[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Actually, that red is false as it is stated in EP2:

When I speak the truth, I will use the red. means that everything not in red is a lie. (contrapositive). But we have several cases where Beatrice has spoken the truth without using the red.

I think it's supposed to be When I use the red, I am speaking the truth.
The two are not interchangeable. This is a fault of Ryukishi's.

Nah, no fault on Ryuukishi here, though you could probably take issue with our translation, especially that far back.

Beatrice doesn't say "whenever I say something true, I will use the red". She's saying "when I'm talking about the truth, I'll use red". Or "when I tell you what the truth is, I'll make a point of using red". She's talking about a thing she'll do at some time in the future.

Beatrice doesn't actually define what the red means until her next line, "Everything I speak in red is the truth".

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Of course I didn't list them all since

You listed 2 explanations, both absurd. You say you have dozens, but I'm saying you have none. Do you see how I can't just be satisfied by the vague notion that "there are other ways, too"?

Originally Posted by jjblue1

WW2 Stuff

Well even without all that, I was rechecking the episode as well and came to the part about the RSI emblem on the gold. They had to have left after the RSI was established and the gold pressed. Which pretty much means the submarine had to have been loaded after the Germans had taken over.

On the other hand, after some cursory research it did seem to me that the RSI navy (what little there was to speak of) had some of their own ships. Not sure how implausible it is that they had some autonomy from the Germans.

As for them not going to Switzerland or Spain, I'm sure they would have plenty of trouble keeping it out of other peoples' hands in those places, too. ...Not that it explains why Japan would be a better option.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Recheking Umineko Ep 7 I even found they said which way they took
They went through the Suez Canal and crossed the Indian Ocean to come all the way there.

Well, we don't know they took that route, just that Will thought they did. It still seems just as ridiculous to me, though. I'm not an expert on sneaking through major strategic canals held by opposing forces, but on the surface it seems kind of... obviously impossible.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

You're probably not following my point either. What I was saying is that no info about the handwriting being recognized as the one of Shannon was given.
If the police managed to realize it, the info was kept the info absolutely secret, the journalists and the witch hunters didn't manage to have one of the policemen tattle it out.

Or Beatrice's handwriting didn't match any samples of Shannon's writing they had. Or they didn't have any samples of Shannon's writing to begin with.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And if you can prove something, it remains a theory.

Sure, but you're not going to argue with me if I claim the sun is coming up tomorrow.

I'm not saying that pre-incident writing without Yasu being the culprit is physically impossible, just stupidly implausible and with a much better alternative explanation. What exactly do you disagree with in that regard?

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I obviously didn't meant that way as I referenced Ten Little Indians and Yasu's wish for someone to find them and solve them previously.

If she's doing the murder game, what's the purpose of the message bottles?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

The only reason the trial looks unfair is because Erika keeps using cheap tricks to prevent all answers where Natsuhi is innocent. However, we know that Natsuhi is innocent. Therefore, no matter what tricks Erika uses, no matter how cheap she is, there must always be a way to demonstrate Natsuhi's innocence, using only the evidence Lambda gives us.

No, the reason the trial looks unfair is because the trial is unfair. The scene is poorly-written because it's clear that Battler will not be able to advance anything under any circumstances because he has no mechanism to do so, yet Erika will be able to do anything she wants because the people running the "trial" are specifically biased in her favor. Erika's speculation is nothing more than that, and everybody knows it (especially the audience). The only reason it could be "found to be true" is if everyone is intentionally working to make her right (they are) and Battler doesn't bother to raise the objections which actually torpedo her theory (he doesn't, at least until the climax).

There are several obvious avenues of attack, and Battler does take them, but only after things build to the point that he's able to suddenly pull out gold truth. A reveal that, by the way, doesn't actually work very effectively as a narrative measure, because we don't even know what it is until several episodes later.

The basic structure of the scene is thus:

ERIKA: I've eliminated all possibilities except that Natsuhi did it, by completely failing to do any alibi establishment for her for absolutely no reason.
BATTLER: But-
WITCHES: Sorry, you can't say anything.
BATTLER: The hell with that.
DLANOR: GASP, it's the gold truth!
AUDIENCE: What.
DLANOR: It's pretty awesome and it means he's the Game Master and knows everything and shit so he's right.
ERIKA: But-
BATTLER: Sorry, you can't say anything. By the way here's all the reasons your theory can be challenged. Also, I posit that I was the culprit which is equally as ridiculous as Natsuhi doing it but also equally impossible to disprove.
ERIKA: Why didn't you just come up with that at the climactic moment? It would've been just as surprising and actually have defeated me by playing by the rules, instead of just randomly vanquishing me with as stupid a trick as my idiotically comprehensive research that somehow failed to ever account for Natsuhi's location.
BATTLER: I dunno lol. Anyway I get to be a wizard now.
ERIKA: What.
BERNKASTEL: Oh well that's cool. I'm going to crank up my villainy to 11 now for some reason. This will be fun.
AUDIENCE: But wait, so what is the gold truth? I mean what does it do, what are its rules, what can be said in gold? Why does Battler win?
WITCHES: *shrug*
BEATRICE: By the way I died at some point in here.
AUDIENCE: Nobody cares, you'll come back.
BEATRICE: Probably, yeah.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Yasu in the end was employed by Kinzo and was a servant under him. Kinzo died, Yasu remains without a work but hey also inherits everything. Natsuhi and Krauss don't know about the inheritance part and ask Yasu to continue being a servant of the head however the head is Yasu so all the job he/she is doing is... to serve himself/herself. In short, it's due to his/her own will he/she is doing what Natsuhi & Krauss ask him and not because he/she is on their paycheck.
This makes Yasu someone who has stopped being a servant and it's just posing as one.

Agatha Christie used a similar technique in one of her mystery to have the servant being the culprit.

In which novel / story? I remember two cases with a seeming servant as a culprit, but in both cases, it was a person who:
1) was established under his legal name / role throughout the rest of the story.
2) had played the servant role for a very short period of time (1 night in each case).
3) had gone by his legal name for decades.

In Umineko, Yasu:
1) was established throughout the story in his/her servant guise.
2) had played the servant role for a long period of time (a decode, roughly half his/her life).
3) barely, if at all, characterized outside his/her role as a servant.

Also, Christie never claims to follow the van Dine rules.


Alternately:
Case 1:
- establish Thomas Richard Harrison III in his own right, as the CEO for many years
- have him secretly get a job as "Frank the janitor" (to get a worm's eye look at the business)
- have Frank get only incidental time
- have Thomas take plenty of action in his role as CEO (give orders to buy this company or sell that one, expand one factory or cancel a product line)
Claim that the character isn't really a servant because he's the CEO, fair.

Case 2:
- establish Frank the janitor in his own right having held that position for years
- have Frank secretly win the lottery
- using the winnings, secretly buy a controlling interest in the company
- have Frank take no actions as an officer in the company
- have Frank continue to go to work as a janitor and take orders as such
- possibly add that Frank is also the illegitimate son of the person who originally started the business
- never characterize Frank as such
Claim that Frank isn't really a servant because he actually owns the company (and possibly the illegitimate son), not fair.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

You listed 2 explanations, both absurd. You say you have dozens, but I'm saying you have none. Do you see how I can't just be satisfied by the vague notion that "there are other ways, too"?

Thanks for basically calling me a liar.
If that's how you see me I really doubt we've something else about which to discuss.

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

In which novel / story? I remember two cases with a seeming servant as a culprit, but in both cases, it was a person who:
1) was established under his legal name / role throughout the rest of the story.
2) had played the servant role for a very short period of time (1 night in each case).
3) had gone by his legal name for decades.

In Umineko, Yasu:
1) was established throughout the story in his/her servant guise.
2) had played the servant role for a long period of time (a decode, roughly half his/her life).
3) barely, if at all, characterized outside his/her role as a servant.

Also, Christie never claims to follow the van Dine rules.

Actually it's implied Umineko doesn't strictly follow Van Dine

K I was actually wondering and bargaining with myself whether I should accept this just like that… Finally I decided to grasp it like this: „Battler never killed anybody, he just witnessed a terrible reality.“.By the way, at a point before EP7 came out, I was thinking that Witchhunting Wright would have a much more intense entrance. I actually thought he would ruthlessly use Van Dine’s 20 Rules of Detective Fiction to cut the element of love out of the story, so I was pretty surprised when it was the other way around.

R Because the heart lies at the center of this story, you can’t cut out the element of love.

K I expected the dragging out of the guts to happen along with the denial of love.

R Will became a character who was actually sick of that method. Because of something that seems to have happened to him in the past.

K When I saw „Quit the SSVD“ written in the character bio, I was like „What?!“. If it’s like that, then the plot is actually satisfactory. I really grew to like Will.

R If everything happens in complete accordance to Van Dine’s 20 Rules of Detective Fiction, then the motive becomes basically obsolete and is removed from the cornerstones of the story. So that’s how it became my goal to eliminate the 20 rules and how they vanished from Umineko.

K Most of Will’s 20 Van Dine Rules were never claimed to have effect during the story. Many of them were also interrupted. And many of those claimed to have effect were written in plain white letters.

And it was implied the culprit, or 'Beatrice', who was the owner of the gold and the other master of the Ushiromiya was one of the people early introduced in the story so we should have suspected someone could have becomed more than it seemed by solving the epitaph, inheriting and basically changing his/her status.

We also know this someone had interacted with people who had recognized she had that role. Yes, Christie's work was slightly different but I guess that Ryukishi didn't mean to exactly copy it. Then it's up to everyone to judge which trick was... fairer, if so they can be called.

And there are other two (or more? I'm sure I remember two well) books of Christie where a relative of the victim who was also incidentally the culprit, was presented as someone else and you had to figure that he was related (in one case it was a policeman, in the other it was the nurse of the victim...).
Plus in another book you've a policeman who's actually not a policeman but the murderer while the true policeman is in disguise and, of course, you've no idea about how the policeman isn't the policeman.



On an unrelated note, funny enough, now I've just remembered that in an old Italian fumetto (an Italian style comic) we've a story that was terribly similar to Umineko in which some people are closed in an English castle, there's a storm outside, for some reasons they can't leave, they're all relatives who're there to get the inheritance from... can't remember if it was the grandad or uncle... and they're all magically gruesomely killed by the ghost of the castle. And guess what the culprits are the servants who'd inherited the money. The maid falls in love with the detective and everyone dies in the end, minus the detective. The castle doesn't blow up though and the detective doesn't get amnesia. And yes, there are other minor differences but now that I think back at it the resemblance was pretty impressive. We even had the subjective narration... Though of course the story was simple as it didn't span for 8 novels but just in two episodes (around 100 pages each, I think).

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Renall

No, the reason the trial looks unfair is because the trial is unfair. The scene is poorly-written because it's clear that Battler will not be able to advance anything under any circumstances because he has no mechanism to do so, yet Erika will be able to do anything she wants because the people running the "trial" are specifically biased in her favor. Erika's speculation is nothing more than that, and everybody knows it (especially the audience). The only reason it could be "found to be true" is if everyone is intentionally working to make her right (they are) and Battler doesn't bother to raise the objections which actually torpedo her theory (he doesn't, at least until the climax).

Let's try not to jump on the author until we're certain he made a mistake. It's possible that all of these things could be explained if we knew a bit more of the answer. Sure, the last game's been out almost 2 years, but I'm willing to bet there are things we haven't figured out yet.

Like Ryuukishi says, if the reader can't trust the author, you can't have a game in the first place.

[AuraTwilight]

If the author can't provide all information necessary to deduce the answer he intended, the author cannot be trusted.

That trust isn't free. It comes with an obligation that one can argue Ryukishi didn't live up to sufficiently.

[GuestSpeaker]

According to Ryu (through Beatrice) we are supposed to trust that he did.

The real issue probably is that we have reached a point where without hindsight, we can't gauge what is a correct clue and what is not. Doesn't mean we weren't given the tools to solve it.

[Renall]

Well the actual fact (huh, imagine that) is that we were specifically not told enough about gold text's actual operation at the time except that it's sometimes stronger than red and sometimes not stronger than red (a statement which may not even necessarily be true). I quite remember the theorizing about "how does this even work again?" lasting well into Requiem or so. There just wasn't enough information, in part because the gold statement came out of nowhere, was phrased in a way that made it appear to be identical to red (even though we were told it isn't, just not in what way), and seemed at the time to exist solely to pull Battler's bacon out of the fire.

And when we eventually found out more about it, the whole thing turned out to kinda not matter all that much to the climax of ep5. A hero escaping through a heretofore-unknown means is usually bad writing, but if we're swiftly shown the sequence of events that led up to this and perhaps have it shown that all the pieces were in place for this daring escape if we knew where to look for them, it can be salvaged. Even knowing what gold truth does, it... really doesn't bear on Battler's situation at all, nor was there ever any particularly meaningful indication that (1) knowing the truth would make Battler the Game Master with prerogative to use the gold right away in somebody else's game (a later interview and Dawn clarified this, but End did not), (2) the gold would be acceptable under the circumstances, and (3) the gold would even be useful in the face of Erika's blanket investigative reds.

Now you can argue that the whole gold thing was foreshadowed in ep3 with Beatrice telling Eva-Beatrice whatever she told her. But we don't know what she said, and neither did Battler, so even if Beatrice was indeed making use of gold truth there, we don't know how she was doing it. Furthermore, Beatrice was still basically the Game Master and creator of that board, so there's not necessarily any reason to assume Battler (who didn't create ep5's board) could do the same thing just because he happened to be qualified to be a GM all of a sudden.

Subsequent illumination of the nature and use of gold truth doesn't particularly help matters any. Ryukishi has said anybody who knows what's going on can use it, which is why Battler and Elder-Beato and such can use it. Okay... well that didn't really get mentioned before, but fine. Why was he allowed to introduce it? Before everybody was like "HURR DURR HUMAN SIDE GOTTA BACK THAT UP BRAH" but that all changes when he whips out an unsupported premise instead of a fact? Even though that fact had already been established to everyone involved in the games and was being conveniently ignored by Erika the whole time? The argument seems to be "it's true because being able to use it means Battler knows the truth, so if he says it then he must be right." That's basically a tautology; Battler is speaking the truth because Battler has just done something that only a person who knows the truth can do. Except this is the first time we've actually ever seen this, and Battler just suddenly does it. It completely destroys the tension of the climax, and it's not anywhere near as interesting or convincing as Battler's other arguments which just use red and blue.

Nothing that comes later in the text really suggests that the end of End was much more than an asspull. Even making the assumption that the whole gold truth thing was foreshadowed and intended, and works as described, Battler's sudden use of it and everyone's more or less immediate acceptance of it is not later revealed to have really been all that meaningful. In fact, it makes Battler's supplementary attacks and theories somehow less meaningful, because instead of having to actually come up with a counterattack under the unfair rules that are imposed upon him in the trial we now know he is a wizard possessed of esoteric knowledge who can just say things (and at the time of ep5, we aren't even sure entirely what the things he can say are limited by).

Why was this necessary at all? Battler could have extracted himself without it. It's like having Beato show up at the end of Dawn and just use a gold truth to punch Erika in the uterus. Instead she actually, you know... constructs a mystery that beats Erika at her own game, playing by the red and blue truths that have already been established. She is using a fundamental premise of the game to her advantage, but she's not just announcing it and declaring that she wins.

It just doesn't create a sense of mystery or wonderment. It's true that I did want to know what gold truth was, but more in the sense of "So what the hell was that, and why is it only coming up right now?" I was understandably pretty disappointed in its relative lack of prominence in Dawn (where we got one example, at least) and Requiem. He introduces a supposedly important thing at a critical juncture in ep5, uses it once as a near-throwaway which serves only to provide an additional hint as to what it even is in ep6, and more or less gives it almost no attention in ep7.

[GuestSpeaker]

Ok, so admittedly that was a well-structured and difficult to counter argument.

But honestly, what do you expect from an author who magically has people getting a serving cart stacked with plates up multiple flights of stairs on numerous occasions? He doesn't seem to sweat the details.

[RandomAvatarFan]

He seems to actually talk about things like that. No one shows sign of being wet in the rain for one.

[Renall]

It's a sliding scale though.

"How did they get a serving cart upstairs with no elevator?" is a detail you shouldn't have to sweat.

"How did the killer go outside but not get wet?" is a detail that probably shouldn't be ignored, although it doesn't necessarily have to be explained as long as there's some reasonableness to it (e.g. "Shannon wasn't seen for several minutes and was Kanon the next time she was, so she had time to dry off and change her clothes even though this wasn't specifically stated in the story").

"How did a particular magical aspect of the plot suddenly get yanked out of nowhere and then actually function?" is a detail that should not just be handwaved.

[Cao Ni Ma]

It comes down to how much you can suspend your belief. The rain issue RK describes is pretty easy to discard since it would screw up the game in many ways. Things like carts on a second floor aren't really that important since there are ways to transport food easily to multiple floors without having a big elevator.

The gold truth dilemma is much harder to hand wave, probably because its on a meta level (so we cant blame Yasu just being a bad writer). You cant say "Hey just ignore this tiny detail, the story is more fun if you do" because of how important its made to be in that scene.

Its bad storytelling on part of RK because thinking about it retroactively you see how glaring a hole it is.

[Kiltias]

I'm willing to bet there are things we haven't figured out yet.

Numbers in EP 3 are what bother me.

Battlers birthday but also the day Yasu became Beatrice.
Someone pointed this out on Youtube and FB that they might also refer to the deaths of the first 3 novels referring to Van Dines Rule about a code.

Works like a charm that I can't deem it as coincidence, though it would only bring forth more trouble as it mentions Rosa.

Another thing would be that from a comment Kyrie made in EP 3 that Hideyoshis role might be different than thought in it.....

Though I rather ask if I may elaborate first seeing that I'm feel like a nuisance here....


EDIT:
Scuse me what the (bleep)?
Just saw KNMs Part 4 (newest vid) about going against Shkanon.
Umineko isn't a real novel but a computer game thus just like any videogame, the player is a figure in the game which is why Ryukishi deceives us thus Umineko has 3 difficulties:
Easy - Magic did it.
Normal - Official Explanation
Hard - Hidden Truth.

The readers/players play against the hidden Final Boss which is Ryukishi as the novel is all about seeing through deceptions.
And as we are the players in the game so is Ryukishi per Ikuko with his weapon being deception and we need to defeat him and the normal difficulty.
So his explanation is the Golden Truth for the players satisfied with having beaten it on normal mode.
The hurdle is that people think Ryukishi messed up his story when its actually a purposely set deception so you can actually only reach the 3rd layer by strictly following his rules and what he wrote.Trust what he was writing, trust that with the rules he gave there IS a solution.

LOL:
I know there are critics saying the story makes no sense if you can't trust the Author but the irony is I DO trust the Author.I trust he's NOT Incompetent, I trust he didn't screw up the story and I DO trust the very rules he gave the story so the actual truth is the Shkanon believers are the ones not trusting Ryukishi as they're the ones thinking he messed up.

[chronotrig]

@Kiltias: I can only speak for myself, but anything regarding EP3 is something I'd like to hear.

Originally Posted by Renall

"How did a particular magical aspect of the plot suddenly get yanked out of nowhere and then actually function?" is a detail that should not just be handwaved.

Before talking about the actual gold text, let's look at the moment Battler's turnaround begins. After all, Erika is already defeated by the time the gold text comes around. She's relying entirely on Dlanor, and Dlanor is the only one demanding that Battler use something other than red text. That seems to mean the gold is more about establishing Battler's theory than defeating Erika's.


So I've got a question for you. Why did Lambda let Battler use the red text? This seems to be the root cause of his victory, after all.

[Kiltias]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

@Kiltias: I can only speak for myself, but anything regarding EP3 is something I'd like to hear.

People are gonna complain as it involves the Chess Logic but all right.

Kyrie said this:
"This kind of thing is my husbands specialty.I'm sure he'll come to me on a white horse soon.""

White Horse =

Spoiler for White Horse:

In other words:
"I'm sure he'll come to me with the White Knight."

Kyrie and Rudolf are Bishops evidently and the white ones at that.
Eva stated herself as the King,Kyrie and Rudolf "Checkmated" her,Rudolf stated he pinned the Rook and the King/Belphegor and Evatrice.
Several other indications for Chess Pieces.

Anyway if you look at that sentence with Chess Piece = Person:
"I'm sure he'll come to me with ???"
Note that this was Kyrie talking about Rudolf never having failed to help her when she's in trouble indicating that this about:
Rudolf and ??? will come save her if needed.


So who is ???, well the possible solution would be Hideyoshi seeing as he went along with them.
Kyrie - White Bishop
Rudolf - White Bishop
Hideyosho - White Knight

However, here's the deal:
We're talking about Evatrice here and Kyrie and Rudolf were facing off against her, Kyrie even trying to shoot her.You think Hideyoshi would come with Rudolf to aid her in that?


Kyrie and Rudolf had assistance from someone else, the White Knight not being Hideyoshi or:
Kyrie didn't battle Evatrice/Eva but someone else thus Hideyoshi could help them.
Implying:
Eva had assistance that battled against her.
Possible hint:
Kyrie: "You lack in love."

Naturally this is depending on Evatrice being Eva, cause I already heard theories about Evatrice = George with his mother covering up for him in order to save his sons honour.


Also I like to ask cause I'm unsure now:
Can anyone show me an example of two sole bishops checkmating the king?
I can't see it in anything else except impossible unless the King/Evatrice was cornered by a 3rd factor.
I already lost a chess game simply cause my King couldn't move as other pieces were in it's way as example.

[chronotrig]

I'm not sure. On the spur of the moment, Hideyoshi would probably try to protect Eva, but I think he'd also want to stop her from committing a crime she could never take back.

Would he help her cover up a murder that was already done with? Seems fairly likely to me. If covering up a murder meant murdering more people, would he stop her? I think he would, to save her as much as her victims.

[Valkama]

The thing I don't get about Eva being the Culprit for EP3 is why she would kill George. That has never made sense to me. Maybe if George attacked her she would injure him but she definitely wouldn't kill him.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Well the actual fact (huh, imagine that) is that we were specifically not told enough about gold text's actual operation at the time except that it's sometimes stronger than red and sometimes not stronger than red (a statement which may not even necessarily be true). I quite remember the theorizing about "how does this even work again?" lasting well into Requiem or so.

People kept talking about it, but as I recall, what ended up being the right answer was actually proposed with supporting evidence before Dawn came out. You can work out most of it just by looking at the restrictions Battler had to dodge around, and then you can get the rest by realizing that gold truth represents Beatrice's power of endless magic in the same way that red and blue truth represent Lambda and Bern's power. There were passages all over the series about the idea of unfalsifiable theories and how everyone's belief in something creates a kind of truth.

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by Valkama

The thing I don't get about Eva being the Culprit for EP3 is why she would kill George. That has never made sense to me. Maybe if George attacked her she would injure him but she definitely wouldn't kill him.

This is pretty much exactly why she can't be the culprit. She's a red herring.