Higurashi Sotsu/Gou Theorycrafting as a thread again. I got a few ideas I just want to put out there before I forget.

This is going to be pretty loose since I'm probably just gonna come back and revise this stuff later before July, so I'm gonna be too lazy to grab images / references, however I'll be referring to Divine Comedy & Revelations, since that's my schtick.

So in some previous theories, some potential links between Hinamizawa and Judecca have been established due to the localation of the Glass Sea (A3W), and the three heads.

What I missed last time I was thinking along this line, was the Revelations prophecy within the Divine Comedy, regarding Jesus's descent into Hell being the first(?) event of Rapture.

(Here's a photo) I made a thread before about Saikoroshi positing Rika as a direct Christ figure, at least according to Hanyuu within that story. So if we examine her this way in Gou, I think it fits into the "descent" framework pretty well.

Where it leads, it's hard to say. It primarily comes down to what "Rapture" manifests as within this story. It could be WW3, but it could very well be something more abstract as well.

My current guess is that it's going to "resolve" the philosophies presented in Saikoroshi, those from Rika, Rena and Hanyuu. By that I mean perhaps present them all in the new context of Sotsu/Gou to the audience, or something else like that.

I'm curious to see how the anime *could* line up to Revelations / Divine Comedy, but I'm too lazy to check right now myself. I probably will at some point leading up to July myself.

Few more things I thought I'd tack on for my own sake: I THINK I've shared my thoughts on this before but within WtC works I like to think of the "theatergoers" (Hanyuu-clones) as a proxy to outside the work, perhaps as personification of the "meta" or something.

Due to this one idea I always come back to is to view them as demiurges of sorts for the "worlds" that are the WtC works.
The point of bringing this up is that I'm basing all this off of anecdotes, assumptions, and critically, information from the theatergoers, Hanyu and Eua.

With that, specifically the references to Revelations, and how Hanyuu is the one who raises the Christ comparisons with Rika and gives her a "role" within that narrative as "the one who bears the cross" (I think they use that phrase in it?)

And as one of the "theatergoers" roles is "author", I could see how this lines up to "Higurashi Gou" as a work on a meta level: with Rika getting pulled back into June 1983 with her cross to bear being "When They Cry" itself.

Now within this line of thinking, I want to point out the other core philosophies in Saikoroshi, "Fredrika Bernkastel", Rika, Rena. I'll probably get some details wrong since I'm just working off of memory rn and just trying to get the thoughts down.

"Bern's" Solipcism is interesting, since I've talked about the concept in Higurashi before, and with the added context of Gou there's something going on. By the end of the show, Satoko is fully within this frame of mind that's the same as the witch's in Rei.

What I also find interesting is that both cases are prompted by the "theatergoer" of the work. With Rei, Hanyuu puts Rika in the fragment and forces her through specific epithanies, and I personally see Eua's "power-granting" to ultimately be the same thing to Satoko.

I honestly don't remember much about Rika's conclusion by Saikoroshi but I remember the context it appeared in, coming after Rena shares her philosophy with her after talking about the details of her "dream". I believe it was ultimately along the lines of "live happily" lol

But yeah, after the fragment that Hanyuu puts her in, and forces her through scenariios which draws many direct parallels of her to Christ, and Hanyuu to Dad-God, I believe she was rather shook up by the literal events not conforming to her nihilism and what Hanyuu says.

With Rena then, I remember she had some pretty interesting anecdotes, primarily concerning dichotomies. The two sides of River Sanzu (life/death), or a flower being outdoors or indoors are two examples I remember.

If I recall correctly they were some metaphors for transcendental idealism? She talks about a "grey zone" inbetween the opposites as well as a place to observe both sides of the dichotomies.

I literally just realized this but missed it in my threads about these topics in the past, but I believe it's a cleaner explanation of the Dichotomy-Trinity thing I mentioned before through the lens of TI.

So assuming I'm remembering this right, this structure of dichotomy with "grey-zone" can be observed within WtC practically everywhere, especially consdering it lends the numerology with "3" from Divine Comedy in Umineko. Consider the 3 "meta" witches from this stance;

Bern/LD - Dichotomy, Featherine - Grey. Same goes with the other "miracle", "certainty" and "theatergoing" camps in the other works.

There's probably a ton of different conclusions that one can draw from this, but the one that I think can tie back nicely to the idea we're stemming from is that it's a metafictional statement, which is again related to the witch's roles.

I think it's fair to equate "dichotomy" to "conflict" as a quick generalization, and again "theatergoing" within this framework is just the proxy to anything outside the work itself. So a tl;dr for TI is "one forms their understanding of the world using their own notions" so...

if we think back to the role, we can make a quick metaphor. The "theatergoer" is a "seat" for all the real-life theatergoers, including reader, author, etc. Think back to Ep8 of Umineko, and some of the characters in it, namely Featherine, Ange, Bern and their relationship.

The metafictional summary I'd give for it is "characters react to a text, presented through critical idealism". So the original point here was that this was what Rena presented to Rika after she wakes up, and is the thing that ultimately makes her "Rika" again.

One thing to help understand this might be to look at the metatextual roles of the characters presenting these ideas. So again: "Bern", Hanyuu, Rika, and Rena.
(Here's a funny picture of Rena to break up the wall of rambling words)

Rika/"Bern" can be looked at a few ways. Knowing Saikoroshi came out in 2006, one way is metatextual, as in they represent Higurashi/(upcoming) Umineko respectively, or perhaps just "miracles", or even more simply the characters.

The way I see it though, is yet again dichotomy in the Rena framework. Bern's side could be seen as a rampant solipcism, and could work opposite to Rika's "live happily", since if I recall correctly, it's ultimately derived from TI--the sense of the world through "your side".

Now with Hanyuu's perspective, there's yet again a few interpretations that I believe can be taken. The first one I've already mentioned indirectly, which is how the "cross" is "Higurashi: When They Cry". We're thinking more philosophically than metatextually here though.

So in this scope, what she relays to Rika I would perhaps analyze as, "philosophical prescriptivism". If I'm recalling this right, the actual "in-universe" reasons given to Rika for carrying the Furude sins is reduced to circumstances of birth (family, sex, numerology(?))

I just want to add a quick aside, but is there any significance to "8" within WtC outside of episdoe counts? If I recall the rules for Rika having all this put on her was being the 8th female or something. Thanks!

So looking at those reasons, yet again there's a number of analysis that can be taken but I'm going to just shoot for what I think will mesh with the others. So in this case, I'm reading it only as a "means to an end" within meaning-attribution contexts.

The specific set of conditions I would view as being akin to "evidence" within WtC works, but let's put a pin on that for now. So the way this philosophy is presented is a counter to the solipcistic narcissism (egoism?) that was born due to 100 years of June 1983.

So is it effective? Well let's compare and contrast these two points. One primary cause (or "why") for both mindsets would be due to situations that are out of Rika's hands, i.e. June 1983 and her birth. What I think has some value examining however is the "how" of it.

With the extreme solipcism, a potential rationale from Rika can be inferred: a quick "I think therefore I am" and seeing the same people do the same acts under the same stimuli like dolls time and time again.

This is all from within "Rika's sense of the world as Fredrika Bernkastel", so in Rena's approach, on the "grey side" (sea of fragments) between "Hinamizawa, June 1983" and "Outside THAT".
In short, her sense of the world is from that stance against that dichotomy.

With Hanyuu's philosophy however, it becomes a part of Rika's sense without much specific meaning granted (in regards to this train of thought).
Literal events line up to this somewhat, mainly with how she's moved across fragments by Hanyuu.

We could see her initially being on one side of a dichotomy, thus being unaware of it, and then being moved across. Her sense of the world is incompatible with this one, so initially tries to figure that out. I believe she initially thinks of it as a dream, which makes sense.

There's a ton to be said about the specifics of how she works through this, but I'll keep it brief for now. The fundamental incompatibility leads to a rejection of sensing through this outside world, which leads to a bolstering of solipcism and the resolve to do you-know-what.

Before the act, Hanyuu talks about specific events that pertain to them, and provides her own analysis of each of them within the context of her philosophy. I don't remember too many specifics, but again, the one I remember is the constant Jesus parallels.

So basically, Hanyuu is attributing meaning from her own sense of the world, and prescribing it to Rika in a somewhat parental fashion. Rika's sense =/= Hanyuu's sense, but nonetheless it's pushed onto her as a counter to her initial philosophy.

Just like how Rika's sense of the world is incompatible with the world of Saikoroshi (leading to a doubling down of her initial thoughts) due to differing contexts, I believe the same could be said with what Hanyuu tries to prescribe in the same chapter.

So as a reminder, this current sequence of thoughts started with thinking of the context that each character provided being who they are to their specific philosophies. So, why would Hanyuu specifically be the one prescribing a philosophy unto Rika?

My answer to this, is due to her role as "theatergoer" yet again, so with her acting as a supposed proxy to the world outside of the work. I'd reduce this all down to "one who experiences and prescribes meaning to said work". Does this sound familiar? (I love this PS3 sprite)

Like, let's get meta for a quick second. What I'm saying that Hanyuu is doing is a in-text proxy of what any reader of anything ever does. What I'm literally doing as I type this sentence out. I don't want to get too egotistical but there's one major difference between me and Au.

So in context to I guess, "interpreting art", I'll describe it as another dichotomy
Prescribing meaning (through another's sense of the world, ie the author's)
V.S.
Deriving meaning (from one's own sense of the world)

I'll keep it short, but basically think of Umi's Ep8.

Oh a quick aside to add, this is basically what I personally think the core of "the heart" truly sits, and is why "without love it cannot be seen" anecdotally has a universality to it for many people. If you have any other alternatives / expansions to this I'd love to hear them.

So, we've established 3/4 of the major perspectives offered in Saikoroshi + their contexts.

"Fredrika" - Solipcism (D1)
Rika - Idealism / "Live Happily" (D2)
Hanyuu - Prescriptivism (Theatergoer)

You might notice by the way, that I'm not talking about Hanyuu's actual philosophy in the concluding bit, but it's seemingly very open for interpretation. I like the metafictional answer of the cross being "When They Cry".

So the final character we're left with is Rena, and her form of idealism. Like with the others, I believe you can probably take a few different approaches with what context you view "Rena" as, such as looking at her literal character, or perhaps her narrative role.

I personally don't like the way I'm reading this, but the way my mind keeps coming back to this is yet another metafictional thing: I read "Rena" as in 07, as in an external author proxy on a level beyond that of the theatergoer.

I want to add, everything in this thread is just an interpretation of the final work based on my own background, including the post above. I don't want to read into any intent with Rena's words due to this, since I wouldn't be able to keep it within the text due to this bias.

So now that I've covered my quick and dirty reading of the philosophies in Saikoroshi, how could this tie into the initial ideas of Rika being presented as a proxy of JC?

I need to double check to make sure I'm not misremembering this at some point, but for now I'll work with the assumption that I'm right, and I got some solid ideas that stand on their own already.

But what I thought was that there was a mention of another descent to hell by JC after the second coming, but I'll just figure it out after. The way I was thinking of it was that Judecca would become the Lake of Fire by that point, but I have no idea where I got that.