When They Cry has fascinating feminist themes, it's common knowledge. But have you noticed how so many of them are unintended?
For Ryukishi, patriarchy is when Kinzo and Krauss are male chauvinists. It's when women like Eva are unfairly blocked in their career. It must be something blatant.
There are a lot of instances of complex depiction of patriarchy, that Ryukishi does not see as such. Two examples:
He describes a lot of abuse in marriage, how women are exploited and dehumanized. But he doesn't want us to reject marriage. He even wants us to consider Natsuhi and Krauss as a model (see this interview). Yes, the marriage where Krauss hides the ingot to Natsuhi. And when Natsuhi is abused by Eva, Krauss does not support her.
Take Beatrice Castiglioni. Most of the things we know about her are the narrative of Kinzo. And we know that it contains lies and embellishments. It is therefore natural to take the next step and to question whether the love between Kinzo and Bice was consensual. Bice is isolated in a country she doesn't speak the language, she's younger than Kinzo. She could have been kidnapped and sequestrated by Kinzo. It's a popular and discussed interpretation (like here, or there) Yet Ryukishi does not seem to see it. In the All Character Setting, he reaffirms that their love was reciprocal and he sets power dynamics aside.
Don't get me wrong: Umineko is a fascinating feminist text. There's a lot of depth, like in the treatment of the abuse over Rosa, Natsuhi, Eva, Sayo, and basically all the women. But it's a text written by an author called Ryukishi, he has intentions that often are not as feminist as we would like them to be.
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……….ah, ok. i misunderstood your ask, i think. at first, i thought you were asking about every one of sayo’s alters, but then i realized that if they were the case, you wouldn’t be calling them ‘every single beatrice’— that wouldn’t make any sense. and it being about every ‘iteration’ of beatrice would make a lot more sense in the context of what we’ve been talking about here anyways.
[CATEGORY 9 LONGPOST INCOMING! THIS WILL BE YOUR ONLY WARNING. ONLY INTAKE AS MUCH TEXT AS PRESCRIBED BY YOUR LOVELY WEB SURFING LIMITERS KNOWN AS ‘CEREBRAL CORTEX.’]
alongside talking about each ‘version’ of beatrice, it’s important to lay out what ‘beatrice’ as a concept was first conceived as, and how it morphed over time through each reiteration.
with bice, ‘beatrice’ exists as the forbidden, tempting female ideal for kinzo: she embodies the aspects of what he fetishizes through his obsession with western culture (european ethnicity and features; blonde hair and blue eyes, important to her fascist leanings & origins), she is his mistress, a role that disrupts upon the ideal family structure within society that kinzo himself is beheld to; she and kinzo committed a sin together (both in adultery and in killing the soldiers to obtain the gold), making her very presence in his life a way to deviate from the societal structures he disdains while never truly stepping out of them. the ‘golden witch beatrice’ is at its clearest through bice, utilizing both ‘the witch as an enchantress, a disruption to the systems that are in fact only a role meant to villainize the oppressed by the oppressor’ and ‘the witch as a force that grants miracles/reprieve, yet limited by what fuels her existence (magic <=> imagination <=> fantasy <=> refusal of reality <=> refusal of change <=> the desire to maintain involution given form.)
because of this, bice’s existence in the narrative is more object than subject. bice exists not as a character whose thoughts & responses to her circumstances are shown & deliberated upon, but as a the foundational piece (hehe), the basis for ‘beatrice’ that will then be interrogated and examined later on. her acceptance of the title of ‘golden witch’ and claiming that she is a corpse (inanimate, lacking in agency and unable to exercise her own destiny) who can only exist beside kinzo is proof of this— as the foundation for the illusion of the ‘golden witch beatrice’ in his mind, the ‘beatrice’ created from bice both as a character in the story sayo created and within the narrative of umineko itself supplements her successive beatrices, kinzo and is reliant on them as a result: she does not exist beyond kinzo’s own memories of her, and the ideas her presence gave birth to only matters so far as it informs the audience about her successors’ morphing of them.
i’d like to say that this was intentional on ryukishi’s part— to make it so that the very basis for ‘beatrice’ was only an interpretation of reality to begin with, but with the fact that he portrayed bice and kinzo’s relationship to be more on the lines of ‘tragic doomed lovers’ rather than anything else makes us think otherwise. we’re shown glimpses of who bice likely was, but only ever before she and kinzo began their affair. we don’t even get a scene of her last words! you’d think that for a character whose presence informs kinzo’s behavior, we’d get shown her last moments? i can’t imagine that it was for the sake of time.
perhaps it’s because it’d be better that way. that the version of her shown to us only existed so far as it proves that kinzo & bice’s love was ‘pure,’ to contrast the impure ‘love’ he had for kuwadorian beatrice. if there was even a hint of her dissatisfaction towards her predicament, perhaps it would’ve spoiled this perfect foil. regardless of what it was, i think it was a really regrettable writing decision that left us on a sour note on her character.
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from here, we move onto kuwadorian beatrice. since the title is a rather sickening way to refer to her, and is a bit of a typeful, let’s call her something else. how about.. mayu! let’s go with that, yes.
in mayu’s case, we can observe the change in the idea of ‘beatrice’ as kinzo attempts to recreate it through her. from the very beginning, ‘beatrice,’ in how kinzo conceived of her, was a fantasy— it was a fetishization of his mistress’ origins, ‘a witch’ which bestowed upon him both love and wealth. because of this and bice’s death, this idea was then twisted and forcefully imposed onto mayu once bice’s features came through in her adolescence. the ‘beatrice’ that exists through mayu here is a delusion that kinzo’s idea of bice coming back to life, a fantasy of a fantasy. and this fantasy of a fantasy was then reframed through the idea of ‘the witch of the woods of rokkenjima’ in order to keep people from finding mayu, making it a fantasy of a fantasy of a fantasy— fantasquaring! fantaception! fanta.. theseus? hm, no.. theseutasy? that doesn’t roll well off the tongue at all.. fantaseus? ooh, that’s nice! yes, that’ll work, most definitely!— ehem. erm, our apologies! let’s get back on topic.
this fantaseus is even further twisted when it makes its way to mayu, who kinzo has convinced that she’s ‘a vessel through which the witch beatrice’s soul is caged in,’ paralleling her own feelings about being a bird locked in a cage that is the identity of ‘beatrice’ and the kuwadorian mansion. one of these cages is fake, while the others are real; we glance back at the archetype of the witch in bice’s section: “…’the witch is an enchantress, a disruption to the systems that are in fact only a role meant to villainize the oppressed by the oppressor’..” just as the role of a witch as a disruptor is false, only meant to further perpetuate the systems at hand, the idea that ‘the witch beatrice’s’ soul is housed inside of mayu’s body is a narrative that removes mayu’s agency from the conversation. in being ‘the cage that holds the witch,’ she is no longer a subject, but an object. but unlike how the nature of bice’s function within the narrative, mayu exists outside of kinzo’s memories. we get to see appearances of her outside of kinzo’s reframings, and even though it’s through the eyes of someone else, it is in those moments that she defines herself as subject in contrast to bice declaring herself as object.
unfortunately, the moment that mayu can act upon her desire to become her own person, is also when the narrative decides that she must die. a watsonian reading of this would reason that she committed suicide— after all, if kinzo were to find out that rosa took her outside, the one person who ‘rescued’ her would be in trouble. she likely knew she wouldn’t be able to leave the island, and the consequences for her own active agreement to that escape attempt would be even worse so. committing suicide meant that she would save rosa from kinzo’s wrath (by distracting him from her participation through her own actions), and in a way ‘free’ herself from the cage that she’d be put right back into. that then parallels bice’s own acquiescence of agency (declaring herself as a corpse (dead) to remove her agency, subject -> object / committing suicide to maintain agency, object -> subject.)
at the same time, her own refusal to embody ‘beatrice’ functions with the principles of magic in umineko. as the basis for the existence of ‘the magic which held the witch beatrice inside a human vessel,’ her own denial of that fact, declaring herself just a person separate from this, was a logical explanation for her situation that discarded the idea of a witch entirely. she was not a vessel for a witch, she was a normal girl, trapped in a cage, forced to emulate a woman she never knew of. this causes the magic to be ‘undone,’ thereby ‘freeing the witch beatrice from her human vessel,’ thereby killing her. when viewed this way, the ‘beatrice’ that existed through mayu, just like how the legend framed it, never truly disappeared. in creating the portrait and trying to maintain the narrative of ‘the witch beatrice escaping her vessel,’ both kinzo and sayo ensure that the part that remains of mayu are that which define her as a ‘beatrice,’ parts that affirm their desire for involution.
and of course, this role cannot be fulfilled if she’s alive. by dying in the way she did, mayu’s presence haunts the narrative through the portrait of beatrice, through sayo’s emulation of that farcical version of her, through kinzo’s inability to move on and endless self-pitying and self-imposed atonement; she haunts it indeed, but not as herself, but as ‘beatrice.’ here we have the doylist reasoning for the narrative choosing to kill her at her clearest moment of agency: by presenting such a tragic character as mayu, showing us piece by piece the reasons behind her circumstances, her feelings regarding them, and taking it all away once she (and the audience) get a small taste of freedom, we are also placed in the same position as kinzo and sayo. we witness the process as such: you create an archetype (the witch beatrice) -> you develop the archetype, allow the audience to bond with that developing version -> you reveal a part of the truth behind that farce, one that is far more horrible than something fantastical like witches or demons -> the audience, desiring reprieve, will want the same thing as the characters themselves, no matter how wrong. there’s a reason why ‘wishing that the magic was truly real instead’ is common thought within the fanbase, after all.
you may notice that this part has gotten quite long. that’s because we truly do enjoy talking about mayu! her character, both her story and how the narrative utilizes that story, intrigues us to no end. just by existing in the story as she is, even without doing anything, mayu’s character concept is already worth much analysis by herself (thus is why we are so fixated on amon. sigh), and only really gets better in the way that she plays around with the ideas laid out by both her predecessor and successor. speaking of whom…
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finally, we arrive at the quintessential ‘beatrice,’ sayo yasuda themself. it’s very interesting that despite this role, by the time sayo tries their hand at recreating ‘beatrice,’ the idea had become little more than the fantaseus we talked about before. why would that be the case?
here we have the role of involution. we’ve gestured to it several times by now, and while you might’ve been able to guess the connecting lines by watching the embedded video within each instance of the term, i’ll explain its purpose here! you can understand ‘involution’ here not as a concept that explains the character’s motivations, but as the shape that’s formed out of the motifs one can grasp from said motivations. like a prism that reveals itself when light shines upon its fragments (magic <=> fantasy <=> fantaseus <=> escapism <=> detachment from reality <=> refusal of change <=> lack of change <=> empty movement => involution), it’s only the sum of its parts. but it’d be rather awkward for me to keep pulling up that chart everytime, no? so we named that shape ‘involution.’
through ‘involution,’ is how sayo reinterpreted the idea of ‘beatrice.’ her ‘beatrice’ was created out of a coping mechanism, her way to escape from a traumatizing situation, constantly recreated, reborn and discarding the identity of ‘beatrice’ once a more suitable successor arrives. the loop is like so: beatrice is declared -> beatrice is negated (by the creation of a new beatrice, by the creation of or arrival at something that denies the premise of ‘the witch beatrice’) -> beatrice is recreated and declared once more. as it is a loop, any kind of determination of any section of it is wiped upon the next iteration. we witness this process throughout all of the games beatrice plays with battler, as the existence of ‘the witch beatrice’ is synonymous with the magic that battler denies. you probably noticed how similar this is to the way kinzo reframed ‘beatrice,’ making it so that these two versions of ‘the witch’s loop’ is then connected to the narrative loops sayo themself writes, once again matching our previously laid down connections towards involution. two paralleling lines, spiraling in empty movement, enveloped in an even larger instance of itself.
and it is because of this that the beatrice they create is the ‘quintessential beatrice.’ ultimately, at her very fundamental core, ‘beatrice’ as a concept was one born out of love. it was a twisted, farcical, destructive love, but it indeed was ‘love,’ in the way that ryukishi wanted the audience to recognize (pure love that transforms, creates growth and movement / perversion of pure love that malforms, affirms stagnation and empty movement.)
through being the end point of this fantaseus that ‘the witch beatrice’ had become, sayo’s ‘beatrice’ allows for the maintenance of an even larger fantaseus, one that further affirms the involution that fueled its precedents: (sayo’s ‘beatrice’ (clair (gaap)) // kinzo’s ‘beatrice’ (‘the witch beatrice’ (the ‘beatrice’ imposed on mayu (bice’s self-admitted corpsehood))), and from it, sets up the premise for the nature of the golden land (a place of perpetual satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment without suffering (gratification without forward motion, empty movement) // the representation of the underground gold storage & explosives (instant wealth & power over others, gratification without forward motion— empty movement.)
we return back to our very first section once again: “…the ‘beatrice’ created from bice both as a character in the story sayo created and within the narrative of umineko itself supplements her successive beatrices…” this is what we meant by ‘supplement.’ while textually, the ‘beatrice’ created from bice was the foundation for her antecedents, metanarratively, sayo’s ‘beatrice’ was the one whose basis the others relied upon. the premise of her character was what came first, and then her precedents came into being to supplement her, allowing the audience to better understand the nature of her existence. these two statements are contradictory, but they always point towards the same answer, and they run in parallel, existing simultaneously. indeed, this is why she is a self-maintaining archetype, the ‘quintessential beatrice.’
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it’s only at the end of this whole thing that i realized you might’ve wanted to ask us about how we personally felt about each person behind ‘beatrice.’ though your question itself was a fair bit confusing to us as well.. our habit of using precise wording meant that we could only interpret it as ‘what do you think of the idea of ‘beatrice’ exemplified through each iteration... i do hope this was enough to satisfy! talking about umineko is always a real exercise, especially when it comes to beato u_u; so we tried our best to be clear as possible!
the toleration of ambivalence and maria ushiromiya's world - spoilers for EP 4 of umineko
i’ve always been intrigued by rosa and maria’s relationship, especially from maria’s perspective, even though i’m not a huge fan of rosa on a human level. what draws me in is how ryukishi manages to explore the emotional complexities of growing up, despite the abusive nature of their relationship and the broader tragedy surrounding the ushiromiya family.
i found parallels between the way maria and rosa's relationship is portrayed through maria’s perspective and certain psychoanalytic theories, particularly those of melanie klein and donald winnicott, so i'm gonna discuss them as a hardcore umineko fan and a psychology student.
melanie klein’s theory of internal objects describes how, in early stages of development, the infant does not perceive the mother as a “whole” person. instead she is split into two partial objects, most notably the breast, not only in physical terms, but also as a symbol of gratifying or frustrating experiences, depending on how the mother responds to the child’s needs. the “good breast” represents positive experiences, such as nourishment and care, while the “bad breast” symbolizes negative ones, like hunger or the mother’s absence. the bad breast is intensely hated: the child wants to bite it, hurt it, destroy it as the source of frustration. but the good breast is equally, if not more, idealized and revered. the key concept in klein’s theory is the eventual toleration of ambivalence. as the child grows, they come to realize that people are not entirely good or entirely bad, those qualities can coexist, especially in the mother, the original source of both comfort and distress. this developmental stage leads to what klein calls the “depressive position”: the bittersweet realization, around age four or five, that the world is morally ambiguous and emotionally complex. in contrast, those who fail to integrate these opposing feelings slide into a “paranoid-schizoid position”, in which ambivalence is intolerable. those individuals swing between idealization and devaluation; they can either love or hate, constantly seeking a perfect, complete sense of satisfaction they will never find on their own.
donald winnicott’s theory adds another layer to this. he introduced the concept of the transitional object: an item or behavior that helps the child bridge the psychological gap between the Self and the “non-Self” (the external world, usually represented by the mother). typically appearing within the first year of life, transitional objects (like a blanket or a stuffed animal) offer comfort, emotional regulation, and a sense of continuity during this phase. winnicott emphasized that transitional objects exist in an intermediate area, neither pure fantasy nor reality. this “transitional space” is where creativity, emotional development, and the sense of self take form.
in maria’s case, sakutarou and her entire magical belief system clearly function as transitional object. but i’d argue that her vocalization “uu-uu” serves the same function. it's a rhythmic, self-soothing behavior that protects her from emotional dysregulation and allows her to retreat into a private symbolic space. according to winnicott, such behaviors are not just defensive but essential for development, especially in environments where maternal care is inconsistent or traumatic. so when rosa destroys sakutarou, she isn’t just taking away a toy, she is violating maria’s transitional space, intruding the one stable emotional anchor her daughter had. according to winnicott, this can severely disrupt the formation of the true self, leading to increased withdrawal, anxiety, and difficulty engaging with external reality.
this is where klein and winnicott’s theories converge in maria’s character. her inner magic world, a form of transitional object that is created to compensate for the emotional absence of her mother, is split into two parts. black magic, and black witches (such as the representation of eva beatrice in EP.4, “bad mama” for maria and “crazy aunt” for ange), and white magic that brings comfort and happiness to other people.
“without love it cannot be seen” could be interpreted as a poetic acceptance of ambivalence: we must learn that the people we love can also deeply hurt us, or others, and that both realities can exist at once. moving forward, growing up, means learning to live with that truth.
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“<Die the DEATH>! <Sentence to DEATH>! <Great Equalizer is the DEATH>!!”
The Maid is a class defined almost entirely by a relationship of subservience: they have a purpose to fulfill, willingly or not, and their environment will make sure that this role is fulfilled. Doom is a very self-explanatory Aspect: it governs all that is inevitable. It is the rules, restrictions and limitations of the world, including, then, also death and ruin (which are inevitable).
Thus, I believe no combination of Class and Aspect defines so well the reluctant incarnation of Knox's Decalogue. Dlanor has a single purpose: to limit and to define what rules mysteries must adhere to a tee. Since, if all is permissible, mysteries cease to be mysteries, and become fantasies.
As the daughter (literally and figuratively) of Knox, she was born for this purpose. It isn't something she chooses, but simply the role she must fulfill. Many times, we see that she doesn't even always necessarily enjoy her role: she frequently finds herself feeling enormous pity and remorse due to her work of executing witches, but even then, she never rebels against her job. Someone has to be the Eiserne Jungfrau's executor, and she was unlucky enough to be born for this.
(Death Sentence Dlanor! Meeting her is equivalent to being Doomed for certain death.)
When on the clock, Dlanor exhibits an extremely cold and calculating disposition. She tires not to let her feelings, which are very much true, interfere with her task. This behavior of swallowing what she feels and going ahead against her wishes is very characteristic of the Maid, in my opinion (see: Jane). We see that, when off the clock, Dlanor is actually a very amiable and understanding person, even when dealing with witches (her mortal enemies by profession).
The burden of having had to judge and execute her own father, to me, also reflects heavily on her relationship with the Aspect. This was a very hard thing to do for her, but she never at any moment exhibited regret for what she did. She had a task, and she cleared it, like the tool she is.
The Extended Zodiac has a perfect excerpt for Dlanor:
“It may not sound like an overly pleasant aspect to be aligned with, but it does come along with great wisdom and empathy. The Doom-bound understand that misery loves company, and they are ready and willing to provide said company. The Doom-bound won't fix you; they aren't healers. They are commiserators, aware that sometimes the only thing you can do for a person is let them know that they are not alone in their suffering. They are not the advice friend-they're the friend you go to when you need to vent about a rough day at work.”
This is 100% the role Dlanor fulfills in her free time: frequently, she finds herself accompanying others' misery and offering a shoulder to cry on, specially to Erika Furudo. We also see more of this later, when she births sympathy for Battler and Beatrice, in the last episodes. I also think the fact that she doesn't exactly go out of her way to hear others, but rather that they mostly come themselves to her, to be very relevant.
Bonus: she is always swamped with paperwork in the Eiserne Jungfrau. Being the Chief Inquisitor isn't a role that permits much agency. Very "Maid-coded", if I may.
“There is nothing that time cannot HEAL. And there is no truth that cannot be reached if you spend enough time SEARCHING. …However, all courts place time limits upon determining the TRUTH. And a truth that cannot be reached within that time limit cannot become TRUTH.”
I believe the label of ‘furniture’ itself, like anything that isn’t given a complete answer, to host a catbox of meanings, so I’ll list some thoughts and categorize them by factual/thematic v.s. (meta-)fictional. I am separating these categories based on the word’s two ‘origins’: [1.] the ‘in-universe’ coinage; and [2.] the first usage within the episodic structure.
Regarding/defining categories:
Factual/Thematic:
The canon, chronological storyline [1.] underneath the story’s presentation tends to connect more to the Factual—I use this term to refer to the material events upon which everything else is built (‘Prime’) because Umineko likes to play with the word ‘Truth.’ Extra-gameboard events are as close to ‘factual’ as we can hope for, as they should occur outside of the Catbox. I willfully ignore the gestures pointing otherwise, as that would completely ruin the entire game’s truth-search, but I will concede differing ‘perspectives’ as a means of obscuring, and stories told by catbox pieces to be dubious. Literal and Thematic are not oppositional here; all metaphor/hyperbole/concepts in this category are rational extensions of the in-universe ‘reality’ because they remain as such—by this I mean that they are not visualized as chairs or rabbits, but instead concepts as intuitive as love and evil that exist among the world's inhabitants. Although these themes are delicately woven into the meta-fiction, they are born from ‘reality,’ not personified from a third source or a tool within the game.
2. (Meta-)Fictional:
The story’s presentation [2.] aligns more with the subjective, fantastical elements within the story. Considering the nature of an ‘endless witch’ and voyager witches in general, the Meta-World falls into this category as well (Also... take my usage of 'Meta' lightly—I am referring to fiction-within-fiction and the common term for the worlds, not asserting that Umineko is an effective work of MetaFiction). The gameboards in their entirety cannot logically exist without Meta interference, because their planes often (arbitrarily) merge. To simplify the discussion I’m treating the layers somewhat like this: —> (Note: it would take me ages to map out a consistent meta layer system for Umineko, so bear with the simplicity)
Prime - Umineko’s ‘real’ universe. The fragment of authored message bottles and (pardon my presumption) Ange/Eva’s survival. + What can reasonably be gleaned chronologically from the following layer (2) along with flashbacks.
Gameboards and the pieces within them. Were written with an intended purpose & elements of reality. In order of importance: 1, 2 > 3, 4 > Chiru
The Meta-World 1. Where Battler and Beatrice fight & the presentation/narration of the board. Seems to seep into every other layer somehow. Hypothetically contains Yasutrice as-author
The Meta-World 2. Whatever the hell was going on with Featherine and Ange reading about MW1. Arguably any extra-catbox people (voyager&endless witches of the future) contribute to this layer.
My Factual-thematic category focuses nearly entirely on layer 1, with extrapolation from persistent themes/discussions in 2. My (Meta-)fictional category encompasses layers 2 & 3. 4 can be relevant but I largely dislike using it for theories. In other words, category 2 is everything that is non-factual, meaning mostly presentation and interpretation.
I. Factual / Thematic
The in-universe coinage of ‘furniture’ is only disclosed in Reqiuem. I find this to be an interesting choice considering the inverted ‘answer sheet’ theme of EP7; Ryukishi is handing us a short, retrospectively logical explanation, but its brevity leaves much to be interpreted.
"This body that isn't even capable of love...!! / What's...what's the point in living like that?! / This isn't a Human's life...!! / It's like being furniture!! / That's right, I'm...furniture...!!"
The term is suddenly flipped on its head. Prior, furniture was presented as unable to love because it was furniture (implied to be status-based, seemingly just an effect of inferiority). However, it’s the other way around: one is furniture because it cannot love. The condition of the body precedes & defines worth. Unlike the dramatized, bodiless nature of Beato’s fantasies, this solution is grotesque and earthly. Being physically alienated from the universe of two makes one sub-human. Yasu-Shannon-Kannon’s—I’ll use ’YSK’—mutilated organs make ‘them’ (collective, not gender-neutral) unable to form a sexual union with any of their respective partners. Shannon cannot fulfill the marital duty of motherhood or even sex with George, Kanon is literally impotent, both physically and emotionally/volitionally in his pursuit of Jessica, and Yasu is so alienated from the feminine ideal that she cannot allow herself to ‘exist’ without performing through the former two (&Beatrice). None of them are sexually ‘complete.’
Continuing the material interpretation, its application to Genji is obvious: He loyally serves Kinzo as a friend and confidant, possesses a flamboyant, flirtatious fictional counterpart, and remains unmarried with a certain sterility towards women... He is gay. Blatant subtext aside this answer also ties up some of my personal qualms with his characterization. His senseless, sociopathic dedication to the head and his successor, complete unwillingness to intervene regarding Kuwatrice, and legitimate desirelessness can at least partially be humanized by lolgayforkinzo… If anything, a possible envy of Beatrice(s) could have solidified their doom. This unrequited love makes Genji too ‘sexually incomplete.’ While not literally mutilated, there is metaphorical castration in being a sexual minority. Kinzo would never love him, and I doubt Genji even respected himself enough to wish for it. He is the other half-universe that complements YSK, and possibly the only one who could begin to understand them. Their dramatically fatalistic tendencies can be narratively justified by their banishment from (yet proximity to) the world of love. There is no purpose in ‘living’ without the single element of life.
On a simpler note, we can also reverse-engineer the label simply based on those excluded. On my first read, ‘furniture’ initially, obviously seemed to be a hyperbolic representation of servitude. Being barricaded from the rest of society by class would certainly render one ‘sub-human.’ This, however, is self-eliminating by exempting Gohda and Kumasawa from the label. My immediate conclusion then was that the basis was not physical status, but psychological servitude. KumaGoh always felt far more human to me, which I chalked up to abysmally poor writing of ShKaGenji—a belief I still hold to an extent, but have found ways to cope with. Kumasawa and Gohda are distinctly rebellious, obviously thinking little of their status as servants. They are petty, greedy individuals who fit in well with the Ushiromiyas despite their class differences. Kumasawa is a pathological slacker, and Gohda is a skirt of responsibilities, but this doesn’t make them 'bad' in any sense. They have a passion for and qualms with their employment because it is their job, not their identity. The same cannot be said for SKG, who literally embody their vocation. I could never take their little spats with Beatrice seriously because of how bizarrely complacent they were in the face of reality; to this day I get irritated with searching for satisfactory answers in EP2. Thus, ‘furniture’ can be taken to mean a lack of humanity constituted by a lack of will & individuation.
In a similar (& more personally satisfying) vein, ‘Furniture’ can represent a debt and unbreakable tie to Kinzo. ShKanon and Genji are closer than anyone to being his property, yet they obtain strange respect from him, bearing the One-winged eagle as both a brand and honor—prized possessions. The magical perspective refers to them as his ‘creations,’ which works literally with Yasu/Lion as his paternal creation and Genji-as-servant as a circumstantial creation. Genji owes Kinzo as his savior, his remaining existence eternally devoted to paying back the favor of being spared from death in the seizing of Taiwan. Serving for so long, and so absolutely, definitely degraded his sense of humanity and began to merge his identity with his master’s.
(GEN): ”......We must continue to return the favor we received from the Master...until our final moments."
YSK, on the other hand, are tied to Kinzo by blood. Even in their ignorance and physical distance, and much to their personal detriment, they cannot escape him. They merge with projections of Beatrice without even meeting him, they come to work in the mansion without knowledge of their ancestry, and they become treasured servants seemingly by coincidence. Both ShKanon and Genji have a sense of being Kinzo's above all else, to the point of being distrusted as servants by the rest of the family, an unfortunate state since neither has families of their own. I think of this as a semi-intended and enforced alienation by Kinzo, furthering their already lonely situations for the sake of dependence and loyalty (I do not find this entirely loveless, though…). This loneliness could explain the affective resignation felt by furniture, and their inability to ‘love.’ YSK’s case is cemented in youth due to special treatment both inciting bullying and cultivating a strange relationship between them and Kinzo—Kanon’s mention of shooting with Kinzo and participating in pranks tugs on a heartstring I can’t explain. I am particularly fond of this interpretation…
II. (Meta-)Fictional
There is a stupid amount of facets to furniture in the 'fictional' portion of the story, to the point where it’s difficult to speculate on a cohesive definition. 50 new characters now fall under the label, and they must be encompassed as well. Is the term simply an extension of its connotation in reality, or is it morphed by meta-context like many of the other themes? My vote? Entirely Meta.
As I did earlier, I will begin with the first usage—this time, the coinage within the episodic structure [2.]. Doing this, I found something interesting:
The first use of furniture is Self-Referential and used as a reason to not do something: Kanon not giving a real interactive greeting, or accepting sweets; Shannon not fighting off Battler’s assault. It actually takes a while for the term to be used by non-furniture, making it appear entirely self-imposed. The word is persistently used despite the discomfort and intervention by others. It’s not self-deprecation or knowledge of one’s place; it’s a rule—a rule seemingly ingrained into the fabric of their existence. This is what I assert in this section—it is.
Shannon, Kanon, and Genji to a lesser extent, are wholly pieces owned by Yasu as their author. Not in the sense that Piece-Maria or Piece-Eva are pieces—I mean literal fiction. SKG are Yasu’s characters. Their differentiation from ‘humans’ all hinges on what can be ascribed to their fictionality.
They have an unchangeable position in the world because they are born with a singular practical purpose: to facilitate the gameboards’ culprit. (The strife that appears down the line is due to the conflicting purpose of creation) They cannot obey promises, only orders. Furniture does nothing but rot with the passage of time (…due to the triumph of new truths, I presume). Furniture is a reliable ‘tool,’ aptly fitting for characters who exist to fit neatly into the logic of murders, allowed meta-sentience but not autonomy. Writing about Humans is inefficient; you must cater to their flaws and desires, bound by what they Would or Wouldn’t do. What they are shown to be like is what they are like; the room for duplicity is small in stories corroborated by the Truth of the outside world. To surpass this—to create the perfect culprit without constraints, morals, or ties to reality—one only must ensure they are embodied. Embodied, they must be, by someone who could feasibly be them, due to an intentional lack of information. The benefit of the ambiguous identity is the excusability of multiple identities and secret motives. Yasu, with the least history, is the default, practical culprit for such a scheme. It would be entirely possible for Yasu to have no motive against the family at all, and through a simple desire to write the most effective story possible, just happened to write herself as the villain (though I obviously do not believe this, based on… well… everything).
Genji is not quite ‘fictional’ in the way that I’m claiming ShKanon are, but his nature makes him the perfect culprit-tool. Little can be known regarding prime-Genji aside from his undying loyalty to Kinzo and his successor (and how this makes him starkly morally bereft). Without family or distinct loyalties aside from the aforementioned, he too becomes a motive-mystery, and can be written to feasibly facilitate and assist almost any act if dictated by the ‘Master.’ The role of Master is pretty significant regarding Genji’s utility, considering that if the boards are chronologically honest (which they must be), Kinzo is dead and Yasu is ‘the Master.’ This aggressively recontextualizes most of Genji’s references to being furniture:
(GEN): ".......I believe everything has proceeded as the Master has hoped and arranged for. ...To distrust that would exceed my role as furniture in service to the Master.”
(KAN): "...............I wonder if this means the Master's ceremony has already begun." / (GEN): "...Probably. However, that has nothing to do with furniture like us.”
Obviously, we could read this as commentary on Yasu literally carrying out the murders, but the passivity and strange sentience regarding the ceremony leads me to believe this comes from a character aware of his narrative function. He was Yasu’s original ‘piece’ in reality, remaining her greatest asset in fiction as well. His loyalty was not just feasible, but real. Like ShKanon, he functions as a limitless Queen. Unlike SK, though, he does little to ever interfere or reject his status. Although, there is that scene of him knifing the butterfly…
Before I discuss the other(s)’ fictionality, I have to preface: I will not suspend my disbelief—I do not think ShKanon was a ‘thing’ in prime. I don’t doubt the mental manifestation of Kanon as an ideal, and am even open to a Kanon ‘alter,’ but I cannot accept that YasuShannon regularly dressed up as him or that anyone knew of a Kanon (besides maybe Genji, and even that’s tenuous). I honestly don’t mind the impracticality of performing Kanon, more so the meaninglessness. Within a gameboard ruleset where absurdities being ‘technically possible’ warrants its writing as truth, why would Kanon be real? Wouldn’t that be stripping Yasu of her hilarious authorial tricks? His existence as “extra person without extra body” is the perfect tool for a game, but totally worthless in reality. It’s not unreasonable that he ‘existed’ at Jessica’s school festival as a favor, but I wouldn’t push further than that. Besides, he was 90% covered and still considered strikingly young and androgynous, which only confirms the difficulty of genderswapping in reality. Plus, most of the ‘confirmation’ of PrimeKanon exists among swaths of half-truths (i.e. Requiem stating that a whole separate kid is being summoned out of thin air and Yasu is doing magic). Don’t take this as discrediting his significance, though; Beatrice also isn’t ‘real,’ and she’s more interesting for it.
As for Shannon, she is also largely fake. Yes, the servant named ‘Shannon’ exists in Prime. That is Yasu (or, well, what was left after the Clair-trice fragmentation [Ironically enough, I do actually take this absurd plot point at face value. Because it’s interesting]). However, I truly believe that Gameboard Shannon (GS) is a fictional entity born to serve (exempting murders) the desire for conformity and traditional femininity as much as Kanon was born from loneliness and repression. Again, these facets and desires absolutely existed in reality, I just don’t see them as being sustainable, performed identities. The fact that Battler’s memories of his first love aren’t remotely jogged by GS, and the fact that such memories would make the culprit obvious, insists upon the idea that GS is an intentional construction for the sake of the story. Battler isn’t an idiot, his androgynous intellectual gf just morphed into a moeblob tradwife over 6 years…
I feel like there’s a sticking conception that either: 1. Shannon is literally mentally Beatrice le evil culprit mastermind and is just inhabiting a servant body; or 2. Shannon is completely disconnected and the evil witch is hidden in her head as a separate consciousness and possesses her and seriously fights her alternate personas. I find these neither compelling nor reasonable. As for the first, I really do not feel like labeling a character’s entire real-world existence as a facade, no matter how boring they may be. Besides, it would be quite difficult to earnestly repress your true self enough to love not one, but two other people on the side. As for the second, a split personality is meaningless and nigh impossible when within the board’s logic you can literally kill, resurrect, and swap identities at will. They’re all fiction. That’s it. They’re all Yasu’s characters. Granted, they each contain large, separate amounts of herself, but none are uniquely her. As Zepar and Furfur said, “Their soul is less than a single person.” Existent, in a sense, but not fully ensouled.
It should go without saying that I reject Prime!JessiKanon or and ShaGeorge (for the most part). I think their inclusion in the story is a mechanic to solidify just how disconnected Yasu’s desires and ‘selves’ are, and to provide ample commentary on Love. It’s entirely likely that Yasu fantasized a romantic pursuit of George to distract herself from Battler, but I have a hard time reconciling her character with that sort of activity unless, again, Shannon was a literal split identity. Besides, the love square serves to soften the absolute disingenuousness of ShKanon for being what they are—tools.
However, Shannon does have an undeniable centrality, a ‘Heart’ that the others are not afforded, including Beatrice. My answer for this is that she is the only one truly Embodied outside of the board, pushing her into a strange half-furniture, half-human category. Kinzo is said to have made her by hand without a demon and to have given her a heart. This alludes to her being a child born from flesh, not contrived by circumstance. As always, Kinzo is paralleled by Yasu, who has a similar (meta-)relationship to Shannon.
Gameboard-Shannon does not ‘exist,’ but she surely contains the most real rudiments of Prime-’Shannon.’ Though less than human, she is Named and privileged with a body the others could never have. Her higher existence can also be explained by her being the simplest to potentially ‘exist’ (no gender-bend, no blonde witch). The conflict between her narrative role as Yasu’s piece and the narrative constraints of her ties to reality affords her a special rebelliousness, manifesting as a stronger Heart. Shannon’s bindings to Prime are a hindrance from an authorial perspective, narrowing culpability, but a privilege to the piece herself, who may circumvent fate with her ‘humanity.’ This is why she always precedes Kanon, and why she wins the love duel (Yes, I think the duel was identity>love). I also believe that Yasu envied the conceptual GS (The Beatrice/Shannon clash is enough to evidence this) and that Shannon’s internal strife is a consequence of Yasu’s teetering consideration of embodying her completely—hence the “heart that can know love.” By abandoning her Self and personifying this ideal, she could pursue a love beyond Battler, but it would be a charade. Thus the ‘Shannon’ character was trapped in a dream she wasn’t allowed, with a new purpose outgrowing the old, fighting her own authorship.
“…Burning with infatuation and worried by love, being tempted constantly and eternally with a way out was truly a cruel trial.”
This could easily be read as Yasu’s conception of Shannon—her last way “out.” However, her piece is not allowed to transgress its role, or the catbox games would shatter.
Though I have agonized over it, I don’t think my thoughts here ignore the heart. To understand the nature of furniture, one must deconstruct each character and what makes them human. Metaphors & representation are crucial to Umineko and, by extension, Yasu. The motive compelling one to author iterative ‘selves’ containing neuroses invisible in reality yet contained in one body for the sake of their nature being solved is far more bittersweet than reverse-engineering a split personality because it’s the only way to make the Logick Work. Applying the sentiment of Eva-trice and the black witch, internal conflict may be made comfortable through literal bifurcation, but the mind in reality is painfully united. The possession of multitudes can justify the inability to understand or accept yourself; to love yourself. Many but one.
I consider the Golden Land’s ‘liberation’ of furniture into love & bodies of their own to be the opposite of what it seems—instead of external fabrication, the identities unite cohesively within the single mind, thus allowing them ‘each’ a body and the capacity to love.
TLDR; Furniture in the meta-perspective is the role of a character & narrative tool. Furniture in ‘reality’ is a physical, psychological, and relational condition.
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I feel like Maria Ushiromiya is Umineko's litmus test for not only your general empathy towards children (because let's be honest, society doesn't regard kids as people deserving of respect) but also your reading comprehension and how far you've gotten into Umineko.
Anime onlies even from episode 1 have always notoriously applauded Rosa beating Maria for exhibiting "abnormal" or "annoying" behaviours and there's SO many meme gifs of a 9 year old being slapped (Rose garden scene). And even when they reach the adaption of Maria's backstory arc, you'll always see people yet again claiming "She deserved it" or that Rosa was valid. These types of people generally dont believe in a child's autonomy, nor have empathy if that child is in some way irritating.
And for those that completely changed their mind and realised that Maria was actually someone that was a victim, they too aren't excused from their previous opinions of how Rosa treats her daughter. They still thought that since Maria was annoying, she deserved to be verbally and physically assaulted.
However when you talk to Umineko readers, you find that "population" of Maria haters remains niche or in consistent decline. This only becomes further cemented through the backstory arc in the novel (which imo was done far better than the anime), but this is also where the reading comprehension comes in.
Alot of the time, readers miss the point of Ryukishi's writing concerning Maria and settle on the idea that there's some sort of "grey area" regarding Rosa's treatment of her daughter. The novel explicitly explains that what she does is abhorrent and that it ISNT a morally grey subject matter.
I will also acknowledge that Ryukishi also explores Rosa's problems and perspectives too, of her own trauma that leads into the abuse of Maria, but never once does the narrative seek to excuse it or paint the situation as something other than truly cruel. It is a perfect expression of the cycle of abuse within families and as difficult it is to read/watch Rosa internally struggle with her guilt over her violence, she never actually changes her behavior.
If you cannot at least empathise with Maria, how on earth will you be able to understand the struggles of Beatrice, and the meaning behind the narrative itself?
Would you believe me if I told you that this character
is like this
and this?
While I watched Neo in RWBY, I couldn't help but notice the similarities she has to Umineko's Beatrice and Bleach's Sosuke Aizen and I'll explain all of these in more detail here:
NEOPOLITAN AND BEATRICE - IMAGINATION, MAGIC AND ESCAPISM
Beatrice is a character of Umineko who is known to be the Golden Witch but her true identity is Sayo Yasuda, Kinzo's illegitimate daughter born by incest who after Natsuhi accidentally pushed the servant who was holding Sayo causing Sayo to lose her private parts, being saved by Genji and Kumasawa who raise her in secret to avoid another incestuous episode by Kinzo. This caused Sayo to have insecurities about herself and her own gender and to make matters worse the other maids start to pester her for her clumsiness in her work as a maid and her only friend was Kumasawa with whom she develops a love for mystery stories and magic in general. Sayo was unhappy and always alone so she started creating imaginary friends to make up for her loneliness and because of her love for magic she created Proto Beatrice (later know as Gaap) to explain her own clumsiness and later creates Shannon persona, the perfect servant girl. Sayo's imagination becomes her refuge but also her prison because it gave relief to her loneliness and made her feel good about herself but in turn this isolated her from others. Later she meets Battler and for the first time she doesn't feel lonely for long but due to her loneliness she trusts Battler too much to the point that she takes seriously Battler's promise that he would come back for her but when he doesn't come back which makes Sayo feel betrayed but to make matters worse she discovers her true identity as Kinzo's illegitimate daughter, she goes mad, takes Beatrice persona as her own and think that she's a real witch.
Later Sayo causes Rokenjima incident as a way to get revenge on the family that hurt her and especially Battler for leaving her alone but in turn she feels bad for everything she has done and chooses to commit suicide by drowning in the sea.
In the meta world Beatrice plays the killing games with Battler so that he knows that the reason for the Rokenjima incident is so that he would remember the promise he made to her when she was Sayo.
Do you know who more was born in a rich and toxic family that hurt her for her disability, used her imagination as a form of freedom and escapism and ended up loving a man just so that when that man disappears she goes mad and seeks revenge as a result?
Beatrice and Neo are adults who act like children so they lash out at others but they don't take responsibility for their actions nor do they realize how their actions hurt others, they only care about their own pain. This is even seen when Sayo and Trivia create their imaginary friends (Gaap or Proto Beatrice and Pink Neopolitan) not only to feel accompanied but also to blame them for their mistakes.
Beatrice's actions led to the terrible situation that Eva was forced to live in as the sole survivor of her family and having to deal with the media accusation that she killed everyone on the island when in fact Eva was suffering for the loss of her husband Hideyoshi and her son George and the rejection of Ange and Ange herself had to endure being bullied at school for being the daughter of Rudolf and Kyrie, alleged murderers of Rokenjima, and also in her desire for her parents to return, rejected Eva believing that her parents and brother would come back for her. Battler was also hurt by Beatrice's actions because by trying to follow her and stay with her in her death, he survives but doesn't remember anything and is found by Ikuko Hachiyo who he marries and is tormented by memories that come to him through nightmares. Neo for her part wants revenge against Cinder but she is manipulated for her to help her and unload her anger against Ruby which makes Neo help Cinder to destroy an entire kingdom without mentioning that her actions are indirectly helping Salem to destroy the world because Salem's plan is to make the world a chaotic place so that when the Brother Gods are summoned they will destroy the world as a result of the chaos that exists.
Another thing that both have in common is their powers and how both are based on the manipulation of reality through imagination to some extent. Beatrice is a witch whose powers basically consist of making what she imagines come true, forcing reality to make what she believes to be real be real because Sayo, her true identity, dealt with loneliness through her imagination. The above can be seen from the fact that she didn't ask to revive Sakutaro because she believed that Rosa denied it but Angel revives him simply because she believed that Sakutaro was alive by having a spare stuffed animal.
Neo's semblance allows her to manifest whatever she imagines into reality in illusions made of glass that everyone can see.
Both powers force reality to operate under the rules of Beatrice and Neo and even said powers are enhanced in places linked to the imagination (the Golden Land is a kingdom created by Beatrice where everything she thinks comes true and Neo is in Ever After, a magical place where it reflects the psyche of the characters and therefore also reflects the imagination). Beatrice's golden magic and Neo's semblance are perfect powers for a lonely and imaginative child and for deadly assassins, imagination is a double-edged sword because although Beatrice and Neo deal with their loneliness with their imagination (they create imaginary friends) and it gives them the freedom they feel they don't have with their original identities (Beatrice - Sayo Yasuda, Neopolitan - Trivia Vanille) in turn they get stuck in their own heads who just can't accept reality and instead look for reality to be as they want or believe it should be.
Beatrice and Neo are witches, Beatrice, as I said before, is the Golden Witch and Neopolitan is based on Trivia, the Roman goddess of witchcraft and there is something interesting about the concept of a witch in Umineko which is that a person becomes a witch by feeling rejection of their reality but they puts aside their humanity and their ties to other people and this also applies in RWBY: Sayo couldn't stand her life as a human and took the identity of Beatrice to feel free and take revenge and in the end she ends up in the Golden Land and in RWBY while team RWBY looks to get out of Ever After and Jaune can't get out until he gets help, Neo seems rather comfortable in Ever After and may even want to stay there.
Beatrice dies in real life not accepting the blame for her actions and ends up alone in the Golden Land until the end of Umineko where Battler finally reunites with her and Neo is running the risk of ending up just like Beatrice: ending up as a lonely witch in an imaginary world.
NEOPOLITAN AND SOSUKE AIZEN - LIVING MIRRORS
If there is something we know about Neo, it is how she is essentially a living mirror, not only because she creates illusions made of glass that everyone can see, but also because she is a mirror for the characters, especially for Ruby, but they know that another character curiously share these same traits with Neo?
Sosuke Aizen is a character from Bleach and one of the main antagonists of the manga. Not only does he share some physical similarities with Neo, but his powers are illusions visible to all who have seen his Shikai's activation and something curious is that Neo's and Aizen's illusions are made of glass.
Glass is an element that in fiction represents fragility, which gives us clues that Aizen and Neo's senses of identity are as fragile as glass itself: Aizen's identity is fragile because it is only based on what he can do (his intellect and his powers) to the point that he feels that morality does not apply to him, he feels that only he can change and rule the Soul Society and Ichigo even speculates that the reason Aizen wanted to conquer Soul Society was because of his desire for an equal, that his extreme power and intelligence only served to isolate him from the moment he was born (this can be seen in his effort to strengthen Ichigo as well as his respect for Kisuke Urahara stems from seeing them as equals) and Neo feels oppressed by her own family for not accepting her because of her disability and she unconsciously feels that no one is going to accept her and takes refuge in her idealized identity (Neopolitan) where she is powerful and free to do what she wants without being nobody oppresses her but she defines herself only by her bond with Roman (after their relationship goes from transactional to something genuine, Roman is the only one who respects her and wants her) and her life as a criminal that gives her freedom makes her dependent on Roman and unable to form bonds with others. Aizen and Neo were born with physical and/or mental conditions (Aizen - high intellect and enormous spiritual pressure and Neo - muteness and her semblance) that made them feel different from others, which caused their actions and their identity to be based on said conditions to the point that their powers they serve to reflect that sense of self that both have of themselves: sharp but fragile.
Aizen and Neo not only have a glass motif because of their fragile sense of self but also because they are mirrors that reflect the characters.
Aizen is a reflects that reflects Kisuke, Toshiro, Starrk and even Ichigo himself:
Aizen reflects Kisuke because they are both renowned geniuses for their great intellect and even looking to create something new just because they could just because Kisuke has moral boundaries that he dares not cross and Aizen just doesn't care about morals.
Aizen reflects Toshiro in the sense that they were both born prodigies having extremely enormous power and were ostracized because of it but Toshiro didn't let their power define him as a person but saw it as a part of himself and he managed to bond with the others while Aizen saw his power and intellect as his complete identity, which made him unable to have a bond with anyone.
Aizen reflects Starrk because they are both extremely powerful beings but this distanced them from each other because the others were weaker than them, making both wish they were weak in order to bond with others or meet people who were as strong as them or mlre. Starrk created Lilinette and found people (including Aizen himself) for him to be with without being overwhelmed by his power, relieving his loneliness while Aizen is unable to bond with anyone because he finds no one he considers an equal or that they are powerful enough that they are able to withstand his own power.
Aizen reflects Ichigo because they are both extremely powerful but both just want to be normal, the difference is that Ichigo knows that this is his wish, he expresses it openly and in the end lives a normal life with his family while Aizen does not recognize or realize it of that desire and seeks to be superior to others.
Neo is also a mirror that reflects other characters, in her case, Team RWBY and Jaune:
Neo reflects Ruby in that they both deal incorrectly with the loss of a loved one, refuse to examine themselves so they can't face said loss, and dress like said loved ones (Ruby wears clothing resembling the ones her mother Summer wore and Neo wears Roman's hat and gray cloth) to feel close to them and/or to feel that they are still alive in some way. Ruby suppresses everything she feels and decides to move on and Neo gets carried away by her emotions to the point that she doesn't care if she and others get hurt.
Neo reflects Weiss in the sense that they both grew up in a rich but toxic family and wanted to be free but Weiss grows as a person because she had the support of Winter and then she has the positive support of RWBY which allows when Weiss goes down in Ever After After losing her father and her home, she doesn't lash out at anyone but rather seeks to leave the place while Neo has no personal growth because she did not know anyone, she loses her parents who oppressed her and Roman is left, who does love her but his support it's not positive and when she loses him Neo gets angry and lashes out at others and doesn't seem to be concerned about staying in Ever After.
Neo reflects Blake because they were both born with conditions that make them different from the others (Blake is a Faunos and Neo is mute) and they were strongly discriminated for it and they both get together with a man (Adam and Roman) who lead them astray but they stay with them for accepting them only Adam becomes more and more violent and Blake leaves him to have a better life and manages to have healthy relationships with other people while Neo stays with Roman and she doesn't form bonds with other people and Roman, unlike Adam with Blake, he truly respects and loves Neo but being a criminal he led her down that same path and when Neo loses him she has no one else.
Neo reflects Yang in the sense that they are both proud of who they are and violently attack all those who hurt their loved ones and don't think about the consequences of their actions. The difference is that Yang learns that she shouldn't live and show only her idealized self but must accept that her vulnerability is a part of her identity and that she shouldn't reject it and she also learns that violence is not the answer to everything but has to to think things through before doing them and pay attention to the big picture while Neo clings to her idealized identity but puts aside his share of Trivia (her vulnerability) and Neo in her eagerness to lash out without thinking doesn't think about her actions which makes her easy for Cinder to manipulate neither does she think that what happened to Roman was partly his own fault and partly just a circunstance that could have happened at any time nor does she think about the bigger picture and how their actions affect that big picture.
Neo reflects Jaune in the sense that they were both seeking revenge for the death of a loved one (Pyrrha and Roman) at the hands of Cinder (only Roman didn't die directly for Cinder but he die by agreeing to do her plan) because they have no idea how to deal with the pain of losing a loved one and in turn cling to an idealized identity that gives them a sense of purpose (Jaune as a knight and Neo in his current Neopolitan identity). Jaune tries to take revenge on Cinder but everything goes wrong until he discovers his semblance and saves Weiss and puts aside his revenge, later in Atlas he learns to improve his defense and embraces his identity as a knight until he is forced to kill Penny because she asks him and from what we has seen, Jaune will have to examine himself, accept Penny's death and also accept the fact that he hurt her in order to reconcile with himself and find a new purpose and grow as a person while that Neo tries to take revenge on Cinder but she manipulates her into helping her and attack Ruby, and later betrays her and Neo instead of examining herself and her purpose that has her current identity, she simply chooses to stay with her current purpose which is to continue attacking Ruby and probably against Cinder, doesn't accept Roman's death and she doesn't care if she or others get hurt because of her which makes Neo have no personal growth.
The fact that Aizen and Neo reflect the characters is so true that they can even literally become reflections of the characters as if they were mirrors. They reflect what the characters hide from themselves or what they can become if they give in to their flaws and even Aizen and Neo use their powers to confuse their enemies and turn them against themselves.
Like I said earlier, Neo, Beatrice and Aizen have powers that influence reality to make it whatever they want but they don't get what they really want. Basically their powers make them writers but they are writers who don't know write a story that they like, being writers of their own tragedy: Sayo ends everything and just wants to die, Aizen wants company but never realizes his wish and ends Sealed in the Muken and Neo can't accept Roman's death and lashes out at everything and everyone, leading to a bad ending for Beatrice and Aizen and Neo runs the risk of ending up having a bad ending like Beatrice and Aizen.
I don’t want to spam up the tag with such a pointless collection of posts, but old habits die hard...so while I know that we now know the truth behind these answers thanks to the manga, and it’s all probably really obvious to most people now, I still want to go through all the mysteries myself before ‘confirming’ the solutions with the manga. Maybe it’s because I just finished that rambling post about what things were like back before we had such answers...but I feel like I can’t just...read this section without actually analyzing it on my own. So I’m just gonna dump them all here in one post under a Read More. Honestly this is more for my own satisfaction than anything, so feel free to ignore.
Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch
Starting things off super obvious. Illusions to illusions = something that was complete fantasy and didn’t happen. There are of course only five corpses in the shed - Shannon is absent, with Yasu instead as Kanon standing over the spot where Shannon is supposed to be. Hideyoshi, the only other witness, was bribed by Yasu in Episode 1 and asked to play along with the ruse to convince George not to confirm Shannon’s corpse with his own eyes. It was left to the roulette whether or not George would listen to his father, but ultimately he did, and Shannon’s true fate remained undiscovered.
A chain of illusions. The chain was never set in the first place. Kanon and Genji were the ones who discovered the crime scene - both accomplices in the crime itself. Yasu went to Eva and Hideyoshi’s room as Kanon after the commotion in the parlor about the receipt. As Eva and Hideyoshi were both bribed in EP1, they undid the chain (assuming they even set it to begin with) because it was someone they believed they could trust. Whether they knew Kanon = Beatrice or simply were told that the servants of the one wing were trustworthy, it’s hard to say, but they did invite him in willingly. Of note is the fact that there were no signs of struggle in that room - so the fact that Eva, a martial arts master, would not have put up a fight against her killer, is one hint to the fact that the killer was someone she trusted enough to turn her back to.
Eva let Kanon in and returned to her position relaxing on the bed, turning the volume on the TV low while they discussed the next step in the plan. Hideyoshi was most likely in the shower at the time and hadn’t even heard Kanon enter over the sound of the running water - after all, all the mansion’s guest rooms have roughly the same design, and from EP6 we know that Erika didn’t notice the sound of Battler leaving the closed room and exchanging places with Kanon while she was distracted by the trap. We also know fromConfession that Yasu hid the guns around the mansion at places she would need them in advance, so most likely there was already one inside Eva and Hideyoshi’s room - Kanon would have thus been a lot less suspicious entering the room without a weapon (otherwise it’d be weird that Eva sat back down on the bed, right?). With Eva’s guard down, Kanon grabs the rifle and shoots her in the head. It’s unknown whether or not Hideyoshi heard this and attempted to leave the shower, but he was also shot before he could even get dressed. Kanon then placed the two stakes into the gunshot wounds of their heads, left the room, and drew a magic circle on the door...and finally, placed the Third Twilight’s letter underneath it. They could then have cut through the unset chain at their leisure to maintain the story that it was set and they needed the chain cutters to get through. By the time the others were summoned everything was already set up, so the story about the chain being set when Genji and Kanon arrived was swallowed easily. No one would ever doubt Genji, who had been such a loyal servant since before most of the survivors were even born.
Kinzo has been dead for two years. His body was grabbed from the freezer in his study and stuffed into the boiler where it was set to burn slowly, so the smell didn’t reach the others too quickly. Of course, Natsuhi already knew he was dead, and the servants were playing along with the ruse that he wasn’t (while simultaneously playing along with the murder game), so it came off as a ‘surprise’ after the whole receipt situation talking about how he could have left the study. What interests me about this is why Natsuhi would then continue to willingly stay in the group with the servants. Surely seeing Kinzo’s body stuffed in the boiler would be a sign to her that says ‘whoever did this is someone who knew he was dead and where to find his body’, right? Based on EP5 and how she began to suspect the servants after finding Shannon’s card in her room, I would certainly think Natsuhi is astute enough to start finding them suspicious. Was she really just that confident that they wouldn’t make a move if they stayed together, and had faith in her gun...? Only the catbox knows.
The witch and stake of illusions = there was no one there who attacked Kanon. The illusion they pierced = Kanon himself. Basically Kanon runs down th the boiler room to stage his own death. It’s debatable (especially since EP1 is just a story) whether or not his argument with Beatrice really happened, though I personally like to believe that was a sign of Kanon’s self trying to pierce through the ‘fate’ that his creator (Yasu) and Beatrice were trying to force him into. This is the side of Kanon that was moved by Jessica’s words after the cultural festival and wants to live his own life...the Kanon that is refusing to simply go along with this farce of a roulette, hence his speech. That’s what I believe. However, he’s not strong enough to win against the roulette, and ultimately ‘Kanon’ is sacrificed - Yasu either stabs herself (shallowly, just enough to bleed a bit and be convincing) or uses fake blood (less likely IMO) and stages the whole thing.
Kumasawa does her part and screams to get everyone else’s attention so they see that Kanon is down. Oh, and Yasu already opened the courtyard door before the stabbing to make it seem like the culprit got away. Nanjo, who is also in on it, comes along and says ‘oh no we better take him in for emergency care’. However neither of them probably expected Jessica to cling on and follow them, so Nanjo ends up taking Kanon into the servant room and closing her out so he can die ‘offscreen’. This leaves Yasu’s two personas on the board dead, giving her an alibi to move around freely as the others head off to Kinzo’s study.
[Kinzo’s study is skipped here, but let’s cover it for completeness’ sake. Of the four people who could have placed the letter on the table, three are possible candidates - I’d rule out Maria because she wholeheartedly believes a witch is doing this. Most likely it was Genji, but it could have been Kumasawa or Nanjo as well. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, Natsuhi was correct in her reasoning, and thus the four were booted from the room. But of course this too was part of Yasu’s plan...as we see from the Discord circle. The entire purpose of the letter was to stir up chaos and cause someone to get kicked out of the room. I don’t think it mattered who got ousted, since it was just a coincidence that Battler, Jessica and George had alibis (though I think Jessica would have been safe from suspicion no matter what since her mom is the one calling the shots), but all that mattered was that at least one person got kicked out by the others. She just happened to get three sacrifices in one go to finish the twilights, but assuming less than three got kicked she probably still had other tricks up her sleeve to get through the 7th and 8th twilights too]
I’m not entirely sure of the meaning to ‘illusions are the blind girl’s song’...but ‘illusion of a closed room’ is the same deal as the chain. The room was never closed. Yasu’s own accomplices were the ones inside the room, and they let her in willingly. Since she only needed three and didn’t want to kill Maria until the end if possible, she had her fuck off to the corner of the room and sing loud enough that she didn’t hear what was going on. Is that what ‘illusions are the blind girl’s song’ means? just the fact that it kept Maria from knowing what happened?
Anyway then she was all like ‘okay time to die’ and what followed is pretty much what Maria said. Kumasawa and Nanjo protested - after all, they never knew the full extent of Yasu’s plan or that they’d be getting killed off for real in the end - but Genji was like ‘yeah sure I’m ready’. So she shot all three of them dead while Maria just kept singing her song, and then stuck stakes in their wounds. Then she called the study and left the phone dangling there so they could hear Maria singing...like a more twisted version of the prank on Jessica in the VIP room (man can you imagine how that made Jessica feel though? Talk about an unpleasant way to be reminded of that experience). Then she...uh...I actually can’t remember if the room was locked when Natsuhi and co got there...actually, wasn’t the parlor not even supposed to have a lock on it at all? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Either way, by the time they got down from the study, Yasu had already left her letter there and made her exit.
[...and now we’re onto EP2...but I swore the ending with Natsuhi’s duel came up at some point. Hmmmm...well, I’ll cover it anyways. We don’t ever find out the contents of the letter as far as I know, but it’s not hard to imagine. It was probably written for Natsuhi specifically (unlike the one Jessica got in EP2 that was written vaguely enough that any of the cousins could have picked it up and gotten provoked by it) and said something like ‘if you want to settle this in a duel meet me in front of my portrait, alone’. So she leaves when the kids are distracted and barricades the door so the others can’t follow her.
I have to wonder...we know Lambda’s game took a very different perspective as a more human revenge than a witch fantasy, but is it possible that Natsuhi had reason to suspect the culprit was the baby from 19 years ago? Would certainly make it more personal, and EP1 definitely feels very personal against Natsuhi and may have been some form of Yasu venting her grudge against her. Either way Natsuhi doesn’t seem to buy into this witch bullshit at all, and raises her gun against the darkness - in which she probably really does see the figure of another human raising a gun against her (and not a magic pipe). They shoot simultaneously, but...from EP7, we know that the guns all had defects. It’s possible that Natsuhi got the one that jammed, and wasn’t able to fire when she tried to pull the trigger (not like she tested it beforehand). So Beatrice shoots and that’s the single gunshot that is heard. Yasu then switches the guns, leaving the warm, smoking one next to Natsuhi, and hides.
All that’s left after that is to wait for the clock to strike midnight...and the bomb to go off, taking the rest of the survivors, including Yasu herself, with it.]
Episode 2: Turn of the Golden Witch
A more difficult Episode, but not impossible. However, I’m not referencing anything but my own memories here, and EP1 is actually more vivid in my head (I blame dragging out my EP2 reread for two years) so I’m probably more likely to make a few mistakes here.
What stands out to me here is the use of ‘the gold truth’ which Will uses again later as well. I don’t recall ever getting a concrete explanation on the gold truth - all I know is that it can sometimes be more true than the red, but at other times not as powerful. Two statements we see in gold are the factual guarantee of Kinzo’s corpse in EP5...but then in EP6 when Big Sis Beato calls the candy in the cup trick a splendid magic. There’s a pretty clear difference in the veracity of both of these statements...so based on that, and Will’s statement here, I’m going to take it like this. The red truth (though it can be used within loopholes) represents objective, factual truth, but the gold truth represents a subjective truth. The Umineko mantra is basically ‘a lie that everyone believes in becomes the truth’, a sort of ‘truth in the eye of the beholder’ sort of thing. Though that’s not completely satisfying either because it makes me wonder why Battler guaranteeing Kinzo’s corpse was somehow truer than red, but...this is what I’m going with right now.
As for the lock of illusions, it’s just the same tired trick again - the door was never locked in the first place. This one is funny to me because I remember back in the day how furiously people debated over the issue of the chapel door and its key...like, I remember the arguments about that one issue going on for pages and pages, more hotly debated than any other one particular mystery that I recall. And yet I don’t really remember anyone considering that the door may not have been locked in the to begin with - the simplest explanation was completely ignored in favor of much more ridiculous theories!!
In any case, the adults confront Genji about the Beatrice situation and that’s her cue to show up in the flesh and wow them all with her spectacular golden magic (read: cold, hard ingots). They ‘acknowledge’ that she is a witch because thEY ALL NEEDED A LOT OF MONEY RIGHT NOW and she’s waving all this golden bling in their face, telling them all they have to do is play along with her little murder game. Only SURPRISE it’s not a game at all, and she kills them all for reals.
One point I have always been set on, though, is that Rosa didn’t know this would happen until she saw their corpses the next day. She reacts with quite realistic revulsion when she realizes they’re actually dead and I just don’t buy that she was that good an actress that she was vomiting on cue and everything. So it was probably agreed that, since Beatrice had given the letter to Maria the previous day, Maria’s mother should be the one to ‘discover the corpses’ while the other adults stayed there to play dead. Rosa leaves, Yasu...I dunno, I guess just shoots them all in the stomach? Their guts were hanging out and all over the place so I’m pretty sure whatever she did was pretty damn fatal, and I think they even made a point of how there were no other wounds and they just looked like they were sleeping (so she didn’t shoot them in the head and then disembowel them after they died). She probably poisoned them beforehand to make it easier, considering she did have to kill a whole six adults which may have been not so easy if they were fighting back...so she invites them to the chapel where they agree to play dead, poisons them, waits for them to pass out and then, uh, ‘decorates’ the scene.
Just like Eva and Hideyoshi’s room in EP2, the one who first discovers the magic circle on the chapel door is Yasu herself - Shannon, who claims she saw a note that said ‘chapel’ on it. So she and Genji go to wake up Rosa because they ‘couldn’t find’ anyone else, and what follows is basically as seen. Rosa, who thought this was just gonna be a harmless prank, is shocked, but she’s also in too deep at this point and can’t easily go against the person who bribed her, so she ends up playing along for most of EP2.
While I think that any one of the siblings could have found the provoking letter, it’s Jessica who ultimately gets riled up and runs off. Kanon and Gohda follow after her, and Kanon asks Gohda to leave them alone so he can comfort her, wink wink, nudge nudge. He manages to calm Jessica down and get her to drop her guard, then shoots her in the back and shoves a stake in her wound. Then, having finished his job, ‘Kanon’ dies in that room and his corpse is ‘erased’...Yasu becomes Shannon, exits the room, and locks it with her master key while leaving Jessica’s own key inside her pocket.
Rosa’s argument for Kanon being the culprit ends up being correct, though how much of the ensuing argument is genuine and how much is scripted is something I’ve always had trouble really picking apart. I’m pretty sure I’ve even got a whole page of notes just about that particular conversation in Jessica’s room from when I was doing my on-again-off-again EP2 reread.
This was always the hardest mystery for me in EP2 for one reason - I did dispute that the closed room was a coffin. I never imagined that the culprit actually did shut herself up inside the room and killed herself...even when I knew the culprit was Yasu. I don’t think it was until I read Confession that I actually understood this, despite Battler himself seeing the gaping hole in Shannon’s head.
But it’s that simple. Shannon, George and Gohda enter Natsuhi’s bedroom and lock the door behind them. I’m not sure what order things happen in next, but let’s say she kills Gohda first. George is all WHAT THE FUCK SAYO and they talk. Maybe she tries to convince him to run away with her but he’s like DUDE YOU JUST KILLED THE CHEF and none too happy with her as a result. Maybe she’s trying to work up the courage to tell him about her body and that’s what the argument with Beatrice represents as she convinces Shannon to feel awful about herself. Either way, whatever happens, George is having none of that...so she realizes that her roulette didn’t land on Shannon and George after all and kills him.
Confession shows how distraught she is over having to do this. I feel like that’s probably why the magic version of their scene is so flowery and romantic...she paints a beautiful picture of them dying together, though still kills them before George can honor her last request and say he loves her (I actually like the anime version of this better where Beatrice outright interrupts them) because of the part of her that’s still unconvinced. Ditto the scene with Kanon and Jessica, probably - she tries to give them a tragically romantic goodbye, but it still ends on a bittersweet note. Once she finishes writing this, she sits herself down in front of the mirror and does that trick with the gun, shooting herself in the head and letting the gun ‘hide itself’. Since the room was already locked and the culprit herself is now dead, the locked room is nothing but a coffin...but even after her death, the mystery game continues.
Earth to earth - Nanjo and Kumasawa were killed in the same place we saw, in the same manner (necks sliced) we saw. Illusions to illusions, no illusion can create a corpse - Phantom Kanon was not the one who did it. It was probably Genji, who shows us that he’s actually quite skilled with a knife, hint hint. Yasu and Genji are totally cool with this because they’re in on this murder plan together...but Gohda...???????? The scene in Jessica’s room earlier tells me that he and Kumasawa are both terrible liars were both playing along already at that point in what they believed was a murder game. But seeing Genji slash those two before his eyes was just ‘2hardcore4me’ so he’s just literally flabbergasted by what the fuck just happened. Hence his incredible confusion and realistic fear when he tries to describe it to Rosa - but also, he’s probably (understandably) terrified of Shannon and Genji now and none too eager to betray them and risk his own neck, literally. So he plays along when they’re like ‘we thought it was Kanon but it also wasn’t Kanon’ and he’s just like YEAH YEAH W-WHAT THEY SAID PLEASE DON’T KILL ME. He realizes he’s in a little too deep but can’t exactly get out either, so he has to play along.
I think also at this point Rosa is in the dark on what’s been happening and whatever extent her alliance with Beatrice was is starting to fall apart, and she starts acting on her own instincts - like confiscating the master keys, which IMO was probably not inherently part of Yasu’s plan. Rosa in hindsight was probs just not the best choice of a potential accomplice because she’s not the type who can easily be bribed into following orders now that the siblings that always kept her timid are out of the picture. I feel like Yasu maybe didn’t count on that, but still managed to make it work so it was all good.
[What follows is also not covered, but we basically know the rest. Battler and Rosa fight and end up splitting apart while Genji is still off doing whateverthefuck...does he know Yasu is even dead? He must, right? Rosa probably tells him when he calls them to see Nanjo and Kumasawa’s corpses? Did he know her plan was to kill herself in that room all along? Why does he continue to carry out her plan even after her death? Just because he’s just...that loyal? It’s so hard to see inside Genji’s heart and I honestly would love an Umineko Gaiden that shows us some of the key events of the various Episodes from his POV...but in any case Battler goes and gets drunk and literally everything after that from his POV is super unreliable. Meanwhile Rosa and Maria are trying to run away because Rosa must know about the bomb, which is what the goats chasing them represent. But she was so fixated on the gold that she twists her ankle and they can’t escape on time...she regrets her decisions and I do like to believe she and Maria reached that little understanding there, in the end, before they were taken to the Golden Land.]
Episode 3: Banquet of the Golden Witch
By this time I had started getting more serious in posting about my reread, so I actually tackled a lot of these crimes in posts last year. I’ll summarize but also link to my older theory posts where applicable.
It’s funny how the most impossible closed room if you don’t know the truth about Yasu came from one of the forgeries...but once you do know, it’s not only one of the best closed rooms, but also one of the easiest.
Shannon ‘dies’ in the most obvious and visible room in the mansion, the parlor. She does this so her body can be seen easily from the big glass window outside...where the adults are forced to go, because she’s locked the doors all over the mansion. Since Nanjo is in on it, it’s easy for him to say ‘oh yeah, she’s dead’. Then they open the letter and get the key and begin following the trail she laid out for them.
Kanon is at the very end of the loop, giving her plenty of time to change clothes and go play dead in the chapel while the adults are busy investigating the other rooms. If I recall, all the other rooms are also in the mansion...giving her plenty of time to slip away to that out-of-the-way building. And just like the shed in EP1, if the adults for some reason decided to double back and return to the parlor, and see that she wasn’t there any more, that’d just be the way the roulette fell. But it didn’t, and they followed her trail perfectly, winding up on Kanon at the end. Thus the chain of closed rooms is perfect and unbreakable...and is an illusion where the end and the beginning overlap.
Earth to earth = they’re actually dead and it basically happened the way we saw it. Likewise, no falsehoods. Rosa gets fed up with Eva for still not having told the others about the gold and they have a bit of back-and-forth...then Eva shoots Rosa. I’d like to believe that Eva hadn’t completely fallen to The Dark Side at this point, and this was probably the same sort of trigger slippage that lead to the disaster in the EP7 tea party...but of course, it happened in a lot less isolated of a location than that. And then you have to worry about Maria screaming her head off about MAMA MAMA UU UU!!! and well...someone has to shut that brat up before everyone comes running out to see you with a gun in your hand standing over Rosa’s bleeding corpse, right?! So she strangles Maria and lays her down next to Rosa, then zooms back to her room where she has to explain to her husband how she just accidentally murdered her sister and on-purposely strangled her daughter.
I also think that the scenes of Hideyoshi trying to comfort and calm Eva down make a lot more sense if you consider that these deaths were a lot more accidental/spur of the moment and she was freaking out about what she’d just done and where they go from here. Of course, a good husband stays by your side in sickness, in health, and apparently in murder, so...Hideyoshi ends up covering for Eva and trying to give her an alibi for the time while they wait for someone else to discover the crime. And after all, they were all together all night long when the first series of murders happened, so since we already know there’s another killer hiding on the island (and no one else knows about the gold yet now that Rosa is kill) no one really has any reason to jump to suspecting Eva just yet.
...that is, until Kyrie finds the cigarette butts and starts to formulate her theory for why Eva should not have actually been in that room as they claimed. She comes up with her plan to get the three of them to leave the guesthouse where she and Rudolf plan to question Hideyoshi. As for what follows, I made a theory post about it last year, which you can find...here, and also here (note the ‘keep reading’ tags all over because I was trying to truncate the post so you might have to click a few to see all the things). It ended up becoming a chain of back-and-forth reblog discussions (I think it was before Tumblr added the conversation system to posts) so it’s a bit disjointed, but I’m pretty sure I still believe in, uh...whatever it was I came up with to explain this last year. I’m honestly too lazy to reread these posts right now but I don’t currently have any new info that would likely contradict what I came up with a year ago, though once I reread the EP7 tea party that may yet change.
[these solutions also skip over George’s death in the parlor, which is funny to me because it’s one of the few crimes in EP3 committed by Yasu, who is the one Will is supposed to be showing he understands...but basically I believe that Yasu and Nanjo had been in touch throughout EP3. Nanjo is actually the one who locks the window behind George after he escapes, and then he goes to the mansion where OMG SURPRISE SHANNON IS ACTUALLY STILL ALIVE WHAT ARE THE CHANCES. Only unlike when they’re alone in EP2, George is just so elated to see that she’s still alive that he drops his guard entirely, and she shoots him.
I wonder if she was more resentful to him in EP3 than EP2, because she isn’t distraught enough to kill herself after killing him this time around...and she had to have called Nanjo and specifically told him to let George come over to the mansion herself. Though to be fair (as I mention in one of the above posts) she also shouldn’t have yet known that Eva solved the epitaph, otherwise she would have kept her promise not to kill anyone else...so George was probably originally meant to be one of the twilight sacrifices. Hence, when she realizes she fucked up because someone solved the epitaph, she leaves the bank code behind for Eva as compensation (because nothing says ‘sorry I murdered your son’ like fat wads of cash).]
The ‘mutable blade’ is either a rope or a wire or whatever is being represented by the Siestas’ gold thread...and the ‘obvious culprit’ is Eva, because at this point, she is the only one who could have done it. But I remember being bothered by this because I can’t figure out a real good reason for why she killed them, and my thoughts and discussions thereof can be read here (mind the ‘keep reading’) and here.
[we also skip over the finale of EP3 here, which is extremely funny to me because of the huge emphasis put on Nanjo’s death in the other arcs. But I suppose once Will has proven he understands this much the matter of ‘who killed Nanjo’ is trivial. It’s Yasu. Since ‘Shannon’ and ‘Kanon’ are both dead, we get to play fucking hopscotch with loopholes in the red, and Yasu is the only entity who is still alive and alibi-less that is able to kill Nanjo at that time.
Then at some point she realizes that Eva solved the epitaph and she shouldn’t be killing people anymore in the first place...so she leaves the bank code behind on the door. And then, when Eva shoots Jessica in the face...she can’t let go of her lingering feelings, so she ‘revives’ Kanon and tries to guide her to ‘safety’. The reason Kanon warns Jessica not to touch him is obviously not because he’s a ghost, but because he’s not a ghost and she’d realize that immediately if she felt his physical body right there. Also she probably had no intention of being Kanon anymore once Kanon was kill so I’d imagine she’s still dressed as Shannon after having met George like that, so it’s a damn good thing Jessica is blind right now...either way, she knows they’re all about to die from the bomb real soon, so I think it’s more of a last-minute comfort sort of thing at this point, not only for Jessica, but also for Yasu. Final, lingering regrets as Kanon, much like we see in EP6, about not deepening his relationship with Jessica while he still had the chance.
Then Eva shoots Battler and fucks off to Kuwadorian, escaping the blast, while Kanon and Jessica stay behind and die. The end.]
Episode 4: Alliance of the Golden Witch
Like EP3, I already covered some of these in more detail when I did the EP4 tea party last year and will link to those posts when applicable.
EP4 is just one big farce so the fact that there was a massacre at all is the illusion. Didn’t happen. And in accordance with my personal interpretation of the gold truth from above, the fact that ‘everyone agrees that it’s true’ (since they’re all collaborating on the lie) makes it true. They all tell the same story of Kinzo showing up and summoning bunnygirls in the middle of the dining room table (rude tbh) and everyone getting their heads shot off, then getting sucked into magical pitfalls and trapped in a dungeon. I can imagine Krauss and Kyrie rolling their eyes at such a ridiculous story, but when someone offers you 10 tons of gold to play along with their script, you do it. My post from last year can be found here, though I haven’t reread it myself.
I have a problem with this because Will labels similar cases of thinly-decorated-but-ultimately-true scenes as ‘earth to earth’ (ex. Rosa and Maria’s EP3 death, as well as Kyrie/Rudolf/Hideyoshi’s EP3 deaths). If those interpretations get labeled as ‘no falsehoods’, why is this considered an illusion with the gold truth spinning a false tale? Seems really inconsistent to me.
Either way, the cousins are the only ones who aren’t in on this little prank of Yasu’s, and are convinced to go to their respective locations for their ‘test’. I went into more detail on my thoughts about what happened here in my post from last year. The test is legit, though - not an illusion - so perhaps the illusion is that they don’t actually die simultaneously the way we’re shown in the magic scene? Because otherwise I don’t feel as though the gold truth line really applies to this scene as well as it does to the first twilight.
[Then Yasu dresses up in her Human Beatrice outfit and goes to test Battler. At the time she’s drunk as Hell and in a pretty cheery mood - my belief is that she needed to give herself enough courage to test Battler and thought getting wasted was the best way to do so. It does not go so well, and she just completely gives up at that point, ready for the roulette to take her away...]
This is both earth and illusions because they are dead (silent corpses), but it didn’t happen at all the way we’re shown (adorned by fiction). And also because Kanon obviously didn’t leave a corpse behind.
I made posts last year going through each of these twilights individually:
Kyrie
Krauss
Nanjo & Shannon
Kanon
This isn’t specifically a question about Kumasawa and Gohda, but since they’re in the picture and not otherwise covered specifically here’s my post from last year covering them.
As for what we’re being asked here specifically, it’s the same reasoning that applies to the end of all of Beatrice’s games - the answer is the bomb. The bomb that kills everyone and wipes out all evidence without a trace at midnight, October 6th, without fail. Earth to earth is the fact that none are left alive (except Eva in EP3 and Prime). Illusions to illusions is the fact that the truth is sealed away by the bomb, inside the catbox, with Eva as the only surviving witness...who dies without telling a soul of the truth. The message bottles sent out by Yasu, of which only two were ever discovered, represent possible truths that may have happened on those two days, but are also just fictional possibilities. It breeds an environment where any fictional forgery based on the Rokkenjima incident may become the truth, forever shrouded in illusion.
And finally...
I originally thought the answer to this was ‘the bomb’ (just like when she asks this in EP4) but that’s the answer to the last question...and also, ‘regardless of the witch’s will’ doesn’t really make sense when realistically Yasu could have shut the bomb at any time if she so chose.
The promised reaper, then...is Kyrie. Or in theory, any of the adults who could have taken advantage of the situation to spark a massacre (like Eva in EP3). The fact of the matter is that the adults solve the epitaph...and once that happens, the tragedy is inevitable. The one outcome of the roulette that Yasu least expected to happen is the one that did. The fact that, despite Yasu being the one who masterminded the whole crime, she ultimately did not end up being the actual culprit. The real culprit is whichever one of the adults takes advantage of the confusion and murders everyone, sealing the truth away inside the catbox. In Prime, and apparently also Lion’s world, this is Kyrie.
Or maybe it really does mean the bomb. I dunno. Neither of those is really the answer to who Clair is, though, so much as the answer to ‘then what killed everyone’, anyways. But by solving all the other mysteries, Will proves that he understoof her heart, so I guess it’s all cool in the end.
What matters is that the tale of those two days is destined to end in tragedy, ‘regardless of the witch’s will’. By the time we reach October 4th, all those complicated factors have piled up so much that a happy ending is pretty much impossible. It could have been prevented so many times, in so many ways, but by the time it gets this far it’s basically too late.
