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No. 67830
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>>67772
>To me, that part of the episode pretty much epitomises everything that Umineko is about, so I have to feel like people that were disappointed by it really must have really been misunderstanding what the point of the series was...
I think you are confusing "not understanding" with "not liking." It wasn't always like this, despite how much hinting there was in retrospect to the "answer." The first four arcs presented it as a fun mystery to be solved, one with rules and structure, and naturally we assumed there would be no cheap tricks (I'm sorry, but portraying one person as three different people is a cheap trick, and it's really hard to buy into as it's written, Natsuhi and Krauss can't be that dumb). When I read Umineko, I had months after I finished episode 4 before episode 5 was translated and available to read. That was when /seacats/ was formed, roughly. We did a lot of theorizing and speculation at that time, using just the question arcs (plus episode 5 after a time). That was a good time. Things started to change with episode 6--the fun disappeared, because the answer was known, and it wasn't interesting. It wasn't clever. It certainly didn't live up to the hype. Then episode 7 came and made it even worse.
I found nothing beautiful in Yasu's story. I can't really buy into falling madly in love with some guy that you met and talked with for like two or three days. So much so that you create an imaginary persona to love them. That's not what I'd call love, it's a really creepy and unhealthy obsession. There's no way Yasu knew enough about Battler to really "love" him. She might love some image of him that she created in her mind based on what she knew about him, but unfortunately that's not the same thing, she simply could not have had time to really know Battler well enough to say that she loved him. It's poor writing and I can't buy it, people aren't that simple.
Willard was pointless because we didn't need his viewpoint. I think the story should've stayed about the Ushiromiya family and Battler. Lion is also completely pointless, I mean, was there a point to showing us a "Yasu" that wasn't abandoned, other than for the heck of it? Did Lion have any relevance to the mystery or the tragedy of the Ushromiya family in the end? The answer is of course no, he did not. Plus he was annoying.
When I say the core arcs are a sad imitation of the question arcs, I say this because for me, Umineko was always a character-driven story. And the characters in the core arcs are just pale and shallow compared to their portrayal in the question arcs--the addition of numerous, pointless new characters not only dilutes the old characters, but is stifling to me especially, because adding new characters and expecting the audience to care anything about them in the last few chapters of a book is really not a good idea. Look at side characters like the stakes, Ronove, and Virgilia, and see how they are portrayed in the core arcs. They are continually marginalized, getting less and less lines, less and less importance. The members of the Ushiromiya family also mostly suffer from this, aside from some great lines from Kinzo. And Erika is an annoying brat. I know some people warmed up to her, but I never did.
But the greatest tragedy of the core arcs is the destruction of the character of Beatrice, as I felt she was by far the most entertaining and engaging character in Umineko. She appears nowhere in the core arcs. Nowhere. At all. Only a sad imitation. I think this is pretty indisputable for episodes 5 and 7. Episode 6's Beatrices also do not reflect the character of Beatrice, Battler's opponent, as we came to know her in episodes 2-4. Even the one at the end is merely an imitation, as it is truly the Beatrice we see during episode 8, which isn't Beatrice at all--it's only "Lord BATTLER's wife." I think it's rather telling that she doesn't even get her own TIPs entry anymore at that point, she's not her own character anymore. She only serves as Battler's love interest and is not interesting at all.
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