firemtn

whew. Hell of an episode. Let's keep thinking.

What a weird episode oh my god!!! I both really liked it and also was a little frustrated by it??

• Beato :(
  This episode was pulling so hard at the heartstrings of all the Beato fans (I'm the Beato fans), it's so sad to see her catatonic like this. Battler caring for her in this state is, honestly, very sweet, and I'm so mad at Ryukishi for tricking me into caring about het. And honestly as tragic as seeing Beato like this is, I really loved all of the scenes in her golden land with Battler and Virgilia looking after her, there's a calm to them that is so unique among the other scenes of the entire series, it's a really beautiful sort of atmosphere.
  While Beato is like this, Virgilia provides a lot of hints to us about her, some of which challenged a lot of assumptions I was personally making, which I honestly appreciate. I'll drop them here for my own sake: the gold of the golden land belongs to this child. she had absolutely no need to make someone find it for her or snatch it away herself. her goal is not to make someone experience fear, and it isn't to have revenge on someone either. she never committed murder for pleasure. Battler hasn't killed anyone. and additionally, Beato created this game for Battler to solve it. The bits about revenge and enjoying murder directly contradict the assumptions I had made last episode -- it was hard to imagine Beato wasn't getting something out of the murders, especially considering how much fun she seemed to have watching Eva kill at first. This rules out basically everything I'd considered for Beato's motivations previously.
  I'm still wracking my brain here on this -- if the Epitaph and the murders are equal to Beato, then that must mean that they essentially accomplish the same thing in her mind. Assumedly, Battler is the one she wants to solve the Epitaph. He technically does this episode, but it's Piece Battler being controlled by Bernkastel, and while being helped by Erika. I believe that Battler could solve it, though, as Virgilia says any action the Piece can take is something Battler is capable of -- Bern can't make him break character. The primary goals we have for Beato are to make Battler remember something that happened six years ago and for Battler to solve her game. This also means her assumed "Win State" of "Make Battler give in and declare witches and magic to be real", which we know to be a losing battle, is also not her actual win condition, as I suspected last time. Battler's stated win condition of "prove a human could have accomplished the murders" also doesn't "Solve" Beato's Game, on top of that, so it's unlikely to be how Battler will break free. As Battler searches through Beato's moves, he can't understand them, because they aren't the best possible ones for her based on the assumed win state she had. The point was never to kill everyone, it was to get Battler to figure things out... This also explains why crushing Battler in game 2 didn't end the games -- it was fun, but not what she was looking for.
  I'm also kind of rolling back to my question of "is Beato actually the killer?" -- all throughout this episode, Piece Beatrice's actions are to try to shift blame away from Natsuhi and towards herself. While it's true she isn't the game master anymore, there isn't even an attempt to create an illusion of Beatrice as a killer, she's just trying to take the blame instead of the person being set up by the way the murders are crafted. And yet, we have the apparently hyper-distinctive handwriting of Beatrice on the letters and message bottles in '98 proving she is nonetheless somehow involved, even if her actual actions on Rokkenjima seem to be implying she isn't the murderer. We could potentially satisfy Virgilia's statments by claiming Beatrice hasn't killed at all, but it's impossible to separate her from the creation of this incident, particularly given she is the (previous) Game Master, so is it even possible she hasn't killed? That said, the only thing remotely provable about Beato killing is that she stated her intent to kill Battler when they were alone on Rokkenjima in episode 4. If she gains nothing, is it possible she's being forced to do this somehow? That would make the murders and the epitaph essentially equal to her. We also know that even though she seems to believe solving the epitaph means the murders will stop, we've seen the epitaph be solved twice now (though it's possible it's been solved other times and we didn't know -- again, I believe strongly Rosa may have solved the epitaph in Episode 2, as she is clearly able to in Ep3 and the gold is presented in this episode as well) and the murders have not stopped. This either means that Beato is not fully in control of the killings (as I've suggested in the past), or a new possibility I've been thinking about: the epitaph has two potential solutions, only one of which has been discovered -- the one which leads to the gold -- and the second solution is what Beato is looking for. I don't know that I think "two solutions" is likely, honestly, but I do think there's something more to the Epitaph's solution than simply "where the gold is" that hasn't been discovered yet, which is what really matters to Beato.
  While I do continue to think logically, in terms of who has opportunity to do things behind the scenes, fake their deaths, etc, Kanon and to a much lesser extent Shannon still make sense to me, I feel a little lost on the motive point because now it seems to be completely wrapped up in events that we still aren't privy to. I feel like it's possible, given how Piece Beatrice works with Natsuhi this episode, that Beato's motivations might revolve around protecting someone, but I don't see how Battler needs protection here, and the plotline murders highlight Battler specifically...

• Lambda's Game
  So, with Beato As She Is, Lambda has taken over the game. To be honest, I took everything in this episode with even more skepticism than I normally do, at least until Virgilia clarified that pieces cannot break character. Even then, Battler in particular is in a weird position here -- He's controlled by Bern when he solves the Epitaph with Erika and by Lambda when he challenges Erika, they're like sharing him to fight each other? Very weird. The bit where he catches Beatrice after they leap out the window is soooo hammy stupid, it felt like Lambda and Bern were making fun of them in comparison to the more authentic feeling scenes with Meta Battler and Meta Beato. It, uh, felt like a George and Shannon bit, tbh...
  I still don't know that I think Lambda is "playing fair" so to speak in the way Beatrice would, I don't trust that what she created was necessarily a solvable mystery. Like, the ????? 5 tea party scene takes such great effort to make clear that part of the love in a mystery is giving the reader the ability to solve it, and... there's no love here, right? It could simply be the choices Lambda makes -- bringing up Natsuhi's sad history with this child, breaking Beato's epitaph pattern, etc -- that show her lack of love, but I am suspicious there might not be a real answer here. Especially since like, if Lambda's goal is to keep Bern here forever, what would maintain a tie better than an unsolvable mystery?
  This episode also recalls a lot of Episode 1 again, which makes me wonder if this is going to be a hallmark of the Answer Arcs. Natsuhi is the main adult again, a large point of contention is Kinzo's disappearance (though now with the added context of Kinzo's death being confirmed), Eva's receipt trick returns, and even Hideyoshi dies in an essentially identical situation to the one he and Eva died in in Ep1. That said, the game also ends prematurely, so we miss out on a lot more potential context. Here are some thoughts I'm considering due to the mirroring here: Was the gold discovered in Episode 1 as it was in Episode 5? Who discovered it, if so? (Krauss, given he shows a gold bar to Natsuhi?) Is Natsuhi's closet adventure related to the method of Eva and Hideyoshi's deaths in Episode 1? I'm not sure that could be the case. Since all deaths are guaranteed for the first twilight, and they are the second, I think most people are accounted for during the second twilight scenes to the best of my recollection. Not sure!

• The Epitaph
  I don't know what to do with the epitaph! This is obviously a huge problem because it would probably give me a hint to a puzzle I actually care about (Beatrice), but I went absolutely nuts trying to claw for any answer I could during Bernkastel's big solve'em segment in the sea of fragments and got nowhere. I am taking the section of the mystery discussion in ????? 5 where they discuss what something being "solvable" means and directly point out cultural differences as a massive hurdle for something that is technically solvable for certain people but much, much harder to solve for others as a confession from ryukishi07 himself that the epitaph is likely nearly unsolvable for me as an exclusively english-understanding american who has very low geographical knowledge of japan. I literally was flailing so hard I was typing "ayukawa" into google maps trying to see if that lead me anywhere, I genuinely don't think this is gonna go well for me. And yet every time Bern taunted Battler about stopping thinking I couldnt help but feel the need to keep trying at something... I can definitely say like, well I can point to stuff like "well it seems like the twilights might represent specific codes you have to input to open the well behind the mansion to get to the under-Kuwadorian bunker and find the gold", but when it comes to what these codes are, what I would actually be solving and understanding here. I'm not saying I resign but like. I'm basically just waiting for it to be something I had no hope of figuring out at this point, which doesn't feel good! Oh well!!

• Natsuhi & The Baby
  So Natsuhi is in charge again and we get a chunk of backstory for her. It's kind of amazing that right after I claim I could see Natsuhi wanting to destroy the family, but she only gained that motivation after the incident begins we get an episode focusing on establishing the possibility that she's actually had a motivation long before the murders begin. weird!! I'm not really convinced by Erika digging up old diaries though, and well, Virgilia already gave us the answer of Natsuhi's innocence. I'm honestly still curious about Natsuhi's family (that is, the family she was born into) which hasn't gotten a lot of information other than being involved in shrines and that at one point Natsuhi said she was happy to have left them. Not sure what to make of it -- she's so devoted to the Ushiromiyas in a way that feels so utterly sad... She's obsessed with this family honor that feels totally meaningless to me as a reader of the story, just throwing herself through pain for nothing but endless rejection. She tries to "save" the family while Krauss sells the deed to their home for essentially crypto and for what? For Eva keep spitting in her face? for Krauss to never acknowledge all she's done for him because she's a woman? for Kinzo to die before he ever says a kind word to her? It's depressing! Bernkastel cruelly declares her having tea with Beatrice to be something that never happened, leaving Natsuhi alone, depressed. It's one of the most awful feeling things that happens in the conflict between Fantasy and Reality in Umineko. But Natsuhi is toiling in misery for nothing. It sucks to watch her defend this concept that does nothing for her. She didn't, but maybe she deserves do a little murder! Or at least fuckin' divorce Krauss and find a woman who treats her like Beatrice does in her fantasies.
  Okay so like. The baby. Kinzo gave Natsuhi a child, and Natsuhi and a servant went for a walk with it, and the servant and the baby died. Natsuhi like. does not seem to feel particularly concerned about the servant's death, which. yeesh. but she feels immensely about the child. His introduction to her life was a shame to her (and like, while this has the air of like "oh adoption is fake and you can never love an adopted child" it's also like. Kinzo was clearly shaming her.) and his death seems to be a constant dagger over her head. This is a really strange new element to introduce! especially since the timing of the death of this baby matches up with when Rosa tried to help Beatrice 2 escape and watched her die! Clearly these events dont line up, but my assumption is that this happened one after the other -- Rosa ran off and found Kuwadorian after her grades came in, then she goes off on summer vacation with her friends to bury the memory of watching someone die, meanwhile Kinzo finds another suitable "vessel" for Beatrice and gives the child to Natsuhi? I'm kind of wondering if the baby was Beatrice 2's, or if there's some kind of connection, considering that frankly, I can't see Kinzo encouraging Natsuhi to raise a child that wasn't of his bloodline unless it was connected to Beatrice (of course, nothing says it can't be both...). This baby feels very important no matter what, but then there's the question mark of what happened between it supposedly "dying" and the events of October 1986. I also don't really know if the supposed actual baby threatening Natsuhi at age 19 is something I think is really happening or not -- it could be someone else who found out about this, it could be the actual child, it could literally just be Lambda fucking around. We'd need to see if this element recurs to really know what it means, I think. Oh, and for the record, I don't believe he's Battler -- I caught the voice actors being the same, but I think the fact that Battler uses the possibility he could be this guy to instigate a tie genuinely means it isn't him, or at least, that isn't the entire truth.
  Overall, like, the Fukuin House is super weird, moreso than it's ever seemed tbh. It's kind of been lurking in the background uncommented on for a while, and I really hope we get some kind of focus on it in the future. Like, my major candidates for Beato are from there, this baby is from there, it's just this bizarre black hole of information that has some kind of shady connection with Kinzo! Are the Fukuin children Kinzo's? are they related to Beatrice?

• Erika & Bernkastel
  God. Erika Furudo huh. She just barges in and takes over the show. Erika is, in a way, trying to ensure she is the only real person on the gameboard, absorbing the spotlight, making everything about her, and controlling the game. She like fluctuates between being really funny and a little frustrating -- her role as The Poochie of Umineko kind of invokes both things. I love seeing the narration self aware-ly point out how Bern and Erika have forcibly made Erika into the main character, I'm really fascinated by her relationship with Bernkastel and how she's begging for treats from her with everything she does, but man, it does get actually frustrating the way she is free to break the very same rules she imposes on Battler. We get the Knox Decalogue this episode, wielded by Dlanor under Erika's command to force Battler to form a real argument from deductions besides throwing out "unknown device X". I think that's great. Battler is so funny when he does this but it is time for him to grow past that. But Erika herself constantly breaks these laws -- her entire conceit as a character is in blatant violation of both Knox's 2nd and 6th. Everything she does to establish her perfect case against Natsuhi is because she's simply assuming a murder will happen and planted a bunch of tape based on unaccountable intuition, and even admitted Bernkastel is feeding her information from on high. Her accusation of Natsuhi breaks Knox's 1st, as we've been able to see Natsuhi's thoughts and frequently see the story in her first person perspective. She runs against the 8th as well, only declaring her clues during the trial. She constantly talks shit about third-rate mysteries, but she's the most third-rate of all, blatantly metagaming her way through the mystery. It wavers between being really amusing as a character bit and very frustrating as a reader. To be perfectly honest, I can't see a potential murderer in this case other than Erika herself (i believe she was stated to be not the murderer before any murders actually happened...), and I genuinely thought the end of the episode would involve dissolving her detective's authority by throwing the decalogue back in her face. Of course we still have a lot of Erika yet to see, and to be honest, I'm sure I'm only going to love her more as time goes on. I just felt a little frustrated by the double standard presented.
  However, I do think Erika is a fascinating character both from the perspective of her as like, an indictment of a certain kind of mystery fan (perhaps even a certain kind of Umineko fan...), and the relationship she has with Bernkastel. This is kind of the first time we really see a player and their piece be... separate people, sort of? And Erika's identity as Bernkastel's piece is like very fascinating. It's another replication of the parent-child abuse dynamic we see all over Umineko, But there's something even more unequal here, as in some ways it's almost like, religious on Erika's end, considering Bern is literally on a higher plane of existence. She has to be a perfect little mystery solving dog for Bern's amusement to hopefully get a little pat on the head, but Bern is just as likely to laugh in her face -- and she has to take it either way. Honestly, looking at their relationship has me wonder how much other parents in Umineko might prefer a relationship like Bern and Erika's with their children... Someone so utterly devoted to them and making them look good that just has to accept their abuse because they know their parent is Divine. On the other hand, that belief in her connection with Divinity also fuels her total detachment from everyone else. Erika's MO is "no love", and she sees everything around her a puzzle to the extent that it kind of made me feel ashamed to be trying to solve Umineko.

• A Mystery
  So of course this episode also affirms that Umineko is meant to be solved. the entire mystery discussion in ????? 5 was honestly one of my favorite bits, I really enjoyed watching the characters quietly talk about genre and Beato's game together. it's beautiful! the relationship between the author and the reader is a beautiful thing!! It's so interesting to be on the other side of the previous episodes and have it be affirmed that, in fact, maybe Beato is actually the Ultimate Mystery Fan and that so much of what she did was to encourage Battler to try to figure things out. It's a really cool twist of what we've seen so far that makes perfect sense. It's a mystery Beato made for Battler to solve.
  That leaves some questions -- At the end of this sequence Battler has figured everything out and ascends to become the Game Master, understanding the Truth of the Game. It is greatly emphasized that the game is solvable for Battler -- not necessarily for anyone. At the moment, I still have a lot of questions, because I still lack information that Battler supposedly has by being... well, Battler, and having lived his own life. However, Ryukishi has also implored the readers to search back through the previous episodes to see if they can find new possibilities with the information they've gathered through the previous episodes. Personally, if I was reading this in the late 2000s (I don't know the exact date of Ep5's release), waiting between Comikets for the next episode of Umineko, I would want to take Ryukishi up on this for sure -- I love replaying/rereading stuff in anticipation of a new sequel in the series, even if there isn't some kind of overarching mystery to solve. But. As much as I still feel this compulsion. God. I have the remaining episodes right here. I really just want to read the rest... I'm sorry Ryukishi... it's my love of this story that compels me to continue instead of looking back, I promise...

• Truth
  Okay so. There's blue truth. red truth. and, now... golden truth.
  Blue Truth has been simple: A theory as to what is going on in the game is presented in blue. That's no problem. Red Truth has been a little more complicated: It's supposed to be an inarguable truth about the world of the game, but it can be effected by wordplay, emotional context, and the time in which it is said in order to create somewhat dishonest premises. Red has also been used for a number of non-statements, which remains inexplicable. Golden Truth... all we have is that it is like Red Truth, but it is sometimes More True and sometimes Less True, and it is the exclusive domain of the Game Master. Using it proves Battler understands The Truth. Battler's statement in gold, "I guarantee that this corpse is Kinzo Ushiromiya's corpse!" is in itself presented in an INCREDIBLY vague context as well. My best assumption is that this ties into some of the oddities surrounding the corpses we've seen this episode -- that one of the corpses we assume belongs to someone else is in fact Kinzo instead; we've been guaranteed nobody else has been mistaken for Kinzo, but we've never been told Kinzo couldn't be mistaken for someone else. My best guesses for who you could disguise Kinzo as are Hideyoshi and Genji... Hideyoshi in particular is found face down and has a similar bodytype to Kinzo. That said, I'm not sure how this works unless Natsuhi's been keeping his body in a freezer, which, why? But it's still entirely possible...
  As for Gold Truth itself, given Red Truth seemingly can account for emotion, Gold might be a cold hard fact with no room for wordplay -- I can see how that could be both better than and worse than Red Truth, in that case.

• Beato's Piece
  The last thing I'm thinking about is Piece Beatrice. This episode has given us way more perspective of Umineko as a "gameboard" being used by the Meta World characters than ever. And while Beato herself is catatonic, the Piece Beatrice is still part of the game. We've been introduced more directly to the idea of a piece that is played by one of the players of the game not being them, necessarily through Bernkastel and Erika. We've also seen the like, witch pieces of Virgilia and Ronove and Gaap before as well, representing characters that only conceptually exist in one interpretation of the story. I'm wondering if Piece Beatrice is in fact, like... a fictional Beatrice? Not someone who exists on Rokkenjima? That Beato (Player/Game Master) is represented specifically by Beato wearing the uniform, and that the Piece Beatrice in the dress, instead, is representative of the concept of Beatrice the Witch of Rokkenjima. That, perhaps, Beato wearing the uniform is the same piece as another piece on the board, the one who is the real person behind Beatrice, but Beatrice in the dress in the game is a fictionalized piece created by Beato?? In the same way Erika is to Bernkastel?? This is kind of a confusing thing to work out, but I feel like this explicates the scene with two Beatrices in Episode 4.

• Other Thoughts
  why did they put the fucking sans eye on erika in the op. also just in general the slam to the OP from Battler getting dropped into the game as erika accuses Natsuhi was really top notch.
  my notes say "ANGE MENTIONED" for the exact moment she appears in the OP
  Beato and Natsuhi are really sweet together. Any time Beato is helping one of the women it's the cutest. We need more Beato yuri!
  Hey Gaap talking about how she's the "new one" who doesn't know as much about everything going on totally is another thing that would mean she's the Gohda of the demon group. I'm just saying! I'm just saying!! It's entirely possible!
  Hideyoshi has kind of not lit the charts on fire generally but it's really funny to learn he got started in business by stealing from the US army.
  I still can't believe Rudolf is a figure skater. I think I'm actually becoming Rudolf-pilled. I think he might be my favorite of Kinzo's kids at this point somehow. How did this fucking happen
  I HAD to immediately check the OMK wiki to see if Dlanor had DIE THE DEATH as a super in the fighting game, thank god she does. It's so deserved. Dlanor is a nice character in general.
  They said "cajolery" too many times in this episode.
  While the Decalogue was being discussed, I briefly tried to think outside of the box about Knox's First -- if the "culprit" (whatever this really means at this point) must be a character from Episode 1, this technically includes Bernkastel. It feels kind of absurd to point to her as one of the killers because she isn't even on the same plane of existence and wouldn't make sense as part of Beato's game, but at the same time, it also would explain why she seems so eager to end and get away from the game...
  God the fight scenes are so silly but so cool. I'm so enamored of the way like, Umineko choreographs fights within the confines of a Visual Novel, it's really awesome, I'm so glad they never tried to replace that with actual animation or something in later releases.

Next episode is Battler's. I'm really fascinated by the idea of him running the board to prove he fully understands Beato's game, and I wonder if he actually does? He uses gold truth, so, he must understand something, and yet... there are still three more episodes, right? In some ways Battler's ascension feels like the game is ending, but there's still quite a lot more. I can't wait to see whatever the fuck happens next...!