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The Golden Tea Party - Environmental Storytelling done right
“Battler... believed in those tears. After all, those tears... had the red of truth mixed in with them”
#07threads #Battler07 #Beatrice07
“Battler... believed in those tears. After all, those tears... had the red of truth mixed in with them”
#07threads #Battler07 #Beatrice07
Environmental storytelling is the art of arranging a careful selection of the objects available in a world so that they suggest a story to the player who sees them, or a sequence of events that has emotional meaning, without any accompanying text present.
The beauty of this environmental storytelling is that it requires the player to be creative and use their own imagination and experiences to discover, connect, understand and learn about the narrative.
The extra-narrative developed by the imagination increases it beyond what you as a creator could have thought up, and it leaves far longer lasting memories on the reader than if the narrative was simply given on a plate.
The Intriguing hidden narrative starts when battler declares he is gonna tear up all the delusions and return to his younger sister with his family, and that he is gonna kill beatrice once and for all, only to see her smiling at the sight of hearing these words.
The scene shifts to the golden land, a lonely place at night where the only thing present is the monument where Yasu has found true genuine love, and the garden of roses that battler used to symbolize the truths they both used in their fight.
According to the narration in the VN, the red truth (roses) symbolized passion, while the blue truth (roses) symbolized a forget-me-not flower. This was truly a battler amidst the nocturne of truth and illusions, with a single golden flower in the middle, Beatrice herself.
The first half of the duel was mainly exchanges about the mystery aspects of the games, and it was executed wonderfully in the manga, and every intellectual object or sentance was being symbolized as spears and numbered catbox, while reflections are shown in the background.
After defeating Kinzo, rain started falling “as it was mourning someone” according to narration, that's because Beatrice had nothing left except the mysteries woven with golden truths, hence why the roses in the garden suddenly shifted to a golden color.
The rain stopped falling after Beatrice recovered from being crucified (as a saint who bears all sins), as it was acting according to her will, and continued her nasty exchanges about all the ridiculous unbelievable things made with her truth.
It was like there are two contradictory narratives going side by side. Battler is being vocal with every single feeling, while Beatrice's silence is exploding all over the garden and the sky. She existed in front of him as a golden truth, while dropping sad tears of red.
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without creating the cleave place called the golden land. Just like every other location in Umineko, it carries a lot of symbolism and weight to the situation at hand, and in this case it was literally a fight inside Beatrice's own heart.
The Golden Land is a beautiful untaintend place, whenever we approach it on our journey to the truth, we can’t help but feel sad on the sight of it crumbling, even though there is no narrative backing the fond feelings we have towards it. Without love, it cannot be seen.
And that's why we have to preserve it, and hold on to the key. In this way, The the golden land finally stops being a lonely place, with everyone again at the monument, but this time its without rain or night, or tears, and of course golden roses everywhere.
A point that always go underappreciated is in other novels characters are just screaming in color when something bad happens to them, but her the red is masterfully used to define everything about the culprit's wishes in a very creative way.
Many Many of her wishes and worries are written blatantly and you need to go back and play it slowly to understand all the hints and feelings she had in her heart for many years of worth.
Ryukishi didnt even have to add the extra bits in the manga about her characters, its all written her clearly and in red, it was all prepared from the first moment of the writing of the story, kei natsume just took it and adapted it into scenes.
Everything and every wish she wanted from battler is written in here in RED, This is all truth because Beatrice can only speak the truth in red. This is all her true heart fully of complex feelings and wishes of death & starvation for love.
As always thanks for @batbeato for helping me notice all these little details, the reread with her has been very fruitful for me in shaping everything and how i think about the story.
