gwern comments on August 2013 Media Thread - Less Wrong

5 Post author: ArisKatsaris 02 August 2013 09:49PM

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Comment author: Baughn 03 August 2013 04:09:58PM *  2 points [-]

There's lying, and there's lying.

You're on the third game. You've seen the same series of events, multiple times - but they're not the same events, are they?

What you see may be true, without being what you think it is. Consider Battler's position. Give it some thought. There are multiple layers of mystery in here.

Comment author: gwern 03 August 2013 04:48:42PM *  1 point [-]

There's lying, and there's lying.

Sure, but it's one thing to show a true event and let the reader infer the wrong things, and another thing to simply lie entirely:

  1. An example of the former: in episode 2, IIRC, there's a nice bit where Beatrice tries to set up a locked room by granting as axiom both that the only key to the room was in someone's possession the day before and also after the murder in that room, which is so suspiciously worded an affirmation that I instantly thought 'oh, so someone could've taken and replaced the key at any time in between', and sure enough, that's what Battler then argued.
  2. What I'm worried about is that we're going to be told that the goats, the lightsabers, the parties at the end, the tea parties in another dimension, Rosa being fed her siblings - all the supernatural events we are shown, not told about, in which there's no need for misleading inference or mistaken assumptions or interpretations - will be somehow waved away like 'it was all a dream!' and I'll be mocked by the author for being so gullible as to believe what I saw on the screen. As Beatrice might say, there have to be some ground rules that both players follow or otherwise there can be no game. And going back on what was shown like that would definitely not be cricket.

What you see may be true, without being what you think it is. Consider Battler's position. Give it some thought.

I certainly hope that there will be some satisfying resolution, given how much time I've already invested in reading Umineko, yes.

Comment author: gwern 23 September 2013 01:21:39AM *  1 point [-]
  1. What I'm worried about is that we're going to be told that the goats, the lightsabers, the parties at the end, the tea parties in another dimension, Rosa being fed her siblings - all the supernatural events we are shown, not told about, in which there's no need for misleading inference or mistaken assumptions or interpretations - will be somehow waved away like 'it was all a dream!' and I'll be mocked by the author for being so gullible as to believe what I saw on the screen.

Update: this is exactly what happens. It even quasi-breaks the fourth wall to mock you. I had no words that day (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

...And then we get mocked some more in the final episode.

Comment author: Baughn 03 August 2013 05:09:02PM *  1 point [-]

Re. 2: I'm pretty sure red text has been brought up already. I'm also pretty sure those battles happen, in the sense that someone experiences them, but they aren't necessarily what Battler and Beatrice are arguing about.

Unfortunately (?), there are multiple possible interpretations of what happened in Umineko. I'm inclined to take it all literally, but bear in mind that if you do that, you cannot also assume simple causality on a single timeline.

If you haven't already, this would be a good time to watch through Higurashi, Higurashi Kai and Higurashi Rei. Especially that last one.

Comment author: gwern 03 August 2013 05:12:31PM 0 points [-]

Well, we'll see what I think by the end of episode 8. I'm less than halfway through, if the episodes are all similarly-sized. I was just posting an interim review because it's so darn long and arguably should be considered multiple works, some of which I've now finished.

Comment author: Khoth 04 August 2013 02:12:38PM *  0 points [-]

I certainly hope that there will be some satisfying resolution, given how much time I've already invested in reading Umineko, yes.

Don't worry, even if it doesn't give you a satisfying resolution, it does give you a hafu or two for your list.

Comment author: gwern 04 August 2013 02:57:12PM 0 points [-]

If it does, I will be a little disappointed in the comprehensiveness of http://vndb.org/ which I had already mined for hafu characters.

Comment author: Khoth 04 August 2013 04:49:22PM 0 points [-]

It's very spoilery and not terribly straightforward, so I'm not surprised it's missing.

Comment author: gwern 23 September 2013 01:20:31AM 0 points [-]

Ah. Yeah, that was a little bit weird. I still think they should've included it, though...