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Umineko read-through thread


Sunshine Jesse

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Hahahahah oh lord that's a lot of writing

Alright, sure. I'll see what I can cough up.

EDIT:

Okay let's do this. I'll post more as it comes to me.

 

Battler Ushiromiya:

He's my favorite character in the series and one of my favorite fictional characters ever. He almost immediately endeared himself to me with his initial appearance and it just got stronger as time went on. He's a very easy character for me to project myself on to because he's someone who feels and displays strong emotions that generally link up perfectly with the tone of the story, despite the fact that his personality isn't that similar to mine (outside of expressing strong emotions). Whenever someone explains something to him (or in Bernkastel's case, insults him), it does feel like it's being explained directly to me, and the challenges to keep thinking that are constantly given to him inspire me to do the same.

 

He's one of the most well-written, endearing, and entertaining characters I've ever seen. His trials and tribulations all feel real and relatable. When he feels accomplished, so do I. When he feels hopeless, so do I. When he gains newfound resolve, so do I.

 

Because of this, I'd go as far as to say he's the best audience surrogate character ever written, and he has quickly risen up the ranks to become my second favorite fictional character ever.

 

I'd rate him a high 10/10 and go as far as to say he's a completely flawless character (so far) and all of his positive qualities are top-notch.

 

Beatrice:

Beatrice is weird to me. At first she felt like she had an immense sense of mystique to her, but that sense quickly left around episode 3. However, that was for the better, as seeing her display a more emotional, empathetic side to her made her skyrocket up my list of favorite characters as well. The way she acted at the end of episode 3 hinted that she either legitimately developed from this experience, or that this is how she always was. At first she seemed similar to the way Bernkastel is now, but framing all of that trolling and arrogance as an attempt to make Battler learn the truth and grow stronger put her in an entirely different light.

 

It does still feel like I haven't explored her enough, but the fact that, by episode 6, I still want to understand her even more and watch her develop her relationship with Battler puts her high up on my list. By the end of this series she could very well be a lot lower, but I'm just so goddamn curious to see where she goes from here on.

 

I'd give her a 10/10 too, although a lower one. If my questions aren't answered, she'll go a lot lower, although she'll still be high up by virtue of how much I love the relationship she has with Battler.

 

Lambdadelta:

Never before have I seen a character embody happiness and joy as much as Lamndadelta. Her voice, her actions, and her personality all make me incredibly happy to see her every time she's on screen. I haven't put that much thought into her role in the story beyond the key differences between how her and Bernkastel act, though, but her dedication to the ideas of certainty and truth, both of which I adore, make me interested to see where she'll go.

 

Bernkastel:

The most pointlessly cruel and hateful villain I've ever seen.

 

I love her.

 

She's the perfect villain for this series, because the dedication she has to causing misery and making people surrender makes her a better foil to Battler than even Beatrice was. It's an unstoppable force vs immovable object kind of thing. Beatrice faltered because she didn't want to win. Bernkastel only falters because she hasn't yet won hard enough. I can't wait to see what horrible things she'll do in the pursuit of absolute victory.

 

On another note:

At first I didn't understand the importance of the conflict between miracles and certainty that Lambda and Bern embody, because they didn't seem like exact concepts and instead just ones that are possibly vaguely related, but depending on how central the two of them are to the cosmology of the series, I think that they might end up more accurately representing possibility (Bernkastel) and absolutes (Lambdadelta). Lambdadelta could represent the idea of making the future your own (certainty) through strength, hard work, and resolve, and Bernkastel could represent the idea that anything is possible, there are just some things you can't control, and that anything truly good that happens to you is... a... miracle...

 

Making the future your own

vs

Surrendering yourself to fate

 

Making good things happen with your own strength

vs

All good things that happen to you are miracles that cannot truly be controlled

 

...

Huh

 

Okay, now I see how fundamentally opposed the concepts they represent are.

 

But that might be going too deep considering what little I know about the series.

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Episode 6 has been a pretty wild ride so far. I’d actually go as far as to say that it’s my favorite episode thus far, and I’m probably halfway done with it. For some context, I’m at the scene where George fought Eva-Beatrice. The thing about this episode, though, is that it isn’t good because of how emotional it is. Outside of the cookie scene (which left me dead inside), none of it has really emotionally resonated with me so far. What has made me love it, though, is how much it got me thinking.
 
I think the thing that got me thinking the hardest was all the way back in episode 3, though when Eva-Beatrice questioned whether or not the existence of the meta-world was actually relevant. After analyzing it far enough, looking at the core truths in Ange's life and events in the series, and I thought about just what the series would be like if I stripped all magic from it, and...
 
I came to the conclusion that it wasn't. Magic was never truly relevant. Whether it existed or not doesn't affect anything, because magic has been entirely self-contained. If you don't accept the idea that it exists, nothing would've changed in her life. Episode 6 fully confirmed this idea when it showed that Ange was still alive despite the events in 4- or so I thought. If you assume magic didn't exist, literally nothing in the series happened. The truth is static and unchanging. Even taking into account that magic exists, episode 1 did well to show us that magic is completely pointless even if you do believe in it, so there's no reason to believe it exists. Effectively, magic is a closed room that's irrelevant to what actually happened, and even if it does exist, you should focus on the truth above all else.
 
And then episode 5 happened.
 
Episode 5 had almost no magical elements to it outside of what existed in the meta-world. Nothing. So it should've been obvious that this reality was what actually happened, right? The truth was in here. The truth was so heavily emphasized by this episode that the lack of magic became more and more obvious as time went on. The idea that "the truth" changes if enough people believe in was outright stated by Erika towards the end, so it made me realize something important:
 
The truth doesn't actually exist within closed rooms, either. It's just as vague and nebulous as magic itself, if not more so. The truth isn't "above" magic, and the truth comes when closed rooms are opened.
 
If one thing was made abundantly clear throughout the whole series, given how the nature of games work, it's that you can't know what actually happened just because you were there. In order to find out what actually happened, you have to let the events happen and pry open the closed room. Even if you were there and experiencing the events yourself, you're still just the cat in Schrodinger's box and your perception is just as flawed as anyone else's, because you might be dead at the end of it and you'll never have been able to know the truth, much less tell anyone.
 
And if the room is truly closed and can't be opened- as Rokkenjima seems to be as of now- there's no way to find out the truth and the mystery becomes unsolvable...
 
...but only if magic doesn't exist.
 
So basically, the truth is actually the closed room. The mysteries of reality are the closed room, not magic itself. It's not that magic doesn't affect the truth, it's just that it can't be used to explain the truth. It can't exist within the closed room, and has no baring on the truth, but nothing has any baring on the truth until the truth is found. So, given all this, it means that magic and truth exist on the same level. This is why magic cannot exist within knowledge. Magic is the key. Magic is the weapon. Magic cannot be the result, only what you use to create the result.
 
Magic is what creates the miracles needed to realize the an unknowable truth. Magic is the tool you use to discover that which cannot be known with certainty.
 
If episode 1 taught us anything, it's that...

 

If you want to deny magic, you must accept that some things are unknowable. If you accept magic, you must accept it as a tool, and not assume it's the cause.
 
And since Umineko is a mystery series, and you can't have an unknowable mystery in one of those, as of episode 6, magic has to exist.
 

I don't think this will change in the future, either, as the series has gone out of its way to show us that we shouldn't trust the events we see unfolding. It could show us the exact sequence of events, but the series has also told us that those events might not be what actually happened even if it tries to insist that they are. This series has gone out of its way to create the gaps that magic can exist in, and has gone through great lengths to make sure those gaps can never be closed by anything it tries to tell us.

 

So it's up to us to use our own magic to look into those gaps, while not using that magic to try to fill them.

 

My question is now "What, exactly, is magic, and how can it be used to find the answers?" but I believe each episode gives you a possible answer to that question and I'll have to re-read most of the series to find it out. I think magic is representative of all human emotion (possibly one's that specifically originate from love) and I might be able to "solve" each episode by figuring out who has or is lacking in those episode-specific emotions. But that might be going too deep for me right now.

 

EDIT: Okay, if I choose to interpret magic as a literal metaphor for love, the series is being so up-front about all of what I've said in episode 6 that I'm actually starting to question if I'm right because I predicted it, or wrong because it's outright telling me all this and I can't trust what this series says.

 

I'm going to go back to the thinking board and try to find any holes in my arguments. I'm still entirely certain that this series has intentionally created the gaps for magic to exist in, and I'm absolutely committed to finding out what's in them, no matter how ridiculous my arguments have to get.

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Now then…
 
Let’s apply the guiding principle that "magic is key to finding the solution" to actually discovering the culprit. Since we can’t use magic to explain the murders, magic must be used somewhere else in order to find out who did it. But where else would magic be used...?
 
The answer to this is in episodes 3 and 4, and to a lesser extent, 6. I say "A lesser extent" because you probably could've come up with the solution earlier, but 6 made some of the differences between the characters extremely evident. While they didn't show us who committed the crime directly, they did show us something very interesting...
 
It narrowed down the list of people who could've committed the crime to those who performed magic, as they were the only ones who felt love strongly enough to do it.
 
Jessica.
Maria.
George.
Eva.
Krauss.
Kyrie(?).
Rudolf(?).
 
But in Ange's world, the world where magic is irrelevant, it cannot be the cause behind the crimes. The way "magic" fits into the answer is as follows:
 
It was an incentive to commit the murders.
 
So, by narrowing it down to those 7, we can pick them off one by one via further examination. In order to examine it further, I'm going to make the assumption that belief in magic included a belief in the riddle, and more importantly, what it could offer.
 
The witch will praise the wise, and should bestow four treasures.
One shall be, all the gold from the Golden Land.
One shall be, the resurrection of the souls of all the dead.
One shall be, even the resurrection of the lost love.
One shall be, to put the witch to sleep for all time.
 
These promises could function as incentive for anyone, however. Not only that, but the series has firmly established that faith in magic alone isn't enough to accomplish anything, and you must be the one who takes action. As a result, I'm going to use what faith in magic accomplished to determine who the most likely culprit was. I'm going to use success to determine the culprit... but that's not the only metric I'll use. I'll go into detail later.
 
Krauss can't be the culprit. For one, there's little indication that he actually truly believed in magic or loved anyone to begin with, and he was only here on a technicality because he punched out a goat. Really, he hardly even stands out and the goat scene is actually the only reason I remembered him.
Maria's belief in magic didn't accomplish any of that, either.
Kyrie and Rudolf showed no indication of believing in magic, but they still both managed to use it. They can't be the culprit if belief in magic is indeed the incentive, as they didn't accomplish anything from it........
?
It couldn't have been Eva, though, because her magic was never used by herself, only by her witch. Even then, it was shown that her witch was the one who was truly rewarded via finding the gold, not her. So while it could've been her... none of this was ever shown to have been her responsibility. It wasn't her doing it. But the Eva-Beatrice persona does tie into things later.
 
Therefore, with magic as the incentive, this leads us to narrow it down to two conclusions:
Jessica...
Or
George.
 
Jessica managed to temporarily revive Kanon through magic, meaning her belief allowed her to succeed in fulfilling one of the promises the riddle offered. However, the web of red truth weaved by Eva-Beatrice showed that she couldn't have killed Ganjo.
 
So it was George.
 
George's belief in magic allowed him to tap into the magic of resurrection and bring Shannon back. His belief in Beatrice allowed him to resurrect his lost love. He was consistently shown to have a strong, deep love for Shannon, and on several cases, was shown to be willing to surrender everything for her sake. He was also shown to not be the only one to ridicule Maria's belief in magic, although this is admittedly not a very strong reasoning for this argument- it just shows he was open to the idea.
 
The "magic is a strong emotion born from love" theory leads us to believe that George, having displayed some of the strongest emotions so far towards those he loved, is the most likely to be the culprit, as it was in the pursuit of reviving Shannon.
 
George was the culprit, as it isn't contradicted by any red truths aside from his death. As a result, my theory- my blue truth- is as follows:

George committed most of the murders, up to and perhaps including Nanjo himself. Shannon was killed by Eva, possibly in secret, towards the beginning, granting George the incentive needed to carry out the murders in an attempt to fulfill the epitaph. Eventually, Eva found herself needing to kill George, her possible incentive being to preserve his name out of her love for him, causing her to take on the "Beatrice" persona to deflect responsibility away from him. This is why Eva was the last one alive at the end, and explains the presence of Eva-Beatrice in the game board.

 

No... that has too many holes in it. It's far too weak. All of it is. It assumes far too much based on what we've been told directly.
 
...It's useless. It's all useless.
 
It's not that Eva had to exist. The fact that she was in episode 3's Tea Party doesn't prove anything, as it's evident by now that Ange's perception of events isn't entirely accurate. She can't be relied upon as a perspective character. It's very likely that the presence of Eva was just a red herring to purposefully mislead us. All things considered, this still requires multiple assumptions and weak reasons for dismissing certain ones, one of which being the idea that magic was the incentive. It assumes that magic must be involved in the crime in some way, and it falls apart if it isn't.

 

The idea that literal magic, or an incentive to perform literal magic, is very likely to be a red herring.

 

So, tying into what I said earlier, assuming none of it involved magic...
 
Kyrie and Rudolf become the only possible culprits left.
 
Why?
 
George wouldn't kill Shannon. Eva wouldn't kill George. Eva might kill Shannon, sure, but if you don't assume a magical incentive, George wasn't likely to try to fulfill the epitaph. He seemed too logical to do that unless you assumed he believed in magic to begin with. Therefore, Rudolf and Kyrie are the only ones who could've lacked a magic-based incentive and still performed the act.
 
But I'm not satisfied with that. I'm going to spin the chessboard one final time and try to apply the idea that "magic is key to finding the solution" to them, too, except...
 
I'm going to use my earlier idea that magic isn't literally magic. It's a metaphor for love- no, it's another word for love. It might even be all emotion brought forth from love.
 
They may have shown no belief in magic or even the gold, but they absolutely displayed a deep love for each other, fulfilling one of the main conditions needed to use magic to begin with. If magic directly equates to love, they don't need to believe in magic itself to use it in a game board- only their love for each other. With that in mind, they could easily use each other as an incentive to perform these acts. They wanted to obtain all the riches of Rokkenjima for themselves. Or, at the very least, Kyrie wanted her husband to be the one to obtain it, because her devotion was possibly one-sided.
 
And where does Battler play into all of this?  He was the only one left of the 18 in episode 4. 
 
But why?
 
Because Battler, the one who always denied magic- denied love- was the only person fully willing and able to kill his parents. He resented them. It would've been easy for him. So at the end of it all...
 
He took revenge.
 
As a result, he was the only one left.
 
So basically-

Kyrie was the main culprit. She was the one who definitely used magic multiple times, as Rudolf could be argued wither way. It's very possible that Rudolf's love for Kyrie wasn't nearly as genuine, either, and...
"A weapon was readied by the main culprit. Nanjo was killed with it at point blank range." - Kyrie was one the only people consistently shown with a weapon, narrowing the potential options down to involve her.
 
Rudolf wasn't the main culprit, but he was an accomplice at the very least, explaining any murders that Kyrie couldn't be around for. His ability to fight against the Seven Stakes isn't inherently magic-based, unlike Kyrie.
 
Battler wasn't necessarily a culprit. All he had to be was the one who finished the job. He was the one who was all alone at the end of it. How responsible he really was depends on the events that unfolded, although the fact that Beatrice goes on about his sin leads me to believe that he had some measure of responsibility beyond killing his parents, too.

 

it all makes sense in retrospect and i can't believe i didn't figure it out earlier

 

I'm going to keep thinking to see if I can go any deeper, but I'm still confident that my reasoning is sound.

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wtf stop posting so much good content

 

I'm not sure how much I should say so that it won't ruin your experience. If you don't want any kind of hint at all, don't read on but I'm trying to not give solid hints while still giving you things to think about. Here goes: I guess I can say that Battler's sin is highly pivotal to the events of the island happening at all. That he doesn't know about his sin is absolutely his sin, if he knew about it he could've done something about it. As to what his sin is, you actually have been told about it before in the game. It's not a fresh new reveal of events you've never heard of.

 

And you have to consider how the mansion building was gone entirely by Ange's time. I don't remember if the cause for that has been mentioned yet but it's a valuable hint. If you haven't been told of the cause, then think of one and think of what would be required to make it happen. How would that play into Kyrie and/or Rudolf? At this point I think it's a given that they've been shown to be willing to commit the murders. Would just willingness be enough to get someone to commit murders though?

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  • >Kyrie cannot save Battler
  • Oh. She killed them.
  • ...holy sheet
  • ...Erika, holy sheet.
  • >It was the story of a prank
  • >IT WASN'T A PRANK
  • and here I thought Bernkastel was evil
  • So the person in the closed room WAS Battler.
  • bernkastel holy sheet
  • ...logic errors are funking terrifying
  • There's something strangely heartbreaking about listening to Lambdadelta act so terrified.
  • The idea of borderline omnipotent gods with PTSD is also really depressing.
  • They're not even trying to hide the fact that Featherine is directly speaking to us most of the time.
  • I've actually been way to into this to comment any further but I love this sheet.
  • BEATO IS BACK
  • YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
  • SHE'S BACK TO NORMAL TOO
  • oh my god
  • that was SO GOOD
  • https://i.imgur.com/f3nt7nI.jpg
  • best CG so far tbh
  • omg this tea party is so cute 
  • "Is Featherine you or are you Featherine" :thinking:
  • Bernkastel is so gay

 

 

I don't even know how it managed but episode 6 was actually even better than episode 5. It got me thinking super hard and the ending was so good that I couldn't spare any comments.

 

11/10 easily, Umineko is probably going to be my number 1 anything by the time I'm done, and Battler and Beatrice are both in my top 5 favorite fictional characters ever. I'd actually go as far as to say that they're 2 and 3, respectively. I just love this series way too much.

 

On to episode 7.

 

I'm... almost done...

:(

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the red truth in that moment is one of the most important ones

 

even with erika on the island, there are 17 people EDIT: just checked to confirm it, its not just 'at most 17 people' but '17 people'

 

daily reminder tape is the most funking terrifying best thing ever

 

 

from the moment the tape came into play until the thing was resolved was one of the best moments of the entire series

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If that's the case, then I think the "18th person" went there after everyone else had already died. Maybe that's why Battler was alone in episode 4 if he wasn't the real culprit. He was just the one who found out.

 

Battler's sin could've been him missing the boat (or not going period) and his presence could've stopped the murders, which is why Beatrice was so upset with him- he broke the promise to show up after six years. If his presence could've stopped the murders, then whoever he made that promise to was also a valid potential culprit. Given the romantic nature of their relationship, the "real" (Ange-timeline) Beatrice was probably one of the servants, too, because this series isn't big on the whole incest thing.

 

That narrows it down to Kanon and Shannon, who I forgot about in my last list.

 

And given Shannon was the one who broke the spirit mirror back in episode 2 and "released Beatrice"...

 

okay then

 

I still think Kyrie is one of the most likely culprits, but at the very least I think Shannon was in a position where she could've either stopped it or led to it and that she was possibly directly representative of Beatrice.

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I am late as all funk to the party (I blame darkrai for flooding my update bar)

 

as far as you reading umineko, welcome to the island, where nothing is real, everybody has at least 3 sides to them, breathing without thinking will get you killed magically, thinking without acting will get you killed physically, and acting without thinking will get you tortured by mysteries. also, love is horrifyingly magical.

 

you're doing well so far, but to give the hint that was given to me; you can solve this mystery by chapter 4. everything's already been given to you.

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  • Alright, puzzles, cool.
  • I got the one with cabbage wrong but the rest-
  • oh it's asking me to do math god damn it
  • I didn't do math I just took advantage of multiple choice :(
  • >what we the length of the candle at that time
  • e8ee21453806705d9db120cc4e9ac348.jpg
  • Now they're asking us questions about the periodic table...
  • multiple questions later...
  • ...this scene.
  • This whole scene

 

>We'll all be with you, always.
--From the whole Ushiromiya family
 
I died
I actually funking died
 
I've never been so immersed in a series before. I felt like that was directed squarely at me.
I funking broke down sobbing when I read this more than any other scene in the series. More than any other depressing, sad, happy, or romantic scene. This one hit me the hardest.
 
The next day...
  • Oh sheet, Erika is back. 
  • Now that I understand the series better, it's so obvious that Ange is being misled by Bernkastel.
  • These talking theory goats are funking creepy. 

 

"I'm... gone. But I'll always be behind you, watching over you."ou."
 "I know. And not just you. Everyone else too..."
 "...All of us... will love you forever. Don't forget that..."
 
  • This episode has actually made me cry like 5 times already. 
  • I'm too immersed in this series to actually post my thoughts on everything as they come. Sorry about that.

 

 

I don't have much to post on this but I'm probably gonna finish it tomorrow, and I'll probably have a much, MUCH bigger post written up after I reflect on the series a bit.

 

To give some perspective, before episode 8 I just kind of assumed magic existed, but now I actually believe in it and I think I understand its true influence and meaning within the series. It shed a new light entirely on everything I thought I knew about this series and made everything retroactively better, and has vastly deepened my understanding of different concepts that have been explained to me in the past independent of the series itself. It was a contender for #1 before, but now Umineko is legitimately #0. I love this series and everything about it.

 

Bravo, Ryukishi. Thanks to you, I can finally see the golden butterfly.

 

This true belief in magic goes further than the context of Umineko by the way. It has legitimately impacted me that much.

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Well...

 

I'm not even going to bother looking up the other ending. I'm just going to keep the other room closed.

 

It was a splendid bit of magic, after all. I don't want to risk ruining it.

 

I'll give a more detailed analysis later on. I have a lot to say and it might take me a few days to think up. 

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I'm really, really gay for this series. This is all based on my current understanding of the series and is likely to change more in the future, but the one thing I know won't change is the realization that magic is real.

[spoiler=Analysis]What a beautiful series this was.
 
That's not an easy compliment for me to give. I'm the kind of person who places a lot of value on the words I use to describe things. Each one has a specific weight, purpose, and meaning it must fulfill before I apply to it something in any kind of serious context. "Beautiful" is one of the words I hold in the highest regard, as it is indicative of the highest possible level of investment I can have towards the quality of something. When I call something beautiful, that indicates that it truly amazed me on a level that few things can match.
 
But even that fails to be entirely accurate when describing this series.
 
To understand why I enjoyed this series so much, I should first describe the perspective I took upon deciding to read it. Despite it being a murder mystery series, I didn’t care so much for the actual mystery. I knew that there was much more to this series than whoever the culprit was and whatever happened on Rokkenjima, and that dedicating my reading experience to finding it out would leave me feeling shallow by the time it was over. So rather than look for clues to find the answer, I instead decided to try to delve into the motivations of the characters and figure out just what the series was trying to tell me. And while I may not have gotten to the very core of the series, I found something that’s close enough to have put everything about the series in a new light:
 
I found magic.
 
I’ll explain just how I found it later on, but the realization of the true importance of magic in Umineko made every lesson that it taught me before make a lot more sense. Everything dangerous magic caused was not an evidence on why it couldn’t or shouldn’t be real, and instead functioned as a warning on how not to use it. All the seeming contradictions in the series about the nature of magic weren’t meant to disprove anything, and instead were just meant to offer a view into the contradictory nature of the world of witches. Magic is not to be relied upon; it’s not meant to be the solution. It doesn’t solve any mysteries, as to truly solve said mysteries is to deny magic itself.
 
But magic is as much of a double-edged sword as truth is when wielded improperly. The most important message in the series is to keep thinking, and the moment magic encourages you to stop thinking is the moment it loses its purpose. This is presented as one of the many potential dangers of both truth and magic, the only difference being that magic is far easier to use to deny further thought. Indeed, while magic can be used to explain everything without further thought, truth still requires some effort and thought to reach, delaying the inevitable “death” of your own thoughts.
 
Some people take this to mean that truth is superior to magic. But as Ange found out, the magic doesn’t need to end just because the truth has been discovered. For some, they can deny the truth- or at least deny its relevancy- and allow magic to continue to flourish within the infinite bliss of the unknown. For others, they can render the truth irrelevant by finding magic elsewhere, or by looking beyond the truth and deriving magic from that which can never truly be known, such as faith in the idea that others truly care about you.
 
I find the latter approach superior because it’s far harder for self-proclaimed “witches of truth” to argue against. It’s a stronger, or at least longer-lasting, form of magic that cannot simply be overcome just because you, or others, know what happened. It allows the illusion of the witch to exist for others for as long as the story is known and faith in it exists. Indeed, an obvious truth presents a sort of limit on magic, but the truly unknowable allows magic to exist forever, as it allows you to keep thinking.
 
This series brought me happiness. It brought me that sense of beauty and wonder that few others have even come close to matching. It’s beyond my capacity to describe. So for that, I’ll reserve a word for this series and this series alone, as it is the only thing capable of describing the impact it had on me: Magical.
 
Enough about magic, though. I can discuss that more later on. Instead I want to focus on the aspect of the series that caught my interest the most when I was reading. Not the music, not the story, and not the mystery. No, what I valued the most are the characters.
 
The trials and tribulations of the characters of Umineko were by far the most important aspect of the story, and their distinctive, entertaining personalities carried the story throughout every moment that would otherwise be boring. They were developed in such depth that every single one of them was worth caring about, and the ones closest to me felt as if they were my actual friends. When they were happy, I was happy. When they struggled, I struggled. When they suffered (and boy did they suffer a lot), so did I. Their conflicts were conflicts of ideals just as much as actual fights, if not more so because they literally fought with ideas. I could go on for a while about the tiny nuances of every character and how they made the series special, but I’ll instead focus on the one that I enjoyed following the most.
 
Ushiromiya Battler.
 
The idea of a hero with an endearing personality indominable will is nothing new and omnipresent amongst most works of fiction. Where Battler differs from most, however, is the fact that he doesn’t use that endless willpower in order to fight his enemies. Rather, his refusal to surrender manifests in his desire to disprove magic as the cause and find the truth of the world he found himself in. His willpower enables him to fight on using logic and reasoning that grows more surreal as time goes on, and he gradually throws away that which holds him back, growing both smarter and more powerful as the series went on.
 
And then his motivation shifted. Rather than simply winning and returning home...
 
Battler desired to understand.
 
His story wasn’t actually that complex up until this point, it’s just that his endearing and highly emotionally driven personality allowed made it easy to relate to him. But once he sought to understand, that’s when he truly started to develop beyond the confines of the standard shounen protagonist type. The fight he was in was no longer a battle to find the truth necessary, instead being a fight to understand Beatrice and how her game truly worked.
 
And finally, in his most desperate hour, he found the truth that predicated all other truths; the origin of all truth. A truth so fundamental that simply understanding it allowed him to elevate to the level of a Game Master, and see things that nobody else was allowed to see.
 
And a truth that allowed Ange to do the same once she understood it.
 
Wbat truth was that, might you ask?
 
Hm…

From then on, the series took a romantic turn, which I appreciated, because I loved both Beatrice and Battler and seeing them finally realize a relationship like that filled me with joy. He went through multiple layers of a hell worse than anything he had ever gone through before just to get her back the way she was.
 
This was all an excellent parallel for the viewer’s own pursuit of the truth, and seeing the realization of the development during episode 8 was one of the most satisfying moments of the series. From a belligerent child who couldn’t argue against anything Beatrice had to offer to a wise teacher who could punch the abstract embodiment of possibility solely because he refused to accept the fact that she couldn’t be hit, Battler has the most compelling and emotionally fulfilling character arc I’ve ever seen, and he well-deserves the spot of my favorite fictional character of all time.
 
...but on to more important matters.
 
What is magic? What logic did I use to find out it exists? Well...
 

[spoiler=Magic]
Sorry, the magic goes away when you open the box to see what’s inside.
 
While most people reading this thread likely believe in magic, and anyone else will probably be able to find their own answers elsewhere, I’m not going to be the one to give them in a public space. If there’s anything this series has taught me, it’s that magic must be found on its own. The very pursuit of magic is part of what makes it magic, and it’s a gift that should only be given to those who truly seek to find it.
 
I don’t want to ruin that for any passerbys who stumble upon this thread.
 
I also don’t think it’s my right to try to justify magic, especially considering I’ve just now begun to understand it. I don't want to undermine the depth it holds.


Needless to say, this series ignited a deep curiosity regarding magic and philosophy in general. I truly want to delve deeper into the field now, and see what awaits me in the world of the abstract.
 
This series is one I will always hold close to me, and never stop thinking about until the day I die.
 



I don’t like giving ratings above 10 because I feel like it devalues my scale, but…
 
12/10
 
The only thing "bad" about all this is that I was filled with such a vast, overwhelming respect for magic as a result of this series that I was unable to write this with any hint of irony. This series made me break through my shell of irony and take it all 100% seriously, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to treat magic as any kind of meme or joke ever again.
 
God damn it.

 

This was truly the greatest work of fiction I've ever read.

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