How Higurashi Gou Makes Sense!

If youre confused by what went down in Higurashi Gou. Well If you jumped into it without knowing It was a sequel. I cant really help you there. I suggest watching all of Higurashi including Rei even Uminekonot the awful and terribly rushed anime read the superior visual novel or the manga thats got Ryukishis seal of approval to garner even greater understanding. Because this post will include spoilers from the WTC franchise as a whole and I would advise you to avoid it till then. If not be my guest. In any case if you did all of that already and still have a hard time piecing things together or are completely lost. Then hopefully this post will be of help to you and possibly myself. I hope you enjoy and if you got any questions feedback please dont feel shy to share them. I wanted to try to piece all the puzzles I have in my head together and see if they fit. No this is not me saying this is a fact that this is the truth. Its merely a theory I composed from discussing with others about Higurashi on my server. I have to give special thanks to Sabre especially for making it easy for my imaginations to run wild. Discussing with him has been of utmost help and enlightening I couldnt get here without him. I also did some research on my own from rereading it and going back and rewatching parts of it. Its worth noting Higurashi Gou takes subtle details from previous installments and builds expands upon them. Most of the key things that are happening in Gou were always planned. This is also to prove I didnt slap Gou with such a high rating due to only bias but actually reasonable logic taken from WTC as a whole. Honestly after writing all of this out I feel like I should rate it higher. Dont worry this is not me reading into every damn detail to justify why Gou is good. Its all right there and I will use images to illustrates my point and show I am not talking pure nonsense. This will not be me merely implying but deciphering the content directly from the dialogue. Plus how these events influence the various WTC installments. It hurts seeing Gou insulted so if you read through this and gain some value then my job is done. Lets begin. Why did Satoko become the villain? In the past when she and Rika were playing a game of hide and seek kick the can Satoko happened to break the arm of Oyashirosama. Before even that Satoko lost her biological family mysteriously and was thrown around from one foster family to another. Only the Houjou was good to her but they died. Then she suffered much abuse under her uncle Teppei and her aunt Tamee her brother disappeared parents were killed. The people of Hinamizawa are very religious so when Satoko broke the arm she believed herself to be cursed. Can you blame her? She never got a break. All the misery and pain are proof of that. Rika took the responsibility without even knowing if Satoko did it. Satoko developed a persecution complex and didnt confess anything to Rika. Only Keiichi and only in Tatarigoroshi he heard about the incident with Oyashirosamas hand. While Rika buried the problem instead of solving it then and there in that time Satokos mind deteriorated to the point of no return and she began thinking that the whole world was out to get her. https://i.ur.com/ibVkMu5.png This belief is only further solidified by the events that transpired in St. Lucia. I will only mention some to explain my viewpoints. Satoko has trouble memorizing she only passed the exam as Rika would be by her side. Sadly Rika got lost in the prestigious life of ojousama as she slowly disconnected from her best friend. During that time Satoko began having difficulties keeping up classes and was eventually put into a special class where every day was full of torturous studying. No wonder Shion left this hell hole. Rika lent a hand to Satoko which she pushed away believing it was out of pity no wonder since she did while her cookiecutter group was present. https://i.ur.com/jQHa8XN.jpeg Satoko simply didnt feel like they were on equal footing. Rika without being delicate threw at Satokoyou were the one who put yourself below me. Satoko already felt like shit then she gets hit by this. Can you blame her for losing trust? Then when Satoko played a prank and the chandelier collapsed and hurt Rika and her group. Satoko believed it was Rika who outed her when it was one of those idiots. She didnt give it any other thought thats how badly her mind has declined at this point. Plus Rika seemingly not approaching Satoko after she was jailed adds more fuel to the fire and in her mind shes only proven right. While under lockdown by the school you could take the fact St. Lucia had a jail. Its to showcase how messed up her mentality had become. I took it as a hallucination to showcase how Satoko felt. Hopefully this helps you to understand why Satoko was always meant to become the villain. https://i.ur.com/JMXduzE.png Do you remember from the ending of Kai when Takano Miyo was on her way home she meets a girl that resembled Rika but it was Bernkastel herself. If youve read Umineko you know shes a witch of miracles and made it so Miyo didnt suffer the tragedy of losing her parents in a train crash. In return she never went to the orphanage suffered under the weight out of responsibility to her grandpa to make his dream come true nor didnt she lost herself entirely when Nomura was manipulating her from behind the scenes to do her bidding. Miyo was able to come back to reality and didnt cause Oyashirosamas. curse for the fifth year nor did she inject Tomitake with H173 a way to artificially produce L5. Miyo let go of her promise of opening the case after she cemented Hinamizawa syndrome as reality. Due to that she found out her grandpas will to her and let go of the pain and misery. This is consistent in all the loops of Gou. Takano Miyo never caused the great Hinamizawa disaster. https://i.ur.com/oN2nsOm.jpeg This is where Satoko comes in again. Shes already broken. Now the witch of certainty Lambdadelta moves to her next after losing the influence to Miyo due to Bernkastel. Its worth noting that Satoko and Miyo look very similar to Lambda is that coincidence? You dont think so either right? Ryukishi clearly planned it. Wait a minute whats all this with moving to the next person and shit? Youre not making any sense. If youd played Umineko or read it you would know that Higurashi the entire thing is simply a game between two witches Featherine and Lambdadelta. Moreover now that Bern a piece of Featherine made Lambdas piece Miyo unusable she jumped to her other piece Satoko. But be aware she got many more. https://i.ur.com/rSZE6UI.png Whos Bernkastel Lambdadelta and Featherine? What purpose do they serve? Bern and Rika are the same entity or are they? Bernkastel is the literal embodiment of everything Rikas been through during her centuries of looping. Shes Rikas negative emotions all put together into one being. She remembers everything Rika has been through and shares the same memories as her. Shes experienced everything Rika has. The one and only difference being that Bernastel gave up on the hope of wanting a normal life. Instead she braced the anger and rage within her from the frustration of failing to save her friends countless times and mentally snapped becoming a ruthless sadistic witch. As for Lambdadelta we assumed for a long time she could be either Miyo or Satoko. But now its becoming clearer she might truly be Satoko herself when she lost her sanity. At this time Satoko is already broken. Now shes being manipulated from the shadows she gets the ability to loop retain those memories rewind time by snapping her fingers and even decided to watch the entirety of Higurashi including fragments we never saw we only know eight. That kind of power for a human being when they are already lost? Do you see whats wrong with this situation? Not like Eua seems to mind shes only happy to have found a new toy for herself. https://i.ur.com/rWOCkJl.png Thats right I believe Eua known by many names Oyashirosama and Featherine and even Hanyuu is the same Hanyuu we know and love. If Rika and Satoko can have split entities such as Bernkastel and Lambdadelta why not Featherine/Hanyuu? Theres more than enough evidence to support the theory as well. Hanyuu and Featherine both use the term child of man they both share parallels in their name written in Japanese plus you know the horseshoeshaped thingy over Eua? Well in Hanyuus case her horn was chipped. This was emphasized in Gou we even know she had trouble remembering about Takano being the mastermind in MinagoroshiHen she didnt recognize before closer to the end. This could also explain her vastly different personality from Featherine Eua herself. Not to mention Featherine is the game master of the Higurashi game board. Boom just like that some things should make sense but more questions keep popping up. Ryukishi honestly is incredible to be able to remember all of it like its nothing. https://i.ur.com/Kqz3clA.png Lets quickly summarize what we went through. Okay Featherine Eua is Hanyuu after her horn somehow got fixed. Bernkastel is a negative Rika that lost all hope and embraced the anger and rage within herself. Lambda was believed to be either Takano Miyo or Satoko. But now its very clear Miyo was simply a red herring Ryukishi used to misdirect and confuse us. Not to mention Lambda always shared most similarities to Satoko anyway. The fact both refer to each other aslady got pompous and a very adorable laughter are fiesty and always certain about everything they do. Lambda couldnt be anyone else but Satoko herself and now it makes sense as Bernkastels influence is removed from Miyo. So the focus can finally shift to Satoko. Moving on the fact that the entirety of Higurashi is simply a horrifying game between Lambdadelta and Bernkastel. Now why are other reasons I think Satoko is Lambdadelta? For one Satoko was aroused at the thought of locking Rika in Hinamizawa and keep her to herself and was quite intense about it. This is a quirk Lambda shares toward Bernkastel and vice versa. Definitely not a coincidence. You mightve thought Higurashi was solely a Rikas tragedy but it goes deeper than that. Heres some evidence suggesting Rika and Satokos relationship going beyond the realms of family. Just as Lambdadelta and Bernkastel. https://i.ur.com/DtqJiPU.png https://i.ur.com/t6jk5wx.png You can now label the two parts of Higurashi by different names. This is what I believe Ryukishis intention is leading to. Its both the origin of Bernkastel the witch of miracles and Lambdadelta the witch of certainty. Speaking of certain the very first thing Satoko said in Gou as she mocked Keiichi for falling for her trap isonce Ive decided to win I always win. This was depicted in chapter 1 page 41 of the Gou manga. Even then she used the word certain many times throughout the anime for one when she hatches the plan of making Rika go through suffering again. She states she will winwith certainty repeatedly. Even before Gou Satoko was always pompous and confident that her trap would work. This was greatly emphasized when she destroyed Yamainu in Matsuribayashi when they were in the mountain. In which case what is Gou about? The birth of Lambdadelta and its segue into the events of Ciconia. Sadly I have not read Ciconia yet so I cannot go any further than that as I havent inquired or searched for further details. Id rather go as fresh into Ciconia as possible. But I have faith that Ryukishi planned it. Even though we can muster forth so much information regarding Gous connection to Umineko. I should tell you that the only connection Higurashi had to Umineko was Bernkastel herself nothing more. We even saw her on visual appearance in Minagoroshi chapter one. In Gous case we got the mysterious being Eua and the easter egg of Satokos transformation into Lambdadelta. But all the clues pertaining to those beliefs might be touched upon once Sotsu rolls out. Thats the only time Ryukishi should confirm or deny it which I highly doubt to be the case. I dont see him not putting all these hints and connections to use. Apparently to the fanbase of Ciconia Gous got far more links to this fifth installment of WTC. I cannot see how and why however before I get to reading it. Its time we touched on the issue with Rika wanting to leave Hinamizawa out of nowhere. Its simple after a hundred years of looping the same place would you not get bored? Rika wanted to go out of the world and experience things she was never able to plus shes quite mature for her age so the same games and tranquil life will grow old quickly for her. She even states shes not the little girl of June of 1983 anymore and has grown out of it. How about Rika being Bernkastel? How can you be so certain? During Saikoroshi Dice Killing Hanyuu put Rika in a dreamlike situation where everything was peachy. That is to say Keiichi never had a reason to move to Hinamizawa. Rena lived with both her parents and used her name given by her mom Reina. Nor did Takano or Irie come to Hinamizawa. Rikas mom was still alive and Satokos parents also were alive. Rika never had a reason to support Satoko she was already living well. Sadly she developed a selfish prideful arrogant personality being very reliant on her brother Satoshi who was also there. Nothing like the Satoko we know and adore. Well all that besides the point. What you should know is Rika and Bernkastel being the same person is confirmed here. Moreover Saikoroshi comes before Umineko so nothing about this is convenient writing or nonsense. Ryukishi is merely building upon factors that are already there. https://i.ur.com/YvLKLpr.png To go a step further there are many quotes made by Frederika Bernkastel through the eight arcs of the first part of Higurashi. Where does the one I listed below fall into place too? When I was reading through the manga the first time I confess that I didnt know what it couldve meant. Its not until recently I went through the first eight arcs of Higurashi I can make the connections. Anyhow this quote tells you about when Rika as they came into St. Lucia slowly abandoned Satoko. She didnt really try to be with her and it didnt look like Rika was particularly interested in it either. She was busier about drowning in the prestigious and highclass life. Dont forget Bernkastel a part of Rika lies as naturally as she breathes. Okay its about time we start moving toward the conclusion. https://i.ur.com/SvWp2GE.jpeg What is Featherine/Hanyuu aka Euas role in all of this? I am willing to bet shes the evil beautiful monster who trapped both Satoko and Rika in the century of looping and manipulating them without them realizing it. Take the below image as an example. The whole thing is important but pays attention to the page where Erika statesyoure saying my master was also a witchs pawn trapped in the hell of a logic error? To which Lambda replies bingo. This is clearly a reference to Gou wouldnt you say? https://i.ur.com/GCW9fQ0.png As for whats a logical error its the worst mistake a game master can make being a contradiction in their story. The game master can only fix or admit the error. The latter will destroy the game board immediately. But the former option will allow them not to do anything else until they snuff out the Logical error. Seeing as these irregularities are incredibly difficult to fix it can be seen as eternal torture. Hmmm I wonder what that could be implying? It couldnt be the situation with Satoko and Rika could it? First it was Rika who was looping. She has already defeated fate and got her happy ending. But now Featherine moved her attention to Satoko. So Hanyuu used the excuse of going into hibernation and leaving the mortal realm but in reality she was just returning to her whole Featherine self with no broken horns. So the Hanyuu we saw in Gous second episode and throughout was just a fake Featherine created with a portion of her powers. Remember about Lambda vs. Featherine from that Umineko page I shared prior? Thats when Featherine horn or rather the memory device was damaged resulting in the entity Hanyuu. In episode 21 of Gou Satoko tells Featherine to make sure Rikas memory persists the fragment besides the detail surrounding her own death. But we know in episode 14 after Featherine had some fun and wants to turn things up a notch she grants Rika the ability to retain details surrounding her own death in the guise of Hanyuu. Effectively doing it behind Satokos back no less. If things get confusing remember that the Damashi arcs take place after the events of when Satoko got her abilities and went cuckoo. We have yet to return to the present time. When Rikas eye became red again in episode 2 and she met with the linger trace of Hanyuu this happens exactly after episode 21 of Gou when Satoko commits double suicide with Rika as the curtain opens for the first deceiving chapterOnidamashi. But then how was Rika not able to figure out it was Satoko all this time? She got her hands dirty by clearly injecting others with H173 because Miyo due to the influence of accumulation of memory stepped down as the mastermind behind the tragedy. Satoko stole H173 and at some point Miyos gun. https://i.ur.com/oQ3GyrU.png In other words she controls if a tragedy occurs or not and who the victims are. I am willing to bet shes the one who injected Ooishi Akasaka Akane Kimiyoshi and Keiichi. She did after all state shes not afraid of getting her own hands dirty. Plus she shrewdly chooses the persons Satoko knows Rika has the closest connection to. Mion or maybe Shion also went L5 in Watadamashi. It would make more sense for it to be Mion since it will really torture Rika knowing that it didnt change the tragic events despite her receiving a gift. One more thing to note is how Nekodamashihen can be translated to the Cat Deceiving chapter. Cat is an identifier for Rika deceived by both Hanyuu and her best friend Satoko. Still Rika couldnt ever find out because Satoko has been smart and used others to hurt her and not do it directly herself. Until Onidamashi that is when Rika and Satoko both ended up killing each other. The following image is taken from chapter 3 of Gou page 50. https://i.ur.com/IXOSxVo.png Even in episode 16 she mightve pretended to be under L5 to really sell Rika the idea but her tears are genuine. She believes Rika has betrayed her and punishes her by performing the offertory dance on her best friend. Thats how horrible her condition has become. She doesnt have to necessarily be under the syndrome influence to get to this point either. Satokos life was hell and that made her deranged over time. Then as stated before she gets brokenass abilities and becomes even more mental. In reality both Satoko and Rika might solely be the victims to the whims of someone else that being Featherina Eua herself. Rika has no ability to loop anymore. She only got dragged into hell again by Satokos wish and Featherines hand. https://i.ur.com/QLhrzBF.jpeg I hope some things are making sense now. If you read up to this point then youre a real one. Wow that was so much fun to write. Hopefully this tells you that Higurashi the whole WTC franchise. Reading it more than once will give you even more value and enjoyment. Its the kind of story Ryukishi has created. This I why I say it without feeling embarrassed that he is a writer in a completely different dimension. Let me also throw in this quote by Satoko from episode 24. If Rika wishes to leave Hinamizawa she gets trapped in a circle spanning a century. If Satoko wants Rika to stay Rika gets freed by the birdcage but Satokos wish doesnt get fulfilled. Shes only able to wish Rika free by contradicting herself. What a hellish situation. Just thinking about it makes my brain hurt. Well I will stop here for now. So in conclusion what is Higurashi Sotsu going to be about? It will answers our questions further expand the story. I also believe it will conclude with Rika and Satokos ascension to witch hood bearing the title of the witch of miracles and witch of certainty. This brings me to my final point: the second part of Higurashi is a tragedy full of lies. While the first installment does have tragedy it also includes horror and paranoia. Take Gou theme of Higurashi which emanates a feeling of loss and suffering. In other words tragedy. The original Higurashis theme sounds scarier and instead gives you the sense of being lost in an unknown maze. https://i.ur.com/lOpZrwj.png