it has been so long since i have posted anything on here, but whatever. i've had something on my mind for a while now and i have finally decided to write about it.
said something on my mind is Walpurga, because her story is something which i find to be so important to what LGTS has to say about the condition and the lives of women in that kind of society, yet something which i think has been overlooked or, at the very least, underdiscussed by most players/fans of the game.
as a warning: this post will discuss/mention things such as forced pregnancy, rape and toxic/abusive parent-child relationships under the line. also Little Goody Two Shoes spoilers, which have already been mentioned in the tags, and disturbing imagery, which is already present in the game. if you really don't want to see any of these, just skip past this post. otherwise, you can keep reading.
now, there are very few things we even know about Walpurga. we know that she is a supernatural entity represented by the woods of Kieferberg, who was once revered as a sort of protective entity and later as St. Walpurga, patroness of Kieferberg.
however, i want to particularly focus on what's going on between her and Ozzy, because one of the few things we know about her is that she does not like Him. the reason is evident: she, the woodland, was used as the grounds of exchange between Him and a human woman, who wished for a baby, something which Walpurga could not provide on her own.
it is made quite evident that she did not agree with this deal. it's also likely many other deals were made with Him in Kieferberg's woods without Walpurga's consent or input, but we know for a fact that she really disliked this one in particular.
that seems quite messed up in its own right. but it becomes clear just how messed up it is when you try to understand it in a more realistic or human way: Walpurga was forcefully impregnated and used a surrogate for an infertile woman against her wishes, receiving nothing in exchange, having her baby then taken away from her to be cared for by the woman who used her. that is fucked up. that is objectively fucked up. and it very much messed up Walpurga too. the language that she uses to describe this deal doesn't shy away from linking it to a form of rape/non-consensual impregnation either:
the image of the doe (which we know is one of the forms Walpurga can take) with its insides carved out is also disturbingly suggestive.
her physical form was literally used by Ozzy and Holle in order to create a baby, something which she could never do on her own, and then even that was taken away from her.
(the fact that Ozzy is/takes the form of a male entity is also quite important, despite being a minor detail, given how that puts into context the way He treats Walpurga, women and girls. the subjugation of women by men, their expected subservience to them, the distrust of women who "do not belong", these are all very important aspects of LGTS.)
again, this very obviously messed up Walpurga to some extent. how did it mess her up? besides her hatred for Ozzy and Holle, she also became... incredibly possessive of what she considered the one good thing to come out of this: Elise, her progeny.
now, Walpurga could not create life on her own. she could only nurture life that was placed inside of her. Elise's body was made from Walpurga's, though. a parallel could be made to how it technically takes two to make a baby, how eggs need to fertilised and all that stuff (explaining it in human, literal terms just drives home the point of how fucked up this whole thing is). therefore, when she finally created a child, she became obsessed with that fact, obsessed with the idea that she could create life. and she also became obsessed with the fact that the child was hers. she has a twisted sort of affection for Elise, but the way she loves her is... very much not a good thing.
she wants to be alive. she wants to live out the life of a human woman after she has been denied the sanctity of life or its creation. and so, she tries to live out those wishes through Elise, her child.
this can be compared to the very real situation of parents living their dreams out through their children, having a possessiveness over them with the excuse that they made them. the game takes this idea to its literal extreme, presenting it in a much more graphic and physical way: Walpurga straight up kills Elise and possesses her body to take what she never had, to live as a young woman and to be able to bear life in her womb.
now, most parents aren't this horrible to their children, but that doesn't mean there's nothing real in this representation. many parents feel entitled to their children's lives, their children's bodies, because "they made them". is what Walpurga does not similar, in a sense, to parents demanding their children have babies, demanding grandchildren, acting like having kids should always be the ultimate happiness for a woman? and sometimes, physical control or harm is not a hard limit for parents if they truly feel like what they want is so much more important. there are parents who will hurt their children and claim it to be for the greater good, who feel that this entitlement is simply proof of the close bonds parents and their children share.
the reason why Walpurga is important is because she represents a kind of mother. a mother that, for the longest time, had not been able to bear children. a mother that only finally had kids as a result of rape, purely for the wishes of another, being unable to even properly care for the child which she did not ask for, but still wanted. a mother which then desperately tried to create another, since the first was ripped from her. a mother which then tried to live out her life through her child, which she became obsessed with, but never truly cared for. she was used by others and then made her daughter suffer for her regrets. she is a character whose experiences, relationships and effects on other characters might resonate with people, who represents things which are very real and important in discussing the condition of women. that's why i wrote this incredibly long post, why i feel that, despite the simplicity of her construction, she is a very underrated character.
as a last note, it is also very interesting how Elise, if spared from the fate of being Walpurga's vessel and able to complete the exchange, would end up sacrificing her daughter for her wishes. the cycle continues. the only thing that can break it is the decision to not sacrifice the lives of others in the first place.
okay, that's it. i've spent a lot of time writing this. feel free to add whatever. bye.
so i've been doing some thinking... Umineko's "without love, it cannot be seen" is used to refer to a lot of different things and has several different meanings. obviously, this idea, this way of viewing things is important when it comes to figuring out the truth, but i was thinking it has a special significance when it comes to Ushiromiya Battler.
some people like to think Battler was being kinda stupid when it came to solving the mystery of how the murders happened and constructing his theories, but that doesn't add up. we know that Battler is a big fan of mystery novels and that he is able to rival Furudo Erika, who is definitely something. with the hints that Dlanor gave him, he is not only able to find out who Beatrice is, but also construct an alternative theory with himself as the culprit in Episode 5, then make a whole new game that Erika ultimately couldn't figure out. whatever he is, he's not exactly stupid.
the problem isn't his lack of intelligence. the problem is that, to him, what happened on Rokkenjima wasn't just a story. it was a very real event which affected him and his family.
of course, all of the people who were involved were real too. he cared about all of them deeply, with all of their flaws, from his parents to his cousins to his aunts and uncles, even the servants. then, everyone, including himself, was gone, having been killed mysteriously, everything being made to appear as if a "witch" had killed everyone with "magic".
Battler, obviously, does not accept this. but he does not accept the only other reasonable alternative either: someone amongst his group had chosen to commit the murders. because he does not accept either outcome, he tries to do the impossible, rather, proving that the murders were committed by a real human being and therefore not by a witch, but also specifically by one different from anyone he actually knows.
Battler isn't stupid. he just really doesn't want to suspect his friends and family.
it makes sense. even without knowing that Hideyoshi was an accomplice or that Shannon and Kanon are actually the same person, you could probably still figure out how the murders were possible by assuming the servants were just lying. someone could easily have killed Eva and Hideyoshi, then have lied about the chain being set. Kanon could easily have faked his death with Nanjo's cooperation. Battler probably doesn't want to assume that anyone amongst them could do something so cruel, that so many people would be involved in this kind of deception. not to mention, Episode 1 Battler probably couldn't think for shit while he was in danger of being murdered.
but his attitude doesn't really change as Meta-Battler either, at least not at first. he initially doesn't even think about the possibility that Rosa and the servants all lied about the chapel door being locked, because he doesn't want to consider that any of them were accomplices to murder or that the killer might be amongst them.
that didn't end up being true, of course. so, what was the issue?
Battler never stopped caring about his family or about the servants. him eventually figuring out it was Shannon has nothing to do with him distancing himself from her. maybe taking a break from the game and seeing how someone else handled it gave him some hints on how to solve the murders.
but, ultimately, what he was missing was love. specifically, love for the culprit.
he initially considered Beatrice (or whoever committed the murders) to be inhuman and cruel, someone he needed to hate with his entire being. he did not stop to consider the culprit's motivations or think of them as anything other than a killer. he did not bother with trying to personify a mass murderer.
that, eventually, changes. he eventually comes to care for Beatrice and the relationship between the two of them. and by thinking of the culprit as an actual person he cares about, that mental barrier he put up, the thought that none of the people he loves could have ever done something so horrible, vanishes. because he now sees that whoever did this isn't an inhuman criminal. they, too, are human and, despite their awful acts, that deserves to be recognized.
because of love, he could not see the truth. but removing it altogether isn't the answer; that's how you get someone like Furudo Erika. instead, what was missing was the desire to understand the person who had committed the crime. without that, the mystery of what happened on Rokkenjima remains unsolved.
took a screenshot of this place near the end of Thursday's Witching Hour. i felt the need to mark the important milestone of making it past the Absolute Hell the Bedewed Forest of Berries had been up to this point in some way. coming across this, i thought this specific image was so beautiful and eerie at the same time that i had to preserve it and keep it as proof of my victory.
so i was thinking about how "Noctuelles" from Maurice Ravel's "Miroirs" kinda fits with the Living Hallowed Copice, like even the music for it sounds similar.
and now i had the realization that the different Witching Hour realms (i'm not sure what to call them) in Little Goody Two Shoes kinda match up with the titles of the movements in it.
Francette really did the biggest 180 regarding her involvement in the student council's performance after finding out they were going to crossdress. and she was so real for that.
alternatively, anna going "oh no, i don't know if i can do this, i've never acted before", then thinking of Lady Grace dressed as a man and immediately changing her mind while internally screaming at the top of her lungs.
Francette really did the biggest 180 regarding her involvement in the student council's performance after finding out they were going to crossdress. and she was so real for that.
