What is humanity in Shkanontrice?

[DapperTophat]

My answer:
Lambda's/Erika's view on humanity: Sayo is subhuman, and Shannon and Kanon are both humans alongside Erika in their count.
Bern's view on humanity: Sayo and Shannon (and maybe even Erika) are human, but Kanon (and maybe even Erika) is subhuman (which is still somewhat better than Battler/Beatrice's view on humanity by pure hypothetical math if she does consider Erika a human).
Battler/Beatrice's view on humanity: Sayo is human, and Shannon and Kanon are both subhuman and don't factor into Battler/Beatrice's count Ep6. Or Erika and Kanon are both subhuman and don't factor into Battler/Beatrice's count Ep6 (making Shannon and Sayo both human).

By pure math here, Erika/Lambda/Bern appears more merciful in their granting of humanity compared to Battler/Beatrice since 18 humans > 17 humans. Bern is still up in the air, though.

But when thinking about Kanon, Bern and Battler/Beatrice all share the same subhuman belief in him without question in contrast to Lambda and Erika.

TLDR; I don't mean to cast shade on Shkanontrice, but I don't feel like I can personally accept it as the best canonical solution there is at the end of the day for the reasons I have just stated in this thread. I think even monsters and alternate personalities should still be seen as human instead of subhuman at the end of the day, but then that means that I have to accept that Battler and Beatrice don't view Shannon and Kanon as possessing humanity like Bernkastel, and Erika would be the most pure despite her intellectual rapist mindset since she is the only party (alongside Shannon and Kanon in certain instances) who believes Shannon and Kanon still both possess humanity, and that's too much for me to stomach doing at this point. This leaves me no other option other than to conclude alternative theories are more canonical to me in the VN than Shkanontrice.

Full disclosure on my philosophy: in past threads I expressed multiple concerns about Shkanontrice and wanted to be able to see it as canon, but I never got my concerns fully addressed or answered. I am okay with discussing it as the main canonical solution because Ryu07 literally said it was the canonical solution. However, the first time I discovered Shkanontrice was the answer, I was completely confused and somewhat frustrated by it, but I could not fully discern what exactly bothered me about it. Then, I recently finished watching an anime that discussed humanity in-depth, and I believe I can now reconcile the exact problem I have with Shkanontrice as a theory compared to other alternative theories. As of right now, I believe that Shkanontrice as it currently stands has a lot of unanswered questions about humanity because a lot of implied stuff gets hidden in this word without full clarification on what exactly it means.

Shannon = Sayo/Yasu = Kanon

Battler/Beatrice in Episode 6 give the following reds to Erika: "Even if you do join us-That makes 17 humans." Now, for this discussion, I'm going to go off of Shkanontrice's assumption that this statement adds Erika to Sayo/Yasu to make the number 17 (even though this is actually not what I truly believe because I don't think the "Even if" makes this statement conditional and talk about this in a separate thread at length, but I digress).

This leaves me with a concern about Shannon = Sayo/Yasu = Kanon. Assuming they're all the same person does not pose any logical problems for me in this instance. However, this statement by Battler/Beatrice is about "humans" and not "people". So...in essence, there can only be 1 human, and that human is Sayo/Yasu. This produces a pretty significant problem for me that I don't believe Shkanontrice can handwave away with the canonical assumptions about what Battler/Beatrice's red statement means.

Namely, the problem for me is that Shannon and Kanon are both not human, and Sayo/Yasu is the only human among them. This logic also actually invalidates Shannon = Sayo/Yasu = Kanon since Sayo/Yasu > Shannon = Kanon now. Of course, I'm attributing strict humanity here rather than the actual biological human form the three possess, so I believe under this assumption, my logic still holds regarding Sayo/Yasu > Shannon = Kanon.

My main concern is that Kanon and Shannon's love battle is now meaningless to me in Shkanontrice since they could never hold a candle to Sayo/Yasu as Beatrice, so there's no meaning to them even dueling in the first place.

Imo, there's also no point to Shannon and Kanon "becoming human" in Episode 2. It's all just smoke and mirrors to me if they don't actually possess true humanity.

Now, sure, you could argue that Shannon and Kanon in those moments saw themselves being human as their own personal subjective truth that doesn't affect reality, and I'm fine with that...but up to a certain point. It's important to me that if this interpretation is taken, it should also be acknowledged that Battler and Beatrice in Episode 6 both see Shannon and Kanon as subhuman like Bern does in Episode 8 with her game to Ange.

I will give Shkanontrice credit in how it looks at Sayo's struggles, but it appears to me that Sayo's struggles completely overshadow Shannon and Kanon as characters if they need to become subhuman for Sayo's struggles to have any real weight to them.

In all honesty, Erika and Lambda could be arguably seen as the most merciful people of the bunch regarding Shannon and Kanon (compared to Bernkastel, Battler, and Beatrice) because they actually do acknowledge Shannon and Kanon's humanity (but not Sayo's) by Erika's following reds in Ep6 to Battler and Beatrice: "Hi, pleased to meet you! I am Furudo Erika, the detective!! I may be an uninvited guest, but please, welcome me!! I am the visitor, the 18th human on Rokkenjima!!" In saying this, Erika is lumping Shannon and Kanon as implied 16th and 17th humans who possess humanity as well as their own biological forms. Lambda also gives the following red about Erika Ep5 in her game: "Furudo Erika only increases it by one person. Besides her, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games." A person is defined as "a living human", so Lambda implicitly shares Erika's viewpoint at the end of the day when she makes this red statement.

So...am I to believe that Erika, the crazy decapitating detective...and Lambda...the crazy candy girl...are more merciful to Shannon and Kanon than Beatrice and Battler (despite the fact that Kanon literally goes out of his way to help Beatrice save Battler from Erika's evil clutches in Ep6)?

Also, let's not ignore the facts here. When you lump Shannon, Kanon, and Sayo/Yasu into the same living being, you are implicitly making Sayo/Yasu GREATER THAN Shannon and Kanon by allowing Sayo/Yasu to override their wants and desires whenever she sees fit (such as with Sayo/Yasu killing Jessica despite Kanon's resistance or Sayo/Yasu killing George despite Shannon's resistance).

Now sure, you can technically say they've all got the same biological human form, and that's what makes them human in Battler and Beatrice's count to Erika. I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing, though, is the fact that Shannon and Kanon are okay as being seen as subhuman despite their meta world attempts to not be seen that way. So...the Demon Twins' love battle and Shannon and Kanon's fights against Beatrice are all basically ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ because they know they don't hold a candle to Beatrice from the start. So why would they even bother, especially if they already know they're just furniture?

But Shannon resists Ep2 and Kanon resists Ep6 (or Ep5, Ep7 or Ep8 because I can't really remember where the love battle happened in the Answer Arcs). I'm tired of hearing that Ryu07 is deliberately tricking me in so many instances just to get things to make sense. My main point is that if these kinds of scenes exist in some capacity, then Shannon and Kanon cannot strictly speaking be stated to be subhuman if they are capable of having their own thoughts and desires. If they can't actually have their own thoughts and desires, though, because Sayo is ultimately controlling them at the end of the day, then they might as well not even be seen as separate characters from Sayo in my book if it's also okay to make them subhuman (because that honestly sounds no better than indentured servitude, imo). And this brings me to another point.

Maria as a Witch and Rosa

Maria being a witch is another direct parallel with Sayo + Shannon/Kanon here regarding her relationship with her mother Rosa. Maria sees Rosa beating her up as Rosa being possessed by 'a bad witch'. But here's my next question to this quandary: Is the bad Rosa, like Shannon and Kanon are with Battler and Beatrice, subhuman in Maria's eyes?

And this is very important for me to get a straight answer here because I think Maria actually does see the bad Rosa as subhuman. She tells Rosa plenty of times to "not let the bad witch win" because I think she wants to deny that bad part of Rosa as something that is subhuman and not a part of Rosa.

Now, I have another honest question: is this behavior okay for Maria to do to her mother, or is this actually hurting Rosa's psyche at the end of the day as well as Maria's psyche?

Because if it is okay for Maria to mess with Rosa's psyche by calling her a bad witch all the time, then that leaves me with some concerns about their future mother/daughter relationship.

And if it's not okay for Maria to mess with Rosa's psyche and making her seem subhuman when Rosa abuses Maria, then I believe it would also not be okay for Sayo to make Shannon and Kanon subhumans in her mind.

And this brings me to yet another point about Rosa.

Rosa's implied abuse

The cycle of abuse is very real in this story. So if Maria is going through some form of abuse under Rosa, then Rosa almost definitely underwent abuse (likely by her siblings/father/mother) when she was a kid.

Unlike Maria, Rosa was unable to redirect her mental anguish from being abused into the occult and magic and instead took it out on Maria. While this is unfortunate, it is not unexpected in cases of abuse. Rosa was definitely the most bullied child of the bunch, though, so she was also a very likely victim of abuse in the past.

This is what makes this VN hard for me when it comes to Shkanontrice. If I make Maria completely right by her calling Rosa a bad witch that is subhuman in certain instances, I am also implicitly casting aside a part of Rosa's humanity (even if it is filled with atrocious evil). I personally believe humanity is filled with the capacity to do evil things as well as good things. That's why despite her atrocious evil against her daughter, I would still like to see the bad Rosa as human. And...in addition to that, I want to see Shannon and Kanon as humans in their own right.

But here's my main problem: It's impossible for Shannon and Kanon to possess humanity the way I view it in Shkanontrice as it currently stands. I believe this is what makes Shkanontrice a bitter pill for people with similar opinions like me to swallow as the universal answer in this instance. I also believe that this potentially means I see alternative theories as more canonical than Shkanontrice by the definition of canon as well, and that's what makes this all the more tough to me when people think I'm trying to break down the foundations of Shkanontrice as the "best" solution for the VN at the end of the day.

[DapperTophat]

So...given the lack of responses, I am only left with speculation on why nobody is bothering to post a response about this.

Either I'm spouting total nonsense, I'm onto something, or nobody feels like commenting here. I'd like to hope for the second, however I am open to somebody coming in and telling me exactly how I'm full of it (provided the third point isn't true and I'm just ignored for all eternity).

I don't want to call people out for their beliefs, but I think certain belief structures can be objectively proven to be more harmful to the world at large.

And again, I don't want to bulldoze Shkanontrice, but I think the way Sayo's character is presently expressed could use a LOT more work (more specifically on exactly how she treats Shannon and Kanon as alternate parts of herself). I genuinely don't believe Ryu07 looked far enough into how Sayo/Beatrice sees Kanon (or if he did, he knew he was outright making her dehumanizing against herself). I mean...assuming Kanon's equal to Sayo, and they're both the same person, how do red statements like this make sense in the VN?

Of course. Three people--in other words, three bodies--went in or out. Only you and Kanon entered, and only Battler left. It has already been said in red that all people can only use their own names. Therefore, the names Erika, Battler, and Kanon can only be used by those people.

No one else can go by Kanon's name! A different person can't claim that as their name!

So...in my opinion, Sayo =/= Kanon in Sayo's mind given these red truths. However, if Sayo is human in her eyes, then she must logically see Kanon as subhuman in her eyes as well given her statements, but that's too problematic to outright state because essentially that makes Sayo come across as a dehumanizing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ against Kanon. But you don't have to take my word for it. What's the first thing Sayo/Beatrice says after killing Kanon Episode 2 right after he says he's become human?

She cackles, then says the following: "Don't make me laugh, furniture!! Even after a hundred years, furniture is furniture! Have you ever heard of an idiot who'll dig a grave for furniture when they throw it away? You smash furniture to pieces and make firewood, so all that's left is ashes!!" Five times she called him subhuman. Five times. And let's face it: that's completely sick for Sayo to write down (CAUSE SHE DID WRITE THIS EPISODE ALL DOWN BEFORE CASTING IT OUT TO SEA).

You know what other kinds of people in the world use this psychology to make someone subhuman while also implying they're a person? People who want to put others down in this world like racists and tyrants. Am I seriously supposed to believe this is how Kanon is supposed to be seen by Sayo/Beatrice?!

And don't tell me that Sayo doesn't go by this philosophy because I have the red truth that Sayo/Beatrice herself states regarding Kanon being a "person" and her own statements after his death that imply Kanon is not human, or "furniture". The red truth stated by Sayo is objectively "her truth" according to postmodernism, and that cannot be denied by anyone. And I'm sorry, but I think it's far more acceptable to make humans and people the same freaking thing because that should be what humanity always is in this world (otherwise, might as well just take out everybody who disagrees with you, and that's honestly the saddest form of existence I could ever wish on someone to think).

So...I want to provoke a meaningful dialogue here. How the hell can Sayo's words be reconciled to not dehumanize Kanon in Shkanontrice? I mean, someone can try to pretend that Sayo = Kanon always, but the fact that Sayo calls Kanon furniture right after Kanon calls himself human should clearly indicate that Sayo objectively does not see herself as equal to Kanon in the VN. And that leaves only one interpretation Sayo has regarding Kanon, and it's not a good one.

So what's more humane? Making Kanon a separate human, and having the person who is Beatrice lose their humanity and not consider themselves a human in an alternative solution to make the number 17 (or consider Erika dead floating onto the island and her games don't factor in)? Or should we go with the "canon" (because again, not really as canon to me as it is for others since I haven't gotten good answers on this) theory that outright implies Sayo dehumanizes Kanon in her own mind?

I don't care about the fact that he's an alternative personality. If I had an imaginary friend who grew up with me and was a part of me, I would like to consider that imaginary friend a person and a human even if they share my own body and potentially my memories.

It makes it very hard for me to like Sayo under present Shkanontrice if she really wants to dehumanize a part of herself that much. Kanon deserved way better from Sayo, in my honest opinion.

And you can tell me that Sayo changed her philosophy on Kanon, but how the hell do we even know that for certain? What if Episodes 5-8 are just Battler's "truth" where he wants to believe Sayo wasn't outright dehumanizing against Kanon? HOW THE HELL CAN ANYONE PROVE SAYO IS NOT DEHUMANIZING KANON, AND HOW CAN THAT JUST BE BLINDLY ACCEPTED AS A POTENTIALLY VALID TRUTH?! Oh, and also, one can easily indicate that Battler does dehumanize Kanon just like Sayo (with their joint "17 humans" red), so that already fails.

Call Kanon a monster all you want for getting in the way of Sayo's soul, but don't you dare have the gall to tell me that attributing subhumanity to him is a valid truth that can be derived out of this text. How the hell would a message like that ever help people garner meaningful ethics that they can actually apply to the world? I hear people all the time say that Umineko taught them a lot about ethics. Hmm...well if those same people buy present Shkanontrice, that makes me really question their "ethics", if we could even call dehumanization an ethical foundation that should be logically supported.

If I had an alternative personality that I despised like Sayo, with every fiber of my being, I would still see them as human, unlike Sayo, no matter how hard that would be for me or my psyche to accept. Because...whether I like it or not, they would still be a part of me. And will I suffer for thinking that? Maybe. But I'd rather suffer with my personality than step on their neck and act like I'm their "superior".