NEW BEATRICE, DON'T CALL BATTLER 'FATHER', I DON'T LIKE IT
Episode 6: Dawn of the Golden Witch; or, How Uncomfortable Can We Possibly Make These Narrative Parallels? I think I spent the whole first half intermittently watching chick!Beatrice and Battler's interactions through my fingers.
Battler's so pissed off that New Beatrice had the audacity to give him NON-POISONED COOKIES, BEATRICE WOULD NEVER HAVE DONE THIS.
That scene is so perfect. It's just... such distilled essence of Beatrice/Battler. I hope she'll make him lots of poisoned cookies on their honeymoon.
Are George and Jessica outside the game board???
EP6 is the point where I started to need a straight-up diagram to keep track of all the meta levels in play. You've got the normal gameboard and meta levels, plus Bern and Lambda's wider view of the multiverse, but now suddenly there's a weird in-between level for the love game that's above the rest of the gameboard but still below the standard meta level, and a whole new level above that for Ange and Featherine's frame story outside a frame story, which Chick Beatrice can also access. (And that's before you get into the headache of how Storytime with Ange and Featherine relates to their human counterparts or the real-world contents of Hachijō's forgeries...)
'For the sake of love, a woman should be prepared to kill at least once in her life.' BAD ADVICE, KYRIE.
The whole Ushiromiya family: Kyrie is such a mature, reasonable, well-adjusted adult, I wish I could be more like her! I bet she gives great advice. Kyrie: The secret to a healthy romance is to kill any woman who looks at him funny. Oh, and you could also break his legs so he can never leave you. :)
Maria says she'll kill Kanon 'just like Mama killed all of them'. Was my theory that Rosa committed the murders in the fifth game correct?
I think she means her friends. :( Like the ceramic rabbit, and Sakutarou...
I can never get over how proud Battler is of dramatically killing himself off. He even plays "Requiem" for the body discovery! What a drama queen.
I love that Battler just goes '...Erikaa...aa', as one might say to a misbehaving child. That scamp, murdering all those people.
Classic Erika, really! Feel free to imagine that scene with a laugh track.
I'm weirdly more upset by this than I was by any of the previous games. Maybe it's the sheer horrifying ridiculousness of the fact that everyone was fine, and then Erika was so determined to solve the fake murder that she turned it into a real murder.
It does feel like a whole new level of sheer, heartless malice. There's committing murder for whatever tangled and painful reasons Beatrice has, and then there's doing it seemingly just to stick it to Battler as sadistically as possible, right in the middle of his sappy nobody-dies love letter to Beatrice. (Not that Erika doesn't have her own existence on the line here, but the way she's acting tends to distract from that.)
Love is a hint to the impossible closed room? Do you... seduce Erika so she lets you escape?
I'd read that fic.
Honestly, I still struggle to care about the George/Shannon and Jessica/Kanon romances even when magical duels to the death are involved.
Yeah; I think it says a lot about Kanon and Shannon's lives that the sole shining beacons of hope and happiness that they're willing to kill or die for are, respectively, a girl Kanon's barely ever talked to who dragged him out on a pretend date once and likes him by virtue of him being the only attractive boy her age she knows, and... George. I imagine the romances look a lot more beautiful and miraculous from that vantage point. (Or the vantage point of a wide-eyed young romantic who grew up under the Ushiromiya family's thumb.)
That wedding scene might just be the single most horrifying scene in Umineko, honestly. Probably not the hardest to read period, since Maria and Rosa exist, but still. (I played with PS3 assets for the voice acting, too, and they add CGs for that scene.)
I love that it turns out Beatrice exists to be Battler's dream woman, with the sole and notable exception of murdering his family. You were almost spot-on there.
Young Battler, probably: Or if she really wanted my undying love, she could find a way to teach my old man a lesson! I'd fall for any girl who could do that in a heartbeat, ihihihi! Beatrice:(furiously taking notes)
I think Dlanor's my favourite character after Battler. I love that she genuinely cares about Erika; someone has to!
The Dlanor/Erika relationship is really good! I honestly wish it got explored further than it does; it has a lot of potential to go interesting places.
I unfortunately can't comment on your speculation or furniture math, but this is me right now:
On a much sillier note: the original Comiket release of EP6 came packaged with the bonus story Game Master BATTLER!Game Master BATTLER! is... uh, it's something. Something that involves a lot of Battler creeping on women who are mostly related to him, fair warning. The rest is genuinely delightful if you're willing to put up with that, though.
The other highlight from around that time is Cornelia the New Priest, a longer piece about Dlanor's aide Cornelia that I really liked. The VN version contains brief spoilers for the beginning of EP7, though, so you might want to avoid it until you've played the first scene of EP7.
no subject
Episode 6: Dawn of the Golden Witch; or, How Uncomfortable Can We Possibly Make These Narrative Parallels? I think I spent the whole first half intermittently watching chick!Beatrice and Battler's interactions through my fingers.
That scene is so perfect. It's just... such distilled essence of Beatrice/Battler. I hope she'll make him lots of poisoned cookies on their honeymoon.
EP6 is the point where I started to need a straight-up diagram to keep track of all the meta levels in play. You've got the normal gameboard and meta levels, plus Bern and Lambda's wider view of the multiverse, but now suddenly there's a weird in-between level for the love game that's above the rest of the gameboard but still below the standard meta level, and a whole new level above that for Ange and Featherine's frame story outside a frame story, which Chick Beatrice can also access. (And that's before you get into the headache of how Storytime with Ange and Featherine relates to their human counterparts or the real-world contents of Hachijō's forgeries...)
The whole Ushiromiya family: Kyrie is such a mature, reasonable, well-adjusted adult, I wish I could be more like her! I bet she gives great advice.
Kyrie: The secret to a healthy romance is to kill any woman who looks at him funny. Oh, and you could also break his legs so he can never leave you. :)
I think she means her friends. :( Like the ceramic rabbit, and Sakutarou...
I can never get over how proud Battler is of dramatically killing himself off. He even plays "Requiem" for the body discovery! What a drama queen.
Classic Erika, really! Feel free to imagine that scene with a laugh track.
It does feel like a whole new level of sheer, heartless malice. There's committing murder for whatever tangled and painful reasons Beatrice has, and then there's doing it seemingly just to stick it to Battler as sadistically as possible, right in the middle of his sappy nobody-dies love letter to Beatrice. (Not that Erika doesn't have her own existence on the line here, but the way she's acting tends to distract from that.)
I'd read that fic.
Yeah; I think it says a lot about Kanon and Shannon's lives that the sole shining beacons of hope and happiness that they're willing to kill or die for are, respectively, a girl Kanon's barely ever talked to who dragged him out on a pretend date once and likes him by virtue of him being the only attractive boy her age she knows, and... George. I imagine the romances look a lot more beautiful and miraculous from that vantage point. (Or the vantage point of a wide-eyed young romantic who grew up under the Ushiromiya family's thumb.)
That wedding scene might just be the single most horrifying scene in Umineko, honestly. Probably not the hardest to read period, since Maria and Rosa exist, but still. (I played with PS3 assets for the voice acting, too, and they add CGs for that scene.)
Young Battler, probably: Or if she really wanted my undying love, she could find a way to teach my old man a lesson! I'd fall for any girl who could do that in a heartbeat, ihihihi!
Beatrice: (furiously taking notes)
The Dlanor/Erika relationship is really good! I honestly wish it got explored further than it does; it has a lot of potential to go interesting places.
I unfortunately can't comment on your speculation or furniture math, but this is me right now:
On a much sillier note: the original Comiket release of EP6 came packaged with the bonus story Game Master BATTLER! Game Master BATTLER! is... uh, it's something. Something that involves a lot of Battler creeping on women who are mostly related to him, fair warning. The rest is genuinely delightful if you're willing to put up with that, though.
The other highlight from around that time is Cornelia the New Priest, a longer piece about Dlanor's aide Cornelia that I really liked. The VN version contains brief spoilers for the beginning of EP7, though, so you might want to avoid it until you've played the first scene of EP7.
(...If you want even more crack, there's also two shorts about Jessica summoning demons: Jessica's Mother's Day Present and Jessica and the Love Charm. Apparently Ryukishi07 was busy in 2010.)
I've heard such good things about Baba Is You! Someday I'll have to find the time to check it out.