Let’s read Umineko! - episode 5 - chapter 7

Hello! It’s Umineko, we’re liveblogging it! You know the drill by now.

Before we start, a note on a translation question that came up last time—specifically, Erika’s ‘intellectual rapist’ line. An anonymous person said:

The original script of umineko says 知的強姦者 and not 知的蹂躙者, I think they changed it for the console ports.

Here

So yeah, 強姦 means sexual assault, so ‘intellectual rapist’ is a pretty literal translation. From talking with a friend, I learned that the Witch Hunt translation, which I think derives from the original PC version of the game, also used the phrase. So, for the curious, all four versions I have:

I’m not sure if the Umineko-project team intended to undo the change made in the PS3 version, or if they figured that ‘intellectual rapist’ also worked for ‘知的蹂躙者’.

Anyway, I don’t have a copy of the original script, so it’s possible there are other changes like this! But yeah, when he originally wrote the line, Ryuukishi07 had Erika make a sexual assault metaphor, that’s not something the translators introduced. No idea if it was him or someone else who decided to change it later on PS3.

OK, onwards!

Chapter 7: The Frantic Golden Drama

Eva is banging on the door to Kinzo’s study. No doubt Battler and Erika have reported the discovery of the goal. Natsuhi, of course, tries to get her to go away.

Krauss phones her up, confirming the situation. It’s a shame we don’t get to see how Battler broke the news to the family, that would have been funny. (Or sad, I dread to think how it hits Jessica with Erika there to rub it in.) But I guess Lambda wants to keep the plot moving briskly.

Krauss tries to stall, appealing to Kinzo’s strict orders not to be woken. Obviously Eva won’t buy it and he gets physical. Genji intervenes.

On the magic/Natsuhi’s mindscape layer, Kinzo is back to discuss the situation with Beato. Virgilia asks Beatrice if she will abandon the ritual as promised. So… the ritual is still on? Literally the first we’ve heard mention of it on the game board this time…

Ronove says that they will have no master since Battler does not intend to become the master of the Golden Land.

Virgilia: That is also fate. It has been several decades since we first manifested in the human world through our bond with Lord Goldsmith. ……It was all very fun.

So… Kinzo was the one who originally ‘created’ these characters, in much the same way that Maria created Sakutarō?

Kinzo says no regrets, he’s been prepared to be ‘kicked into Cocytus’ all along, so here’s the lore: Cocytus is one of the five rivers in the Greek underworld, though perhaps more significantly for Kinzo, it is also the lowest circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Beato objects to being relieved from duty: she still feels obliged to serve Natsuhi. The magic gang agree to serve her to the end of the family conference. Kinzo and Beatrice her to try to make through the critical moment and earn Kinzo’s remaining angel wing. (Not quite sure if that’s just a flowery description or occultly significant somehow…)

The camera goes down into the Gold Hole, so there’s no issue of Battler and Erika not being able to find it again.

Having all this money is enough to get the Ushiromiyas to actually be nice to each other for once. Even hug.

Erika is… still kinda arrogant but, I suppose, actually acknowledging someone else. Even if that someone else is also controlled by Bernkastel haha.

Erika: ………If it wasn’t solvable in a single day, then it wouldn’t have been solvable no matter how many days I spent on it. After all, it doesn’t take more than an instant for your little gray cells to give you a flash of intuition. ……Also, I wouldn’t have been able to solve this riddle on my own. I ask that you praise Battler‐san’s achievement as well, everyone.

Yep, that’s definitely how mathematical research works. It’s all or nothing.

She predicts why Battler called the adults, and not the cousins, here…

Immediately it’s time for no more hugs, all recrimination. Apparently they struck a deal earlier: split half the gold four ways, and the other half to the successor. Obviously, Rudolf wants this to go ahead, and Krauss and Natsuhi object. The others seem to be siding with Rudolf, in accordance with the pact. But what does Battler think..?

At issue is the unwritten principle that solving the epitaph makes you the head. The others press Natsuhi and Krauss, saying they should just ask Kinzo…

The voice actors do a great job of selling the intense argument here.

After a while, they all move back up to the mansion. The adults offer to pay Erika a share, despite her earlier refusal, to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone else about the gold. Battler, meanwhile, is not having fun.

Back on the game board layer, Battler is reporting the game events to the comatose player!Beatrice. He ponders why she always gave them letters pressing them to find the gold.

By solving it, we found a mountain of gold.
Yippee for us.

He reasons that Beato must have something to gain. Virgilia suddenly pops in and says…

Virgilia: No. This child has nothing to gain from having someone solve the epitaph.

When Battler questions it, Virgilia assures him that declaring this is what Beato would want. ++curious…

Battler raises the earlier theory that her aim was to snatch the gold after it was found. Virgilia adds:

Virgilia: Yes. ……In the first place, the gold of the Golden Land belongs to her from the start. She has absolutely no need to make anyone find it for her or to snatch it away herself.

And further…

Virgilia: ……You could say that. Whether the epitaph’s riddle is solved or not, she has nothing at all to gain from it.

Battler scratches his head, trying to figure out why she’d push them to solve it, if it’s immaterial to her either way. Does that mean, he contemplates, that the murders are equally immaterial? What sort of ‘blue and orange morality’ is she operating under?

Of course, this is assuming that the murders were carried out by a sole culprit that can be identified with whoever Virgilia is calling “this child”. If that’s not the case, then we don’t need to explain her motivation for the murders. Just for constructing this scenario going over it again and again, after the fact…

Another interpretation: let’s grab our new friend Bernard Suits. [See here - ed.] The goal may be arbitrary and insignificant, but the pursuit of it under a constraint may be a fulfilling activity. ‘Kill all the Ushiromiyas’ is what we’d call a prelusory goal. ‘Follow the beats of the epitaph’ and ‘provide an escape clause with the riddle’ is a constitutive rule, which prevents the most efficient means, like poisoning them. So, killing the Ushiromiyas is a Suitsian game and Beato’s reason for pursuing this strange roundabout activity is simply the lusory attitude!

…yeah, that’s dumb lmao. Although, that is probably how the situation breaks down for Bernie and Lambda.

Oddly enough, Battler actually does go along these lines. I mean, he doesn’t bring up Bernard Suits, but the inefficiency and voluntary difficulty does come up.

Everything about the epitaph murders……is full of useless ornament and empty decoration……that only seems to make it harder for her to carry out the serial murder.

Battler: ………She’s raising the difficulty of completing her own objective.

Battler gives us a little review of ‘nursery-rhyme murders’ in mystery novels. He categorises them thus:

an obfuscation

using tricks like playing dead or mixing up the order to confuse the investigators who assume the ritual is followed exactly

a coincidence

the culprit does not consciously follow the pattern, it just happens that the investigators notice it fits

a message

the murder pattern is a way of communicating to someone, perhaps to put the shits up the remaining victims

He observes that the first two don’t really fit (because of red evidence preventing such tricks, and because someone is constantly calling attention to the epitaph), so he concludes it’s a message to intimidate someone. In that case, the person in question would be whoever gets left alive to the end. Which must be him, right?

He cites someone in ‘this novel I like’, who considers killing the people close to someone before you kill them is the worst way to kill someone. I’m guessing this is another Higurashi thing? One day I’ll read Higurashi… and play through Silent Hill f now we have that as another entry in the Ryuukishi07verse… ahaha…

Battler does indeed notice that he is the only person to survive to the last twilight in every single game.

Virgilia hops in with some reassurances, lest he get the wrong idea:

Virgilia: ………Let me first speak with the red. Battler‐kun, you are not the culprit. You haven’t killed anyone. This can be said of all games.

He hypothesises that she wants revenge against him. Virgilia decides to stop him going too far down this road…

Virgilia: That’s wrong. ……Her goal is not to make someone experience fear. And it isn’t to have revenge on someone either.

So, if it is a message to Battler, it has some other end. Presumably something related to whatever the hell she was alluding to at the end of episode 4, right? The ‘sin’ that Battler did six years ago. But why wouldn’t he know about it?

Battler concludes that the combination of these two meaningless things must have meaning. Then he says…

Oh my god it actually is the lusory attitude! I’m gonna shit!

However, the very act of seeing which way it will tip… is the reason kids play rock‐paper‐scissors.

After all, the kids are enjoying the communication that surrounds the game, ……and they aren’t purely interested in the value of winning or losing.

I can’t believe my pretentious application of Huizinga and Suits is actually literally where they were going with this.

Anyway, Battler says he’s not just gonna curse Beato as heartless for all this. In return for this generosity, Virgilia gives this:

Virgilia: ………Thank you. In that case, I’ll give you one more red. …Beato never committed murder for the sake of pleasure.

But of course, let’s grab a line from Huizinga: play is both the opposite of seriousness, and something that people take very, very seriously.

He reaffirms his commitment to flipping chessboards and thinking. And, chapter break!

OK, so, for the record, I don’t literally think that Ryuukishi07 had the philosophy of Huizinga, Caillois or Suits in mind when he was writing this story. But I definitely think he’s thinking in a similar space. Makes me feel like that deep dive into RPGs was not just an offshoot of this project but somehow an integral part of it…

Anyway, we have a bunch of red here. This red is about the motivation of “this child”, contextually referring to player!Beatrice. Who can we connect that to in the world of the game? One answer could be the putative author!Beatrice. After all, her hypothetical motivation is not to gain pleasure or inflict fear. I’ve been assuming it’s to explore the awful events of Rokkenjima and put her ghosts to rest, or perhaps sustain the memory of people she cared about like Battler. (Just like, in the Ange arc, Ange sustains the memory of Maria.)

But, I think that’s a bit too abstract. Someone acted on Rokkenjima. Whatever they did put the murders in motion. Still don’t feel like I have a good answer to that question, at least as far as Rokkenjima Prime. Like, maybe we won’t get an exact ‘whodunnit’ answer to Rokkenjima Prime the way things are going, but we should at least hope to find out whydunnit.

OK, that’s a wrap on the chapter!