Hempel's Raven Is A Stupid Argument.

[rionaleonhart]

Having wandered away from Umineko: When They Cry for a while, I've just come back to it and finished the third instalment! Every instalment starts pretty slowly, so I forget how cool this visual novel series is and I'm taken by surprise when everything becomes gripping.



I don't really have any interest in the George/Shannon and Jessica/Kanon romances, which is a bit of a shame. Umineko really wants me to be invested!

I like Battler's 'I'm not really interested in a girlfriend; I'm happy spending time with a group of friends' attitude. (Battler's ended up being my favourite character, as predicted.)

Genji gently holding Shannon from behind and putting his hand over her eyes and killing her kindly, with her knowledge and gratitude, so she won't be painfully murdered is sort of making me ship them, I'll be honest.

Beatrice really wants Battler's attention, all the time.

The whole six-room-closed-room sequence where Battler goes FUCK YOUR MAGIC, MY ARGUMENT IS 'YOU'RE AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR' is great.

Virgilia reminds Beatrice of the fable of the North Wind and the Sun, and of the fact that the victory condition is getting Battler to accept her existence, and I really hope she's advising Beatrice to seduce Battler.

Chapter one was Natsuhi's chapter; chapter two was Rosa's; chapter three is Eva's. If we're focusing on the women in each of the siblings' marriages, maybe we'll learn more about Kyrie in chapter four?

I really like that Natsuhi is always trying so hard to be a good host, even when there have been a bunch of murders.

Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting someone to solve the riddle this soon.

Battler and Beatrice having a weird friendly moment as they applaud Eva together!

I love that Battler's response to unimaginable horrors is to yell 'DON'T FUCK WITH ME' while crying.

Beatrice is so shocked when he slaps her!

She genuinely just thinks they're having a fun game of 'let's repeatedly murder Battler's family', and she's confused that he's so upset about it! She revives them (to murder them again), right? So it's fine, right?

'Does he really... hate me that much? Is our relationship really so bad that we can't laugh together at this display?' Beatrice, this display is of his aunt being repeatedly, brutally killed.

I hadn't realised Beatrice had this strange innocence to her.

And now she's trying to arrange for Battler's family to be nicely murdered so he won't hate her. Beatrice, I think he'd probably prefer it if they didn't get murdered at all.

'I believe I gave them a much more peaceful death...'
'Shut the hell up. I'm not talking to you.'

Bizarrely, I find myself feeling a little sorry for Beatrice. She's making an effort! I mean, yes, she's still murdering your family, but she's trying to do it more nicely now that she's realised it genuinely bothers you!

'Why do you instinctively hate me so much, Battler?' IT'S NOT INSTINCTIVE, BEATRICE, HE WOULDN'T HAVE HATED YOU BEFORE YOU STARTED KILLING EVERYONE.

'This may sound weird, but I've felt a faint sense of sportsmanship between the two of us,' Battler admits. These characters have such a weird dynamic and I'm really enjoying it.

'Milady has never had the experience of having a friend.'
'Don't screw with me. I don't remember ever becoming her friend.'

Battler is frustrated because he's not getting fired up, and he's not getting fired up because he's refusing to interact with Beatrice!

I can't believe Kyrie's envy of her husband's first wife was canonically so intense it enabled her to shoot an object moving at the speed of sound.

Kyrie and Rudolf defeating their would-be murderers is pretty rad; I wasn't expecting that!

'If you act so undignified and cruel... umm, some people might take it badly.' I love how hard Beatrice is trying not to say PLEASE, I JUST WANT BATTLER TO LIKE ME.

Interesting: the bunny-girl weapon kills different people differently. I think that's support for the idea that it's actually a human carrying out these murders, and the magical explanations are false. Why would one weapon sometimes strangle and sometimes pierce?

Really, though, I'm starting to suspect the idea is that both potential explanations are true. If you believe in magic, these murders were carried out magically. If not, they were carried out by human means.

I like that Battler refuses so hard to believe in magic that magical weapons have absolutely no effect on him.

HECK YEAH, BATTLER'S GOT A NEW RESPECT FOR BEATRICE. I love when he tells Witch Eva that 'Beatrice never used such childish tricks!' and Beatrice is startled and touched.

This battle between Battler and Witch Eva is great. And we're pinning down a specific human culprit! (How did the servants die, though? Was that someone else? I feel that, if Eva's the culprit (in this round?), she probably didn't start killing until she found the gold.)

Awww, Battler doesn't want to break his promise to fight Beatrice again!

Battler is crying at the prospect of Beatrice sacrificing herself! I really wasn't expecting their relationship to end up here.

EVA SHOOTING BATTLER SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

The note 'Wolves and sheep puzzle' under the details of Battler's death is also really scary.

I can't believe Beatrice and Battler are good-naturedly teasing each other, but I think I love it.

Wait a second. Is this whole thing just a 'you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar' approach? Virgilia told Beatrice to think of the fable of the North Wind and the Sun, after all. Were Beatrice's 'good' actions solely to make Battler acknowledge magic, so she would win their game? I'll be sad if it turns out there's no real feeling on her side; I'm pretty charmed by their unexpected newfound friendship.

OH NO, IT'S GETTING SINISTER, I HATE BEING RIGHT.

At least it looks like Beatrice undergoes a moment of internal conflict before going 'lol yeah sorry Battler I'm still evil.'

It's just a hunch based on the fact that they both have red hair, but is this mysterious teenage girl who's shown up to rescue Battler... Ange? Battler's six-year-old half-sister, grown older somehow?

It is Ange! Battler goes 'you couldn't be...?', and her name appears in the credits!

And there was a survivor in this loop! Because Eva MURDERED EVERYONE, I guess. (This does make me wonder why there were no survivors in the previous two loops, if there's a human explanation behind everything. I'm also still curious about who killed the servants in this loop, and who killed Hideyoshi and George; I don't think Eva would have done that. Did Kyrie and Rudolf confront Hideyoshi about the alibi he'd created for Eva and end up killing him?)

Ange must have grown up extremely fucked up, having lost her entire family at the age of six, with the sole exception of an aunt who wants her dead. I suppose she might at least have relatives on Kyrie's side.

I weirdly love that their relationship is so fucked up that Eva starts coughing and Ange's automatic assumption is 'oh, great, my aunt invited me here so she could die and have me framed for it.'

Oh, wow, Ange ended up in Eva's care and Eva plotted to ensure she grew up without any friends. As if Ange wouldn't have been fucked up enough already!

'Battler nii-san always loved me a lot, and he'd always pat my head' nooooooo, game, don't bring in sibling relationships, my greatest weakness

(I mean, yes, there were already the adult Ushiromiya siblings, but they all pretty much hate each other.)

Thinking that, even if only her brother had lived, at least they'd have been able to support each other through the loss of everyone else! My heart!



I'm very interested to see where this goes.

I like how Umineko constantly wants to teach the reader new weird concepts (much like Zero Escape, which I feel was probably influenced by Umineko). I was already aware of the devil's proof and Schrödinger's cat, but I hadn't heard of Hempel's raven (which I hate with a sort of delighted ferocity; THE FACT THAT MY LAPTOP IS RED AND NOT A RAVEN IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT ALL RAVENS ARE BLACK) or fool's mate, the fastest possible checkmate in chess (I've never had the patience for chess, so the revelation that it's possible for a game to last under a minute appeals deeply to me).

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

'Does he really... hate me that much? Is our relationship really so bad that we can't laugh together at this display?' Beatrice, this display is of his aunt being repeatedly, brutally killed.

Beatrice sounds like an amazing character!

At least it looks like Beatrice undergoes a moment of internal conflict before going 'lol yeah sorry Battler I'm still evil.'

Aw! I want her to love him and sincerely want him to be happy and have a terrible grasp of his feelings about his relatives being murdered!

Hempel's raven (which I hate with a sort of delighted ferocity; THE FACT THAT MY LAPTOP IS RED AND NOT A RAVEN IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT ALL RAVENS ARE BLACK)

That is terrible! I mean I'm not a cat and can't shoot fire from my nose. Is that evidence that all cats can shoot fire from their nose?

[rionaleonhart]

Battler's so unreasonable. What do you expect her to do, Battler, not murder your family like some sort of saint? When it's so much fun?

I mean I'm not a cat and can't shoot fire from my nose. Is that evidence that all cats can shoot fire from their nose?

APPARENTLY SO.

[wolfy_writing]

Just like zero murdering? Who even does that?

[keltena]

Oh, cool, you're playing Umineko? I'm glad you're having fun; it's a wild ride. The pacing gets seriously drawn-out or lopsided in some of the early episodes in particular, yeah. (You can really tell sometimes that R07 was putting these out on short deadlines.)

Also your title is right, the mangling of Hempel's Raven is very stupid >:( that's not what "evidence" means, Ryukishi!

I don't really have any interest in the George/Shannon and Jessica/Kanon romances, which is a bit of a shame. Umineko really wants me to be invested!

Yeah, I always felt similarly about the romances themselves. Invested in the individual characters, sure, but really not feeling the importance of their deep, beautiful true love the way they all seemed to be. (I did at least end up liking them insofar as they served as characterization; I don't see the appeal in, say, Shannon/George, but seeing in detail why they do illustrated some pretty interesting things about them and the family for me.)

The whole six-room-closed-room sequence where Battler goes FUCK YOUR MAGIC, MY ARGUMENT IS 'YOU'RE AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR' is great.

They treat it as such a crushing blow, too! "sounds fake lol" = a highly advanced anti-magic technique, one of the most devastatingly powerful debate tactics possible.

'If you act so undignified and cruel... umm, some people might take it badly.' I love how hard Beatrice is trying not to say PLEASE, I JUST WANT BATTLER TO LIKE ME.

...Now that I think about it, that really is super unprofessional behavior. EVA gets sold this whole ritual thing as a fun murder job where she'll have full creative control, and then like an hour later her old supervisor is back in her face pleading with her to do it differently so she can impress her new date? Yeesh.

The Battler-Beato dynamic really is the gift that keeps on giving. You get so many different fun angles out of it, it's great.

nooooooo, game, don't bring in sibling relationships, my greatest weakness

Haha, I had the same panicked reaction when I hit that point. Aside from Shannon and Kanon, I thought I'd escaped the threat of sibling feelings by virtue of the Ushiromiyas being themselves! And then they spring this on you.

Amusingly enough, I can think of at least one more cool nerdy concept that gets discussed in both ZE and Umineko just off the top of my head, so influence sounds like a safe bet. Maybe the real appeal of writing VNs is the power to exposit to your whole audience about that awesome thing you just read about on Wikipedia? (I wonder what it is with visual novels and Schrödinger's cat specifically? The poor thing seems to get beaten half to ambiguous death as a metaphor in every single VN that gets long and twisty enough.) At least the influence doesn't go the other way around—just imagine the carnage if the Ushiromiya family had to play a Nonary Game.

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, wow, I'm very excited to learn I now know someone who's played Umineko!

"sounds fake lol" = a highly advanced anti-magic technique, one of the most devastatingly powerful debate tactics possible.

I'm deeply delighted by this.

The Battler-Beato dynamic really is the gift that keeps on giving. You get so many different fun angles out of it, it's great.

Yes! I love that it can switch from 'ferocious opponents' to 'some sort of humiliation kink thing?' to 'unlikely allies' and back again.

just imagine the carnage if the Ushiromiya family had to play a Nonary Game.

oh no

oh no

[keltena]

Same to you! It's a kind of niche VN, but I'm a big fan, so it's always cool to run into people playing it.

I'm deeply delighted by this.

There really is a special kind of charm to Umineko's knack for using paragraphs of totally straight-faced, high-density magibabble to express concepts like "he said he doesn't believe you", honestly.

Yes! I love that it can switch from 'ferocious opponents' to 'some sort of humiliation kink thing?' to 'unlikely allies' and back again.

Yeah, it runs the full gamut from enemy hateship to inappropriately friendly rivals to "...what is this all of a sudden, a high school romcom?" Sometimes in, like, one scene. With forays into Beato just printing her femdom/dehumanization/vore kinkfic straight onto the screen instead.

oh no

oh no

:)

(AB Game, Round 1: Ally with Eva, or Betray? Either way, you lose! :D)

[enemyofperfect]

Umineko sounds amazing, but mostly I am here to say that I looked up Hempel's raven and it MADE MY DAY. It sounds so ridiculous, but it kind of makes sense! But the sense it makes remains ridiculous! So many philosophers have so many opinions! There's a counterargument involving "an infinitely intelligent newborn baby". I treasure this knowledge.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm glad this journal could have some degree of educational(?) value! And I hadn't read down to the infinitely intelligent newborn baby, so thank you for drawing my attention to that; that's magical.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if the weird new concepts thing is to do with a particular niche of Japanese VN creators. As you said, there's Zero Escape, and Umineko. Root Double also does this - although the Root Double creator had worked with Uchikoshi before, so suppose them both doing it is not too surprising.

Out of interest, I went back to Root Double's OP to find the "scientific buzzwords!" section as I remember a lot of them being made up stuff related to the setting, which is true, but there are also some for actual weird concepts:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/charles-bonnet-syndrome/ (this explanation is very interesting in context of how the game plays with it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon (you'll enjoy this one)

So yeah. Everything has got to teach you a weird concept!

I went back to your first entries on Umineko and am curious if your thoughts on characters have changed, mostly as you don't much mention the characters you initially talked about liking (of course, not having anything to say specifically about somebody doesn't equate to dislike) in later entries, whereas it's quite clear you're having loads of fun with Battler and Beatrice at the moment.

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, wow, both of those links are really interesting, but I'm particularly fascinated by Charles Bonnet syndrome. I had no idea failing vision could result in something like that. It's also sort of fascinating that people afflicted can hallucinate people, but not generally people they know.

I went back to your first entries on Umineko and am curious if your thoughts on characters have changed, mostly as you don't much mention the characters you initially talked about liking (of course, not having anything to say specifically about somebody doesn't equate to dislike) in later entries, whereas it's quite clear you're having loads of fun with Battler and Beatrice at the moment.

Interesting question!

My main change in attitude is that I've warmed very strongly to Battler, which I suspected early on was likely. He's introduced with 'I LOVE TITS, TITS TITS TITS', which was perhaps not the best first impression, but by now his time's too taken up with semi-friendly rivalry and psychological breakdowns (both of which are great) for the game to dwell much on his tit obsession.

Looking back at what I said about characters in my first entry:

I like George and Jessica well enough, and Natsuhi's great. I like Genji and Kyrie as well. I think I have the potential to like Battler a lot, but I thought having him introduced with 'THIS IS BATTLER AND HE'S OBSESSED WITH BOOBS' is a bit of a misstep.

My potential to like Battler has evidently been fulfilled!

I suppose I haven't had much to say about George and Jessica because, as I mention in this entry, I don't care about their respective romances, and the game itself cares a lot about their respective romances, so, although the characters are fine, I'm not particularly interested in what's being done with them. (Also, George's characterisation is basically 'a nice, sensible young man', and that's not a character type I typically have much to say about.)

Natsuhi, Genji and Kyrie, meanwhile, haven't had that much screentime (well, Natsuhi had a lot of focus in the first instalment, but she was killed off immediately in the second and didn't have much presence in the third). They're also all pretty sensible characters (or at least they appear to be; it seems Kyrie may apparently be a seething mass of envy), so, as with George, my reaction is 'I like you well enough but don't necessarily have a lot to say about you.' Whereas Beatrice and Battler are huge unreasonable weirdos, and that means I'm having great fun with them.