Ritual Tools Shrine not being broken felt significant. It implied something very early in Satoko's history had changed.  Not only that, but the statue gained further importance with the Onigari-no-Ryuuou being relevant. And no one besides Satoko was known to have such a strong connection to it...

-Lambdadelta/Satoko similarities: The question of “why is there a witch in Umineko who looks like a cross between Takano and Satoko?” has always been a dangling plot hook, and this is as good an explanation of it as any.

-Satoko using H173 is fitting:  After all, as the Syndrome suppressant was derived from Rika, H173 was derived from Satoko.

In a sense, Satoko using H173 is also a subversion of the original Higurashi solution. OG Higurashi repeatedly had sinister kids with scary needles, but in the end every case of that was a red herring.  This time around, you really do need to be scared of the creepy child with the syringe.

Finally, if we’re going with the Satoko  = Lambda connection, then it’s also a case of her new piece inheriting aspects from her old one. I have issues with how this works on the human level, but on the meta level, it's quite satisfying.

What I dislike about this theory:

I've mentioned before that the lack of motive is the reason I didn’t get on board with this theory, but it goes a little beyond that. This week, I finally put my finger on it - it's the combined weakness of both the motive and the means.

-Motive: Satoko feeling abandoned because Rika left Hinamizawa, so she goes full yandere and repeatedly kills Rika... still feels almost like a parody of a WTC villain motivation.  

Part of it is that Rika leaving Hinamizawa is established so minimally, and runs so completely against Rika’s previous characterization. Meanwhile, Satoko has always chosen the mere idea of her brother over Rika, so her suddenly being laser-focused on Rika while being completely over her brother is… very odd.

-Means: Given that there's a syringe conspicuously missing from Takano's case (and that the anime felt it was important to show that case at all!), it seems pretty heavily implied that Satoko is using H173 in her plan.

So yes, the solution to the mystery is that there’s a child running around injecting people with a bioweapon she stole from a top secret research facility because she has memories from an alternate timeline.  As WTC solutions go, this is by far the most bananas of the lot. (And that's saying something! o.O) Sure, such actions are technically possible on this game board (more on this in Part II...), but it requires a lot of handwaving over how Satoko got knowledge of and access to her weapon. 

It's that handwaving that was and is my biggest issue with the theory. As is, the theory still fails to convincingly connect the "howdunnit" and the "whydunnit." “Satoko is yandere about Rika leaving” does not follow through to “Satoko knows about and has access to H173."  And “a little witch told Satoko” is fundamentally out of line for how both witches and WTC mysteries work.  

Satoko in the loops

We now have confirmation Satoko is looping, but there's still a lot of uncertainty over her behavior. Was everything going according to her plan, or was she making mistakes and dealing with some poor rolls of her own? 

I've seen a few outlines of the previous arcs that suggest the latter read, and I quite like those. So here’s my own little riff on them!

(After all, what good is a magical murder roulette without with the risk of failure? ^_~)

-Onidamashi was likely Satoko's first time trying to execute her plan, and as such, it... completely failed! Rena got herself killed going after Keiichi, forcing Satoko to murder Rika herself.  And then Satoko would have had to commit suicide too - oof, what a rough start.

-Watadamashi, Satoko coming to the Sonozaki manor with a gun makes a lot more sense if she was unsure what happened to Rika and wanted to confirm Rika's death. After all, if she'd ambushed Rika herself, there would be no reason to get Mion involved.  She may even have been shot by Mion without knowing Rika's status - another close call!

-Tataridamashi is a big question mark, particularly Satoko taking Keiichi aside at the festival. My guess here is that Satoko was learning from her mistakes and trying to be more careful. She'd targeted Ooishi, but nothing was happening - so she intended to use Keiichi as a backup plan.  Unfortunately for Satoko, she really didn't expect Ooishi to either release Teppei, or to barge in himself.  Still, she got what she wanted in the end. (Not that it was something to celebrate about...)

-Nekodamashi montage, Satoko has finally gotten the hang of things. Good for her...(?)

-Nekodamashi Satoko L5 loop... hm. Even Rika herself isn't immune to the Syndrome, so Satoko could have just had the bad luck to hit a Fragment where she naturally went L5. But... does anyone naturally go L5 in these loops anymore? For simplicity's sake, I think not - so then was Satoko faking the whole time?

Let's say "no" again. The picture I'm putting together is less "Satoko as a cold and calculating mastermind" and more "Satoko is barely holding her side of the game together." She's a good actor and can certainly fake cry on command, but she's also definitely not in a good mindset and the syringe is right there.  I'd imagine she first slit Rika's stomach to make certain she'd die even if Satoko messed up under the influence of L5, of course.

As for how much of Satoko's rambling was real... could be all, could be none. She could be lying about the other club members being dead, she could be lying about her visions of Oyashiro-sama, anything really. On the flip side, she didn't seem to expect Rika to realize and "regret" her sin, so perhaps she never meant to explain so much of her motivation?

-I was also surprised to see Satoko outright cower at the trap box, when she brushed it off so easily in Onidamashi. If Satoko was a calm, in-control mastermind, then you’d think she’d either pretend she doesn’t know or coolly predict the trap and dodge it. The strength of her reaction, combined with these possible reads of previous loops, really makes me wonder why she’s doing all of this, when it’s clearly hurting her too.

The shape of the missing piece

Regardless of whether we pick right back up with Satoko pulling a gun on the club members, I think pretty much everyone is expecting an extended "Satoko motivations" arc at least somewhere in Satokowashi. (I'd call it the backstory arc, but is it really backstory if it takes place in the future? :P)

So what can we try to predict about it?

-Something happened because Rika left Hinamizawa. Rika is important to Satoko, but it looks like Satoko's goal isn't just being close to her. If all Satoko wanted was that, then why not take Rika up on her offer to get away from Teppei in Tataridamashi? And St. Lucia's entrance exams might be tough, but I can't imagine they're harder than repeatedly murdering your best friend.

-Something happened to desensitize Satoko. To the violence she’s about to inflict on Rika, and even to her own death. You could argue Onidamashi, Watadamashi, and Tataridamashi as Satoko dying semi-accidentally, but in several of the Episode 15 arcs she would have to commit suicide by herself to loop. That takes a lot of desperation, and a lot nerve.

-Something happened that gave Satoko knowledge of not only Hinamizawa Syndrome but H173. H173 is the real sticking point. (Heh.)  Matsuribayashi is the one arc where it doesn't come into play.  It's possible Rika mentioned it in her "it's for a manga!" explanation to the club, or that details about it surfaced after Takano was stopped.  But that still doesn't explain how Satoko would get access to it!

-Something happened that made Satoko care less about Satoshi. If she knows about and has access to H173, it's hard to believe she doesn't know about her brother being in the Clinic basement. Yet Satoko hasn't shown any interest in him at all!

What could fit all these criteria? I've been considering lots of wild ideas, from bullying at St. Lucia’s, to Tokyo coming back and taking Satoko as a research subject, to even “oops, Queen Carrier theory was more real than we thought.” But nothing quite fits. 

Still, I can make one more prediction - whatever happened, we’re all going to get murdered in the feels by it. Time to put a box of tissues next to the popcorn!

In Conclusion

So yes. At this point, Gou is a win/win scenario for my tastes.  Heads, there’s a complex and nuanced reasoning backstory behind Satoko’s actions.  Tails, Satoko is just really yandere for Rika, and oops, we’re back in “this is trash, but oh well it’s my kind of trash” town.

Either way, whatever Satoko vs Rika combat looks like when they both get serious is going to be spectacularly absurd. Guns? Sure! H173? Sure! Witches? Why not!

Let the lesbian time looper thunderdome... begin!

(But before that, Part II is here!)