[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

So in other words, Yasu's main goal was simply "to go out with someone", not to find a future marriage partner. Not that she wasn't interested in having a deeper relationship, but she wasn't confident that anyone would want her, if they knew everything about her.

And in fact, in both cases, it was the other person who pushed for their relationship to become stronger. We never see Shannon pushing for any commitment beyond a few dates and hugging (George is very forceful when he proposes to her, and her immediate reaction is to try to back out of it by calling herself furniture) and Jessica is the one who pushes Kanon to "create a new self" and presumably go out with her (and Kanon successfully backs out of it with the furniture excuse). In both cases, Jessica and George are so serious that they initially ignore the furniture excuse, with Jessica getting emotional and George sort of brushing it aside.

Yes, more or less.

Shannon, like Jessica, likely wanted a boyfriend. Differently from her however she wished even more for a person who would love her and accept her due to her background. Technically it could very well be that she wanted more to be loved than to love. However, as soon as she finds the truth about her body she becomes 'furniture', something unable to be loved.

This makes even harder for her, someone who's deemed below by nearly everyone around her (Jessica and George excluded) to really believe in a happy ending, at the same time she doesn't really want to give up hope and yet she doesn't seem to trust things to have a chance to go fully well.

Honestly, I'm not sure she had the guts to leave with George if Battler hadn't come back so I think it's possible she would have accepted George's ring and then faked her suicide or something.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Spoiler for Sidenote: translation error correction: please read:

In the beginning of EP2, in a cafe or something sometime before the final family conference, George says this line to Shannon:
"...Now, I will have a ring made that's appropriate to give to you. I think I'll probably bring it to the family conference coming up soon. I'll give it to you then, so please, I want you to let me hear your answer."

It should be something more like this (corrected for content, not for sounding weird):
"...Right now, I'm having a ring made that's appropriate to give to you. It'll probably be ready in time for the upcoming family conference. I'll give it to you then, so please, I want you to let me hear your answer."

...The difference being that George had already started having the ring made before telling Shannon that he had any intention of marrying her, and that the family conference probably isn't too far off.

Thank you for the corrections!

George is a pretty pushing guy. Personally I can't say I liked him much through all Umineko...

[GuestSpeaker]

The Japanese was Beatrice wa "i"ru (ベアトリーチェは”い”る).
In Japanese there is a distinction between existing as an object or concept (ある=aru) and existing as a being (いる=iru), so by marking it "i"ru it is less a question of whether Beatrice exists in general terms but rather being vague about whether she exists as a being or simply as an object or concept on the island.

See, I figured that the ' ' was meant to add that sort of unclear effect (even without the two meanings of exist, we do play that game in English as well) but I guess they left it in to be ambiguous. Unless Maria has some views on Beatrice and her controlling of Shannon I don't know about, you'd think she would just straight up say Beatrice exists as a person.


As for the 18th thing, that's really clever. Logic dictates (wait, in Umineko? I must be mad) that the other person must be Kinzo. I think by mere virtue of the fact he has been acknowledged to have been a human character in the game (even if he was never truly alive) for so long, that it is accepted he can be referred to as one of the humans. If you like, consider Erika the 18th human piece to be played upon the board of those two days (otherwise we would have to count all the Beatrii). She and Kinzo may never have existed during those two days, but they were the human pieces.




And yeah, the manga made the humiliation of Erika much harsher, it is one of the (rather weak) basis by which I assume Bern knew more than she let on. She AND Lambda are both sitting in their high and mighty chairs, laughing at Erika failing in her duties. At the least I think it implies Bern was less interested in seriously solving the puzzles and more interested in seriously messing with Erika.

[Valkama]

Here is something interesting that could really just dig Rosatrice a grave.

Maria says: George onii-chan couldn't kill an adult. He could kill a kid though. Purple statements are as absolute as red truths. However, the culprit alone may lie with purple statements. We know Maria can't be the culprit as the culprit needs two parents and Maria happens to only have one. So this statement is an absolute truth about George. George can't kill adults so he couldn't have killed Rosa in the third game or done any of the other crimes in the third game. Nanjo is not a killer so he couldn't have done any of it either. He also couldn't have killed Gohda in Natsuhi's room in the 2nd game or Nanjo and Kumasawa.

[Drifloon]

Bern's game is an entirely different scenario, though. It would be pretty silly to use any information from that and apply it to Beatrice's games.

[Valkama]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Bern's game is an entirely different scenario, though. It would be pretty silly to use any information from that and apply it to Beatrice's games.

The statement isn't about the game though, it's about the character George himself.

[Drifloon]

Yes, in the context of a game where the characters' personalities have been messed with by Bern.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in a George culprit theory either, but Maria's purple statement about him doesn't mean anything more than Battler, Rudolf and Kyrie laughing maniacally as they kill George and Maria in the same game. Pieces' roles can change from game to game.

[Valkama]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Yes, in the context of a game where the characters' personalities have been messed with by Bern.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in a George culprit theory either, but Maria's purple statement about him doesn't mean anything more than Battler, Rudolf and Kyrie laughing maniacally as they kill George and Maria in the same game. Pieces' roles can change from game to game.

Bern is still using Beatrice's game board and is shown that she still has to follow the rules of the game board. Why would she keep Shannon and Kanon as the same person but not keep a character like George the same? In EP5 Dlanor stated that although Bern controlled Battler, she couldn't make him do things that Battler couldn't do himself. The statement about George comes off to me as "He is physically unable to kill adults but he can kill kids no problem." Why should we say Bern's 8th game as false but her 7th game as truth? Better yet why do we even consider clues from the 5th and 6th games if Beatrice isn't the game master? Maybe KNM was right and it is all a lie.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

As for the 18th thing, that's really clever. Logic dictates (wait, in Umineko? I must be mad) that the other person must be Kinzo. I think by mere virtue of the fact he has been acknowledged to have been a human character in the game (even if he was never truly alive) for so long, that it is accepted he can be referred to as one of the humans. If you like, consider Erika the 18th human piece to be played upon the board of those two days (otherwise we would have to count all the Beatrii). She and Kinzo may never have existed during those two days, but they were the human pieces.

Nah.

EP4:
Before now, I have proclaimed that no more than 18 humans exist on this island.

But actually she never said "no more than 18 humans exist" in those exact words. What she said was:

EP3:
There are no more than 18 people on this island.

Continuing EP4:
I will lower that by one for Kinzo!!
No more than 17 humans exist on this island!!
That excludes any 18th person.
In short, this 18th person X does not exist!!
This applies to all games!!!

I think it's pretty clear that Beatrice uses the terms "humans" and "people" interchangeably.　

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I think it's pretty clear that Beatrice uses the terms "humans" and "people" interchangeably.

Well, it doesn't necessarily function like that in Japanese. In Japanese the word that is translated as people here is a counter. You do not just count with 1, 2, 3 but with an additional counter that shows whether the thing you are referring to is round, flat, long, a small or big animal or (as in this case) people (which does not necessarily have to be a HUMAN, it's rather about having human-esque qualities).

This is actually what the trick is about, because from the beginning on Kanon and Shannon are referring to themselves furniture (家具＝kagu), distinguishing themselves from humans (人間＝ningen).

[GuestSpeaker]

Nah.

EP4:
Before now, I have proclaimed that no more than 18 humans exist on this island.

But actually she never said "no more than 18 humans exist" in those exact words. What she said was:

EP3:
There are no more than 18 people on this island.

Continuing EP4:
I will lower that by one for Kinzo!!
No more than 17 humans exist on this island!!
That excludes any 18th person.
In short, this 18th person X does not exist!!
This applies to all games!!!

I think it's pretty clear that Beatrice uses the terms "humans" and "people" interchangeably.　

I get that number doesn't have to be properly counted there because of the no more than rule.

But I'm not sure this necessarily disagrees with what I am trying to say. Basically just that Erika can call Kinzo a human and herself the 18th despite him being dead the whole time of the game because the game played him that way. It is hard to say whether she could also be 18th person, but I suspect so. The only reason I can think that Shannon and Kanon can mess with this is because while they were introduced as the 6th and 7th humans, there are only 17 of them.

[Renall]

I'm still not entirely convinced of what Kinzo actually is on the board. Can he be counted as a human, or a person, or anything really when he's supposed to be dead? This is actually a wholly distinct problem from the "are personalities people" thing. Whether they are or not, Kinzo is not a living human person, a character, or personality as far as we know.

Though Battler did make a theory about Kinzo-as-title, which would perhaps suggest he's a "character." But that raises all sorts of other issues.

Basically I'm actually curious about this statement on Erika's part because I'm not sure what she's counting exactly. She's obviously speaking of something other than bodies; as a result, Kinzo's corpse can't be used to count him. But if she's referring even to feigned agency, it doesn't seem like Kinzo should count, because he has none.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well, it doesn't necessarily function like that in Japanese. In Japanese the word that is translated as people here is a counter.

It seems that the point I was trying to make in my last post didn't make it across. It's not really relevant whether it's a counter or what, because Beatrice establishes that the word translated as "person" (be it actually a counter or whatever) refers to humans.

Originally Posted by haguruma

You do not just count with 1, 2, 3 but with an additional counter that shows whether the thing you are referring to is round, flat, long, a small or big animal or (as in this case) people (which does not necessarily have to be a HUMAN, it's rather about having human-esque qualities).

This is actually what the trick is about, because from the beginning on Kanon and Shannon are referring to themselves furniture (家具＝kagu), distinguishing themselves from humans (人間＝ningen).

Yes, yes, this would explain it except that Beatrice said once, using the people counter only, that there were no more than 18 people on the island. Then later she paraphrase-quoted herself, saying that what she said before was that there were no more than 18 human people on the island.

She said this:
妾はこれまで、この島には19人以上の人間は存在しないと宣言してきた。

In reference to this:
この島に19人以上いない

Does this not mean that, in Beatrice's terms, 19人 means the same thing as 19人の人間?

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

I get that number doesn't have to be properly counted there because of the no more than rule.

I wasn't making a point about the "no more than" wording. I was making a point about the interchangeability of the terms "humans" and "people".

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

But I'm not sure this necessarily disagrees with what I am trying to say. Basically just that Erika can call Kinzo a human and herself the 18th despite him being dead the whole time of the game because the game played him that way. It is hard to say whether she could also be 18th person, but I suspect so. The only reason I can think that Shannon and Kanon can mess with this is because while they were introduced as the 6th and 7th humans, there are only 17 of them.

I don't get the point of trying to include Kinzo, as it would make it so that Erika is the 19th human, when she's the 18th. Are you saying that the "18th human" statement counts Kinzo but not Kanon? If you are, you'll have to make a case as to why Kinzo is counted "because the game played him that way" yet Kanon isn't.

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm still not entirely convinced of what Kinzo actually is on the board.

A ghost. A fantasy piece, like Gaap or Ronove.

[LyricalAura]

If Shannon and Kanon are separate people on the EP5 game board, then the number of humans to ever participate actually works out to 18 legitimately with no semantic shenanigans. Nice.

Well, that's assuming that separate Shannon and Kanon don't both count as +1 over Yasu, anyway. If you look at the ones in EP5 as, say, Kanon and "Yasu minus Kanon", then one of them is still basically Yasu, so she wouldn't be a new person.

[Valkama]

Going off of what Guest Speaker said about them being introduced as the 6th and 7th people. Perhaps 18th person on the island is just a title given to Erika as it is assumed that there are 17 humans on the island before she arrived so she would be given the title of the 18th person. It's not how many people are actually there. Just like how 18th person X is a title given to a person.

[Wanderer]

Yeah, the title theory was my preferred explanation before this.

[Kiltias]

This nothing about Rosa just two things I noticed.

A:
Didn't Kanon mention something about becoming the Zero?
That's something out of Roulette.
I read that up and it's neat if Ryukishi intended that.
There is also impair.Let's say a player bets on impair and the ball lands on zero then the bet will be locked/blocked/barred/disabled.
If it happens again, the bet is freed.If the ball lands on pair, the bet is lost.
If it happens again the process repeats but there is no third time.
By the third time all bets locked are forever lost.

A player may avoid the lock by sacrificing half his wager to regain the other half as long as the minimum wager can be halfed.
However, there is another option that is to place their locked wager on another chance (eg from impair to pair).



And another thing
So the dining room seatings are according to rank huh?
Just like to hear opinions.

Krauss-Eva
Rudolf-Rosa
Jessica-George
Battler-Maria
Natsuhi-Hideyoshi
Kyrie-Nanjo/Originally intended to be the spot for Maria's father.

I'm finding this interesting seeing the first twilights of EP 1 and 2.
EP 1:
Rosa,Krauss,Rudolf,Kyrie,Gohda,"Shannon"
We know Natsuhi was intended as victim as well so I think it's safe to say some weren't planned.
I do think Krauss,Rudolf and Kyrie were planned but I don't think the others were.
Eva and Hideyoshi left the others shortly after midnight, if they would have stayed longer they potentially have fallen victim as well.
Krauss,Natsuhi,Kyrie,Rudolf,Eva,Hideyoshi
Killing all the married couples first just like in EP2.
This is interesting in terms of rank.
The 3 highest and the 3 lowest are eliminated.
Or by seating order:
Eliminated-Eliminated
Eliminated-Rosa
Jessica-George
Battler-Maria
Eliminated-Eliminated
Eliminated-
Purposely left out Nanjo here as he hasn't a rank.
Or to make it easier along with Rank:
Dead-Dead-Dead-Alive-Alive-Alive-Alive-Alive-Dead-Dead-Dead
__2___3____4____5___6___7____8___9__10___11__12


This seems kinda placed to me by Ryukishi that the very center ones of the Hierarchy are alive.

Here is something interesting that could really just dig Rosatrice a grave.

Maria says: George onii-chan couldn't kill an adult. He could kill a kid though. Purple statements are as absolute as red truths. However, the culprit alone may lie with purple statements. We know Maria can't be the culprit as the culprit needs two parents and Maria happens to only have one. So this statement is an absolute truth about George. George can't kill adults so he couldn't have killed Rosa in the third game or done any of the other crimes in the third game. Nanjo is not a killer so he couldn't have done any of it either. He also couldn't have killed Gohda in Natsuhi's room in the 2nd game or Nanjo and Kumasawa.

I don't believe in George.
But Rosa can.It's been stated that Battler was asleep when it happened and not to forget Rosa held the masterkeys.

Regarding Nanjo and Kumasawa:
It was shown that Rosa told Nanjo something.
Rosa: "All you Servants,Gohda-san is going the kitchen to clean the utensils.Just in case, would you please all go with him?"
"I'm sorry, Doctor Nanjo.....I wanted to consult you about something."
The Servants put the Utensils and empty cans on the serving cart and started to head out into the corridor.
Behind them, Rosa oba-san was talking to Doctor Nanjo about something in a small voice.
Nanjo: .......Understand, I will go.
Rosa: Yes, I am counting on you.
It's very interesting when you consider how Nanjo and Kumasawa died and Genji keeping a knife hidden.
It's an interesting thought to me if Nanjo and Genji were seperate accomplice of Rosa in EP 2 and Rosa wanting to get rid of one of them by potentially pitting them against another.
As in maybe he killed them both but that it was Kanon is a lie and illusion made up by the Servants themselves.
Afterall, it was Rosa's thought that Kanon is the Killer.So Rosa somehow pulling the strings seems logical for that as she is the source of:
Kanon = Killer thus if she pulled the strings behind the kitchen incident she can be regarded as the source of that Illusion.


As for Rosa in EP3:
If it's not suicide I blame the one who went out to search for Rosa and Maria by himself, namely Rudolf.
And neither Kyrie nor Rudolf were comfirmed as dead until after the death of Nanjo.
I wouldn't put it past them that they are the main culprits in EP 3 figuring out Eva solved it but wanting to make the money theirs.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Well, that's assuming that separate Shannon and Kanon don't both count as +1 over Yasu, anyway. If you look at the ones in EP5 as, say, Kanon and "Yasu minus Kanon", then one of them is still basically Yasu, so she wouldn't be a new person.

Couldn't neither of them be Yasu? They could just be "generic servant characters Shannon and Kanon." If it's not a necessary component to the solution of End (and it doesn't appear to be), there's no need to worry about Shannon and Kanon having any personalities but "their own."

Regarding the default scenario. If Shannon and Kanon count, so does Beatrice. This is my problem with the whole thing. There are not two people sharing one body, there are at least three. If they're all counted at once, they should increase the count by +x where x is the maximum number of people that could be counted; if they're only counted when active, only one should ever be counted at once, which means the count should = the number of bodies.

That said, there's no evidence I can think of that "Beatrice" actually exists in End or Dawn. So I guess it's only an issue in the first four games (or, at the absolute lower limit, Turn and Alliance), for which there is no exact person count given. Although the final battle of Alliance might cause problems with that, I don't know.

This all just seems like so much justification for poorly thought-out cheating.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Kiltias

EP 1:
Rosa,Krauss,Rudolf,Kyrie,Gohda,"Shannon"
We know Natsuhi was intended as victim as well so I think it's safe to say some weren't planned.
I do think Krauss,Rudolf and Kyrie were planned but I don't think the others were.
Eva and Hideyoshi left the others shortly after midnight, if they would have stayed longer they potentially have fallen victim as well.

The interview says:

R Of course, if we assume that the culprit entered the room once. The culprit entered the room with the intent to kill Natsuhi, but looking at the door found the scorpion charm dangling from the knob. And when remembering that the rule was created that „rooms guarded by the symbol of the scorpion cannot be entered by witches“, left the room unable to murder her. And then, as a sign that somebody tried but was unable to enter, left the marks with paint on the door as if someone scratched at it.

K Is that the truth behind that scene?

R And when I asked you about the person who knew about that rule concerning the charm and could commit the crime…

K There is only one, isn’t there?! I was doubting that there was a chance she overheard how Natsuhi accepted the charm on the corridor, but I never thought about the fact that she could just go into the room.

R But she has a master key, didn’t she? And with that another person, outside those who were planned, had to be killed.

which seems to imply Yasu has only to replace Natsuhi with someone else, not some people with some others.

Also Eva and Hideyoshi are chosen as accomplices, in fact Hideyoshi lies about seeing Shannon so it's unlikely they were to be chosen as victims that early in the game.

Originally Posted by Kiltias

As for Rosa in EP3:
If it's not suicide I blame the one who went out to search for Rosa and Maria by himself, namely Rudolf.
And neither Kyrie nor Rudolf were comfirmed as dead until after the death of Nanjo.
I wouldn't put it past them that they are the main culprits in EP 3 figuring out Eva solved it but wanting to make the money theirs.

Battler saw them dead, which is as good as a confirmation as he's the detective.
So it's possible they killed Rosa and Maria and tried to kill/killed Hideyoshi in Ep 3 but they should have ended up being killed by the time Battler found them.

Also the game makes pretty clear that when Nanjo was killed they were already dead. Eva Beatrice lists the people who're dead when Nanjo was killed which caused Battler troubles because it left only himself, Jessica and Eva. He knew he couldn't have done it, and the same goes for Eva as he was keeping her under control so he suspected Jessica and Eva Beatrice informed him Jessica didn't do it either.

Of course Battler didn't know that Yasu/Sayo was still alive and that only his disguises as Shannon and Kanon had been killed so he couldn't figure out there was an extra person going around killing Nanjo.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Couldn't neither of them be Yasu? They could just be "generic servant characters Shannon and Kanon." If it's not a necessary component to the solution of End (and it doesn't appear to be), there's no need to worry about Shannon and Kanon having any personalities but "their own."

When was Erika introduced in EP5 relative to Shannon and Kanon? Depending on the order, if they're both new generic pieces, then the "18th human" thing doesn't work out.

Besides which, maybe it is a necessary component to the solution? Perhaps the reason the culprit is so vengeful and un-Beatrice-like in End is that a crucial tempering influence was subtracted from their personality.

[Renall]

At that point we'd just be grasping at straws, because we have no idea how such a process even works to begin with or what "tempering influences" are represented by what character. How could we possibly expect to be able to confirm that or even guess at it without the mechanics of it being presented?