Alright so I've finished Episode 7, tea party and ???. A LOT happened during this episode, so I'll be going through my written notes and writing my reactions again. Since I read the episode over the span of a week, my emotions are a bit more settled then when I was in the moment like “WHAT?! NO! HOW COULD YOU!!” etc.

Alright. So it looks like we're at Beatrice's funeral, and oh hello Will and Lion? If I was myself, back when I was reading episode 2 or 3, I would have been like “Okay, I'm done. You can't just keep calling in new characters, I'm out” but the me now knows that there is meaning for these characters. I put on my thinking cap and followed along.

Will's catchphrase is “Where is the heart? There is no heart.” He has read up on the previous games, and it most concerned with the whydunnit. He also has his own set of 20 rules (oh god I have to write all of these down again). Will looks like Battler but we'll just suspend that thought for now.

Ushiromiya Lion. Jessica's older sister, Krauss and Natsuhi's first child, the next successor to Kinzo. Um. Okay. I'll roll with it. Lion becomes the assistant to Will, and their task is to find out who killed Beatrice.

Now it's time for probably my FAVOURITE line in Umineko so far:
Rosa: I... I killed Beatrice...
Will: Well looks like our work here is done. (said seriously)
I had a pretty big laugh at that one. There's so much heavy stuff going on in this game that when comedic stuff comes it comes out so magnificently.

I really enjoyed the detective game that followed. With Will's Theatregoing Authority, it was great to talk to characters one on one and see them in different lights with what they say. It felt like I was the detective myself, asking questions and trying to piece things together.

I noticed quickly that Shannon and Kanon are not appearing together. I gained a HUGE amount of respect for Genji. He has the strongest relationship with Kinzo, but still used his own judgement to hide certain things from Kinzo. And rightfully so. Genji didn't want Kinzo to make the same mistake, TWICE, with the 3rd Beatrice. And thank you Kumasawa for being the mother Beatrice couldn't have. Seriously, props to Genji and Kumasawa, I was so neutral on their characters but now I see them in such a different light.

Kinzo story time. I basically kept saying “NO WAY” over and over again as each new piece of back story got revealed. Army base. Submarine. BEATRICE IS REAL? GOLD IS REAL? Oh everyone is dead now. Oh hey Nanjo! Seriously, it was just one turn after another, but it was so enjoyable to read. Pieces were starting to fit together.

We get more Maria back story and I feel more and more understanding of her character. She is not the same girl that annoyed me so badly in the first couple of episodes. A girl, with no father, masks her own pain with a world she's created for herself. The world is filled with happiness, but it's happiness that she has willed for herself. I take the stance of Ange back in Episode 5, “Can you really call this happiness, Maria?”

Jessica's VIP room story was cool, and I did notice the family table seating chart inaccuracies. Will boils down two “actors” who killed Beatrice (themselves): 1) the human who can create and kill Beatrice, 2) the human who never gave birth to Beatrice in the first place, who can kill the entire concept of Beatrice. Alive cat and dead cat. Dead cat? LION. I followed along with Will's reasoning, thinking about Bern and the different shards. Lion is an alternative story line where Beatrice doesn't exist because Lion does. She is not Natsuhi's child, she is the child of Kinzo and Beatrice (the 2nd... fuck you!)

The next part really interested me. Will asks Lion if she is a boy or a girl and she doesn't answer. I immediately thought of Shannon and Kanon, and the two demons of the last episode.

Warp to the theatre, enter CLAIR. On the game board, enter Yasu. We start going through the chapters of Clair's play, and I formed my own theory which I mentioned in the last WAYR thread. I'll copy and paste it here:

“But now that I've read well into Episode 7, my theory is that 1st Beatrice is the Italian woman who came by submarine. 2nd Beatrice is the child that her and Kinzo had together. 3rd Beatrice is the child of 2nd Beatrice and Kinzo (you fucking bastard). 3rd Beatrice is Yasu, and on the witch side of things, CLAIR. CLAIR is supposed to be a mask, a wrapping for the REAL Beatrice, so that us the readers don't just straight up see who she is. CLAIR is the mask hiding Shannon. Shannon = Yasu = 3rd Beatrice, + Kanon and the witch of the night Beatrice that haunts the mansion, as split personalities or personas that she's created. Lion is the "what if?" Beatrice, who would exist if Natsuhi lovingly cared for the baby given to her by Kinzo.”

It seems like Shannon looked over Yasu when Yasu was young and just starting work at the mansion. Shannon was the perfect maid that was competent in her job and Yasu looked up to and admired her because Yasu herself was younger, weak, and clumsy. Now, if we think back to the Shannon of the first couple of episodes, she is always clumsy and unsure of herself in her job. That sounds more like Yasu, not the perfect Shannon that Yasu idolizes.

Then, we get the night where Shannon has a “dream” and is separated from Yasu. Yasu ascends and becomes a witch, and Shannon is left on Rokkenjima alone, with no memory of Yasu. I'm interpreting this as such: Shannon was the young, weak kid that was brought to Rokkenjima to work as a servant. She is actually Kinzo and Beatrice the 2nds child. Inside of her, she has Yasu, the personality of her that enjoys reading and solving mysery novels, adores things like closed roomed puzzles, loves magic and fantasy because it is much more better to believe in that than her sad, solitary life on Rokkenjima. This Yasu “personality” ascends and becomes Beatrice, the witch that haunts the mansion at night, but really, that is still Shannon. Everything is Shannon.

Shannon starts getting close with Battler. It's childish puppy love, and thought Battler is just saying words for the sake of saying them, Shannon is deeply infatuated with him and takes everything he says as truth. Battler tells Shannon if she ever quits, he will take her back with him home, and they can have more time to spend together. For Battler, it's just love words that you say to make someone feel nice. For Shannon, it's much much more. She's fallen in love with Battler, and the idea that the two of them will have a future together, away from Rokkenjima. She will escape her lonely life on the island, and get to live out her life with the one she loves, as a human, not furniture or servant.

And holy shit. The following years where Battler doesn't come back to fill his promise, are tough to read. I felt so, so bad for Shannon. When everyone got letters from Battler, but there was no letter for Shannon, I felt completely gutted. She was forgotten. She believed that she was loved, that she was waiting for her miracle to come, but that miracle just simply forgot that Shannon existed. I mean, I can say Fuck Battler, even though I understand how puppy love works when you are young, but still, fuck Battler. I'm just completely gutted about what Shannon went through.

The pain is so bad for Shannon, that the Yasu inside of her says “I will take that pain from you.” Yasu takes the pain, takes the endless waiting for Battler, and becomes Beatrice. She changes herself completely to match Battler's tastes: blonde hair, personality, etc. She takes all that trauma from Shannon and leaves her with a brother to keep her company: Kanon.

Beatrice solves the epitaph and appears before Kinzo, and Kinzo gets his final chance to apologize to Beatrice (though the wrong one) to atone for his sins. Well, even Kinzo knows that his apology means nothing and that his sin will never leave him, but he got that chance to put his apology into words, and direct it at some form of Beatrice. His work is finally done, and he dies. According to my theory, it is Shannon who solves the epitaph, puts on the Beatrice attire, and appears in front of Kinzo. And, Shannon is the actual Beatrice, so it's perfect. Kinzo was really apologizing to his daughter.

Now, can we take a minute here and talk about the epitaph for a second? OK, so watching the epitaph unfold and get solved was pretty damn awesome but.... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! PEOPLE SOLVED THIS?! Come on!!!! I refuse to believe that someone reading this story was all “hue hue hue time to look up train lines in Taiwan hue hue hue.” I've been told that people have solved the epitaph on their own, but seriously, what the fuck! And I love how Genji just casually throws out the word Taiwan, which we've never heard ONCE in any of the previous games. Argh!!!! The splitting up kanji for the radicals was awesome, and the QUADRILLION = U LORD was kinda cool, and how the letter keys were moved/removed according to the epitaph, working from head to toe (or left to right). I can confidently say “Wow, what a cool puzzle!” and “WOW, FUCK THIS PUZZLE” at the same time. Props to creating the puzzle itself though, that must have taking work.

Beatrice/Shannon gets to be the next head of the Ushiromiya family, but she doesn't want it. “I just want to wait. As I always have. Let things be exactly the same as they were before.” (Which I took as Shannon goes back to being Shannon.) The play ends and Clair says “But I am in no way complete. I am waiting for the one I love.” Damn.

Then, there is talk of how the Rokkenjima massacre wouldn't have happened if it was one year earlier or one year later. It happened exactly because it was 1986. The year Battler came back. Clair tells Lion “I pray that you live as a human, without waking as a witch, that you have a whole and single soul, and love one person with all your strength.” Lion gets the chance to do that. Beatrice/Shannon doesn't. There fate is already sealed.

Will takes out his sword and starts slashing down Clair. He gives his own answers for every single piece of magic in the pervious games. I'm not going to go through them all myself, but if I believe Shannon as the culprit, I can explain most of these closed rooms or murders.

Clair: Who am I?

I believe she is Shannon.

Bern mentions the cat box again. If you open it, Eva returns as the solo survivor; Ange's world. If you keep it closed, anything is possible, and the cat box remains in tact. Lion gets to live on in her own world/fragment, and lives on for the sake of the Beatrice that couldn't. Finish.

OH WAIT JUST KIDDING NOT FINISHED. So now we get Tea Party 7. Ange is back. Lion and her are forced to watch Bern (or not Bern)'s final game, what Bern herself declares as the truth. The game was insane. First of all, I will say right here and now that I don't believe this story for one fucking second. I have concluded that Bern's only purpose in this story is to piss me off. She is the bored witch who's existed for millions of years, and she's stumbled across this delightful story that she gets to torment everyone with. Her whole shtick is to torment people and gain pleasure from that. So even if she tries to say in the red truth to Ange that it's the truth, I am going to do EXACTLY what Ange did, scream so hard until I can't hear it. I love Kirie a lot (kind of neutral on Rudolph) but even someone as cold, cool, and calculated as Kirie, would NOT see Ange as just a bond to keep Rudolph attached to her and away from Asumu/other women. That is too cruel, and that has no heart. I will not believe in the truth that has no heart. And I will not let Bern trample over someone's memories of their family for her own pleasure.

The tons of explosives and bomb clock were kinda like “OH FUCK!” but at the end, I sided with Will's rule#1: All clues must be present. I refuse to believe in this work of fantasy.

And finally we get the ???. I'm not really sure I like Featherine that much. She is satisfied with the answers of Bern's story, and gets to finally be at rest (whatever that means). Bern declares that she is not done yet (of course you aren't) and goes back to the game board. At the very end, we get GameMaster Battler and 6 year old Ange, and the promise of a final game, made just for Ange. A final telling between older brother and little sister. I'm sure it will be happy and peaceful and have no interruptions from any rude-ass witches in any way. /s