[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

Some things are just always going to remain a mystery.

Spoiler for Gold Truth Explained! (Not Really!):

This is awesome!

However there's the chance Erika had some knowledge of the golden truth, after all she knew about the detective authority and the logic error, prior to Battler learning about them. She also knew she could apply Knox to the tale so it doesn't really come as a surprise she knew about golden truth. Likely she would have known of purple truth and whatever colour you can come up truth as well.

This doesn't make any better the fact that the golden truth is used like that, although there's to say similar not foreshadowed, surprise, hyperpowerful devices are used all the time in anime so maybe Ryukishi didn't think anything of it (I've always found it a bad move in whatever show it was though but it's so recurring when it happens I'm not surprised).

And... ehm... someone can refresh my mind on when Will used the golden truth? I can't remember...

[GabrieliosP]

I think purple truth was created solely for Bern's game in EP8 and didn't exist beforehand. Heck, red truth was created on the spot by Beato in EP2.

[AuraTwilight]

And... ehm... someone can refresh my mind on when Will used the golden truth? I can't remember...

He didn't use it, but used its EXISTENCE as a metaphor to explain mysteries, like calling the locked chapel in EP2 a "golden truth."

I think purple truth was created solely for Bern's game in EP8 and didn't exist beforehand. Heck, red truth was created on the spot by Beato in EP2.

Actually, the Meta-Narrative claims that Beatrice didn't invent it, but is simply a master of using it. Considering that the Red Truth is based on how some bibles print the words of Christ, and how Beatrice calls him the strongest sorcerer there ever was, there's probably truth to that.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Actually, the Meta-Narrative claims that Beatrice didn't invent it, but is simply a master of using it. Considering that the Red Truth is based on how some bibles print the words of Christ, and how Beatrice calls him the strongest sorcerer there ever was, there's probably truth to that.

Well he was certainly a lot better at coming back to life than her. Heyooooooooooo!

[AuraTwilight]

Actually, due to timeloops, Beatrice died on December 5th in the evening after the 2nd Twilight, and then came back to life before the first Twilight on another Gameboard.

Beatrice came back to life BEFORE SHE DIED in linear time. Suck on that!

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

The importance of the golden truth is more who it's being presented to than who is creating it.

I called it "faith" to imply that the person "creating" it isn't the lier, but the believer.

Originally Posted by Renall

And I think it's clearly implied by the Chick/Elder Beatrice dialogue that they both know that Erika's explanation of the trick is correct, but because they are the only two people who saw it happen, they are free to agree that it was magic and nobody can say otherwise (they can explain a trick that works very much like it, but they can't prove that trick was actually employed because they didn't see it done).

I think you're right. I think that although chick Beato knows that it was a simple trick, she still chooses to believe it's magic. When I coin it as "faith", I am encompassing this concept as well.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I called it "faith" to imply that the person "creating" it isn't the lier, but the believer.

I think you're right. I think that although chick Beato knows that it was a simple trick, she still chooses to believe it's magic. When I coin it as "faith", I am encompassing this concept as well.

The creator could also believe it though. In fact, couldn't the creator believe it even if nobody else does? The main thing is somebody is presented the gold and chooses to embrace it. Whether that's a person doing it to themselves out of genuine belief or self-deception, or a person deceiving others or simply representing a belief they hold for others. Still, I wouldn't use "faith" as that's something of a loaded term. A gold truth can be approached rationally, I think, by a person who believes the gold truth to accurately represent reality as they understand it, so long as their misunderstanding is wrong in some fashion.

As an example, let's say I observe that the stars in the sky appear to rotate in a mostly regular pattern around the earth. From this I profess that the Earth is the center of the universe. Supplemented with other information (such as religion and other observations), this is a truth that people would come to accept, although the conclusion is in fact faulty. However, it would take a much deeper degree of rational study to conclude things like the transversals of the planets do not conform to the model of a geocentric universe. And a greater degree of courage still from there to conclude that the "gold truth" of Earth at the center of the universe is wrong.

Nobody deceived me into believing the Earth was the center of the universe and I wasn't deceiving others when I suggested it to them. They believed me because my facts (red) appeared to present that scenario as the most reasonable truth. We weren't exactly accepting on faith that my conclusion followed from my premise, we were just wrong. Jumping to conclusions. Failing to notice all the data.

I'm not disputing your claims, just that I'd use a different word than "faith," because it implies the person accepting it isn't doing so based on reasonable facts that appear conclusive (but aren't) when in fact they could be.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

The creator could also believe it though. In fact, couldn't the creator believe it even if nobody else does? The main thing is somebody is presented the gold and chooses to embrace it. Whether that's a person doing it to themselves out of genuine belief or self-deception, or a person deceiving others or simply representing a belief they hold for others. Still, I wouldn't use "faith" as that's something of a loaded term. A gold truth can be approached rationally, I think, by a person who believes the gold truth to accurately represent reality as they understand it, so long as their misunderstanding is wrong in some fashion.

As an example, let's say I observe that the stars in the sky appear to rotate in a mostly regular pattern around the earth. From this I profess that the Earth is the center of the universe. Supplemented with other information (such as religion and other observations), this is a truth that people would come to accept, although the conclusion is in fact faulty. However, it would take a much deeper degree of rational study to conclude things like the transversals of the planets do not conform to the model of a geocentric universe. And a greater degree of courage still from there to conclude that the "gold truth" of Earth at the center of the universe is wrong.

Nobody deceived me into believing the Earth was the center of the universe and I wasn't deceiving others when I suggested it to them. They believed me because my facts (red) appeared to present that scenario as the most reasonable truth. We weren't exactly accepting on faith that my conclusion followed from my premise, we were just wrong. Jumping to conclusions. Failing to notice all the data.

I'm not disputing your claims, just that I'd use a different word than "faith," because it implies the person accepting it isn't doing so based on reasonable facts that appear conclusive (but aren't) when in fact they could be.

That's more or less why I call it someone's belief.
I can believe in something because I valued all the fact and that seems the truth and I can believe in something merely out of faith or out of personal will.

All this regardless of my belief being the truth or not.

Probably whoever read Umineko, valued all the facts and believes Yasu is Ikuko can say it in gold and whoever believes Yasu isn't Ikuko can say it in gold as well.

In the same way if someone heard by a friend that Yasu is/isn't Ikuko and believes him, even if he had never read Umineko, he too will be able to say it in gold.

But more interesting, who believes that Rosa is the culprit is likely able to say it in gold and his gold truth can be stronger or weaker than the red truth Yasu did it, according to the strenght of his belief (which can be based on reasoning or an 'I heard it from my friend' or 'I dislike Rosa and I want her to be the culprit' or whatever else...)

Going along on this line probably the game master could have said the description of all the fantasy scenes in gold if he was good enough to delude himself that was all it went...

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

The creator could also believe it though. In fact, couldn't the creator believe it even if nobody else does?

It's more than "could"; they have to.

What I've been trying to say all along is that the creator and the believer are one and the same. Gold truth is not "presented", since its creation is the belief itself.

Gold truth can be the result of belief in presented information, but it is not that presented information itself.

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm not disputing your claims, just that I'd use a different word than "faith," because it implies the person accepting it isn't doing so based on reasonable facts that appear conclusive (but aren't) when in fact they could be.

Fair enough. But I still can't see a better term for it.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Fair enough. But I still can't see a better term for it.

I thought a long lot about this and was turning it around in my head. I have a problem with the term "faith" as well, because it implies exactly that the one presenting this truth must have faith in it's validity on the same level as the red truth. I think this is the fundamental point where the to "truths" branch off from another.

I would call the red truth "the truth of the world" and the golden truth "the truth of the heart". The truth in the world of Umineko is that everybody except Eva died between the 4th and 6th October 1986 and even the one who survived is so crippled that he regards "the survivor" in himself as nothing more than a ghost. Yet Ange sets her heart on her family living on, it is not something that can be proven in any way, it can only be felt.

I would consider it, setting your heart on something so decisively, that no evidence, no proof, no testimony can convince you of something else.
Rosa went to get the key, thus the chapel must be locked.
This corpse has 6 toes therefore it is Kinzo's.

EDIT: Btw because I can just check the anime right now. Did Rosa try the door in the VN before going to get the key? Or was she just told that it would be locked and ran to the guesthouse?

[Drifloon]

She did try the door, yes. Though that whole scene is unreliable given that Shannon and Kanon are both there.

[qno2]

Especially given Will's hint as well, about the "gold truth locking the lock of illusions." Not that this makes the discussion about how to exactly interpret the gold truth any clearer, but it's pretty clear what he's implying.

Though it's kind of odd that Rosa went for the key while the cousins were still asleep, considering that Yasu wanted to present this mystery to Battler. Wouldn't it be way more impressive if they'd first lead the cousins, and thus Battler, to the "locked" chapel, just for the key to turn up in Rosa's bag, seemingly having been there the entire night? Maybe something did indeed go wrong. For example, the door, old and rusty as it might be (implied by the magic scene later), refused to open when they wanted to check on the adults.
Possibly Will's hint is about how the twilight was supposed to be, minus the little accident.

If everyone still believed that it's just a game, they'd obviously be concerned if they can't open the door to see how they're doing. Maybe Yasu was the first to check the door, when she went there to paint the symbol, and got flustered enough to call her accomplices.


Crack Prime-theory: Battler didn't actually go to Rokkenjima.

Two possibilites:

a) he got so drunk the night before the trip that he forgot... and a car hit him on the road. Not sure whether Kawabata actually confirmed that he went there. Quite crack but not crack enough.

b) The hint was there from the start - FALL FALL KYAKYAKAYKYAKYAKYA. When Kawabata showed off his new boat Battler fell off without him or anyone noticing. Well, not everyone; Maria obviously saw it, but who believes her anyway? Only later, on Rokkenjima after Kawabata had already left, it dawned on them.
Erika's made-up backstory is obviously just another hint. Or Battler's absence during EP7. As well as the "third day"; Dlanor can't touch this.

Yasu was so disappointed and frustrated that she just pushed the headship on one of the adults (Eva in this case), lead her to the tunnel towards Kuwadorian to go meet "father" in form of the ring, said "fuck it" and blew the rest up.

= Kawabata accidental culprit theory. <What do you think, everyone?!>

If this was the reason for all my hardship in life, I'd throw myself from a skyscraper too.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by qno2

Crack Prime-theory: Battler didn't actually go to Rokkenjima.

Two possibilites:

a) he got so drunk the night before the trip that he forgot... and a car hit him on the road. Not sure whether Kawabata actually confirmed that he went there. Quite crack but not crack enough.

b) The hint was there from the start - FALL FALL KYAKYAKAYKYAKYAKYA. When Kawabata showed off his new boat Battler fell off without him or anyone noticing. Well, not everyone; Maria obviously saw it, but who believes her anyway? Only later, on Rokkenjima after Kawabata had already left, it dawned on them.
Erika's made-up backstory is obviously just another hint. Or Battler's absence during EP7. As well as the "third day"; Dlanor can't touch this.

Yasu was so disappointed and frustrated that she just pushed the headship on one of the adults (Eva in this case), lead her to the tunnel towards Kuwadorian to go meet "father" in form of the ring, said "fuck it" and blew the rest up.

LOL

Well, in a fashion this would match with Ep 7, in which Battler didn't went on the island for random reasons... (probably Bern didn't want/couldn't let him him to meet Will...)

[qno2]

We could go even further: Ange was convinced in EP4 that if she hadn't "betrayed" Maria, nothing would've happened. Maybe Maria didn't just know about Battler's fall, maybe she pushed him off to get back at Ange! Gives "FALL FALL KYAKYAKYAKYAKYAKYAKYA" a whole new meaning - it's actually "FALL!!!!! FALL!!!!! KYAKYAKYAKYAKYA!"

Of course, had Battler returned a year earlier either Kawabata's tuning hadn't gone out of hand yet (just read the scene in EP1, apparently he has been tinkering continuously with his boat) or Ange was still part of Mariage Sorciere (when exactly did their breakup happen anyway? I always assumed it happened during the 1985-family conference). A year later... and Yasu might've not been there to blow everyone up.

No wonder Battler seemed pretty clueless in EP1-4!

Alright, that's enough crack from me for now. Sorry if those kind of "lol-theories" belong to the fanfiction topic as this is obviously just as serious as the parallels between Willy Wonka and Beatrice. Though, in the end do we know whether Battler was really there? Sure, everyone expected him to be there...

[RandomAvatarFan]

Willy Wonka and Beatrice.

Oh my gosh.... that gives new meaning to the Land of Sweets of EP2 First Twilight... the six who got their own golden ticket?

[qno2]

Originally Posted by RandomAvatarFan

Oh my gosh.... that gives new meaning to the Land of Sweets of EP2 First Twilight... the six who got their own golden ticket?

Yeah, Renall and AuraTwilight were at it (again).

Oh god, too off-topic. Must talk about Umineko. Erm, EP2, 4-6th Twilight. Shannon doesn't even need to hide the weapon she killed herself with: after shooting George and Gohda, to make the magic perfect she threw her gun out of the window (and locked it again)...

...sat in front of the Natsuhi's night table... put the stake on the night table...

...pointed the stake upwards. Imagine the rest. Both her head and the stake were lying on the night table. She didn't hide the weapon, it was lying right there.

It's hard to get a good grasp of the stake so staking is normally impossible. Unless the "victim" is pretty "willing" and "committed" to the staking process, then it might work.

Not important, just another take on it and probably common knowledge: but I saw some here refer to her "hiding the weapon she kills herself with via a trick as usual" in EP4. "as usual" = there is only one other moment where she is actually dead (AND observed) before the end of the game in EP1-4. Therefore they seem to refer to EP2, so I thought that its still worth to mention this. I don't think she pulled this one in EP4 though: luckily there is a hole in the ground right beside her for a gun to fall into.

[RandomAvatarFan]

The forehead smashing stake on Natsuhi's night table was what I thought the commonly accepted theory was.

I still don't know how she managed to kill herself in EP4 though now that I think about it...

[qno2]

Thought so too but... hey, I didn't want to go too much off-topic now.

In EP4: assuming that the grate is large enough for medium-sized objects to fall through it's just a pretty simple trick:

For example, attach something heavy to the gun with a rope (my english fails me here and I'm not a gun-expert to begin with... at the part of the gun that points towards the user), let the weight hang through the the grate; the weight should pull it down after you stop holding it - shoot.
Though there might be issues with the depicted distance between Shannon and the well.
Even easier: just stand above the well, look down right into the barrel... carries the risk that the gun might not fall through the grate or the body's placement being too obvious (too close).

Just like Kumasawa and Gohda in the same EP, looks like more than it actually is. In some other mystery novels you'd get some weird, convoluted structure that somehow made it possible to achieve the same thing. Especially in something like Detective Conan.

In fact, Nanjo and Shannon are - as far as I know - more less the only ones that could've pulled this one off, and Nanjo has this one nifty red about him and murder. I don't want to know how Rosa managed to fall on shotgun she killed herself with (if that is KNMs explanation), while still hitting her head with the bullet. Well, there is one exception though: anyone from "Kyrie's group" except for Kyrie could've hid the gun "somewhere in the woods" (another dumb trick: with remote fire... just block the trigger with a piece of wood that's attached to a line while a tree-branch exerts pressure on it... pull the line when ready; add more convoluted tricks to get rid of the line and wood), so here goes Krausstrice.

I just highly doubt that Ryukishi has used any such "complex" tricks for just this one thing because he never used any during the story. Or they were at least not necessary.

[RandomAvatarFan]

You know...

Thinking about EP4, and Kyrie's group, there were only two people who didn't do anything, and that's Nanjo and Kyrie.

The others had fought.

Shannon and Kanon linked up to fight against the Chiesters. Krauss had his battle against Virgilia's strongest Goat.

Nanjo... he... ran super fast for someone his weight and age? Kyrie... she hid for a while inside a locked room.

Especially for Kyrie, who had been shown to slow time down during her fight against Leviathan in EP3, in EP4 she was reduced to running away.

It's been a while since the last time I've read EP6, but even that had boiled down to the same thing: Kyrie running away to lock herself in a room.

This contradicts the images of her given in Bern's EP7 Tea Party, and her EP8 game. I'm willing to claim that the images of Ep4 represents a form of their actions: Shannon and Kanon personalities were fighting for control against Beatrice, Krauss may have fought against Yasu physically even... but Kyrie and Nanjo? They ran and hid. Any reason they may have had in aiding Yasu may have just been because they trembled in front of Yasu, and Kyrie was never really all that to begin with.

Even what she tells Jessica about "killing Asumu," fits this. She was "prepared to take Asumu's life herself." so that when Asumu did die do to circumstances beyond Kyrie's control, Kyrie still says that she did it herself.. But that's just the thing: Kyrie did not kill Asumu, and this will not change regardless of what Kyrie claim.

I think Kyrie is just a sham, and is not as mentally prepared to carry out a mass murder as shown in Ep7 and 8.

[AC-Phoenix]

I heard KnM's Rosa=Beatrice theory recently too...
Though it doesn't line up.

At least not if we all agree that the culprit is the same for every game.
here are a few of my problems with Rosa=Beatrice

It is true that Rosa would have an easy time dressing up as beatrice - she is a fashin designer after all, and her clothes have pretty much the same color pattern as the ones Piece-Beato used in the 2nd Game.

So yeah I rewatched the anime as it was said Ryokishi hid additonal hints in there a few things I realized there for the first time:

- The locked/unlocked status of a room is almost never checked by the detective, in most cases it isn't checked at all and everyone just assumes them to be locked simply because their owners have the habit of locking them.


- Genji took a knife out of the kitchen. both Kumasawa as well as Najo had their throats cut open in the second game - it is later shown that he still has that very knife even at the point were He stays behind in the kitchen while the other 3 leave. He is also the one to discover the corpses of Najo and Kumasawa.

- You never actually see Kanon Slit their throates, you do however see how Shanon jumps back. if Genji had given her the knife she could have easily done that in the process.


When 'Kanon' came in claiming Rosa is the culprit whiel having a would you can pretty much assume that he is telling the truth, however please don't forget:
At the time Jessica was killed, Rosa was with several other people.

Now lets compare all this to a few rules we already know about:

Batler's sin and Beatrice:
It is a sin Batler comitted against Beatrice, 6 yeras ago, meaning while he was 12.
I saw someone claiming the sin was him being Maria's father(Comment at the KnM Video) ... Aehm, hello? Its not like we haven't seen Rosa flirting with him, and going easy on him no matter how much he opposed her, and cut into their family affairs. however please note: Maria is NINE, not six, nine. Meaning battler would have been 9 when Maria was born.

So nope being Maria's father was most certainly not his sin against Rosa. In fact the only other way you could connect Rosa to battler is the theory some people brought up in the past that Rodulf is Maria's father.
Still no sin Battler --> Rosa

Rosa Culprit:
No matter how you loo at it, Rosa couldn't have done any crime after the first twilight.
The first one was indeed possible for her, the others though not.
So she would have needed genji's help. He was the only one who could have comitted all the other crimes, as Shanon/Kanon was with Jessica at that time, leaving Genji unaccounted for.

However as soon as you turn Genji into her accomplice for the other murder's he becomes much more than an accomplice - he becomes a culprit.

Accdoring to Will none of the servants must be the culprit

George accomplice:
What applies to Rosa in game two applies to him as well, during several murders he was within eyereach of battler thus not able to commit any crime.


then there is another rule one must not overlook:
There are no accomplices. There is but one killer and he did it all alone.

And here a soft rule:
'Beatrice' killed them all

Adding that and a few other things together only few arguments for Rosatrice are left, like for example 2nd game Beato's apparance and the fact that Rosa was the one having seen her dead - so she could have devleoped a 'Beatrice personality'.