Ovy7
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This thread is a repost of this original thread, due to the many replies in that thread which made it hard for staff to keep up with the discussion. I also split the original thread in 2, with this thread focusing on the 1-A stuff, while the next will focus on a possible High 1-A/0 stuff, and I'll include the City of Books in this thread (and the next) just to simplify their tiering if this thread passes.
Oh, I got permission from Antvasima to post the thread in the Staff Only section.
The When They Cry cosmology is split into two sides, the side tossed around by fate and the side that creates fate. The side tossed by fate is represented by Humans, or more specifically the inhabitants of the Human Domain, while the side that creates fate is represented by the gods/The Creators, beings without any forms of restrictions and obtained everything. The beings in the middle are the Witches (or more specifically beings of the Witch Domain) who, while not tosses by fate but instead create and play with it, they do have restrictions on their power.
The Witches look down on the world of Humans as a gameboard from the higher world. Think of a gameboard the same way as a DnD gameboard is for us, they are like a game set up to show worlds of the lower layer as stories. These gameboards are usually portrayed as Kakera/Fragments, pieces of crystal that represent the conceptual form of lower worlds. These Witches are completely freed from the limitations of the Human Domain, having transcended it and being able to “walk” between the Kakera. Even the languages of the Human Domain are limited compared to the words of the higher Domain.
For the Meta Beings (the beings of the higher domain) the Kakera are like books, movies, or video games to them. The Meta Beings can manipulate the worlds inside these Kakera in multiple ways, like how Meta George and Jessica kill inside the gameboard’s story (but for their Meta self is just moving some piece on the board), fast-forwarding their plot, sewing other Kakera together, firing characters from the story, creating or disposing of characters, or outright changing their story.
When Meta Beings choose to appear on the gameboard, they do so as a Piece. A piece is their avatar in the human world, and for the Meta Being is similar to a video game avatar.
The only known ways of reaching into the Witch Domain is by either being led there by a higher being, becoming their Piece or Miko, in this way the higher being guaranteeing your existence in the Witch Domain; or by an internal evolution of the spirit. Otherwise, the Witch Domain is unreachable to Humans.
The former requires a lot of time, as was the case for Rika and Bernkastel. Only after hundreds of years of traveling the Sea of Fragments in Hanyuu’s protection was Rika starting to delimitate from her human self and internally evolve into a higher being, the Witch Bernkastel.
It’s also good to note that if the higher being doesn’t want to give its protection to the human it brings into the Witch Domain, said human would cease to exist, as they didn’t achieve the internal evolution to be able to survive the pressure of the higher domain and its layers (Endevours).
In the case of one getting into the Witch Domain through an independent internal evolution, this road is even rarer. The only known case till now is the one of Beatrice, where she achieved the evolution into a higher being on her own. But Beatrice is a special case, as her Endless Magic grants her endless evolution. But even in the case of this internal evolution, one must get recognition from a higher-order being for their evolution to be completed.
So, this should be enough to show that the Witch Domain qualifies for the new 1-A requirements.
The Witch Domain is akin to an endless ladder, with its layers or “steps” being called Endeavors. The higher on the ladder they go the fewer restrictions they have proportionally, until they lack any restrictions and become a Creator.
The layers of the Witch Domain also have a transcendent factor between them, the lower layer being just a Kakera or books to the higher layer, such as with Beatrice’s Catbox and games being just a Kakera in Bern’s Catbox, or the entirety of the Sea of Kakera in Hanyuu’s Catbox being just a Kakera in Eua’s; the inhabitants of said lower layers being no more than fictional characters to the higher layer beings.
So, the Witch Domain is a 1-A hierarchy of layers, so the tiering of the entire structure should be 1-A+.
We do not know what the base layer of the Witch Domain is, so the best option would be to go with the local Sea of Fragments of Beatrice’s Catbox and Meta Room/World as the base layer. While the local Sea is a layer lower than the Meta Room, the difference between them doesn’t seem to be of reality-fiction so we’ll take both as being in the same R>F layer.
Next would be the layer of the Game Master, which we are directly told to be on a higher existence than anything in the Catbox. This makes sense as the GM is pretty much the God of the Catbox, the one that spins the story and creates or disposes of the characters, with the entire Catbox and even its Meta Beings inhabitants existing only as long as he exists.
Hanyuu’s Catbox is likely on the same level as Beatrice’s (so scales to the above). There are arguments for it being much higher (cause there are a lot of Higurashi entries. . . like, A LOT), but I’m going with this now for simplicity. Eua’s own Catbox is one layer higher, as Hanyuu’s Catbox is a mere Kakera in Eua’s local Sea of Fragments, as shown in the previous section.
The Cathedral of Bernkastel’s Catbox would be on the same level as Eua’s, as it’s inside of a larger Catbox than Beato's, where the games from Beatrice’s Catbox are mere Kakera here. The Witch’s Theater seems to be a higher layer, as the events in the Cathedral are just a play told by Clair (like when Will killed her in the Cathedral, but in the Theater Clair is still alive telling the events of this). The Sea of Fragments to which Lion escaped after fleeing from the Theater should be another layer (due to how the fragments work). Finally, Bernkastel herself would be on an even higher layer than all of this due to being the Gamemaster and everything till now being just a mere gameboard.
There are places in higher layers than these, places like The Library of Time, a lower-world version of the City of Books introduced in Higurashi Mei; Hell, or the Great Court of Heaven, where Dlanor and Will reside normally, but we don’t know how high these places are in the hierarchy.
Above all of this, there is the City of Books. The City of Books is a massive library that is only accessible by Great Witches and The Senate, the highest Witches in existence, and stores countless worlds and Kakeras as books. Erika states that this place is the territory of Witches who exist on a far, far higher plane than the likes of her and Ange, and have returned from the Realm of the Gods much like Featherine herself has, and as mentioned before, it is where they store any tales which they end up taking a liking to, and the whole realm itself comprises Featherine's personal collection of carefully-selected books. Due to this, the City of Books is likely at the top or near the top of the Witch Domain layers.
Baseline 1-A - Beatrice’s Meta World and local Sea of Fragments
1 layer above baseline 1-A - The GameMaster of Beatrice’s Catbox and Hanyuu’s Catbox
2 layers above baseline 1-A - Eua’s Catbox and the Cathedral of Bernkastel’s Catbox
3 layers above baseline 1-A - The Witch’s Theater of Bernkastel’s Catbox
4 layers above baseline 1-A - The Sea of Fragments to which Lion escaped to
5 layers er above baseline 1-A - Bernkastel as GameMaster of her Catbox
Unknown layers above baseline 1-A- Library of Time, Hell, and the Great Court of Heaven
1-A+ or nigh-infinite layers above baseline 1-A - The City of Books
Oh, I got permission from Antvasima to post the thread in the Staff Only section.
TLDR on the cosmology
The When They Cry cosmology is split into two sides, the side tossed around by fate and the side that creates fate. The side tossed by fate is represented by Humans, or more specifically the inhabitants of the Human Domain, while the side that creates fate is represented by the gods/The Creators, beings without any forms of restrictions and obtained everything. The beings in the middle are the Witches (or more specifically beings of the Witch Domain) who, while not tosses by fate but instead create and play with it, they do have restrictions on their power.
Witch Domains transcendence over the Human Domain
The Witches look down on the world of Humans as a gameboard from the higher world. Think of a gameboard the same way as a DnD gameboard is for us, they are like a game set up to show worlds of the lower layer as stories. These gameboards are usually portrayed as Kakera/Fragments, pieces of crystal that represent the conceptual form of lower worlds. These Witches are completely freed from the limitations of the Human Domain, having transcended it and being able to “walk” between the Kakera. Even the languages of the Human Domain are limited compared to the words of the higher Domain.
For the Meta Beings (the beings of the higher domain) the Kakera are like books, movies, or video games to them. The Meta Beings can manipulate the worlds inside these Kakera in multiple ways, like how Meta George and Jessica kill inside the gameboard’s story (but for their Meta self is just moving some piece on the board), fast-forwarding their plot, sewing other Kakera together, firing characters from the story, creating or disposing of characters, or outright changing their story.
When Meta Beings choose to appear on the gameboard, they do so as a Piece. A piece is their avatar in the human world, and for the Meta Being is similar to a video game avatar.
The only known ways of reaching into the Witch Domain is by either being led there by a higher being, becoming their Piece or Miko, in this way the higher being guaranteeing your existence in the Witch Domain; or by an internal evolution of the spirit. Otherwise, the Witch Domain is unreachable to Humans.
The former requires a lot of time, as was the case for Rika and Bernkastel. Only after hundreds of years of traveling the Sea of Fragments in Hanyuu’s protection was Rika starting to delimitate from her human self and internally evolve into a higher being, the Witch Bernkastel.
It’s also good to note that if the higher being doesn’t want to give its protection to the human it brings into the Witch Domain, said human would cease to exist, as they didn’t achieve the internal evolution to be able to survive the pressure of the higher domain and its layers (Endevours).
In the case of one getting into the Witch Domain through an independent internal evolution, this road is even rarer. The only known case till now is the one of Beatrice, where she achieved the evolution into a higher being on her own. But Beatrice is a special case, as her Endless Magic grants her endless evolution. But even in the case of this internal evolution, one must get recognition from a higher-order being for their evolution to be completed.
So, this should be enough to show that the Witch Domain qualifies for the new 1-A requirements.
The Witch Domain’s structure and the ascension through the layers
The Witch Domain is akin to an endless ladder, with its layers or “steps” being called Endeavors. The higher on the ladder they go the fewer restrictions they have proportionally, until they lack any restrictions and become a Creator.
The layers of the Witch Domain also have a transcendent factor between them, the lower layer being just a Kakera or books to the higher layer, such as with Beatrice’s Catbox and games being just a Kakera in Bern’s Catbox, or the entirety of the Sea of Kakera in Hanyuu’s Catbox being just a Kakera in Eua’s; the inhabitants of said lower layers being no more than fictional characters to the higher layer beings.
So, the Witch Domain is a 1-A hierarchy of layers, so the tiering of the entire structure should be 1-A+.
Relevant Witch Domain layers for scaling the characters
We do not know what the base layer of the Witch Domain is, so the best option would be to go with the local Sea of Fragments of Beatrice’s Catbox and Meta Room/World as the base layer. While the local Sea is a layer lower than the Meta Room, the difference between them doesn’t seem to be of reality-fiction so we’ll take both as being in the same R>F layer.
Next would be the layer of the Game Master, which we are directly told to be on a higher existence than anything in the Catbox. This makes sense as the GM is pretty much the God of the Catbox, the one that spins the story and creates or disposes of the characters, with the entire Catbox and even its Meta Beings inhabitants existing only as long as he exists.
Hanyuu’s Catbox is likely on the same level as Beatrice’s (so scales to the above). There are arguments for it being much higher (cause there are a lot of Higurashi entries. . . like, A LOT), but I’m going with this now for simplicity. Eua’s own Catbox is one layer higher, as Hanyuu’s Catbox is a mere Kakera in Eua’s local Sea of Fragments, as shown in the previous section.
The Cathedral of Bernkastel’s Catbox would be on the same level as Eua’s, as it’s inside of a larger Catbox than Beato's, where the games from Beatrice’s Catbox are mere Kakera here. The Witch’s Theater seems to be a higher layer, as the events in the Cathedral are just a play told by Clair (like when Will killed her in the Cathedral, but in the Theater Clair is still alive telling the events of this). The Sea of Fragments to which Lion escaped after fleeing from the Theater should be another layer (due to how the fragments work). Finally, Bernkastel herself would be on an even higher layer than all of this due to being the Gamemaster and everything till now being just a mere gameboard.
There are places in higher layers than these, places like The Library of Time, a lower-world version of the City of Books introduced in Higurashi Mei; Hell, or the Great Court of Heaven, where Dlanor and Will reside normally, but we don’t know how high these places are in the hierarchy.
Above all of this, there is the City of Books. The City of Books is a massive library that is only accessible by Great Witches and The Senate, the highest Witches in existence, and stores countless worlds and Kakeras as books. Erika states that this place is the territory of Witches who exist on a far, far higher plane than the likes of her and Ange, and have returned from the Realm of the Gods much like Featherine herself has, and as mentioned before, it is where they store any tales which they end up taking a liking to, and the whole realm itself comprises Featherine's personal collection of carefully-selected books. Due to this, the City of Books is likely at the top or near the top of the Witch Domain layers.
A TL;DR on this:
Baseline 1-A - Beatrice’s Meta World and local Sea of Fragments
1 layer above baseline 1-A - The GameMaster of Beatrice’s Catbox and Hanyuu’s Catbox
2 layers above baseline 1-A - Eua’s Catbox and the Cathedral of Bernkastel’s Catbox
3 layers above baseline 1-A - The Witch’s Theater of Bernkastel’s Catbox
4 layers above baseline 1-A - The Sea of Fragments to which Lion escaped to
5 layers er above baseline 1-A - Bernkastel as GameMaster of her Catbox
Unknown layers above baseline 1-A- Library of Time, Hell, and the Great Court of Heaven
1-A+ or nigh-infinite layers above baseline 1-A - The City of Books
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