Bernkastel is quite possibly the best kind of true antagonist for Umineko and among the greatest female character in general. A lot of that have to do with the vast amount of subtext, interpretation and depth that one can draw from her character through the WTC series.

[THREAD]

#HigurashiUminekoSpoilers

And one of the aspect that contributing to that which I found really alluring about Bernkastel is the fact that when you take the context of Higurashi's story into consideration, she serves as a perfect foil to all Umineko main characters at once.

What is even more fascinating is how conceptually every single main character in Umineko embodies an attribute of Rika's journey. You could very well conceptualize Umineko as Bernkastel looking at the various mirrors of her own past. For 4 instances:

1. Battler is a reflection of Bernkastel as a human (Rika) when she was the player still that struggle on the gameboard to save people that were precious to her. This is addressed a few times during question arcs which he reminds her of when she was a human.

They both face off against the most overwhelming odds while not betraying the love for the people around them no matter what harsh situation they were put in. It only makes sense that Battler's situation is one of the few times we see Bernkastel emphathized with something.

2. Ange reflects Rika's tendencies of waiting for a miracle in her life instead of granting them by herself, Witches's Tanabata shape up the dynamic between them in a intriguing way, as Ange dreamt of Bernkastel as the witch who could bring the miracle to her life.

A wish for family to come back for her. However miracles are called miracles because they don't happen generally. Bernkastel believe a person's wish can't be granted unless they already have strong will enough to grant wish for their own.

We're led to believe that she's the reason of why Ange & Eva relationship turn out to be the way they were except that just before this scene, Bernkastel stated that witches ultimately have no influence on human beings unless their concept goes within their desire to begin with.

One can even see Bernkastel as the reflection of Ange's deepest desire, her distrust of how Eva being the sole surviving member of her family which why out of anyone, she dreamt of the witch of miracles as a way to lash out her pain to Eva and cope with the loss of her family.

It's also exactly why Bernkastel play the role of the true antagonist for Ange's story because on top of being witch of miracles that deny in the existence of miracles themself more than anyone, she's also a reflection of everything Ange as a person need to overcome.

3. Beatrice/Yasu represents everything that Bernkastel hates & represses about herself, Rika at her worst state. Yasu is someone that overreliance on escapism which resulting in a complete avoidance. It's a conflict that Furude Rika faces during Minagoroshi.

To be an observer of your own life or not. Yasu reflects Rika's tendencies to escape from harsh reality. The difference is that while Yasu kept running away from facing them, reality never changed for her. Rika eventually decided to grasp the happiness and future for herself.

One can see how Yasu reminds her so much of when she was Rika except when she was too weak to struggle for her happiness and eventually gave up on her life yet the only thing they're equal by the end is their memories of the tragedy that keep haunting their mind.

Arguably the trauma haunting Bernkastel to a much greater extent and I think that is what she hates the most about Beatrice and partly why they didn't share the best affinity with each other.

4. Last, Willard, he was called into the story by Bernkastel as the protagonist of Ep. 7, I think most people figured out that he is an ideal reflection of what Yasu want Battler to be but not many realize that he also share an attribute to what Keiichi meant to Rika as well.

Not anyone else but the person who bring a miracle to Rika's life and taught her to keep believing in the future she hoped for and learnt to share more of her burden with other. Contrast to Yasu, Willard reflects Rika's ambitious sense of future, to be the actor of her own life.

One thing to note about this is the fact that Rika has influence on whether Keiichi moves to Hinamizawa or not to as well. Matsuribayashi makes it clear that Rika purposefully made it so he moved to Hinamizawa more often than not.

Keiichi and Rika both influence each other in many way which can be even interpret as the reason why Keiichi's subsconscious knowledge sometimes aware of previous fragment which is partly due to the connection between him and Rika as a player.

And to put it in a Umineko way, it means both Keiichi & Willard are the piece that places on the gameboard by Rika & Bernkastel and coincidentally enough, they're also set up by Rika & Bernkastel to play the role of "hero" in their respective stories to.

What brings all those irony to click is when Willard clash against Bernkastel by the end of Ep. 7. I think it's interesting that not only the way she dragging out Clair's guts apart being portrayed as her "speciality" is the reminiscent of how she was treated as a human.

But also how on top of Willard being Keiichi's parallel in Rika-Bern case, his ideologies & belief also represent what being conveyed from Keiichi to Rika in Minagoroshi as well.

Despite being the witch of miracles herself, Bernkastel claimed that by the end, "miracles are just nothing more than fantasy". It's the biggest anti-thesis to everything that Rika in Minagoroshi learnt to stand for.

Meanwhile Willard was there to reminds Lion to not looking for miracle and turn into the miracle themself. Remember what Keiichi reminds Rika in Minagaroshi? Bernkastel is not hating on anything else but what Rika used to believe, *the past of herself*.

It's a heartbreaking irony that the more one dive deeper into the parallel between Rika/Keiichi/Minagoroshi to Bernkastel/Willard/Requiem, the more you start to realize that the meaning behind their dynamics are what define the clash between Rika/Bern's perspective on miracles.

Viewing together, Requiem & Minagaroshi are a stellar pair of arcs that display of Bernkastel's self loathing characteristic where one (Rika) learnt to upholding her hope and pursuiting for a miracle in her life, the other (Bern) betrayed these belief and tearing them apart.

Although Rika would seem to be the righteous one given their respective role. Both are still coming and starting from how they're being betrayed by the false sense of expectation for miracle in their life and embody the different ways of how one learnt from those tragedy.

In the end, Rika & Bernkastel are like a brilliant two sides of the same coin that embody the different facet of how one approach to the happiness and belief in their life, both the beauty and ugly side of one's perception of miracle and what it meant to them.