[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

"ShKanon scum"? Tell me where those bullies are and I'll gladly support you; I like arguing with Rosatricers.

Those guys aren't even worth your time XD

KnownNoMore discusses the EP1 5th twilight in detail in his third video, at 23:10. The explanation is about 10 minutes if you can stomach him that long. You might want to know ahead of time that he does use Nanjo as an accomplice for this twilight as well as in his overall theory.

I really like how he goes bersek against the Shkannon theory and spends entire minutes of his video calling it impossible and would go as far as using diagrams(!) to prove it when his own explanation is like an aspull pulled out of an ass' ass.

And I mean exactly that first twilight. A death drug? Makeup? Seriously? I mean, okay man, you may not like Shkanon, but try to live with it. I won't say anything as arrogant as 'it totally violates Knox', just that I fell from my chair when I watched it.

(P.S: I think the most hilarious one was that video about Our Confessions where he calls himself one of the few enlighted ones.)

By the way, a cute red against Rosatrice: I keep my promises. "Mom of the year" is a serial promise-breaker. Anyway, I brought this one up a while ago to KnownNoMore and he said that the red was not a general statement- that it was only talking about the promise that the murders would stop if the epitaph was solved. How he interprets it that way, I have no idea.

Oh, so suddenly we can twist and bend eeeeverything in whatever way we like so that it can match whatever we want to pull out of our butt, why is this not surprising? (No, seriously, Ryukishi does that too, but his case is a bit ... hmm... les paranoid because he actually did write the stuff)

No, but seriously, I'm convinced that even if you showed a red statement by Ryukishi himself verifying Shkanon, that guy would still manage to find a way round it. Ryukishi is part of the Illuminati or something...

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Joeyscraggy

Yasu, ladies an gentlemen:

Spoiler for Yasu, really:

And yup, that's Yasu

Well I never. They actually showed her! What a shock. She looks very much like Lion.

I find the pale (possibly blonde) hair hard to accept, but then, many of the Umineko characters are presented with hair colours they don't actually have.

[Captain Bluebeard]

She looks more like a Lion-Claire to me, so it could be white....

[AuraTwilight]

Yup. They completely fucked up Yasu's appearance just like I said they would.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

Do the Van Dine rules presented in EP7 apply to the Rokkenjima gameboards?

Well, I personally think they are not in effect, and that the "servants can't be culprits" was ... how to put this ... a sort of tease about the sentimentality of such rules. I also don't remember where, but didn't Bern have a line questioning whether Beato's gameboard could withstand the harsher restrictions of Van Dine?

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

What would make Yasu the head over Krauss anyways?

If you believe the EP7 scenario, Kinzo left a will specifying "whoever solves this epitaph", and Gensawajo seems pretty confident that the document, probably backed up by their word and being able to present the VIP room (....maaybe) will be enough to not have to worry about what Krauss has to say.

It doesn't matter too much, though, 'cause Yasu quickly decides against rustling any jimmies.
"I don't want the headship ... Krauss can have that job."
"...well okay. BUT YOU'LL ALWAYS BE THE TRUE MASTER TO USSSSS."

Originally Posted by Renall

Lord only knows why I would bother defending this other than fun, and I haven't seen that thing either, but let's do it, Ryukishi-style*:

Oh my glob, STAY AMAZING, RENALL.

Originally Posted by qno2

On a lighter note, I've found the manuscript of Land of the Golden Witch. Totally legit.

SEEMS LEGIT, INDEED.

Originally Posted by qno2

Basically everywhere in the english Umineko "community" except here. No point in going against it, if others prefer an empty story about nothing and more than 80% of pure filler-material, let them have it.

...really? I know KnownoMore has a fair amount of people who are wowed by at the least, his thoroughness, and like the theory, but ... did these people just NOT read the same Dawn that we did..? I pretty actively dislike Shkanon as "the" solution, but the Love Duel just does not allow me to read it any other way.

Originally Posted by qno2

So either we didn't see the "original bottle"-stories or... well. Ryukishi, it happens to the best of us.

Unless it was actually known for about a week that Ange is going to be sick and Yasu just changed it to "suddenly, on this day, she got sick" to add credibility to the story. Why?
...
Why do you ask? It's When they Cry. Since the bottles are more of an emotional ventil for Yasu an addition like that seems pointless. And probably is.

Was it said somewhere in EP4 or EP8 (therefore, outside the catbox) when Ange got sick? I thought that it said the same as EP1, so on a very short notice, but I might be wrong.

I don't think a specific time-frame was mentioned on either Ange getting sick (I got the impression it was just a few days, at most), or Battler returning to his fathers household. It's not so much the idea that a change could have been made that's problematic, but that the first two bottles are handwritten, presumably not covered in scratch0outs and edits, and is described as being a "massive" amount of text.

When these things were written is one of those things everyone just ... has their own feeling about. One thing we can agree upon, though, is that we definitely are NOT reading the same text that was found in those bottles. For firsties, not a single EP is framing itself like a 9-year old's diary.

Originally Posted by Joeyscraggy

Yasu, ladies an gentlemen:

Spoiler for Yasu, really:

And yup, that's Yasu

Huh ... well, honestly surprised they finally gave something. Really surprised by the decision to go with the Lion-looking blonde hair, though like most of the other humans, I'm still 99.99% certain she's supposed to have black hair not worth noting in and of itself.

[Kiltias]

Thought I share this:
Found it interesting, not believing it though.

Disregard the Rosa part.

ve bene listening to all the soundtracks and its all about maria. I mean even in ep 4 the bunny girls were killing them all I mean the whole umineko is maria from when she was young to the events in umineko, then to the maybe maria after the event=ange 98 is maria. even all the ending point to it being marias story. but r07 has told us it was rosa in the story many times, in ep 2 kanon says its rosa, and rosa blames kanon, who doesnt exist by the way, in ep 7 maria says that rosa killed them all, and in ep 7 it was rosa who shot first. To me umineko is a story of maria's fantasy's and the events in umineko just happen to look like a murder mystery, yes if you look at it like a mystery its rosa, but if you look at the whole 8 umineko series, its maria from begginng to end. Her diary is the foundation for it all.

Ange meeting Maria in the golden land also seems like an inner turmoil to me of her child self and her adult self. Turmoil reason being the realization her mother isn't a witch/beatrice (as in a real witch).Which is the reason Rosa fades away again and child Maria freaking out. I always wondered why Sakutaro appeared to Ange when it was Marias friend. It was her inner self recollecting the memories of her lonesome childhood wanting a friend resulting from the loss of Eva and being bullied in school giving birth to Sakutaro once more. Becoming Ange-Beatrice is actually the story of Maria thus her transformation to AB is the portrayal of this. Thus beatrice isn't merely a Killer but also refers to the "King" of the story, Anges/Marias transformation is thus the final straw to show: It's her story, its her fantasy.Ange just relived it all again.

thats the answer, kinda like the alternate reality in higurashi when they show rena older like 20 years old and it was the first episode of higurashi no naku koro ni kai, the first episode

i mean you have ange loning for her beloved friend never getting to see him, she finds the doll and i think it triggers her memories of being young and remebering that all that magic was hers to begin with.

I pretty actively dislike Shkanon as "the" solution, but the Love Duel just does not allow me to read it any other way.

My only doubts are due to the Cheese Riddle.
Since I'm not sure regarding posting images of the novel I'll just quote:
"I figured it was too easy, so I guess I tried to twist it too far."
"Battlers answer is smaller than the one in the book, Is Battler right?"
"Yes he is right."
"Battler reached a far better answer than three by thinking of the problem as a riddle.Erika had already known both answers and had even spotted a mistake made by the book"

Just sounds to me like as if Ryukishi kinda implies that while there is an actual truth which is correct, there is also another truth that is correct and far better when overthinking the obvious and seeing the mistakes to reach a conclusion that is superior than the actual one.

Which is why I think there are two answers to Umineko.
Shkanon and something else.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Kiltias

Thought I share this:
Found it interesting, not believing it though.

Well, that IS pretty interesting.
Disregards way, way too much of the story for me to really go with it, but damnit if I can entertain the idea of 6-year-old Ange as an evil mastermind who blew up her family, I can entertain this a little, too.

Originally Posted by Kiltias

Just sounds to me like as if Ryukishi kinda implies that while there is an actual truth which is correct, there is also another truth that is correct and far better when overthinking the obvious and seeing the mistakes to reach a conclusion that is superior than the actual one.

Which is why I think there are two answers to Umineko.
Shkanon and something else.

Well, I agree, SORT OF?
To keep from getting into a rant, Ryukishi brings up a lot of ... well, interesting points in Chiru. very interesting. He seems to be a writer who's very aware of what he's doing as a writer, but is ... inconsistent in how he feels about it. "Fine the truth!", but then "No, you don't need the truth." Or "Fill witches with an entire barrage of stakes!" but then "Don't forget the heart." And then there's EP5's where both of the answers acknowledged as valid we are outright told are both wrong, anyway.

Is Battler/Erika's answer better? Certainly more interesting and clever ... or are they just overeager goats who didn't notice that there was clearly a drawing of a hunk of cheese that would not bend the way they suggest, right on the page? Are they ignoring the heart of childrens--puzzle-book-writer-dude..?

...unless, wait, maybe you're talking about Prime? Who the hell knows what he intends THAT answer to be. You may as well say he wrote the question, burned it, and handed you a blnk sheet of paper with some corner scraps of the burnt paper. All you can evens write is "Yup, there's some real burnt paper, here."

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

What would make Yasu the head over Krauss anyways? Krauss vastly outranks Yasu who should be on the same level as the cousins, or slightly below Rosa whether you count her as a child or a grandchild. Is it the epitaph?

Kinzo's will. He's free to leave the headship to whoever he wants and EP 7 makes clear he wanted to leave it to Yasu as he/she is the child of the woman he loved and because he sort of stolen Beato's gold and wanted to return it to her somehow (said in EP 8 also).

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

Is there any confirmation Yasu actually solved it?

Ep 7 for start. If Yasu didn't solve it half of EP 7 is pointless. Plus it's implied by how bribes were handed to the servants (and likely to the relatives) [Ep 4] and by how someone activated the bomb on purpose (the mechanism as described in EP 7 isn't intuitive at all) and warned Eva she would do better to escape.
Our confession also implied this. And Ryukishi's interview confirmed this.

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

There's a scene in EP3 that implicitly shows Kinzo stating that he thinks a female heir is completely, absolutely, and utterly unfitting (mentioning this because Beatrice 2 is Kinzo's child and was actually female) and this is when Eva was around 17-20 I assume so it's not like it was before he was crazed over Beatrice 1/2. Sure he loved Beatrice 1 more than his marriage wife, but did Kinzo ever put it in writing about Yasu getting it over Krauss? Krauss was born before Beatrice 2.

It's unknown if Kinzo left a written will. Sometimes he says he's against this, in EP 2 though it's said he had Shannon write it (it's obviously fantasy yet it's still interesting because in EP 1 he said he wouldn't do it... and he does it with Shannon).

Anyway, written will or not I don't think Yasu inherited legally title and gold, expecially the gold as it's not supposed to exist since Kinzo owned it illegally but the title also as apparently no one officially notified Yasu's inheritance to someone nor Yasu was inscribed in the family register or officially recognized as Kinzo's child... which would have been troublesome because, if I'm not wrong, the type of incest from which Yasu had birth is a crime in Japan and Beato 2 wasn't even registered as a living person... nor was the baby's birth registered.

The point is: Yasu perceived himself/herself as Kinzo's heir a belief Nanjo, Genji and Kumasawa supported. Yasu had access to the gold which could be converted for him/her in cash by Genji and Yasu probably had no idea or doesn't care about how difficult it would be to legalize his/her claim at being the heir.

Age though isn't a relevant matter in chosing the heir as in EP 7 Kinzo wanted Lion to be the heir and Lion is definitely younger than Krauss, while Eva hoped Kinzo would choose her successful son over Krauss and Rudolf his male sons (as well as the 3 females that are in a higher place than George in the family line of importance).

We don't know if Kinzo ever consider making Beato 2 the heir... it's possible he was hoping to marry her somehow instead than declaring her his daughter so it might be he had a different plan for her.
As he wanted to see Yasu as his child/grandchild instead Kinzo wanted Yasu to be the heir.

Originally Posted by Renall

And Christie was wrong to do so, I think. It's a stupid technical detail related to a stupid misleading rule. It's also, like, the first thing I thought of in ep4, but like all things I thought of Shkanon-related I discarded it for being too goddamn stupid. Oh well.

It's probably better to just pretend that rule isn't even being considered.

I think Christie handled the whole thing very well instead but that's a matter of opinion.

Christie did many things that weren't exactly classical, like having a policeman being the culprit, or the guy who seemed to be the detective being the culprit, or having the narrator being the culprit or victim & culprit dying by suicide. She even let a culprit escape and we even had a maid who inherited a fortune because she was the actual secret illegittimate daughter to a rich person.

Originally Posted by Joeyscraggy

Yasu, ladies an gentlemen:

And yup, that's Yasu

She's sort of a mini beato who, interesting enough, doesn't wear a skirt.
She's also similar to Lion and Clair.

I guess it makes sense she would present herself as such though.

Originally Posted by qno2

Personally I've thought that the games are "fake", or at least ambiguous, until the red forces a decision (of course, this assumes that whenever 'xxx is dead' is said, that it's not a lie/copout) and the lid to the box is opened. Let's take EP3 - at the end more or less every normal person that "died" received a red (with the one known loophole of course) stating this.
But until this red was said, they could've been alive the whole time, it might've been a light hearted story about a fake-murder-game at the start. The red retroactively (!), similar to the first logic-error-battle in EP6, forces a decision.

Puts the red for "Because of you, Ushiromiya Battler, people die" in a whole new light; especially if you consider that 1986 would've happened anyway, if we choose to believe in Lions world, so the blame for the "actual" (... as actual as it gets) event can't be with him, he's neither there nor the cataclyst for anything.

Because he demanded this kind of red, they actually die - he turned the gameboards into massacres. Instead of believing.

I'm not sure how reliable is Bern's implication that a mess would happen regardless as she finds only 1 world with Lion when theoretically there should be countless.

Anyway I think that Beato's words about Battler's sins are truthful on a certain point of view.
On the gameboards the guilt is undoubtely on Battler as they're built to make him the cause of everything.
Now, if we consider Prime, the whole story seemed to imply that, at least in this reality, what Battler did started a chain reaction that lead to the Rokkenjima incident.

However, EP 7 seems to imply that, even if Battler hadn't done what he did the situation was as such that, although in a different way, we would reach the same result.

This doesn't make Beato's red wrong, it just says it's possible to reach the same result (everyone died) even in a way that's different from the previous (via Yasu's game)

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

(P.S: I think the most hilarious one was that video about Our Confessions where he calls himself one of the few enlighted ones.).

Wait so he talks about Our confession as well?

[Kiltias]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Well, that IS pretty interesting.
Disregards way, way too much of the story for me to really go with it, but damnit if I can entertain the idea of 6-year-old Ange as an evil mastermind who blew up her family, I can entertain this a little, too.

Where does it say she's the mastermind?
It implies that Uminekos central figure is actually Maria, that what we see is her fantasy, its her story and that the girl we see in 1998, Ange, is the actual Maria who relives her childhood fantasies in an alternate universe/reality due to her current living situation being the same as in childhood causing her to escape back into her fantasy.Ange meeting Maria = herself overcoming those illusion, realizing that actual magic doesn't exist allowing her inner child to move on.

Like I said I don't believe but I just like it somehow.XD

Is Battler/Erika's answer better? Certainly more interesting and clever ... or are they just overeager goats who didn't notice that there was clearly a drawing of a hunk of cheese that would not bend the way they suggest, right on the page? Are they ignoring the heart of childrens--puzzle-book-writer-dude..?

Not sure what you mean, their answer was THE answer as stated by Maria.
They simply reached a far better conclusion than one that is indeed right.
Everyone part Battler and Erika said 3.That is correct.
Though not THE answer cause as Maria said it, THE answer was 1.
So yes their answer was better and THE actual answer overcoming an answer that is still correct but not the one that was looked for.
And how'd they do it?
One thought it was too easy.The other knew both answers and realized the books mistake and are stated by Maria herself that their answer is absolutely correct.
Implying that while something can be true it doesn't it is THE truth.

Then again, I don't wanna cause a (bleep)storm or something.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Kiltias

Just sounds to me like as if Ryukishi kinda implies that while there is an actual truth which is correct, there is also another truth that is correct and far better when overthinking the obvious and seeing the mistakes to reach a conclusion that is superior than the actual one.

Which is why I think there are two answers to Umineko.
Shkanon and something else.

It makes sense to me, if we go with the whole chessboard thinking thing. Nearly all really good detective novels have at least one fake culprit or fact that gets taken for granted for most of the story, only to get shattered in the big reveal. More fun for the writer, and more fun for the reader, who's forced to rethink everything they took for granted rather than just saying "oh, I guess that's what it was".

While it's certainly true that most of us didn't suspect that Shannon was the culprit or the heir until very late on, the servants as a whole have been obviously suspicious the whole time. In fact, they're so suspicious, you don't even have to think up explanations for most of the closed rooms, since they depend entirely on testimony from those people.

Even more suspicious than this is the character of Beatrice. We've been outright told that she's the culprit constantly, and the old witch pranks tie her pretty clearly to someone living/working on the island.

This is the biggest problem with Shkanon. It has plenty of details that we might find interesting and/or unexpected, but in the end, "crazy person who was Maria's friend, lives on the island, and has a love of the occult killed everyone for an insane ceremony" is the most obvious answer early on in EP1, and remains the most obvious answer throughout the whole series.


Remember the EP3 Ryuukishi, who gave us a half-dozen plot twists in the last few chapters of each game? I find it hard to believe that game's biggest twist is supposed to be which one of the servants was actually the ringleader.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kiltias

Where does it say she's the mastermind?
It implies that Uminekos central figure is actually Maria, that what we see is her fantasy, its her story and that the girl we see in 1998, Ange, is the actual Maria who relives her childhood fantasies in an alternate universe/reality due to her current living situation being the same as in childhood causing her to escape back into her fantasy.Ange meeting Maria = herself overcoming those illusion, realizing that actual magic doesn't exist allowing her inner child to move on.

Like I said I don't believe but I just like it somehow.XD

There are, of course, a number of tricky questions raised by this sort of thing:

• If Maria is Ange, who then was Ange in 1986? Why mention an irrelevant character if she isn't even the right person? If Ange and Maria switched places... why?
• What about Ange, Maria, and the Mariage Sorcere? How is this read if Maria and Ange are the same?
• What about Battler is special to "Ange" in 1998? Ange-as-Ange's obsession with him makes sense, but Maria-as-Ange is a more difficult matter to wrestle with. I suppose you can look to things like Meta-Battler of Chiru, but still...
• What's the deal with the jawbone?
• Why would some of these details (especially the entire romance arc) even matter to an older Maria? How does it bring her closer to either the truth or closure?
• Who was really on the island? Was someone there who wasn't supposed to be (the real Ange?) Was someone not there the stories say was (Battler?).
• How do the message bottles and "Ushiromiya Maria" signature figure in?
• How many people are a figment of Maria-Ange's imagination? Did she make up Yasu? Did she make up the entirety of Umineko?

[battle22]

Ohh So that's how Yasu looks like...She's cute XD She's like a little version of Lion :P

[qno2]

Originally Posted by Kealym

When these things were written is one of those things everyone just ... has their own feeling about. One thing we can agree upon, though, is that we definitely are NOT reading the same text that was found in those bottles. For firsties, not a single EP is framing itself like a 9-year old's diary.

Seemed to me as if EP4 implies that the bottles were doubted because of this very fact; despite the author claiming to be Maria it just didn't seem like something a 9-year old would be able to write. A quick check of the handwriting lead to the conclusion that it wasn't her.

Of course, then there's the meta-world and the magic scenes that couldn't have been part of them anyway so I'll have to agree with you regardless. Only slight modifications by Itsuko then (+ discussions about the story starting from EP2)? Otherwise it'd be hard to claim that a author switch happened between EP2 and EP3 if Itsuko already wrote the first two as well.

Originally Posted by jiblue1

Anyway I think that Beato's words about Battler's sins are truthful on a certain point of view.
On the gameboards the guilt is undoubtely on Battler as they're built to make him the cause of everything.
Now, if we consider Prime, the whole story seemed to imply that, at least in this reality, what Battler did started a chain reaction that lead to the Rokkenjima incident.

Considering that EP7's "motive" might be about the "crime" of writing murder stories - regardless of what Yasu may or may not have done during the conference - we can also just see Battler as the cataclyst for the Witch-Hunter movement (and screwing up the lives of Eva and Ange in the process, causing the death of the latter in EP4). But with this issue (and this red) we're deep in the realm of interpretation so I'm gonna put a big questionmark on this whole approach.

Originally Posted by jiblue1

However, EP 7 seems to imply that, even if Battler hadn't done what he did the situation was as such that, although in a different way, we would reach the same result.

This doesn't make Beato's red wrong, it just says it's possible to reach the same result (everyone died) even in a way that's different from the previous (via Yasu's game)

Hence me just choosing to "believe" into this possibility. The whole Tea Party in EP7 actually reminded me of a certain other VN. "The forest [=will of the author] is forcing all these ridiculous plot twists to reach a predetermined conclusion!" - it's definitely utterly ridiculous even for Umineko how the tea party played out. It's just driving a point home. Do we "believe" in the point, it would've happened even without Battler, even without Beatrice, and is actually not (or barely) related to them at all even in Prime, or that it was just a metaprank for Ange? Take your pick I suppose.

There's another reason why I like to believe in the way Lion's world is structured, despite not having a single basis for of it: Battler didn't come back in Lion's world, where he probably neither had a relationship with Lion akin to the one he had with Shannon nor a promise; he came back in Prime (and thus causing the gameboards). If we want, we could find one conclusion, one message that Ryukishi might've wanted to tell us with EP7-Lion-gameboard layout: Battler remembered in Prime - he came back for Shannon.

Doesn't make it right or true in any form of course, but it's a "kinda happy end" that I can accept. Sadly it's hard to combine this thought with the "Nervous Wreck Battler"-theory (= the one where Battler snaps during the Prime-murder game and is the first one to shoot, hence Eva hiding the truth from Ange and Battler losing his memory when failing to cope with this in any other way) because it takes away all the basis for the murder game to happen in the first place. Still, that theory is a personal favourite of mine as well, kudos to whoever thought of it.

[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Wait so he talks about Our confession as well?

Why, you think he'd miss that? He does crap all over it in one part of his videos, I don't remember which one.

But be warned, it's shitty as could be, he's using just the LyricalAura's summary. Yep, he goes on and on for about half an hour without even having red the actual stuff.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Yup. They completely fucked up Yasu's appearance just like I said they would.

In all fairness, she must have been a pain in the ass to depict, but that long hair is seriously not cute, especially for a boy.

[AuraTwilight]

Yea, she's a pain in the ass to depict.

So...give her the one appearance she absolutely CAN'T have, as a significant plot point? Idiots.

[GuestSpeaker]

that it had been abandoned no earlier than a few days before the accident.

Or have you fallen for the same old trick? There are no MORE than 18 on the island, it cannot have been abandoned EARLIER than a few days before...

[Kiltias]

Originally Posted by Renall

There are, of course, a number of tricky questions raised by this sort of thing.

Of course I can't answer that, I'm not the Author afterall but your point of making up the entire of Umineko strongly reminds me of the Movie Identity from 2003.

Malcolm Rivers was a killer that awaits execution for several murders at a motel.
While awaiting execution his journal contains information about the actual truth.

A group of strangers find themselves stuck at a motel cause of a storm.
While they spend the night, they realize there is an unknown murderer present killing everyone.

All the others become worried, and Ginny runs to her room. Her husband Lou chases after her but is also murdered. Ed and Rhodes find the con, knock him out, and put Larry on duty guarding him. However, he is later found dead. Paris discovers a dead body in Larry's freezer. Larry attempts to escape in his truck, claiming he did not kill anybody. He then accidentally runs over George, killing him. Each body is accompanied by a room key, which appear to represent a countdown. The survivors tie Larry up, and as he tells them his story the others start to believe that he really did not kill anyone. Ginny and Timmy both die when their car blows up, but their bodies are nowhere to be seen. The remaining four discover that all the bodies have disappeared and that all 10 share the same birthday, and have surnames the same as US states. Paris also discovers that Rhodes is a convict as well, having killed the corrections officer transporting him and Maine across state and assumed his identity as a police officer. Rhodes attempts to kill her, but she is saved by Larry, who in turn is shot dead by Rhodes.

However here is the deal:
Malcolm suffers from a personality disorder and that all the murders occured within his mind and everyone being a personality of his.
The murders were are way to eliminate the hostile personality of the actual murders (The ones Malcolm had done in real and awaits execution for) to save him from execution.

In the end only Paris survived but inside Malcolms mind, she now lives on a Orange Grove and finds her Motel Key on the floor just like with the other victims and finds Timmy behind her revealed to be the actual hostile personality having orchestrated the murders faking his own death within Malcolms minds killing Paris and taking over Malcolm.
Incidentally, Timmy took over when Malcolm was being driven to a Mental Insitution strangling his psychiatrist causing the van to get in an accident leaving his fate unknown.

[Drifloon]

Why are people so shocked by Yasu's appearance? She looks pretty much how I expected her to, really. I always assumed she was blonde, considering that she's supposed to resemble Beatrice.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by qno2

Basically everywhere in the english Umineko "community" except here. No point in going against it, if others prefer an empty story about nothing and more than 80% of pure filler-material, let them have it.

Funny you say the "English" community. Do you mean to imply that the Japanese community is different, or are you just being unassuming?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese community would have a different opinion just based on them having a more accurate set of reds.

Originally Posted by qno2

1st theory (that he doesn't support himself): Fake-death drug? Wasn't there something about drugs and all, scientific stuff and all... one of the Knox's.
Knox's 4th. It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be USED!!
And it's mighty nice that Nanjo just left him conveniently alive because he's not a killer, it's like the meta-world has influence over him. Like, this theory is trying to go for realistic behaviour and such, right?

For the fake death drugs he refers to Erika mentioning the possibility of insulin being used by the first twilight "victims" in EP6, and how she even says it'd get around Knox's forth. 'Course he uses this as license to invoke fake death drugs... like 2 or 3 times per game. His term 'fake death drug' is really an awful word choice. Apparently he only means common sedatives.

The Nanjo thing stems from his interpretation of Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo are not killers, spoken in EP4 about the 6th-8th twilights in EP1. He considers it a "general statement" so it applies across all games. So basically it's more a matter of it fitting Nanjo's condition of not being a killer than to fitting Kanon's condition of still being alive.

But yeah, it's still pretty awful. And you're spot on about his second theory. It's even worse.

Originally Posted by qno2

So either we didn't see the "original bottle"-stories or... well. Ryukishi, it happens to the best of us.

Unless it was actually known for about a week that Ange is going to be sick and Yasu just changed it to "suddenly, on this day, she got sick" to add credibility to the story. Why?
...
Why do you ask? It's When they Cry. Since the bottles are more of an emotional ventil for Yasu an addition like that seems pointless. And probably is.

Was it said somewhere in EP4 or EP8 (therefore, outside the catbox) when Ange got sick? I thought that it said the same as EP1, so on a very short notice, but I might be wrong.

Here's what I have to say about it:

Logistical reasons to believe pre-incident authorship:
1) Bribing the police should be pretty difficult.

Thematic reasons to believe pre-incident authorship:
1) Eva, who survives in the real world, dies in both of the bottle-stories.
2) Beatrice is supposed to be dead by all magical accounts.

Logistical reasons to believe post-incident authorship:
1) Battler's return was predicted.
2) Ange's absence was predicted.
3) The typhoon was predicted.
4) An accident was predicted. (Well, this just means that either the author is the actual culprit, or it was written after the tragedy)

Thematic reasons to believe post-incident authorship:
1) The way I see it, this situation is kind of like a closed room, except it's bound by points in time rather than physical windows and doors. So I see debating whether these logistical conditions allow the author enough time to write... as similar to debating how long the chain is on a closed room and whether it allows someone to lock it or unlock it from the outside. But knowing how Beatrice rolls, the answer has nothing to do with the chain and everything to do with the witnesses: In this case, it's that random fisherman that found the one bottle and the police that released the other.

So yeah, I believe in post-incident authorship. A lot of people here do, though not everyone.

Originally Posted by qno2

But until this red was said, they could've been alive the whole time, it might've been a light hearted story about a fake-murder-game at the start. The red retroactively (!), similar to the first logic-error-battle in EP6, forces a decision.

Puts the red for "Because of you, Ushiromiya Battler, people die" in a whole new light; especially if you consider that 1986 would've happened anyway, if we choose to believe in Lions world, so the blame for the "actual" (... as actual as it gets) event can't be with him, he's neither there nor the cataclyst for anything.

Because he demanded this kind of red, they actually die - he turned the gameboards into massacres. Instead of believing.

It also works very similarly to "Paranoid Battler" theory. Everything is his fault because he didn't believe in the witch. Which, by the way, thematically matches the EP1 Tea party to a tee.

I wonder if these two ideas can be grafted together.

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

And I mean exactly that first twilight. A death drug? Makeup? Seriously? I mean, okay man, you may not like Shkanon, but try to live with it. I won't say anything as arrogant as 'it totally violates Knox', just that I fell from my chair when I watched it.

EP5? Yeah, good times.

Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard

No, but seriously, I'm convinced that even if you showed a red statement by Ryukishi himself verifying Shkanon, that guy would still manage to find a way round it. Ryukishi is part of the Illuminati or something...

Well, he claims that Ryukishi lies in interviews, so yeah, I don't think what you are saying here is the slightest exaggeration.

Originally Posted by Kealym

...really? I know KnownoMore has a fair amount of people who are wowed by at the least, his thoroughness, and like the theory, but ... did these people just NOT read the same Dawn that we did..?

They read the same Dawn that Erika did... when she slept through the love duel. It's yet another example of Erika parodying them without them even realizing it.

[qno2]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Or have you fallen for the same old trick? There are no MORE than 18 on the island, it cannot have been abandoned EARLIER than a few days before...

Point taken. It's said that the bottle appeared in another ocean, implying at least a bit of distance, but who knows how fast a bottle travels on the sea - I wouldn't know.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Funny you say the "English" community. Do you mean to imply that the Japanese community is different, or are you just being unassuming?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese community would have a different opinion just based on them having a more accurate set of reds.

Since I can't read japanese (working on it though) I can't judge their side of endless Umineko-discussions.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

For the fake death drugs he refers to Erika mentioning the possibility of insulin being used by the first twilight "victims" in EP6, and how she even says it'd get around Knox's forth.

I'll have to review that scene later...

Originally Posted by Wanderer

The Nanjo thing stems from his interpretation of Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo are not killers, spoken in EP4 about the 6th-8th twilights in EP1. He considers it a "general statement" so it applies across all games. So basically it's more a matter of it fitting Nanjo's condition of not being a killer than to fitting Kanon's condition of still being alive.

Yes, I'm aware of the red - that's why I said that Nanjo's behaviour in his theory, it's just not... well it is mystery-logic, same as Shkanon. Because the red said so, he doesn't kill. I assumed that KnowNoMore wanted to make the individual stories a bit more realistic (and less dominated by the red) and less bound to such meta-reasons. Guess it's another misconeption I'll have to get rid of.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

So yeah, I believe in post-incident authorship. A lot of people here do, though not everyone.

Guess I won't choose a side juuust yet.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I wonder if these two ideas can be grafted together.

I'd say that "Battler's retroactive red killing" is just a supplement for the "Paranoid Battler"-theory then.

Didn't even think about EP1's TP for this... how they are all happily discussing their current predicament until Battler forces their death...

Originally Posted by Wanderer

It's yet another example of Erika parodying them without them even realizing it.

"But... I loved my husband..." - "It's not red, I don't believe it! Say it in redddddd!"