#hai-ryūn Ieasomūru jeda

[with-the-unloved-kids]

-but i still wish we had a little more

[liesweliveby]

also friendly reminder that we do in fact have confirmation that featherine is rewriting reality. like we saw back in watadamashi how she changed oyashiro-sama’s legend to “oyashiro-sama was so great and good that everyone bowed before their awesomeness” instead of the whole killing/human sacrifice thing

[neko-when-they-cry]

Hanyuu/Featherine connection

I was meant to make this theory a long time ago and never actually did it. Well, now is the right time! So this is it, my theory of how Hanyuu and Featherine are connected and actually the same person!

So, my theory is that, given that Featherine is extremely old and was stated to have died and revive multiple times, she lived as different people. Hanyuu lived 100 years in the past and could be Featherine first life (we know that for a witch couple of days can be years for them, so imagine how old Featherine is). At some point she reincarnate with the form of the Featherine we know in Umineko and there are probably millions of years of differences between her and Hanyuu in Higurashi.

In the Umineko manga adaptation of episode 6, when Lambda talked about Bernkastel past (clearly showing Rika cough cough), we can also see Hanyuu, which Lambda refered as Bernkastel’s master and a “bad one”. It’s implied that Hanyuu was the game master of the game taking place in Higurashi behind the scene and caused a logic error. Instead of solving it she pushed it on Bern (Rika). This is most likely why Rika had to revive the same month for 100 years until she solved the logic error, aka find a miracle to defeat Takano’s power of certitude (granted by Lambda), and became Bernkastel the witch of miracles. So yes, in a way, Bernkastel did defeat Lambdadelta. 

It’s mentionned in Umineko that Bernkastel wandered the sea of Fragments endlessly, searching for any Fragment that can revive her master from the pits of death called boredom, if even for a moment. Eventually, the cat revived her master. Bernkastel seemed surprise to see Featherine alive at the end of episode 6, while understand that she must have come back to life. If Bernkastel already brought back Featherine to life in the past, we can assume that she died multiple times.

We know in Umineko fantasy characters often have human vessel. I believe that Featherine first “vessel” was Hanyuu (Hai-Ryūn Ieasomūru Jeda). After a vessel dies, Featherine can’t interact in the human world anymore, therefore she has to “revive” in a new form. She probably has lived many lives between Hanyuu and Hachijo. And when I said Hachijo, I mean Hachijo Ikuko AND Hachijo Tohya. In Umineko, Hachijo Tohya (as the pen name of Ikuko and amnesiac Battler) is stated to be the human vessel of Featherine, but I do believe that in the past it was Ikuko. We know Ikuko was a writer who seemed to have lost inspiration in writting until she met amnesiac Battler. I do believe that in the fantasy world, her losing her will to write resulted in Featherine death of “boredom”. Then, when they both became the writer Hachijo Tohya, Featherine was resurrected. 

Lambdadelta did mention that Featherine’s disk around her head got damaged and she lost part of her memory and as a result her personality and appearance changed. I strongly believe it’s the Hanyuu we saw in Higurashi with Rika.

Some interesting points from the wikis:

- When roughly translated, the two kanji that make up Hanyuu's name (羽入) translate to "feather" (羽, hane) and "in" (入, iri) which, when put together, more or less make up the name "Featherine".

- The first two katakana shared by her middle and last names, "Au" (アウ), are also used by Hanyuu as a catchphrase, "auau" (あぅあぅ). Bernkastel herself calls attention to this, referring to her as "AuAurora".

- The name of Featherine's human incarnation, Hachijo Tohya (八城　十八), contains two wordplays: An alternate reading for the kanji in the name Hachijo (八城) is "yashiro". Coupled with the honorific "o-" prefix, this becomes "Oyashiro", the more commonly-known name for Hanyuu. The name Tohya (十八) is composed of numerical kanji, numbering 18. Breaking down the name "Oyashiro" into syllables (o-ya-shi-ro), each syllable is one possible reading for the numbers 0, 8, 4, and 6. Adding these numbers together results in a sum of 18.

- Another possible allusion to Hanyuu is the fact that Bernkastel is Featherine's miko while Rika was Hanyuu's miko.

- Featherine is a transcendental being which could correspond to Hanyuu being a god. Additionally, Featherine has a habit of calling humans "Child of Man", something Hanyuu did when speaking as a god. It is noted by Lambdadelta that, at one point, Featherine's memory device was damaged, and as a result she suffered a change in appearance and personality. Hanyuu's left horn has a distinct crack on the top, strengthening the link between the two.

(ps: I know Hanyuu’s left horn having a crack is related to her backstory and not Featherine’s disk being damaged, but it still may be a nod of them having a connection.)

I checked the source for that (it’s in Japanese) and it’s an interview by Ryukishi7. He seems to imply that Hanyuu may have wanted for Rika to remain in the timeloop so she wouldn’t be alone. Source

I just want to specify that I do not think the Hanyuu we saw in Higurashi is the Featherine we know in Umineko. As I said earlier, I do believe that this Hanyuu is an amnesiac Featherine after getting her disk damaged, as mentioned by Lambdadelta. I don’t think Hanyuu was evil or maliciously deceiving Rika, but it seems obvious that she wasn’t that great either and did manipulate Rika in a way for her own interest, which was to not be alone. She’s the reason why Rika went through hell and why Bernkastel, the cruelest witch, even exist. Hanyuu isn’t evil, but she might be an irresponsible and selfish person.

I’ll leave it there. I do have a theory regarding Hanyuu and Featherine for the 2020 Higurashi anime but I’ll keep it for another post. Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to leave me your thoughts!

[ramblingsofthegoldenwitch]

Umineko Ramblings: The Structure of The Umineko Universe

Since there’s a lot of confusion in this regard I’ve tried to come up with a graphic and an explaination on the Umineko universe. Note that there’s no clear explanation about it through all Umineko and that this is a fantasy world so, when Ryukishi created it, he made up its rules.

This is how I understand it. As usual I might be wrong so you’re free to reject my interpretation and make up your own.

First the ‘easy’ part as this is, more or less, clearer in Umineko.

Let’s start with:

Prime: Prime is the supposed ‘real’ world. Why the supposed ‘real’ world and not just ‘the real world’? Prime is the ‘real’ world for MetaBattler, MetaBeatrice/MetaSayo and MetaAnge. As Umineko asks us to care for those characters the most, the world they come from is the world we focus on, and we discharge all the others as possibilities that didn’t happen. Note how Lion’s world isn’t in Prime. From MetaBattler, MetaBeatrice/MetaSayo and MetaAnge’s perspective, Lion’s world isn’t real, it’s not Prime. From MetaLion’s perspective though, the opposite is true, His world is the real one, Prime, and MetaBattler, MetaBeatrice/MetaSayo and MetaAnge’s world is just a possibility.

Lion’s World: Lion’s world is the world in which Natsuhi didn’t reject Lion. It’s in a catbox that’s bigger than Beatrice's catbox.

Purgatorio: It’s the land that hosts the wandering souls of Sayo, Battler and then Ange. It’s not quite our afterlife as it can be reached by souls whose body is still alive but that are temporally ‘wandering’ on the borders between life and death. The borders of this land of souls aren’t well defined but, it seems that, if you solve the issues that are tormenting your soul, you can either go back in the living world (if your body is still alive) or move to the next step, heaven/the golden land.

The Golden Land: The supposed heaven. It’s unclear if it’s on a higher level than the Purgatorio or if it is on the same level but, since you can reach it only after going through the Purgatorio I placed it above it. Note that in Umineko places that are the equivalent of heaven on Earth for some characters (for example Beatrice’s imaginary world or the room of gold) are also called Golden Land. It's the place where everything is possible, negative feelings are left behind and nobody is unhappy and also the place that Sayo wants to reach with Battler and all the others who died during those fateful day.

Beatrice’s catbox: Fundamentally it’s the name given to the whole amount of possibilities for what could have happened during the 4th and the 5th on Rokkenjima. It contains the real world as well as the gameboards, the forgeries, the messages in the bottles and… everything else that could have happened. It helps to remember that although the games we saw being played present similarities with the messages in the bottles and Tohya’s forgeries, they also present differences so THEY AREN’T THE SAME THING and similarities are COINCIDENTAL.

Bern’s larger than Beatrice’s catbox: The ‘borders’ of this catbox aren’t clearly defined but it’s easy to speculate that starts in 1967, with Natsuhi being handed Lion and ends in 1986, with the island exploding and creating the catbox. As a result this catbox contains Beatrice’s catbox.

Ange’s catbox: As Ange disappeared in 1996 her fate was trapped in a catbox, spawning various possibilities among which: the one in which Ange went to Rokkenjima without meeting ‘Hachijo Tohya’ and died there (Ep 4), the one in which Ange managed to meet a person claiming to be ‘Hachijo Tohya’ (Ep 6), the one in which Ange killed Amakusa and Kuwabata (trick ending) and the REAL one in which Ange became Yukari Kotobuki (magic ending).

Sea of fragments: Basically the whole amount of endless possibilities that likely contains ‘words’ like ‘Higurashi’ and ‘Rose guns days’ and so on (no, I'm not going to explain what are 'Higurashi' and 'Rose Guns Days', all I say is they're other works from Ryukishi and that, if I didn't add in the graphic all the other works from him, it's just for space reasons, as they probably would all fit in the 'sea of fragments').

The Meta World: This term started, like ‘Prime’, as a term used by the fandom only and was used as a name for the Purgatorio since in the Purgatorio the characters were discussing what was going in the tales (which are in the lower levels). However not just the Purgatorio is a Meta World as Featherine’s world is a Meta world as well. It had been later used in official sources as well as the name of the ‘world of the witches’, so it can be considered ‘official’.

Featherine’s world: so far the highest level known. Who is in it can control everything in regards to the beings of lower levels, making who resides in the purgatorio a mere piece compared to them.

This for what regards the universes. Now… the characters.

Prime characters: The so called ‘real’ characters, alive and kicking and residing in Prime.

Piece characters: While this term is occasionally used by someone to refer to a person or to a fantasy character he’s using, in the Umineko universe this also usually refers to the alternate versions of the Prime characters that appear in games, forgeries and messages in the bottles. They’re considered characters of a lower level compared to Prime characters as Prime characters can control them.

Fantasy characters: Characters that were made up by someone else, and that might or might not have a body (usually called ‘vessel’) but that fundamentally do not exist (the Chiesters, Gaap) or aren’t living beings (Sakutaro) or are imaginary versions of real people (Kinzo after he’s dead, the 7 sisters, Virgilia, Ronove)…

Meta characters: They’re souls. They might be souls of deceased people or souls that are temporally ‘wandering’ in the land of souls or PERSONIFICATIONS of various things (in Japan even objects can have souls...). They’re considered being of a upper level compared to the Prime characters. It helps to remember that the one we call MetaBeatrice is actually the soul of a deceased Sayo, that MetaBattler is the part of Battler’s soul that ‘died’ when he lost his memories, that MetaAnge is living Ange’s soul that’s wandering after she tossed herself off a building. Dlanor instead is the personification of the Knox’s Decalogue.

Now, if you thought I explained till now wasn’t easy… well, take a good breath and prepare yourself for a headache because we get to the REALLY difficult part or, to be more specific, to Lambda, Bern and Featherine.

Although they’re generally grouped with the Meta characters, Lambda, Bern and Featherine are actually of another league.

Lambda and Bern are WANDERING WITCHES, that can move through ‘words’ or, more likely, through the various purgatories of each world. The Purgatorio we see is the one for ‘Prime’, but if we consider Prime as merely a possibility in the sea of fragments, well, each possibility likely has its own Purgatorio and Bern and Lambda seem to be able to visit those Purgatorios and, from here, to look down at the fragment that generated it. It seems they come from a specific fragment (the Higurashi one) but are apparently ‘cut’ from it and now look at ALL the fragments as if they were gameboards, fantasy stories. Due to this they can take someone residing in that fragment and make it ‘their piece’, ‘their alterego’, controlling it. It is speculated that actually that someone is their own alternate version in that fragment but as everything is left VERY vague we can’t be sure.

Featherine is… on a level higher than Bern and Lambda, a level that’s even less explained. For being of that higher level the land of souls are the equivalent of gameboards. To interact with Featherine you’ve to either reach her higher level or she can send her own piece version of the land of soul level.

It is unclear from which fragment Featherine comes from, if from the Higurashi one as well (being somewhat an ‘evolution’ of Hai-Ryūn Ieasomūru Jeda or of Hanyu as the manga seems to hint) or from the Prime one (where she would be a combination of Tohya and Ikuko’s souls or, if you prefer, the soul of their writing duo) or from a fragment we hadn’t seen yet and, due to unknown circumstances, she managed to move to a level higher than the land of souls or if she’s something completely different.

The time in Prime works differently compared to the time in the other levels so it doesn’t matter if in Prime Ikuko and Tohya are alive and well, Featherine might have had birth when Ikuko and Tohya died, or split ways or decided to stop writing as Hachijo Tohya and be around taking advantage just of this, so we can’t even say if she’s the soul of a living or of a deceased or of a ‘personification’. Really, we know way too few about her to tell for sure from where she came from.

Despite those many question marks about her, there are some things we can say in her regard.

First of all Featherine isn’t the same person as Ikuko or Tohya. Ikuko or Tohya are Prime characters. Featherine is a character of a higher level with a version of herself also having access to the… let’s call it middle level. Featherine is likely a soul, Ikuko and Tohya are living people. While they’re somehow connected, Ikuko doesn’t transform into Featherine like Tsukino Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon.

So what about the times in which she seems to do it?

What we’re seeing are actually gameboards. It’s a little like when Battler in Ep 8 all of sudden wears his cape to face Ange and Ange grows up from her 6 years old self.

The Ikuko we see in Ep 6 and also in the first part of Ep 8, is just a piece, not the real person and is placed on a gameboard that lies in the Ange’s catbox. We know that in Prime Ikuko’s meeting with Ange went differently from the one we saw in Ep 6 or at the beginning of Ep 8, so those two meetings are just two possibilities, not the real thing.

Featherine clearly has control over Piece Ikuko… but we don’t know if she has control over Prime Ikuko. Meta Battler doesn’t control his Prime body anymore after all and, while Meta Ange remains in the Purgatory, her Prime body is unconscious. When she wakes up she seems to be able to bring back memories of her adventure in the land of the souls… but in the moment she wakes up Meta Ange leaves the land of the souls so this isn’t exactly helping us to understand how the connection between Featherine and Ikuko/Tohya works.

What now about the Featherine in the Land of souls? We see she can stop time and write off Lambda as being killed.

Very likely the Featherine who stops time is the one in the upper level. The one Lambda was fighting off is the Featherine in the ‘Land of the Souls’ world or middle level… in short the equivalent of a ‘Metapiece’ to the Featherine of a higher level.

So… is Featherine writing Umineko?

Well, actually Umineko is being written by Ryukishi and, unless we speculate that Featherine is his piece and self insertion, she’s just a character in the story… but I get what you want to ask, are we just reading a gameboard that Featherine is writing?

The Featherine in the Land of the soul level comments many times that she’s just RECORDING Ange’s story. In short yes, she’s writing it, but she’s not making it up, she’s just writing down what’s going on.

In short Ange is taking her own decisions and this is her story and Featherine is just writing a… ‘biography’, not a tale. So, back to Lambda, why could Featherine stop Lambda?

Even though this is Ange’s story, it’s possible that Featherine can embellish it as she sees fit. We can see the fight between Featherine and Lambda as a metaphor. Featherine represents Ange’s story that must go on. Lambda can’t stop the story from continuing, hence she certainly dies because the story must certainly continue toward its resolution. We know that Featherine is just a ‘spectator’ in a sense, as she doesn’t plan to stop Ange from doing this or that, she just watches and records. She will watch and record as Ange will come to her inevitable face off with Bern, or better with the truth that A MIRACLE CAN’T HAPPEN and that her family won’t come back to her.

So in Ep 8 Featherine is likely only transcribing what’s going on. Ange remains her own person with her own freedom of choice and is not Featherine’s piece and therefore moved by her. Featherine can, at best, influence her, but, ultimately, it’s up to Ange to decide.

If Ange were a mere puppet in Featherine’s hands the story of her struggles would have no purpose. She wouldn’t be struggling because she’s still finding inside herself the strength to fight against a sad fate but just because ‘the writer wants her to do so’. Even though we, as readers, know that Ange is a character, as long as Ange is a real person in the Umineko world and in control of her own life, we can see her as a person and take her as a model. If she’s just a puppet without will… the theme of the story would fall apart. If the purpose of the story was that Ange is a puppet that fights and win because Featherine says so, we wouldn’t empathize with her.

Ange needs to be like us. On her own, fighting the only way she knows how and writing, with her own actions, her own story.

At least... this is my interpretation of the chaotic universe that is Umineko. As the canon is REALLY unclear on many things I’m not afraid to admit I might have made mistakes in understanding how it works.

As the canon doesn’t really gives us many info, many things remains unexplained and we can only speculate on them.

I’ve seen theories of all sorts to explain Featherine and her ties with Higurashi (same goes with Bern and Lambda) but as long as Ryukishi doesn’t give us confirmation... we’re all making speculations and everyone is free to choose the theory they prefer.

I’m sorry for who’s confuse as I have no idea how to explain things better and I’m not even 100% sure my explanation is 100% right.

I tried my best but I’m just me and so this was all I was capable to do.

Please, don’t stop to just my explanation but keep on reading Umineko and trying to figure things on your own.

You might be capable to find an explanation that’s even better than mine! ^_^

[liesweliveby]

“though it pains me to admit it you are a part of me” WE DID IT FUCKERS WE GOT EM

[liesweliveby]

it’s coming the Lore is coming the FEATHERINE-HANYUU CONNECTION LORE IS COMING

[liesweliveby]

THE GODS ARE FIGHTINGGGGGGGGG

[liesweliveby]

hanyuu sweetie im so sorry im over here cackling at your suffering

[liesweliveby]

(light) purple sus

[liesweliveby]

something i really hope next ep clears up is whether the hanyuu we saw in gou was the last trace of her left after regaining her memories as featherine or if she’s just featherine trying to make the game more interesting