#well beatrice simply did that. with magic. case solved

[stemmmm]

we have entered "magic isn't real, ghosts aren't real"

i love accusing the highly emotional woman holding a gun of murder. tho its very fun that this is a situation where i can't be like "no but beatrice" as much because you're made to know natsuhi isn't lying, but neither is eva about the door never having opened, so something else is up

really appreciate all the time spent going over how maria doesn't have a split personality, it's a very normal thing for kids to code-switch the way she does... tho with her it feels very abrupt, i'd expect it a little smoother when it happens in the middle of conversation lmao. my god does she feel like a 9 year old when she does the witch switch tho

hm! phone lines down means there's no contact with the boats, means they have to go on faith the boats even show up. means.... boat might not show up at all.

ohhh wish i remembered the other nights. i can't remember any other than the love one because attention was drawn to it. idk what to expect next

well it seems they were next anyways!! tho one is supposed to happen each day right? this seems a tad early for it to drop. hm. regarding the perfect locked room-- sure no one could get in or go out, but someone could have already been in there to start with, waiting. doesn't explain the marking appearing on the door since they couldn't have exited in the meantime, but once the chain is cut, that person is free to get out whenever. this reasoning is all pointless however bc its clearly witch magic

fuckin flowey-ass laugh when kanon gets killed or whatever

"you know when people die they dont come back to life again right?" nah i dont think she gets that concept actually. i think that might be meaningless to her

ah we are fully and truly turning on maria now huh. makes sense tho esp since she's (rightfully!!) a bit of a cunt when in witch mode.

now this talk of granddaddy's room being magically impenetrable! sir why were you screaming nonstop to see beatrice again even at the cost of your life if she can't even come in! go outside, you old fool! go to her!

i don't get all this maria's saying about how beatrice will revive everyone, the gold has completely fallen out of the picture. in fact every single person has ignored the riddle this whole time. which i suppose is the point.... since this seems to just be giving information on what happens as a baseline. but also the riddle does call for all this stuff to happen in order to find the gold..... i simply do not get the riddle lmao

oh my god wait is battler just now for real finally remembering the riddle. its been 1 day my man. busy day i guess!

ahhhh ok, we're admitting it has nothing to do with the gold anyways. that's fine, makes much more sense that it's just the ritual. on account of how it obviously is. so there exist no clues on the gold. ahhh but theyre still calling it a riddle to solve. hrm.

dont enjoy that all the servants have been sent out to die. i think its like, mega confirmed it's just gonna be the servants and doctor since maria was given the charm back and it should only be 3 more to die anyways? speaking of, why give it to her, she surely has more of her own. anyways i know everyones panicking and thinks they'll just get killed amogus style-- hm. i've lost my point due to making that connection. why did it take me that long to make this connection. they have been thrown out the airlock. hm. all that aside, knowing that battler has a mystery magic circle makes me wonder if that being in the room makes it a gate for beatrice to get in and kill them instead of killing the folks sent outside but i imagine that is not the case. potentially funny tho

we are spending suuuuuuch a long time crying over how we threw maria out with no acknowledgement of the 3 other people sent to die lmao. oh these bitches are gonna walk outside into a room of corpses for sure with how long they're taking to undo their bad decision.

LMAO THE MAGIC CIRCLE WAS CASTING SPELL OF GO FUCK YOURSELF

oh fuck the phones back on.

my god these people love to be like "oh it's a trap! let's charge blindly into it!" but like. why not honestly. they know they're gonna mega die, it's pretty clear. ahh yep everyone else is dead and maria is blair witching in the corner LOVE that for her truly truly.

"maria should be running up to us and hugging us so joyous that she's safe!" fucking no she shouldn't! one, you threw her out. two, she clearly saw this horrific shit happen. three, YOU'RE NOT SAFE..........

aw that's so nice of beatrice to cast a spell or w/e to be like dont worry little girl just sing and sing and you won't have a damn clue what's going on

oh shit this duel is awesome, i was kinda hoping it'd lead to a proper beatrice appearance but perhaps it is too soon.

ahhhh focusing the painting rather than a portrait and no real dialogue to keep it really vague what's going on is so goodddddd! beatrice wins!! and i guess the part of the prophecy about everyone being revived must be to do with the looping, yeah? i've been thinking that for a second and it seems especially certain if when three of the kids go to the golden land, they only can get one person/thing? intewesting intewesting

so im watching the tea party because while i skipped the after shows in higu because they felt sucks to me, i read somewhere that this was actually plot relevant and by god. it is. they've taken battler who's saying over and over again show me a witch if you want me to believe witches exist and that witch has appeared and he is now saying what kind of joke is this. what are you getting at. who do you think you're fooling. you cant own me I'm unownable. king shit

ADSJGKSLDG "I DONT BELIEVE IN YOU SO YOU AREN'T REAL"

WAIT I WROKE THAT AS A JOKE BUT THEN HE SAID IT HIMSELF. YES! YES! SICKOS!

so what im getting from this is!!! because beato doesn't have full power unless everyone believes she exists, THAT is how she is able to resurrect. because the 18 can't bring themselves to believe someone they know did a horrific thing, the blame is put on magic and beatrice and gives her power. if it can be proven the murders were done by people, beatrice can be defeated. however that still means people are dying out here which! aint great!

anyways hiiii rika hiiiiiii thanks for the tips girlie, unbelievably funny that you're here to be like "this bitch is crazy. sorry bud. here, let me give you a hint, gl out there" oh my god wait no its even better because she just wants to fuck beato over because she's bored as hell. love her. did not give 2 shits about her in higurashi but here she's great

i've started jury duty btw

i've obviously only just started so i dont know anything yet but very funny to open with the dying man raving about how he will leave no will his ungrateful family gets NOTHING. FUCK THEM KIDS. EVERYTHING I'VE EVER EARNED CAME FROM NOTHING AND IT WILL BE DESTROYED THE INSTANT OF MY DEATH AS ARE THE TERMS OF THE witch's curse. (im aware there is an island that explodes. interesting. curious)

what i know of battler so far is that shit's just CRAZY his whole family's CRAZY aren't they NUTS? and apparently he's on steroids as a like. 17 year old? 18? good for him.

also if there is not a plot twist or something regarding this 9 year old who behaves and talks like an infant i'm gonna lose it. ryukushi i'm certain you've met a 9 year old. im certain you know better.

[kyuu-rereads-umineko]

Ep6, Chapter 5 & 6 (Part 1)

So, yeah, the Steam version of Chiru’s out, but for the time being, I’m gonna stick to making my posts off of the original Witch Hunt/UmiTweak release, the main reason being that I’m already partway through Ep6. There’s also the voice acting, which I think adds a great deal to the story.

Once I get to Ep7, I’ll probably switch to the Steam release. Hopefully that doesn’t take too long, especially since I want to keep up with Rokkenjima’s Chiru Tea Parties alongside this, but... We’ll see, I guess!

Anyways. If I recall correctly, these chapters feature Erika wasting her time arguing with a 9-year-old and being even more dense than Battler used to be? Fun times inbound!

The chapter opens with Shannon talking about how she used to be “a bit of a klutz” “back then” - forgetting where she left something, or forgetting to lock a door/cabinet/whatever. It’s funny - despite how relatively insignificant this information is (especially since we’ve seen Shannon being a bit clumsy in earlier Eps), it’s good at strengthening the connection between Yasu in her story in Ep7 and what Shannon was like when she was younger.

that sentence was kind of a mess but i hope you understand what i mean

Battler asks her how she got over her forgetfulness, and Shannon explains that she got in the habit of taking notes about where she put things and such. Again, pretty minor, but it brings to mind Yasu tying a string around her keyring...

Erika interrupts, asking flat-out if she’s seen Beatrice or not. Shannon says, “I didn’t see her directly, but... umm... some very strange things did happen...”

The narrative mentions that she’s thinking of “a certain summer night,” and then jumps to the two Beatos wandering the mansion at night. “From Shannon’s perspective, it was a ghost story. From the witch’s perspective... it was just the story of a little summer’s night prank...”

Elder explains the concept of “anti-magic toxin” to Chick. She says something interesting here, and I’m not entirely sure how to parse it - “One thing we do have in our favour is the fact that our existence is still extremely weak. Because of that, the toxin does not affect us greatly.”

In magic terms, I think what she means is that it can’t cause the two of them as much pain as it’s shown to cause for, say, characters like the Stakes or Sakutarou in Ep4. In mundane terms... hmm. Maybe that, since the ghost stories about the witch haven’t really taken hold yet, people are less desperate to argue against them? I’m really not sure.

“[Chick] had thought that she wasn’t a witch because she couldn’t use magic, but apparently, she was still a witch nonetheless.”

Elder mentions that not only being seen, but “being heard or sensed can also result in contact with the toxin.” Basically, any cause for suspicion that “the witch’s actions” have a “human culprit” is damaging.

Chick wonders internally why she wasn’t burnt by Battler’s toxin. Meta gonna meta? The anti-magic toxin’s never really seemed to be “a thing” in the Meta-World - it’s more of a gameboard construct.

“Simply put, as we are now, we can only exist when humans aren’t around...”

Elder is awestruck at the idea of being able to appear openly in front of humans. “Is that what we will eventually become?”

Pretty reflective of how Yasu would’ve felt, I imagine. When she started with her little witch pranks, I doubt she could’ve imagined them growing to encompass the entire island the way they did.

“Hmmm, how inspiring. If that is our future, it means that all of our hard work will have been worth the effort.” okay that one hurts

And then Chick asks how those efforts relate to what they’re currently doing - unlocking windows behind the mansion’s servants, lol. Elder explains that the fact the window was unlocked even though “there’s no one in the hallway” is proof of their existence, and of their magic.

“Of course, it wasn’t just small pranks like opening a window. She could also smash windows and vases, or leave behind strange fires and mysterious scribbles.” YASU WHAT ARE YOU DOING

“One day, I will... no, we will become a single witch and control all of Rokkenjima... When that time comes, we will gain complete freedom and will be capable of stretching our wings as we please.”

And Chick realizes the reason she could appear in front of Battler so openly is because at this point, he fully believes in the witch’s existence and doesn’t have any anti-magic toxin to speak of. HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

In Featherine’s study, meanwhile, Ange and Featherine discuss the Beatos’ logic. It basically comes down to the fact that they’ve - Yasu’s - created an atmosphere where anything strange happening on the island is blamed on the witch.

“The servants might have forgotten to lock [the window], or one of the family might have opened it after the servants had locked up and forgotten to shut it again, or maybe someone had played a prank. In the same way that none of those possibilities could be denied... it was also impossible to deny the possibility that a witch really had opened a window to enjoy the night breeze...”

“That’s one of the foundations of magic. Decorating... the process.”

Ange acknowledges that “good magic” really does exist. Featherine says, “The power to repel evil magic may be necessary for a child of man. However, it is the nature of love in the human world that it does not burn away and defile love-filled magic.”

Ange concludes that “Beatrice” isn’t a person’s name, but the name of a phenomenon - that anything strange that happens at night is blamed on the witch. “That all piles up until we reach 1986... This is the veil that the true culprit is hiding behind. And the person hiding behind it is, without a doubt, a human.”

Featherine contends that she can’t stick to that argument “to fight all the way through 1986,” and Ange doesn’t have a response. The narrative jumps back to the gameboard, where presumably Shannon’s just detailed the window being unlocked on that night.

...And Erika, being Erika, says that it was just because someone forgot to lock the window.

Shannon mentions that it happened many times over (which she’d know, of course), and Erika calls her an idiot. I really can’t stand her in this episode, I’m sorry...

Everyone else chimes in to support Shannon, but Erika turns to pointing the finger at the servants as a group. THE IRONY......

She concludes with, “Of course there’s no way Beatrice exists,” and “This delusion of a Golden Witch Beatrice [...] is completely impossible,” which angers Maria. here we fuckin go

Maria states that she’s met Beato (which she has), and that Beato shows her magic all the time. Erika asks her to explain in detail. Seriously, this girl...

The other cousins try calming the situation down, but Erika throws out all pretenses of being polite (again) to challenge Maria. Meta breaks in, and Maria appears in her witch outfit.

Erika invites her to reproduce the magic, and Dlanor appears to tell her, “This battle is not worth FIGHTING.” AT LEAST ONE OF YOU HAS A GOOD HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDERS

At any rate, ridiculous red/blue truth battle ensues. I really don’t have a lot to say about this and formatting the text colours is a pain, so...

During it, though, Erika says, “All truths are nothing more than claims! So, I’ll make a claim separate from yours and smash right through yours!! That is the detective’s duty, and the time we shine the mooooost!!” I think this is a good line to use to reflect on why I don’t like Erika in this episode.

In Episode 5, she has very apparent narrative functions - she’s a detective like Battler is, but ultimately, she’s very much an antithesis of him. She’s a ruthless deconstruction of the mystery/detective fiction genre in general, and she’s a guide on “what not to do” to solve the mystery. She’s also, ultimately, the metaphorical kick in the pants Battler needs to really try solving Beato’s riddle properly, and a parody of the Mary Sue character, by way of literally being Bern’s self-insert. She fulfills all of these purposes quite well, while being an entertaining character at the same time.

In Ep6, though? True, she still functions as a deconstruction of the genre, and as an example of how ignoring the heart of the story leaves you unable to solve it, but... I feel like the former’s kinda old hat at this point, and the latter isn’t done particularly well? Ryukishi (and Battler, I suppose) kinda smack us over the head with that point in this episode, with Erika just shrugging off the love duel getting so much attention and Battler flat-out asking her what her problem is.

On top of that, we’ve got the contrast between her being an absolutely horrible person like she was in Ep5 with an attempt at humanizing her by giving her some sort of tragic backstory involving a cheating boyfriend (that doesn’t really make much sense for a 14-year-old girl, but I digress). I realize the two sides of her match with Umineko’s theme of contradictory options both being true (the culprit being a witch or a human, for instance), but in this case, they don’t mesh well for me at all. Her cruelty is too dramatically overblown for me to take her seriously as anything but either Bern’s self-insert or a parody of the genre, but Ep6 tries using her as a character to convey an important point - her spiel about love making people “see things that aren’t there.”

On top of that, she’s painted as being a “rival” to Battler, when... I never really felt like that was the case? Sure, in Ep5, they do kinda feel that way, but ultimately, Beato is still his rival, and strictly speaking, Erika’s not his “main enemy,” either - Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are. Even though Erika’s given a focus, I don’t feel like that changes in Ep6, either - Bern is the one throwing a fit about losing, while Erika is just kinda going “Yes, master!” the whole time. She feels... more like a device than a character to me, sometimes, y’know?

That’s not to say that her presence is meritless, though. She provides some top quality humour and memeing, and the ending of the episode is phenomenal. Just, overall, I don’t really care for her here.

Anyways. Erika and Maria continue yelling at each other, yada yada yada.

“Let it be known that this fight has no point...” gertrude is on point

Erika does the magic, screeches about how Maria’s a moron, etc. etc.

“...Sheesh!! Just one more step and I’d have been able to take a heart as innocent as the smooth sand just after a wave has pulled back and tear it to bits. ...What a shame. This isn’t fun anymore.” She also gives the most insincere apology ever for “tearing a kid’s dreams apart.” 

Back on the board, she gives another “apology” of “I’m still just a kid.” Maybe I’m guilty of not looking at her with love, but fucking hell this girl.

Maria stops crying and starts cackling instead, proclaiming herself as Beatrice’s apprentice. Erika says, “Let’s fight in a more satisfying game next time.” Maria says sure.

The cousins and Shannon leave, heading upstairs to play cards, and then Kumasawa enters. Erika asks her about the stories of Akujikishima and the witch of the forest, offering to get her a drink as well. With that, the chapter ends.

The next chapter opens on George and Shannon in the rose garden arbour, where George comments that he “can’t seem to get along well with kids these days,” about Erika. don’t worry jooji you are not the only one

“I think kids around Erika-san’s age have a really hard time accepting themselves,” says Shannon. This is... oddly painful, considering that Shannon’s given age is 16, meaning she “would’ve been 14” when Yasu solved the epitaph...

George comments that when he was around that age, “I was a weak, deplorable man who didn’t deserve any respect.” ouch

Y’know, I think it’s fair to say that my opinion of George has changed a lot in the 2 years or so since I started this blog. I think he genuinely tries to be a good person, even if he’s passive-aggressive and self-centred - I honestly don’t think he realizes it a lot of the time. To be clear, I don’t mean his twisting of the knife when young Yasu was in tears over Battler leaving - that was intentional and pretty fucking gross on his part. I mean his behaviour in/around 1986 - his focus on what his relationship with Shannon does for him, him shrugging off her concerns and talk about magic... I don’t think there’s any “intent” there (though whether or not that makes it better or worse is debatable) - I think the effects of it just slip right under his radar.

It still makes me kind of ill to see how he responds to Shannon’s furniture complex, but, again - I don’t think it’s because he “doesn’t care” or anything like that; I think his thinking is that if it were something really, truly serious, Shannon would be up-front about it.

That’s absolutely not to put the onus on Yasu for not explaining her situation to him - considering the weight of everything she had on her shoulders, from her identity issues to her body to her blood, I don’t feel comfortable at all with blaming her for not speaking up. It’s been a while since I read the Ep8 manga scans, but I seem to recall that George and Jessica express that sentiment at one point in the Golden Land, too.

I think, ultimately, George’s chief sin is the same as Battler’s - he just doesn’t really think about how what he says or does is impacting the woman closest to him. The key differences are that 1) since we follow Meta-Battler throughout the series, we’re able to see his character develop, from angrily refusing to see things from Beato’s perspective to eventually throwing his life away for her, whereas with George, we... don’t, and 2) even on first read-through, Beato is a lot more... inscrutable, if you will, than Shannon is. Even if we don’t know the depth of what Shannon’s trouble about, it’s easy to tell that something about George’s family talk bothers her, whereas with Beato (in part because the story’s usually told from Battler’s perspective), a lot of her reactions only really make sense in hindsight, even when she’s clearly upset (e.g. Battler rejecting her presentation of Beatrice II’s story in Ep3, and her reaction to Battler’s failed confession in Ep4).

Maybe I’m just stating the obvious here, who knows! Point is, while George definitely grates on my nerves at times, I don’t really hate the guy. He’s just as human as the rest of the cast, and as one of Yasu’s main male love interests, his flaws are often quite visible.

Anyways! At Shannon’s questioning, George admits that the reason he resolved to grow up and become a “splendid adult” wasn’t just because of love for Shannon. He starts going into some of his insecurities, about how he used to be “afraid” of “interacting with women,” and how he didn’t even recognize them at the time.

Huh, Shannon’s oddly confident during this exchange again. She makes a comment about understanding how George felt when it comes to trying to get noticed by the opposite sex, and when he prods her for details, instead of clamming up and blushing like we’d expect, she smiles and says “Of course.” I’m not quite sure how to word it beyond this, but I can really feel Tohya’s love for Yasu coming through here... quite strongly, at that.

And George admits that the turning point for him was how envious he was of Battler and how close he was to Shannon. George prepares to confess...

...And Ange breaks in to throw a jab at Featherine for watching the two of them. lol

“Stories of love are truly timeless. I never tire of them... However, I do find that expression of virgin disgust on your face even more charming...” LOL

At any rate, George admits to looking down on Battler and Jessica when they were younger, and thinking that they’d never be able to find a partner because of how brash they are, as well as using that thinking to distract himself from his own inability to find a girlfriend. Featherine cuts in, commenting that Battler and Jessica “have the power to interact without worrying about their sexes.”

Ange says, “People like Onii-chan and Jessica onee-chan can get along with anyone whether that person’s a boy or a girl... I hate to say it, but I find guys who act too polite... a bit creepy. It’s like they’re virgins trying too hard or something...” ange has 0 chill

George says that at one of the family conferences, he realized that the servant girls - particularly Shannon - were getting along with Battler and Jessica a lot better than with him. “Sickening, isn’t it? ...I just assumed that you liked me, and even had some childish fantasy that we might end up dating. I felt as though my girlfriend had been stolen from me and let myself feel hurt.”

He admits to trying to emulate Battler and Jessica by "joking around and speaking rudely.” That’s... an interesting mental image, and Shannon says as much!

“The reason I had no charm was because of my cowardice. Under the pretense of respecting people and acting to fit in with the general atmosphere... I was always running away. [...] ...I made an oath. This time, I would really make you take notice of me, and I would be reflected in your eyes... Actually, that’s the first thing I felt when I fell in love with you.”

I have to give George credit here - confessing to something like that takes a lot of guts. I don’t think it’s something many people could do very easily, even in private like this. Having said that, and I hate to be critical of him now of all times, I think that this is really the core of most of his problems.

He was so dedicated to “being reborn,” and takes such pride in “succeeding,” that I don’t think he’s capable of taking a look at himself and realizing he’s still got a lot of growing to do on his own. I don’t think that’s something specific to him, either - I think just about everyone has a period like that at some point. The unfortunate thing about George, though, is that he’s surrounded by people who don’t encourage him to take a critical look at himself - Eva and Hideyoshi, I think, are too close to him and too proud of him to realize it, while Shannon, if anything, usually ends up enabling him to keep acting the way he does. The result is that he never really gets a chance to move past that.

“...Sounds pretty... complicated.” lol shannon

“On that day, my desire for revenge against the two of you who ignored me and played together... no, against you alone... suddenly transformed into true love.” Even already knowing how he really felt about Battler leaving the family six years ago, George admitting to resenting Shannon like that sends a shiver down my spine - not because of how gross of an emotion that is (I think, while it’s certainly not pretty, it’s a very human response, in a way), but because he’s able to confess to it. Again, even if he’s pretty rough around the edges at times... George really is strong, in his own way.

“However, I swear this to God. Even though that was the reason I first started to take you seriously... there are no lies in the way I feel about you now. I swear to love you for all my life. I will not lie about that for anyone or anything. And I am prepared to take you as my wife, even if it means having the entire world as my enemy.”

I can only imagine how precious hearing that must be for Yasu...

George starts to say something about how he lied about Shannon being his “first love,” and she forcefully interrupts him. “Is there some rule saying that people can’t get together just because they weren’t each other’s first love? Is it betrayal to forget the first person you fell in love with...?”

“Love... isn’t that simple. Well... it might be simple... After all, love is easy. ...Always, whatever you feel now... only the honest feelings you feel now can tell you the right answer. So, things of the past or how our relationship started aren’t important at all.”

George thanks her, saying, “I was only able to become who I am because of you.” Shannon replies likewise, and asks him to describe the “kind of future we will build together.”

He starts out talking about how he wants to succeed as a businessman, then says it right-out: “Let’s have some kids.”

Shannon’s reaction here is markedly different from any other episode - she laughs, and says, “Yes, my husband.” He paints a vivid picture of a big family, “surrounded by many children and grandchildren.”

I hate to say it, but... I really can’t parse this scene from the perspective of something that actually happened on the board. Even if Battler gave her a new lease on life like I speculated, the weight of everything Yasu was dealing with... I can’t see her responding so readily to George’s family talk like this. I mean, I guess Shannon as a character might, but any other time it’s brought up, Yasu’s terrified of what might happen when George finds out the truth.

At any rate, George gives her the ring... and says, “I swear to resolutely stand against any fate which may attempt to get in the way of our future.”

He talks about how he’s ready to leave the family if worst comes to worst, and Shannon repeats his sentiments about standing against fate. Hmmm...

And then meta breaks in again, and Erika asks Battler when the murders are going to start. He just tells her to shut up and watch. lmao

Really though, right now she’s even worse than Battler used to be in the first four Episodes. While he might’ve shrugged off a lot of Beato’s fantasy scenes in a similar manner, he was rarely this rudely dismissive of them, and he at least recognized that he’d upset Beato somehow when he was (Beatrice II’s backstory in Ep3). erika is a 0/10 detective

Erika realizes that Battler’s pitying her for whatever reason, and asks him to shut the fuck up when he calls her “sad”.

“I can’t understand you at all right now. What on Earth did you figure out? Weren’t you and Beato always insulting and trying to kill each other? ...What kind of truth could you have reached to make you change your emotions regarding her? ...Please don’t tell me that feelings of true love have sprouted from your murderous rivalry or anything like that, okay?”

As much as I still can’t stand Erika in this episode, I can’t help but read her as a standin for some readers here. Battler’s sudden shift in attitude at the end of Ep5 was incredibly baffling on first read-through, and I found myself wondering the same thing as she is here (though not as coldly as this).

Back on the board, Shannon returns to the servant room in the guesthouse. Kanon immediately notices the ring on her finger.

“...So, it’s my turn next.” ooooo

[sg2tiger]

Commenting on your post about Lion's death in EP7, I doubt its Ryukishi's bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along. Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies, I can see how a massacre of some sort would go down. However, because Bern is known to twist muddle the truth (some parts of the EP7 Tea Party were inaccurate to Prime) I think she's trolling on how the massacre is carried out.

Whoa there - I’m getting the impression that you misunderstood the point of my post!! I guess I’ll go through this point by point.

“I doubt its Ryukishi’s bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along.”

Well…setting aside the fact that Ryukishi himself has admitted that he does sometimes make up aspects of the story that weren’t originally intended (source: pending), that wasn’t what my post was actually focused on. My argument (backed by various pieces of evidence from the EP7 tea party itself) boils down to this: the ‘ingredients’ that lead Rudolf and Kyrie to commit the massacre should fundamentally not exist in Lion’s world. 

The argument was then whether this was Ryukishi - a human author who can, and has, made other mistakes before - who failed to consider this (his message for this scene in EP7 is to show ‘as long as the gold exists, the adults will be driven to violence’, which is true, but my point is that the tools that allowed it to extend from violence to massacre should not have been in place)…or if it was Bernkastel’s fault, who lied intentionally, spinning a false tale for the sole purpose of driving Lion (and by extension, Beatrice, for whom Lion was the only hope) and Ange into deeper despair.

But let’s focus on that ‘Bern lied’ part first.

“Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies”

Can you show me where, exactly, in the VN it is ever stated that ‘Bernkastel never lies’…and then show me where it’s said in red? Because as far as I’m aware no such passage exists, and in fact there’s evidence in the story to the contrary. The only thing in Umineko that never lies is the red truth, and even then one of the themes of the story is that you can’t always believe in a ‘single truth’. The red is CONSTANTLY abused with various loopholes, so in essence, it’s possible to even ‘lie’ with the red. And yet nowhere are we ever told ‘Bernkastel never lies’…so I’m not sure where you’ve gotten that idea from.

(and let’s not get too far off-topic here, but wouldn’t the entirety of EP5 be a primary example of Bern, in fact, lying? She rigs the entire trial in favor of humiliating Natsuhi as a culprit and claiming she slept with Kinzo, who she knows is dead. The entire ‘truth’ of EP5 is one big fat lie.)

Realistically, the only canon justification for Lion’s world also having a massacre, I’d argue, is in fact Bernkastel lied. Since she’s hungry for revenge against Beato, she spun up a fake tale in her expanded catbox world wherein Lion is also gunned down by Kyrie following the exact same sequence of events as Prime. After all, she’s the Game Master, right? Game Masters can lie about scenes on the board - isn’t that what all of the magic scenes in Beato’s game show us? So it’s entirely possible that Bern created a fake scene showing Lion the massacre, because she never says it in red (she only says the truth of Prime that Ange saw is the truth in red). 

And she’s got no opponent in this game, to boot. Who’s going to stop her from doing this…?

Oh wait. Will. Bern didn’t know that Will was still around, but he was. And he comes back to save Lion and buy him time to escape. Except he’s unable to hold off Bern for very long, and loses an arm as a result. In the end, Will and Lion are overcome by Bern’s kitties, and the game fades to black. I cannot speak of what happens to them in EP8 (which you also seem to be referencing? As I’ve said before I have not yet read EP8, so I can’t comment on any of that yet), but the fact of the matter is that Will comes to buy time for Lion…and fails.

But there’s something about the idea that Bern lied that bugs me personally. If she had done so, deliberately…shouldn’t Will have brought this very argument up and been able to buy more time? As long as she refuses to repeat it in red, she won’t get a Logic Error, but it would be a painful argument all the same and keep her occupied. He should have been able to prevent these facts and buy Lion time to escape. She should not have been able to easily defeat Will, who would be able to argue back these facts that the tragedy could not happen in Lion’s world. And yet, Will is defeated…and seems like he barely has anything to argue against in the first place. Maybe it’s because Will hasn’t even accepted Prime as truth so he didn’t think of it, but…

I feel like ‘Bern is lying’ was not actually intended to be the conclusion when Ryukishi wrote it, but that Ryukishi simply didn’t think about these little details as to why it shouldn’t have happened. Note that I didn’t actually attack Ryukishi and say that he ‘made it up as he went along’ in my post. What’s interesting to me is that other people I’ve shown this post have also told me that they (the kinds of people in the fandom who love picking apart and analyzing it) never stopped to think about a lot of the factors i pointed out tells me that it’s entirely possible it slipped by Ryukishi, too. 

Remember - he is human. And a doujin (non-professional) author. Just because he wrote a story of a quality surpassing many professional works doesn’t mean he’s incapable of mistakes - and I feel like a lot of Ryukishi fans like to put him up on a pedestal simply because they love his work (not saying you do, but I have seen this attitude among 07th Expansion fans a lot). My thing is that you can love Umineko and still be critical of potential mistakes and errors in judgment. And you can author a great story and still mess up on smaller details. It’s human. I think he simply made a mistake that, while it doesn’t break the story overall, is, nonetheless, mistaken.

That said, I’d advise you to go back and reread the post in question again, but I’ll sum up my basic point - the factors that caused the massacre in Prime do not exist in Lion’s world. Because Yasu, inherently, does not exist in Lion’s world. And without Yasu, there would be no guns, no knowledge of the bomb, and most importantly of all there would be no 2 billion yen cash card.

Let’s ignore the first two, though. Let’s say that, somehow, Rudolf and Kyrie got access to the guns and learned about the bomb in Lion’s world (despite my post also going over how little sense this makes, but let’s just do a ‘wouldn’t put it past kinzo’ and say he left the guns and told them about the bomb). So their plan is…what, exactly? To kill everyone for giggles, escape to Kuwadorian, and wait for the bomb to clean up the mess? What do they have to gain for this? Absolutely nothing. Because the entire reason Rosa argued with Eva about the bomb was that the pile of gold would be wiped away by the explosion as well. 

Remember. The reason it still benefited Rudolf and Kyrie in Prime to use the bomb was the existence of the 2 billion yen cash card, which would let them be set for life. Who put the money on that card? Yasu. Who doesn’t exist in Lion’s world? Yasu. How much does a single gold ingot weigh? A fucking lot. How much does ten tons weigh? …well, ten tons. Which is even more of a fucking lot. It’s not something they could escape the island with, and as I also pointed out in my post, Krauss was stated to be the only one who could easily convert the illegal unmarked gold from 40+ years ago into usable cash. So not only would the gold itself be difficult for them to do much with…setting the bomb would destroy it all in the first place.

The only reason they commit the massacre is because they are able to take the already-converted 2 billion on the cash card and leave the island.

That. Is. Fundamental. Truth. And in Lion’s world, that cash card should by right not exist. Kinzo has no reason to convert 2 billion to cash and have a card and pin number ready to give his shitty kids. He hates his kids. Lion is his successor. He doesn’t think the others can solve the epitaph. Which he decided to present to them on a whim. Compared to Yasu, who prepped all of this in advance. If they solved it all Kinzo would do is say ‘enjoy your gold’ and leave the issue of how to turn it into cash in their hands - he wouldn’t hand them that kind of shortcut.

So???? There’d be no cash card in Lion’s world. Period. There is simply no way this makes sense given Kinzo’s character.

It can be simplified down like this: no cash card, no reason to set the bomb and lose all the gold, no reason to kill everyone, no tragedy. And that’s ignoring the other points I made about why they shouldn’t know about the bomb in the first place or have access to the four rifles and case full of bullets.

That was the point of my post. The factors that actually lead them to kill, by their own admission, wouldn’t have existed in Lion’s world, so Bernkastel saying ‘it happened the same way as the truth you just saw’ is incorrect. As fans, we can ‘correct’ this mistake and say ‘Bern lied, and because she didn’t do so in red Lion’s catbox is about as valid as the idea that Zombie Kanon killed Nanjo and Kumasawa in EP2′. That’s fair. We can absolutely say that Lion’s massacre was because Bern lied, because that’s the sort of thing she’d do. Featherine already got her answers, and Clair had already passed on. What happened to Lion after that had no obligation to be true, so we can simply say it wasn’t, and she did it for her own amusement. But to me, it seems more likely that Ryukishi probably just slipped up and ‘Bernkastel lied about Lion’ wasn’t actually the narrative intent.

Maybe my use of the word ‘bullshit’ was a point of confusion, in which case, I apologize. My intent was saying ‘somebody messed up here because these details won’t make sense’, not ‘OMG RYUKISHI A SHIT AUTHOR WHO PULLED THE STORY OUT OF HIS ASS’ (which in fact I made a post about once before as to why I don’t think he pulled the story out of his ass as many Ryukishi-negative people claim, so). But the fact of the matter is…there are too many reasons that the massacre wouldn’t have happened in Lion’s world to just throw up our hands and accept Bern’s truth. Either she straight-up lied, or Ryukishi goofed.

People can make mistakes. Authors can make mistakes. Ryukishi is not some kind of god, and we are allowed to criticize him (nothing stopped him from criticizing the readers, after all…). He’s made other minor mistakes in Umineko, as well. We can love Umineko as a story, and still analyze it as, well, a story, and acknowledge that the story’s author is not perfect, too. I may not like Ryukishi, but I don’t attack him baselessly, either…and I wasn’t even attacking so much as pointing out something that doesn’t make sense with the information presented. 

In the end, Lion’s world is entirely separate from Prime. This level of mistake doesn’t break the logic of Umineko as a whole, or ruin the meaning of the story Ryukishi set out to tell. It’s indeed a very minor thing…but it’s still a mistake, all the same, and one I wanted to analyze in greater detail.