i'm at about the point where battler and rudolf had a falling out and he's left the family and it's like. god.

i feel really bad for sayo here, i really really do, but i do think it's a little indicative of the fact that battler was less a person and more a symbol of freedom to her that her reaction to "battler got rightfully enraged at his father for cheating on his dead mother and disowned him" was to try and convince herself that he'll get over it he's just being

a man

the way that their relationship pushed sayo over the edge is so tragic because i don't really think there's anyone that can be blamed. battler was just a stupid kid and he suddenly had his entire life uprooted...... he should have sent a letter or something but he was distracted by his mother's tragic and sudden death.

anyway. points. utena moment.

GIRL

i am squeezing her'

also appreciate that bernkastel just outright says that the reason she's masking the culprit's identity through clair is because "she can't stand idiots"

love u bern

god. i think another aspect of the conflict here is that battler truly has absolutely no class awareness. he didn't when he was a kid and he still doesn't. like how jessica is so eager to have the servants be her friends and she really doesn't want there to be a barrier between them but like. that's a privelege that she has because she's the one with all the

power

so when battler extends his hand towards a servant girl in an act of friendship and says a bunch of corny lines about white horses and coming to her rescue and being her prince, he doesn't realize how serious that is to her, not even because she's a girl and he's a boy (what jessica and totally not mammon said), but just because she's poor and miserable and

he's rich and comfortable

although i get the sense that sayo was fairly well paid, so maybe not poor per se so much as like. a servant

and an orphan

also the longer this goes on the more she keeps embellishing the idea of him in her head....

there's this really good running thread all the way from ep 1 of battler like.... meaning well but being absolutely 1000% clueless of the way he benefits from wealth and class privilege that's really interesting and kind of. understated? considering the ways it ripples out and affects everything

you know it's bad when you're using your first crush in the same sentence as god.

not that umineko is particularly understated re: class in general, but the ways it specifically affects batter's pov and his own ignorance is nice and subtle

phainein: yeah there's a specific moment where battler talks about how like, maybe some people think we had it easy but as someone who grew up rich i had my own struggles, so i don't think so. as early as episode one.

battler being like DID YOU KNOW THAT RICH PPL... HAVE PROBLEMS? RLY MAKES YOU THINK... MAYBE WE'RE NOT SO DIFFERENT.... it makes me cringe so hard i love him

and at first it seems like a minute version of one of ryukishi's "i have big opinions on this and i am going to talk about them for half an hour", which is extremely common particularly in higurashi, but no this is just one of those moments where battler is a well meaning but very sheltered dumbass who doesn't understand how different his life is.

and like, it's definitely true that his problems aren't petty, his mother died and his dad revealed he was cheating on her immediately afterwards. not to mention all the MANY ways that kinzo's abuse has shaped the ushiromiya family, or how natsuhi was shipped off to marry a stranger. but it's... very different. because they're problems that exist in this

bubble of wealth where money and comfort aren't a problem.

and where they can be casually rude or disrespectful to people that if any of the servants were harsh to ever, they would have their life ruined.

anyway i love him he's such a little guy

also like.

to some extent sayo's feelings her of being tested by battler are very 🤝 with both shion and satoko.

actually thinking about it shion and satoshi would have been around the same age that battler and sayo were when battler made his promise lmao

god the fact that beatrice created kanon to save shannon from her despair about battler just really puts a lot of things about him into perspective

especially his beef with beatrice

......i'm so mad.

bernkastel pulling the guts out of clair

bernkastel ripping the guts out of the tragedy at the heart of the story

I SEE YOU RYUKISHI07!!!!!!!!!

I SEE YOU

the phrase "ripping out the guts" has been forcibly added to my lexicon bc of this game and it makes me sound so insane when I say it around ppl who aren't uminekopilled

i know. i know, absolutely same.

i'm just

bernkastel is performing metaphorical watanagashi on sayo

(also literal watanagashi on clair)

it really is a great word for it, god. umineko the story of all time.......

OH MY GOD

IT IS WATANAGASHI

<- GUY WHO TOOK OVER A DECADE TO REALIZE THAT

RIGHT IM GOING CRAZY

also unrelated to that existential crisis

but it is really funny to me that kyrie is like "i mean surely you only had a child to babytrap your husband, right. what other reason is there to have children." and eva is like "you monster how dare you i would never do that!!!! i had children so i can claim victory over my childhood trauma vicariously through them like a normal person!!!!"