#reaction of being terrified n treating her harshly even more blatantly unfounded. theyre afraid of a witch n taking it out on a little girl

[heartgold]

Always loved how Umineko subverts the whole "creepy horror little girl" thing with Maria going kihihihi mode in Legend and almost baiting a less attentive reader into believing she's Evil or being possessed by Beatrice only for the text to immediately explain that her shift in behavior when infodumping about the topic her entire life and sense of self revolves around to the adults who belittled her and are now interested due to recent developments makes perfect sense if you think about it for 5 seconds. And then that behavior causing discord and panic as the murders keep happening which leads to her being yelled at and smacked around and literally thrown to the wolves while the text is basically gripping the reader's shoulders explaining how much witches mean to Maria and how this tragedy has an entirely different meaning to her. It begs the reader to avoid the kneejerk impulse of reading her unfavorably when she isn't behaving in ways that are agreeable or cute anymore, because she doesn't only deserve understanding and your sympathy when she's the innocent little girl being horribly abused by her mother. Which is why Maria haters really failed the most basic litmus test in Umineko, imagine being that wrong. lol

Anyway the point I wanted to make was that it's interesting to me how that was also done in Higurashi and Umineko basically expanded on it. The way Akasaka in Himatsubushi immediately projected this image of a lovely cute ideal child on Rika only to be taken aback and frightened when she suddenly started talking seriously about her premonitions of death and he couldn't reconcile this Rika with the Rika he projected her to be, suspecting that they couldn't possibly be the same little girl, she must've been possessed by Oyashiro-sama or not even human herself. And then that fear and the betrayal of his expectations stopping him from realizing that she was, in fact, a little girl asking him for help because she desperately wanted to escape certain death. She didn't only deserve his protection when she was doing her cutesy nipah☆ bit. It speaks a lot how Akasaka was a soon-to-be father, saw Rika being cute and immediately set that impression as an ideal for his daughter who wasn't even born yet, and Rika herself breaking that image meant shattering that ideal. Akasaka failing Rika is a direct reflection of the mentality of parents placing expectations on their children and then feeling betrayed and giving up when they turn out to be complex individuals who don't match the projections they made up. And this is similar to the surprise of Maria going from a cute and naive child to cackling and speaking at length about "scary" topics in a smug tone, and the way the text immediately explains that you should get over the whiplash and accept that Maria is a complex individual, there's nothing out of place about it if you try to understand her situation

Basically I think it's neat how both games use the idea of an archetype that honestly would fit right into the setting to basically shake up the expectations of the audience and the characters themselves and add to the fundamental point the series makes, that girls who behave in ways you can't personally comprehend (with a big emphasis on neurodivergent and traumatized girls) and/or that aren't palatable deserve unconditional understanding and compassion, that they shouldn't have to match your projection of who you want them to be or be helpless perfect victims for you to sympathize with them

#umineko #higurashi #child abuse cw #i rly dislike how the console cgs leaned too heavily into making maria look creepy in a shocking way bc thats clearly not #the vibe you get from the original. shes just an autistic girl very smug about infodumping and feeling vindicated. which makes their #reaction of being terrified n treating her harshly even more blatantly unfounded. theyre afraid of a witch n taking it out on a little girl #◇