Accept Your Death: The Core of Ushiromiya Battler

*This post contains major spoilers for the complete visual novel Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Proceed at your own risk*

There are many things that go into crafting a good story. The writer must create a whole new world to elaborate on. Yet, one of the most critical parts of developing a story is crafting the protagonist. Who is this person that we are joining along for this ride? How do their ideals reflect the rest of the cast and the heart of the story? What makes this person so important for the story to follow them? A strong protagonist will drive a story forward and give a basis for all the other parts of the story to follow. I believe that Umineko’s protagonist, Battler Ushiromiya, is a masterfully written one. There is so much to uncover through the world of Battler Ushiromiya, Umineko would not be what it is without him as the driving force. Battler is, as many of the central characters from Umineko are, a deeply complex and layered character that takes time to unravel. On the surface, he is a brash, impulsive, loud-mouthed, yet kindhearted and intelligent young man. Battler is portrayed as a person who is completely full of life. It is once that life is stripped away from him and he is forced to reckon with things outside of his control and understanding that we see Battler begin to break down. Battler gets dogged on a lot within the fanbase for being dense and unaccepting, yet given his position, he has every right to be. To Battler, accepting the witch standing in front of him and the magic being played out can only mean one thing: accepting the fact that he has died. 

Battler’s story follows multiple layers of meta-narratives that are all connected by the simple fact, that the human Battler Ushiromiya has died. Whether it be Piece Battler dying on the gameboard, Meta Battler who is caught in purgatory, or Prime Battler who nearly drowned in the ocean only to become a brand new person, death falls upon Battler’s doorstep. Death is something that one cannot control. It can spring upon you out of the blue without any type of preparation. It is a very common human experience to fear death. It is scary that there is this inevitable thing that looms on all life, something not even the great king Gilgamesh could conquer. It is unknown what happens, if anything, after death. Having to grapple with the fact that everything as one knows it could vanish to nothing is not something that comes easy. The fear of dying may hang over someone until they are forced to meet that fate themselves. 

Spirituality is something that sprung out of the human wish to understand death and its connection to life. Spiritual beliefs connect people to something bigger than themselves. It makes the idea of death less scary. Umineko itself is a very spiritual work. It borrows ideas from spiritual practices and religions from around the world. It tries to answer the questions of what meaning does life have if all it does is end. It argues that life itself is bigger than just what our consciousness can comprehend. It focuses on how belief shapes our concepts of reality and how it can offer peace in times of turmoil. It is a story that faces death directly, lingering on all the scary parts of it that others shy away from. Battler stands as a focal point for these discussions, as he is the character who must face his own death constantly. 

The first time Battler meets the witch is in the Episode 1 Tea Party. Battler has awoken in a tea room surrounded by his cousins and the servants Shannon and Kanon. He is under the impression that the place he is in is the “Golden Land” that the epitaph found in his grandfather’s mansion mentions. This epitaph also happens to mention that once the witch revives, none shall be left alive. This can only mean one thing to Battler, this place he has awoken in must be the afterlife, and somehow, he has died. One thing interesting about Battler in this case is we never actually see his death on the gameboard. Readers at the time may be confused as to how Battler could have died, giving readers a reason to deny that he is dead at all. There is no evidence that Battler has died outside of this illusion, so who can prove he is really dead right now? However, readers who look back in retrospect know that by the rules of the game, this Battler has died of the bomb’s explosion at midnight. His death is set in stone. Yet, Battler is in the same boat as the first time readers at this moment. He can still live in denial that his death actually reached him. 

Beatrice is represented as a harbinger of death. Wherever she is, death follows. She ruthlessly slaughters the members of the Ushiromiya family over and over again. Her resurrection represents the death of the entire family. Accepting her existence is accepting that her resurrection ceremony has been completed, and the entirety of the Ushiromiya family has died. Battler is trying to find a loophole around this, by denying her existence, therefore allowing himself to be “alive” even longer. 

Outside of just Beatrice’s existence, it’s magic itself that Battler adamantly denies. Battler is seen to be very creative, constantly thinking outside of the box and normal social conventions. However, his fatal flaw is not being accepting of things that he does not easily comprehend. Instead, he turns to denial and tries to reshape his reality into something that does fit within his preconceived notion of how the world should be. This tendency to deny receives an extra level of depth when viewing it from the angle that Battler is denying his own death. For Battler, dying is outside of his scope of understanding. It is not something he can easily rationalize, which makes him scared. Battler likes to feel in power, death is something that strips him of his power. Magic exists in a similar vein. Magic is something that does not exist within Battler’s current worldview. To see it played out in front of him means one of two things. Either his understanding of the world has been wrong this entire time, or he now exists in a new world entirely. Beatrice uses magic as leverage over Battler, a way to strip him of his power and leave him feeling defenseless. Magic reminds Battler that the world is not in the palm of his hand, that there are barriers, and powers that exist outside of him. He cannot fight against magic, and he cannot fight against his own death, but he will try. 

Another hint that I find really fascinating about Battler’s fear of death is his character theme song, adequately named “Dread of the grave.” The Umineko soundtrack song names may seem arbitrary to analyze as some of them just sound like a bunch of cool words strung together, ie. worldenddominator, dreamenddischarger, etc. But, it is something to note that Battler’s “destroying Beatrice with facts and logic” song is named “Dread of the grave.” Battler is desperately fighting trying to deny the witch. But this fight is not just about her to him, it’s about his life completely. It’s about his very own dread of accepting his death. He must fight to prove otherwise, it is the only way he can cling to life. He must take leaps and desperately prove Beatrice wrong, he must save himself from his fate that is already set in stone.

All of this turmoil gets further recontextualized once one reaches the end of Umineko and meets Hachijo Tohya face-to-face. After nearly drowning in the ocean, by some miracle, the living body of Ushiromiya Battler stays alive. However, that body has suffered extreme brain damage and cannot see the memories of “Ushiromiya Battler” as his own, thus giving birth to Hachijo Tohya. As Bernkastel announces in red, “Battler died!!!” Even though Tohya is a new man, separate from Battler, the memories of Ushiromiya Battler always flood back into his mind. Even after being proclaimed dead, Battler’s soul refuses to accept it, he refuses to allow himself to die. The meta layers of Battler denying Beatrice now don’t just exist as they are but also exist as a manifestation of Battler’s turmoil as he’s been replaced in his own body. The remaining pieces of his soul are crafting these stories with him as the main character as he makes sense of all that led to his death. And just maybe, through his words, he is trying to immortalize himself. 

Battler is just as much of an esacapist as Sayo and Ange are. He is another character who refuses to accept his reality and runs away from it. He is another character that clings to an unreachable ideal. Just as Sayo and Ange are, Battler is trapped in an inescapable fate. All three of these central characters share that fatal flaw of being unable to accept the things they do not understand. However, Umineko is anything but a hopeless story. Instead of letting the reader succumb to the same spiral of pathological denial that its characters face, it shows the reader a new path, the path to acceptance. 

Battler’s journey does not end with him just fading into oblivion nor does it end with him accepting his defeat. It is after the Episode 4 Tea Party that Battler’s goal changes from trying to deny Beatrice, to trying to understand her. And by the end of Episode 5, Battler learns the truth behind this tale. Beatrice was never a harbinger of death, she was just another human like him, a lonely girl who just wanted to be loved. Magic was not something she used to beat him down, it was her own way of understanding the world. Everything he’d been fighting against he realized he had misjudged. At the heart of it all was not fear, but love. He also realized that it was not just his death that he had been facing, but hers. They were one and the same. She was just as scared to die as he was. He spends the rest of the story crafting tales to allow her to rest in peace. But, as mentioned earlier, he was laying himself to rest with these tales as well. The tales he spins immortalize Beatrice as the Witch of Rokkenjima, a beautiful figure, painted in the way the girl behind her would have wanted to be seen. He writes himself in, not as her prince, but as someone who also struggled, yet came to his own type of acceptance. If Beatrice is someone who can only exist with love, then maybe Battler is the same. After passing on from this world, living in the heart of another means he won’t fade away. It is this idea that also comforts Ange, as long as she holds her family in her heart, they will always be behind her, cheering her on. 

Umineko, as I frequently discuss, is a testament to the role storytelling has on us as people. Storytelling is magic, it can create something out of nothing. It can embellish reality. It brings life to those that cannot breathe, even those that once did. In the final scene of Umineko, Ange invites Tohya to the Fukuin House, which she has spent time reforming. Upon arrival, Tohya sees the work Ange has done for this place, showing how she’s transformed her grief into a way to help others. It is when he sees the portrait of Beatrice up on the wall that something shifts. It is not just Hachijo Tohya looking up at this portrait, but the soul of Ushiromiya Battler. In this moment he realizes that all his work was not in vain. Beatrice’s soul will live on, as she is loved in the heart of Ange. There is no reason for him to cling any longer. All that is left is love, and maybe that’s all that mattered anyway. Battler can finally accept his death.

Umineko understands how scary death is. It is uncertain; it is shrouded in mystery. It is something everyone must face as they live. Whether you hold on to the belief that there is something more that follows it, or you believe that nothing but the abyss will follow, Umineko lets you define that for yourself. Death is a catbox, and when something gets trapped inside a catbox, it becomes the truth. As long as we live and as long as we die, things will exist outside of our understanding. Ushiromiya Battler’s character proves that even if death is a complete abyss, with love, something will glow as you fall, and rest quietly at the bottom. That love will be eternal.