Ange Ushiromiya - The Illusion of Choice & The Right to choose
(Twilight Spoilers Warning)

The first stage of the mental spectacle between the Ushiromiya Siblings, and what it represents for the players.

#07threads #Ange07 #Battler07

The illusion of choice is a psychological mental model that states humans are happy if they believe that they have control over their own actions and can exercise free will.

If free will is deprived, or seemingly deprived, from an individual, he or she will become resentful or rebellious, even if the choice forced upon him is identical to the one he would have selected of his own accord.

The first example of this model was presented in the form of the Monty Hall problem by George. It is a statistical illusion realized from a false assumption that the probabilities are equal, while in actuality your brain’s process for evaluating probability is the false one.

If not carefully considered, the illusion can seem more real than the actual answer. The example is cleverly used to instruct Ange on the importance of thinking about how outside influences can shape our decision making, just like what happened with the almond cake.

This use of this example however, backfired on battler himself. It was never about making the right decision and holding on it, but his core mistake was robbing the process of decision making itself by hiding the truth, while constructing an entirely different game and prize.

Even though battler decided his life path after he knew the truth, he didn't allow the same for ange, that's what made her agitated and miserable. From the start, a big part of the story was portrayed in a way that pushes the magic ending like it is the logical conclusion.

It is not something that started with twilight. If another author took reign of the writing, he would use very different instances of the family's lives to push another message, in this way Battler is asking Ange to trust just one of the many delusions around her without basis.

Battler based his decision to relinquish truth because he understood what happens for people who stare too deep into it, and assumed that the truth is meaningless, another basis of argument that backfired horribly on him soon in the same game.

Using his same base of “The Truth is Meaningless”, Erika argues that this means the truth can have different meanings for everyone, a clear representation of ange’s will. Even battler changed his own views after he knew the truth, as erika points out in clear words.

Both arguments are justified, and well portrayed across the story. Umineko in essence with a three way game between an author who dismissed the truth, a reader who stared too much into the truth, and another original author who decided to let go of all options.

It was an amazing crafted clash, born from the contradictions of battler's own narrative, however Once Ange made the choice to know, It had set in motion another mental model known as “first conclusion bias”, which is a topic for another day.