[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

When exactly was the Red about their corpses given exactly?

It was while Gaap was moving the first twilight corpses.

Originally Posted by qno2

It has also been argued not too long ago that it might mean "the 18th human-character shown to be on Rokkenjima in this tale of 1986". Kanon was never a fully independent human.. question is, who is the 17th then? Maybe Kinzo...he did live at some point, even though not in 1986 - but he was portrayed as being alive for four episodes. "He is the 17th human(-character shown as "part of the human-side" in this story on Rokkenjima 1986), the head of the Ushiromiya household, portrayed as being alive but ultimately dead from the start." Not too sure about how to explain the 17th human though; even though Kinzo is a character based on a human it just opens up too many uncertainties.

When I brought that up I was suggesting Kanon was the 17th. Kinzo is out of the question.

Kanon and Shannon share Yasu's body. Only one exists in reality, and which one that is
can change. This is how they are both different people with their own individual human roles on the island, yet they only register as 1 person because they still cannot exist at the same time (except in fantasy).

Other people brought up Kinzo, and that's what people seemed to focus on (to my frustration). Red does not reflect fantasy, and Kinzo in 1986 is a fantasy. Done deal. Red doesn't count ghosts. That's the point of it. Kanon, on the other hand, is not always fantasy, but at times a real person, so he can count as the 17th person on the island.

I could understand rejecting Kanon as counting, but accepting Kinzo would make red conform to fantasy, which is exactly the opposite of its function. I would sooner abandon the whole train of thought altogether.

Originally Posted by haguruma

I think both of you are kind of off...at least to my understanding.
Ordinal numbers do have a certain value, but they have to be read in the exact context they are given.

Out of the 5 people including Kyrie, he was the first to die. In other words this means that he is the 9th victim.
Nowhere does it say that 8 people DIED before him, just that he would be considered the 9th victim (in Japanese giseisha) of whatever is happening.
That the order of sacrifices and the order of the actual murders is not necessarily the same was already implied in EP2 through the sacrifices from 4th to 8th being Shannon-Gohda-George-Nanjo-Kumasawa, while the depicted order of deaths in the narrative was Nanjo-Kumasawa-Gohda-George-Shannon. It was then again highlighted in EP3 by Eva Beatrice jumbling sacrificial order and order of death of Kyrie-Rudolph-Hideyoshi around.

Why would we interpret the red this way? It would take all the "clue" aspect out of it and make it, depending on who you are, useless or even harmful. Beatrice wouldn't trick us here. Pinning down the actual sequence of events in Alliance is hard enough already.

[Renall]

I'm not entirely convinced that Kanon-specific ep4 red has any actual value though. Kanon can't be victimized and his death is effectively meaningless anyway, so what purpose is there to knowing that he "died?" What are we supposed to take away from the fact that he was part of a select group, was the first of that group to "die," and that he is the 9th "victim?"

Even if we were to take it at face value, it gives us little to go on except that the 8 "victims" preceding him were not Kyrie or the people depicted with her. It doesn't tell us much about how they became victims or why or even when, since we have absolutely nothing to go on to tell us when Kanon would've "died," other than a fantasy scene. And that fantasy scene is really not too helpful either.

[UsagiTenpura]

Haven't been thinking much about Umineko in a long time, but thinking back about it, I now find it extremely hard to believe Yasu/Beatrice can be the culprit (within the games).
There simply is constantly hints that takes various forms that relates to the idea that "the one everyone believes is the culprit" cannot really be as such. Accepting that Yasu is the culprit isn't any different, ultimately, from accepting Eva as culprit in arc 3 and Natsuhi in arc 5 (or even Kinzo in arc 4 and "beatrice the 19th human" in arc 2).

Could start approaching it from various povs in various arcs, but I think arc 5 is clear enough that we don't really need the rest.
- We were shown that Natsuhi could (assuming her own scenes aren't necessarily reliable) have committed every single murders when we look about alibies.
- Just like Yasu, Natsuhi really was "up to something" and has plenty of stuff to hide, and it'd be quite easy to pass down a moral judgement on her.
- Just like Beatrice, Natsuhi seems to feel partially responsible for what's happening and has regrets about it.

Basically it's the formula to be blamed as culprit. A formula we've been constantly shown in a negative light.

Btw I'm not going to suggest another culprit, because this is essentially what I think has been our mistake in Umineko : We're not there to find a culprit, we're there to defend people who has been wrongfully accused.

Not saying the culprit isn't important or interesting to find btw. It might be all that interests many of you, but I'm just talking about what's been going on in the serie. It's always been about proving someone innocent. Defence lawyer is pretty much both Beatrice and Battler's job, in the end.

To me this is particularly interesting in the light that, if a witch or other fantasy being was actually responsible for everyone's death, we'd only be able to prove this by proving without a shadow of a doubt that everyone else is innocent. That would actually make Beatrice the heroine trying to find the "villain" while it would make Battler the one who is causing trouble to the investigation by trying to pin it to someone who is innocent out of mostly spite. Interesting mostly because, this is basically a proof that fantasy can require at least as much logical reasoning then mystery does, if not more.

Generally speaking too, a lot of things like all those talks about devil's proof ends up becoming much more important then as they stand right now under that approach too.

It also raises the question about ethics : what interests you the most - protecting the innocents or pursuing a culprit. At the very least, to me, this solves the problems everyone had about "Ryuukishi's messed up ethics".

[Renall]

The difference is that Beatrice appears to be attempting to convict herself. As a result, and if she is indeed the author of the message bottles, it may well have been her intention to create a scenario in which she is in fact the culprit. Whether she was in fact any sort of "true" culprit in a hypothetical Prime is certainly something we've all debated over many times.

If your point is that there could be an "alternate solution" to the games themselves... well sure, I guess. The problem is that we'd both have to look for a "non-obvious culprit" (i.e. we cannot blame either Beatrice or Eva for ep3) and have some way of confirming the viability of that theory... which we kinda don't.

[Saorin]

Hey everyone, it's been quite a while since I last dropped by...Phew. Seems some people have been staying active. Pretty amazing, considering the time...

I've just started reading the manga, now with (at least) the Yasu-Shkanontrice solution in mind and paying attention to the hints that have been dropped in that regard (and mostly seem like plain punches in the face...)
Even though I still find Shkanon a crappy way out....some things are at least clicking into place and I guess I have somehow come to terms with it.

So anyhow, there are some questions and ideas popping up re-reading the whole thing in manga form.

Scenes showing Kinzou in EP1
Okay, I'm sure this has been discussed a milions times already (sorry...but then again: what hasn't? =D), but how are we supposed to interpret the (magic) scenes depicting Kinzou in this EP? So, obviously we know they're not real as he's a goddamn corpse (duh!). Krauss talking to him might simply be him pretending to so / lying about it. Might say the same for the opening scene of the Ep, when only Dr. Nanjo is talking to him. I'm not sure about this scene though...

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Is this a hint we have to take that this might be Yasu (= "The Head") talking? The only people inside are obviously Shkanon-supporters, and I suppose we can assume the adults outside don't hear anything that's going on inside. Or are we supposed to ignore the scene entirely? After all, Genji isn't the servant that has been working longest for Yasu, is he?

The rose
It's rather a side note, I guess. I was wondering why the crippled rose was so important to Maria. Do we have to search for some deeper meaning here? Maria is getting SUSPICIOUSLY upset about not finding that rose, even for a mentally unstable 9-year-old, isn't she?
Are we supposed to find yet another relation to Yasu here or anything? "Crippled" possibly meaning the thing that automatically comes to mind thinking about the baby and the cliff and all? =P
Which might lead to the general question how much insight Maria really had into Yasu(ShannonKanonBeatrice). But then again I always find it difficult not to mix up Piece!Yasu/Shannon and Author!/Meta!(?)Yasu....

Furniture
Another take on the meaning of "furniture". I don't know whether a solid definition has been established yet, anyway, here goes haha.
This approach might definitely not be brandnew or anything, but reading the Ep1 Manga now, I get the feeling "furniture" could mean "stuck in their role, without much leeway do decide on their own".
This is now appearing to be a solid theory to me as it fits nicely with Shkannon as a basis.
Shannon is bound to be positive, she is basically "not allowed" to react in a hot-tempered or malicious way. She is also "bound to love" George, as that is exactly the role Yasu is assigning her.
Kanon on the other hand has to act shyly, mostly harboring and/or expressing negative feelings. He is "bound to love" Jessica, as he was in some way or other created for this purpose.

It is noticeable that Genji is the only other servant that is using the term, which might be a reference to Genji's total loyalty to the Head and his robotic behaviour: he is following orders from the head, without question. He is never actually seen to be acting on his own impulse (only excepting the Child-Cliff-incident which is not happening on the gameboard though).

Shannon is starting to defy the notion of her being furniture, most apparent by her outright defying the Beatrice persona (= love for George vs. love for Battler?). It's still noteworthy that even her fighting is consisting of defending rather than attacking, yet again referencing to her not being able to actually act offensively thus not breaking fully free from her assigned role.

I think this is not too farfetched if we take into account the plain meaning of "furniture" and how it is also a reference to how maids and butlers tend to be portrayed as in "classical" mystery stories.



I'm sorry for disrupting any ongoing argument and throwing in some rather random thoughts here. =) Thanks for bearing with me.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

The difference is that Beatrice appears to be attempting to convict herself. As a result, and if she is indeed the author of the message bottles, it may well have been her intention to create a scenario in which she is in fact the culprit. Whether she was in fact any sort of "true" culprit in a hypothetical Prime is certainly something we've all debated over many times.

Prime, that may be exactly it.
We cannot figure out a prime culprit. We simply cannot. We don't even know what happened. We don't even know if there is a culprit. We cannot say for certain that Kinzo for instance was really dead in prime 1986.
This mystery "exists" but Umineko is not about solving it, and it wasn't made to be solvable. Sure that's an assumption on my part, but that's something I'm fairly certain about.
However you can reach the conclusion that Eva wasn't the culprit in prime. At the very least, accepting that she wasn't the culprit is something that the story leads us to. It's something Umineko is about.

It's not about finding the culprit, but about people's innocence.

If your point is that there could be an "alternate solution" to the games themselves... well sure, I guess. The problem is that we'd both have to look for a "non-obvious culprit" (i.e. we cannot blame either Beatrice or Eva for ep3) and have some way of confirming the viability of that theory... which we kinda don't.

My point is that Umineko's not a game about finding the culprit. It's a game about doing pretty much what Battler did in arc 5 : Even tho everything was against her, Battler solely believed that Natsuhi had to be innocent, and he did everything he could to defend her.

I'm also more or less figuring out that this is what arc 7 TP was about : someone taking out the culprit and not revealing them and enduring the blame - not for that culprit they just took out, but to defend someone else - close to them and very innocent, and who probably wouldn't believe them anyway (who'd just accept that the sole survivor of Rokkenjima claims x person is the culprit while having no way of proving it...).

Finding a culprit would probably surface if I'm right and we could properly establish Yasu's "why dunnit". She doubtfully would have did all that to protect Gohda's reputation if he was the culprit or blame herself for it, for instance.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

You can't be serious.

I am, Except you can provide a clue as to wwhere Kinzo's corpse was hidden the entire time and another one that it has never been moved. No matter what in several EPs it was necessary to move the corpse at some point. Either to burn it or to make sure nobody discovers it when entering the study. So yes the body was indeed moved around.
Depending on the way it was preserved fingerpointing would still be possible, as Rigor Morts is LONG over.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Battler sees George's corpse in the main story of EP4, and everyone else's corpse in the EP4 Tea Party (excluding Kanon of course).

George: Did he examine the body? Did we get a red that he was dead at that time?
Tea party: Magic scene not trustable
Kanon's EP4 red: He has most likely no body of his own, so this red shouldn't be taken to literally imho.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Except that he's the 9th victim, implying 8 people died before he did...

I agree with Haguruma, the order doesn't necessarily mattr if there is no stake attached to them. In EP 3 Rosa was for example the sacrifice for the birth of the new witch.
Which would have normally been the last one (replace revivial with birth for this episode), yet her corpse was discovered before the others.

"[...]
She was the sacrifice for the birth of the new witch. "
Source: http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/Rosa_Ushiromiya

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Virgilia didn't provide that red. It was the Seven Sisters of Purgatory.

anyone looking at George, Jessica, Maria, Rosa, or Genji's corpses could confirm at a glance that they are dead doesn't apply to people playing dead or otherwise alive. The red says you can't mistake a dead person for a live one, but you can still mistake a living person for a dead one.

[/QUOTE]
Shes uses a different wording than i wrote down, the contents are the same though:
EP 5 Manga Ch 19 Page 15
Virgillia: It is impossible that they are playing dead <- referring to the George, jessica, Maria, Rosa and Genji.
The sisters saying it doesn't make it less credible btw.
She gives 3 more reds btw.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

It's not about finding the culprit, but about people's innocence.

The problem is, someone is still guilty... or it's an accident. Either way, we ought to be able to say one of those two things. The fact that we can't creates a presumption of innocence, to be sure, and personally I'd prefer to believe an accident in Prime over any of the characters as I know them being guilty... but it doesn't change the truth. And if the truth exists anywhere, it ought to be known, at least as much of it as we have.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Shes uses a different wording than i wrote down, the contents are the same though:
EP 5 Manga Ch 19 Page 15
Virgillia: It is impossible that they are playing dead <- referring to the George, jessica, Maria, Rosa and Genji.
The sisters saying it doesn't make it less credible btw.
She gives 3 more reds btw.

This was reffering to the "corpses" of the kids. So that red is only true once they are dead. But even if we just take the red truth as it is, i can borrow Battler's way to approch the Nanjo murder from EP3:

Shortly after the cousins 'disappeard', they were killed in the forest or somewhere in the tunnels. Only then Virgillia confirmed that red.

Or you have an better idea? I mean you also have to consider that their bodies were not moved after their death.

Well it is also possible that their bodies were not there to begin with.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I'm inclined to think Erika was the target of a murder mystery prank. During the part where Battler allegedly saw Kinzo (and allegedly wasn't listening to Erika), Erika was detailing all of her expectations of what would happen with the family after the discovery of the gold. Since we know that Battler spacing out and seeing Kinzo is a lie, in reality he was probably actually paying attention to what she was saying; and, since Erika is genre savvy and a bitch, what she was saying might well have been a prediction of murder. Then Battler could have been wanting to get back at Erika by pranking her with fake murders.

I'm not exactly comfortable with this many 'probablies', 'maybes', and 'could haves', though. Then again, it seems like every comprehensive theory for EP5 requires these kinds of stretches in reasoning.

I think Erika was more in the way of what was going on than the target of it.
Definitely, unless most of the plot is a lie, the one who seems to be the target for deception is Natsuhi, not Erika. Erika seems more like 'the detective who got in the way of the plan' however, as she was closed minded, in the end she ended up being used by the siblings to reach their goal.

There's to say that the cousins might have believed they were playing a prank to Erika (or even Shannon as I always wondered why Umineko felt the need to show us that Battler phoned to Jessica prior to reaching Rokkenjima in Ep 5) and that's why they played along as I doubt Jessica would have agreed into faking her own death so as to cause pain to her mother and then let Natsuhi be considered the culprit for it.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I don't think so. Battler didn't have to say it was Kinzo or Beatrice or anybody at all.

Battler: I've found it... that's the signpost to The Golden Land.
Erika: [...] ......You have pretty good powers of observation.
Battler: Grandfather told me about it.
Erika: Huh? Kinzo-san? Where?
Battler: I'm going. [...]

I wonder... did the Japanese text did really imply that Kinzo told Battler about the signpost? Couldn't it be a misunderstanding and Kinzo told Battler he had pretty good powers of observation (same as Erika just did) and Erika (and us) misinterpreted his answer thinking he was referring to the signpost when in fact he was referring to something else?

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Well, I'm not just talking about knowing the solution exactly, but also knowing the physical route to the room of gold, because at the point I'm talking about they had already solved the epitaph and all that was left was to figure out how to get from the chapel to wherever the underground VIP room was.

If Battler already knows the way, it implies that he has likely already seen the gold itself. For example, Yasu may have already brought him down there much like she did with Krauss and Natsuhi in Our Confessions (whether at gunpoint or not, I don't know).

The question at this point would be when. Of course it's possible than before going to the library and meeting with Erika Battler was led there by Shannon then he purposely went to search for Erika in the library so as to have a witness he casually found the gold and didn't have the solution already.

Still, showing to Erika the gold is odd as they don't know if she's trustworthy and... well, the gold isn't supposed to become public domain.
If he had already had the solution and saw the gold, making her join in the 'hunt' should have had some sort of reason (he could have tried to distract her and force her to stay inside so that she couldn't go out to search...) and the only one I can think of is that the discovery had to look 'incidental'... and it's a weak explanation.

Hum.... I've to think more at all this...

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Knox rules seem fine since they are the way battler solved everything and became game master.
The point was that Battler was never allowed to use the red in the first place, thats why they accused him of 'guessing'
by guessing they thought of him having just tried to say the sentence in red and he got a lucky shot.
Which is why they made sure virgilia couldn't enter as soon as Battler said that she has told him.

Battler had been allowed in Ep 4 to use red. The problem here is that he was using red without:
- a witch officially handing him that red
- proofs.

Bern could hand some red for which Erika had no proofs but it was likely done with Lambda's permission. Virgilia wasn't allowed to hand that red and he couldn't find anything to confirm it so, although true, that red didn't hold any value in court.

Originally Posted by RandomAvatarFan

This doesn't change the fact that Gold came out of nowhere, or that Dlanor definitely cheated in her spar against Gaap. I just don't believe that they were cheating in EP5 with the red-blue answer session in the Court.

I wonder if Dlanor really cheated or she was simply instructed in such way by the game master. After all in Ep 5 we see that one of his underlings was forbidden from using a red she had by Lambda, the actual gamemaster so it's possible that Battler forbidden certain stuffs in order to protect Beato's secret.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

It would certainly work like that, however it hinges on the assumption that anything shown in EP5 is "less credible" compared to EP1-4.

Not necessarily. It's just Battler that's lying to us about how he came to find out some stuffs. After all Ryukishi said many times that if the epitaph had been solved murders would have stopped. This doesn't happen in Ep 3 & 5 when the epitaph is solved.
Either Ryukishi is blatantly lying or it's a clue about how the epitaph wasn't solved. However in Ep 5 is sure the gold was 'found' as Erika witnessed it and saw it being showed to the siblings.
So the gold was found in a way that didn't include the epitaph being solved and the only way to do so is for Battler to be handed the solution.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

But you also have to consider that it could be the other way around. That EP5 has much more important details:
'Legend' and 'Turn' were written by Yasuda (although the exact time is hard to determine, since Ange's illness was accounted for, but not Eva's death.) Piece-Battler and Meta-Battler were created on Yasuda's impression of the Battler from 6 years ago, as she didn't see him since then.
If we assume that 'End' was done by 9^9 but based on a witchhunter's forgery, then that witchhunter could have easily gotten good information about the characters by asking their colleagues or class mates.
Therefore Battler's personality in 'Legend' and 'Turn' were a red herring, while his personality in 'End' was much closer to the truth.
"Genius Battler Theory" for EP6 makes this seem more likely too.

Theoretically a piece should only be able to do what is in his possibilities. Piece Battler of Ep 1 can't solve the epitaph, in Ep 5 he solves it in a pretty smooth manner, even easier than Eva in Ep 3 (and we know she had been thinking about it by quite a while).

MetaBattler of Ep 5 confirmed he didn't have a clue about how to solve the epitaph and comment that his piece version is pretty smart and we know is piece version is being manipulated by Bern who got that knowledge by peeping on other fragments.

"............Hey, what the hell. ......The piece me is pretty damn smart. There's no room left for me to make theories."
"Oh, sorry about that. ......You weren't around at this point, so I just controlled your piece for you. .........Isn't it nice how smart I made you look...?"
"*giggle*giggle*giggle*...! It looks like you'd be wiser to let Bern be the player. ......Why not step down as the player and concentrate on being the piece instead?"
I joined in on this game on October 5, after the first few murders.
That means the piece called 'me' was controlled by the player, Bernkastel.
So, I guess that means it's possible for Bernkastel's reasoning to be announced through 'my' mouth...

Honestly, it all seems to imply the solution was handed to Battler by someone else, not that he found it.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

But something I doubt a lot of people (if any) considered yet:
The chance for Erika together with Battler to solve the epitaph, or at least to get into the gold room, is higher than 0,1%. This does NOT include the chance of Battler solving the epitaph alone or solving it with groups that do not include Erika

Battler didn't actually solve it WITH Erika. He announced his reasoning and Erika confirmed it saying they were thinking alike. The only hint Erika might have given him was the Atlas... however oddly enough, instead than playing with his cousins Battler went to the library.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's impossible that Battler solved the epitaph on his own but there are hints that imply that the epitaph wasn't solved in Ep despite the gold being found and, although the idea of Battler's characterization being closer to the truth is a good and possible one the gap between the two Battlers abilities seems to wide.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

He doesn't have to know where the Gold is.
You can actually form a sound theory about Kinzo using that red we got:

battler saw Ushiromiya Kinzo. dead or Alive does not matter No one would mistake him for another.

What I want to say is: he discorvered the corpse or something like that. We even got a hint in that regard:
At the Chapel fight between him and Dlanor, at the point where he uses the golden truth, he states that there is one body that could b kinzo's.

Don't forget the red about Kinzo has actually several consequences:
1st ) You can't msitake any object for Kinzo
2nd) You cant mistake another person for kinzo
3rd) You can't mistake Kinzo for someone else


Yet the red still allows us to have seen his corpse. Don't forget Dlanor couldn't get past the Golden truth. If the body would have never been hinted she could have simply said that the case must not be resolved with clues that were not presented in red and the golden truth would have been weaker than the red one.
As you can't mistake Kinzo for someone else, the corpse batttler talk about during the scene msut have really been Kinzo's.
Otherwise you would have needed him as a body double for someone else.

Edit: Or shanon could have moved the body as if it was alive, it would still not violate the red.

The problem at this point would be: Battler while walking with Erika saw a corpse, recognized it as Kinzo... and never said a word nor showed surprise?

If Battler saw Kinzo's corpse in Ep 5 I think it's more likely he did when he was handed the solution to the epitaph. Maybe it was how Yasu/Beato/TMF19YA got his cooperation: she persuaded him to uncover Natsuhi and Krauss' lie by forcing them to confess. In the beginning Battler might have believed it was the right thing to do then he could have started feeling pity for Natsuhi.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

@ Erika fooled:
Considering how EP 4 mainly shows magic fantasy battles and leaves pretty much every corpse unobserved by battler the answer to EP 4 could indeed be that it was a prank.
This only applies to EP 6 and 4 though.
Ep 4 teaparty's red:
You are all alone on this island. And of course, I am not you. Yet I am here, now, and will kill you
doesn't necessarily contradict that everyone is alive if you replace the answer 'bomb' with explosion. As its source is in a hidden tunnel it would need time to reach battler.
The red about Kanon being dead wouldn't matter either, if you consider how he is just one of Shanon's personalities.

Nope, Battler saw George's corpse before meeting Beato and then investigated on the other corpses. Even though it's likely Jessica phoned him believing it was a prank or something like that and the otehrs might have cooperated under the same belief (as implied by Our Confession in which Kumasawa and Co helped believing it was all a prank) in the end they were all killed, George was even killed before Battler had the chance to say if he remembered his promise or not.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

George: Did he examine the body? Did we get a red that he was dead at that time?
Tea party: Magic scene not trustable
Kanon's EP4 red: He has most likely no body of his own, so this red shouldn't be taken to literally imho.

Then, .........I saw George-aniki's weather-beaten corpse...
"............Aniki...............Damn......... ..."

The corpse was in front of the arbor.

If he had died under the arbor, he might have at least been spared being beaten down upon by the rain...

In Aniki's forehead was a gaping hole, as though he had been shot with a gun.

Perhaps because the rain had washed everything away, his face wasn't covered with blood, ......and so he looked almost like he was sleeping.

...However, his clothes were stained a deep red, and there were still signs that a large amount of blood had flowed out...

How happy I'd be if he were sleeping, or else pretending to be dead...

......But even though the rain sprayed against Aniki's eyes, they remained open.

......And, ......the hole in his forehead was, in all seriousness, ......the real thing...

There had been a faint chance that even Gohda-san and Kumasawa-san hanging by their necks in the gardening shed had been a bad joke.

But that naive possibility had now been completely denied.

And, as I looked at this corpse, I became completely sure.

I'll say George is definitely dead.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Battler didn't actually solve it WITH Erika. He announced his reasoning and Erika confirmed it saying they were thinking alike. The only hint Erika might have given him was the Atlas... however oddly enough, instead than playing with his cousins Battler went to the library.

No, I don't mean that they had to "solve it together". I think the important thing that Bern wanted to achieve was for her "reliable piece" to inspect the gold room herself. Wether only Erika, Battler and Erika, or only Battler, or even no one solved the epitaph is irrelevant to that percentage. Bern searched 'a few hundred kakeras' to find a kakera that brings Erika into the gold room somehow.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Mind you, I'm not saying it's impossible that Battler solved the epitaph on his own but there are hints that imply that the epitaph wasn't solved in Ep despite the gold being found and, although the idea of Battler's characterization being closer to the truth is a good and possible one the gap between the two Battlers abilities seems to wide.

But in the end of EP5, Meta-Battler changes completly and becomes more like his piece version from EP5.
Also the "Genius Battler" Theory from EP6.
And didn't you wonder, why Battler suddenly lost all his "mystery knowledge" (that we got to know about in EP5 and EP7) in the first Episodes, that he was supposed to have? So he read a lot of mysteries and shared his expieriences with Shannon, but did not even know what whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit are? Used theories that involve fishing poles under the edge of the door, or "small bombs in the food" although his piece version in EP5 seems more knowledgeble about mysteries (and their tricks) than Erika?

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Battler had been allowed in Ep 4 to use red. The problem here is that he was using red without:
- a witch officially handing him that red
- proofs.

You did however forget that he was told to repeat it and couldn't do so in the first place.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Bern could hand some red for which Erika had no proofs but it was likely done with Lambda's permission. Virgilia wasn't allowed to hand that red and he couldn't find anything to confirm it so, although true, that red didn't hold any value in court.

It would have held value, because red is simply the truth, as Bern stated in red (yeah doesn't really make it more credible lol)

Originally Posted by jjblue1

The problem at this point would be: Battler while walking with Erika saw a corpse, recognized it as Kinzo... and never said a word nor showed surprise?

If Battler saw Kinzo's corpse in Ep 5 I think it's more likely he did when he was handed the solution to the epitaph. Maybe it was how Yasu/Beato/TMF19YA got his cooperation: she persuaded him to uncover Natsuhi and Krauss' lie by forcing them to confess. In the beginning Battler might have believed it was the right thing to do then he could have started feeling pity for Natsuhi.

The original context got a bit lost due to me not answering immediately:
I suspected Battler to have mistaken a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, as this wouldn't violate any reds about him.
After that I just explained one way to mistake a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo.

This explanation fits in as soon as we get to the Golden truth were battler searches for a possibility of Kinzo being dead after all and says something along the lines that there is one corpse he could use for that.
Note you still can't mistake Kinzo for someone else, the corpse however had to be shown in one way or another or the golden truth would have been inferior to red.
So the only way to make the Golden truth stronger than Dlanor's red, and block her from using Knox 8, is that a clue about 'that' body has been shown.
Battler claimed to have seen Kinzo, and there is no way he could mistake anyone else for him. Mistaking a piece of cloth for him is also forbidden.

This does indeed only leave two options:
- Battler lied
- Battler mistook dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, the corpse was moved by the culprit in order to achieve the goal of making Kinzo look 'alive' if you don't stand right next to him.

Is it sick? Yes it is. (This is btw why I was asked if I'm serious I think)
Why even trying to think in such ways then:

Remember EP 2's first twilight. Kinzo being moved around is still ways below the scale that was set there.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

But in the end of EP5, Meta-Battler changes completly and becomes more like his piece version from EP5.

It's really not possible to compare the two as we'll never know if MetaBattler would have solved the epitaph with the hints PieceBattler had.

I wouldn't even be sure that MetaBattler of Ep 5 is smarter than MetaBattler of Ep 2. The main difference between the two is that in Ep 2 he thought he had to deal with a real life mystery and felt horror at the idea one of his relatives could have done it. In Ep 5 he finally became aware it's all a game and so he managed to solve it.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Also the "Genius Battler" Theory from EP6.
And didn't you wonder, why Battler suddenly lost all his "mystery knowledge" (that we got to know about in EP5 and EP7) in the first Episodes, that he was supposed to have? So he read a lot of mysteries and shared his expieriences with Shannon, but did not even know what whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit are? Used theories that involve fishing poles under the edge of the door, or "small bombs in the food" although his piece version in EP5 seems more knowledgeble about mysteries (and their tricks) than Erika?

Considering that the solution for some deaths is 'giant bomb in the secret underground military base' the small bomb theory doesn't seem so bad... -_-

And anyway Genius Battler theory still doesn't explain how the epitaph was solved but murders continued.

Also we don't really know how good Battler was at solving the mysteries he read.
He might have been pretty bad at it and totally unable to apply the solutions he knew once he was facing what he believed was a real mystery.

And not that in Ep 1 he mentions mystery books... though in the end he can't figure out the tricks used because he's going at it in the completely wrong way, by trying to find an extra person and blame him/her in place of his relatives because he can't deal witht he idea one of them might do something that horrible... a problem he likely didn't have when reading a book.

And who says he didn't know whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit?

Battler mentions more than once references to mystery novels:

If this case followed the standard form of any classic mystery novel, it was definitely a crime by someone with ties to the Ushiromiya family and who was entangled in the inheritance problem...

Oba-san had probably also read a few books in that genre.

......Eva oba-san's argument had a few one-sided conclusions to it, and it was probably a shortcut that anyone could have reached.


I think anyone would have doubted the servants, even if their logic was different.

Especially the story about the key to the shutter. That was enough to make it easy to suspect that one of the servants was involved in the case...


"...............That's why, ...I don't like it for some reason."
"What do you mean, you don't like it?"
"Nah, just talking to myself. Ihihi!"

I tried to trick her by joking, but I couldn't wipe out the sense of unease I felt inside me.

......Because it was an easy guess to reach.

A guess that anyone could reach・・・・・・・・.

...And I just couldn't accept that.

...If I tried 'turning the chessboard over' like I had learned from Kyrie-san, that was exactly why it was impossible for a servant to be the culprit.

If the servants really had been the culprits, they wouldn't hide the bodies in a place that was tied to themselves.
There were other places besides the rose garden storehouse, whose key they themselves controlled.

The police would probably immediately pursue whoever had been in control of the key.

That would create a danger for exposure.
......If we were to assume that they were the culprits, they had no reason to carry the bodies into the storehouse.

...If you twist that around, why did they purposefully put them in the storehouse?
No, that definitely didn't make sense.

When the police come and inspect the site, several things will probably become clear.
No matter how deeply careful the culprits were in carrying out murder, some kind of traces will definitely be found.

We didn't know whether he had already become a victim, or if he was one of the culprits, .........but this state of confusion had to be beneficial to the culprit.

By showing us the bodies that obviously, and making us all realize there is a murder case going on, the culprit had absolutely nothing to gain.

Right, that was where we could 'turn the chessboard over'.

So the culprit's goal was to clearly show us the bodies.

......So, at the very least, to the culprit,

the appearance of the corpses there meant・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

more than the deaths themselves・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・.

In other words, the culprit wanted to display this murder.
To who?

......To us.
It was a message from them.

This is beside the point, but it's fairly common in mystery novels for a corpse to be burned to hide whose body it is.

......But I guess that in Grandfather's case, just being toasted wouldn't be enough to hide the proof of his identity...

And, ......Grandfather's body was not simply burnt.

"Could that concubine of thirty years ago...or maybe a relative or hidden child with that person...hold some kind of grudge and be planning revenge? ...Ihihi, I see, this is starting to sound just like your standard western mansion mystery."

Hmmmm, well, even though the chain is incredibly simple, it's a big factor in setting up the closed room... .........However, there's probably some closed room trick they could have used. If you bought some closed room mystery novels from the bookstore, you could probably find some trick that would fit perfectly. ......Anyways, I can't think of one now...but I claim that there's nothing humans can't do if they try hard enough.

and note this:

But anyways, they must have skillfully used some kind of trap, or maybe someone is lying..., or what about this?! Kanon-kun, what if the whole thing was just you playacting?!

and this

"D, don't look at me with those pitying eyes...I'm not saying something that crazy, right? I'm just pointing out that it would be possible if you could think of the trick, alright? Look, isn't one of the fallbacks in mystery stories that the victims aren't really dead!?"
"Fallback...?"
"I, in other words, when Kanon-kun was killed, we really did know for sure where the rest of us were. And let's assume that Kumasawa baa-chan wasn't lying. But that only holds true for the survivors. ......What if the culprit pretended to be dead, placed themselves together along with the real victims to hide themselves, and then acted on their own later? Everything would be explained!"

In the end he basically was very close to the solution already right in Ep 1 but then discharged it when he began to realize the implications of accusing his relatives and missed still some answers (for example how the culprit didn't care about the police investigating or of his own survival).

Is Battler really incompetent? Or he's being just a mystery lover that's facing a real murder case involving people he loves?

He's likely aware that in books the detective has detective authority or whatever you want to call it but he perceives himself as in the real world so, even in Ep 4 when he inspect the corpses he thinks the police can complain about it.

When in Ep 2 Beato remembers him Nanjo might be an accomplice (as he suspected in Ep 1) and suggests him to personally check if the guys are really dead Battler is fighting in order not to cry.

I doubt he would have cried while reading a mystery novel.

And there are mentions of mystery novels in Ep 2 as well, and in 4. Battler definitely had mystery knowledge prior to Ep 5.

So, genius Battler.
If you remove from him the possibility he solved the epitaph his other accomplishments are 3.
Finding the culprit for Beato's games, creating an alternate solution for Ep 5 and building up a mystery in Ep 6 who required to be solved by ShKanon then letting himself be trapped in a logic error so that Beato could solve it.

Note that: Will found the culprit just using the hints from ep 1 to 4 (and we were supposed to do so as well according to Ryukishi), so he was more of a genius than Battler.
The first tricks presented in Ep 6 are pretty lame and really if the game had taken place in the real world Erika would have easily realized Battler and Co were faking their death as they were likely breating and their heart was beating.
If Erika had merely pressed a pillow on their face out of instinct they would have had to move to try to get some air, revealing their 'alive' status.

Genius Battler isn't really that smart the same way Ep 1-4 Battler isn't really that dumb, they merely looks so due to circumstances.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

You did however forget that he was told to repeat it and couldn't do so in the first place.

He didn't know he could do so in the first place.

"......Well then Battler. I shall have you repeat it in red."
"Y, you're telling me to repeat something? Heheh..., damn you, stealing my signature move. ......But can I do the red truth too? How...?"
"............I, if you wish for it to be that way, you can do it. It's easy."

Apparently the requisite to use red is just 'to wish for it' and you can use it as long as it's true. Asking him to repeat things wasn't a requisite to use red as proved by the fact he could say this in red.

Ange is, ......my little sister

You can't trust anything, you can't trust any words that aren't red...!!

Later, in the beginning of Ep 5 Battler will again use red.

Grandfather is dead at this point in time

Note that even Natsuhi used red

I never told anyone except Shannon that I like Fall.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

It would have held value, because red is simply the truth, as Bern stated in red (yeah doesn't really make it more credible lol)

It didn't in fact Dlanor smashed it.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

The original context got a bit lost due to me not answering immediately:
I suspected Battler to have mistaken a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, as this wouldn't violate any reds about him.
After that I just explained one way to mistake a dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo.

This explanation fits in as soon as we get to the Golden truth were battler searches for a possibility of Kinzo being dead after all and says something along the lines that there is one corpse he could use for that.
Note you still can't mistake Kinzo for someone else, the corpse however had to be shown in one way or another or the golden truth would have been inferior to red.
So the only way to make the Golden truth stronger than Dlanor's red, and block her from using Knox 8, is that a clue about 'that' body has been shown.
Battler claimed to have seen Kinzo, and there is no way he could mistake anyone else for him. Mistaking a piece of cloth for him is also forbidden.

Hum... since when we know how golden truth work and what it required to beat the red truth that is, after all, the truth?

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

This does indeed only leave two options:
- Battler lied
- Battler mistook dead Kinzo for an alive Kinzo, the corpse was moved by the culprit in order to achieve the goal of making Kinzo look 'alive' if you don't stand right next to him.

Is it sick? Yes it is. (This is btw why I was asked if I'm serious I think)
Why even trying to think in such ways then:

Remember EP 2's first twilight. Kinzo being moved around is still ways below the scale that was set there.

Considering Kinzo is dead by such a long time the body should be... well, pretty ruined to say the least. It would be hard to recognize him as Kinzo...
It seems way more likely that Battler lied or that his words were misunderstood as I theorized in my previous post.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

[...]


Note that even Natsuhi used red

Aye, in her case she said something only she could have known though.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

It didn't in fact Dlanor smashed it.

Anybody could have smashed that one, he wasn't allowed to say it.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Hum... since when we know how golden truth work and what it required to beat the red truth that is, after all, the truth?

Dlanor said that the golden truth can either be inferior or superior to the red truth.
The only way to be superior to Knox 8 in this particular case is having a clue. And yes i know that Dlanor countered it with Knox 2nd, probably because she knew which body Battler was talking about.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Considering Kinzo is dead by such a long time the body should be... well, pretty ruined to say the least. It would be hard to recognize him as Kinzo...
It seems way more likely that Battler lied or that his words were misunderstood as I theorized in my previous post.

Really depends on how you preserve it. I use the prerequisite that they were too far away from each other for battler to note that the corpse was dead.
As long as the corpse has one of Kinzo's suits there is nothing wrong with not realizing that he is already dead.

its just a theory to give some sense to the words Battler said briefly before the golden truth though.

[RandomAvatarFan]

"the 18th human-character shown to be on Rokkenjima in this tale of 1986". Kanon was never a fully independent human.. question is, who is the 17th then? Maybe Kinzo...he did live at some point, even though not in 1986 - but he was portrayed as being alive for four episodes. "He is the 17th human(-character shown as "part of the human-side" in this story on Rokkenjima 1986),

I do like the "role" side. I think maybe in this case, "human" refers to which color ches piece you are. Are you merely created as an illusion to help the witch further her goals (Using Kinzo to create an illusion of the ceremony) or are you trying to keep the witch from moving on and killing everyone?

Here's Kinzo's case. He was never a human. What I'm talking about is the whole Goldsmith idea. The TIPS from the anime straight out say for EP4 that the image of Kinzo summoning the Chiesters and the Demons is not the human Kinzo, but the great and powerful Goldsmith. A similar situation to EVA in EP3. It looked like Eva, but was it really her? It looked like Kinzo, but it was Goldsmith. Is it too far a leap to assume that Kinzo was *never* playing for the human side? All he talked about was the roulette and hum wanting to summon Beatrice again. Humans can't summon witches.

Kanon however, was a "human" character, or at least tried to fight for his right to live as a human. If he or Shannon won, the certainly the witch might then have lost. Sure, he fell to the witch and Yasu merely continued to dress as him to confuse people. But if the Kanon inside her would have won... if he had never "died", certainly he would have cast away his anger for Battler and would have just ended the ceremony or maybe would have never started it to begin with.

Kanon and Shannon may have been the same person. The both contradict the witch, so they can be placed on the "human" side. Since they each have their own separate goals and motives, they can be seen as seperate pieces.

This is why Kinzo would not be counted when Erika introduced herself in EP6, but Shkanon could be counted as separate people and thus Erika became the 18th human.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Basically it's the formula to be blamed as culprit. A formula we've been constantly shown in a negative light.

Btw I'm not going to suggest another culprit, because this is essentially what I think has been our mistake in Umineko : We're not there to find a culprit, we're there to defend people who has been wrongfully accused.

This is certainly a very strong element in Chiru, but isn't it also heavily contrasted by how Battler had to grow out of his naivety of being unwilling to suspect people?

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

I am, Except you can provide a clue as to wwhere Kinzo's corpse was hidden the entire time and another one that it has never been moved. No matter what in several EPs it was necessary to move the corpse at some point. Either to burn it or to make sure nobody discovers it when entering the study. So yes the body was indeed moved around.
Depending on the way it was preserved fingerpointing would still be possible, as Rigor Morts is LONG over.

All I can think of is Weekend at Bernie's.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

I agree with Haguruma, the order doesn't necessarily mattr if there is no stake attached to them. In EP 3 Rosa was for example the sacrifice for the birth of the new witch.
Which would have normally been the last one (replace revivial with birth for this episode), yet her corpse was discovered before the others.

"[...]
She was the sacrifice for the birth of the new witch. "
Source: http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/Rosa_Ushiromiya

Not sure exactly what your point is, but the "new witch" being referred to is Eva-Beatrice. Rosa was her first victim, so it was her death that birthed the concept of the witch Eva-Beatrice.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

It's really not possible to compare the two as we'll never know if MetaBattler would have solved the epitaph with the hints PieceBattler had.

A fair point, however:

Originally Posted by EP5 Script

`"......As for that last fight, thank you very MUCH.`@` I am grateful for the mercy you showed me at the very END."`@

`"That 'me' wasn't me.`@` ......Lambdadelta was controlling him."`\

`I joined in on the 5th game partway through.`@
`I still haven't participated at 'this point in time'.`@

`So until I do join in, the piece 'me' is probably being controlled by Bernkastel or Lambdadelta.`\

`"......Just what kind of whim are they working off?`@` Trying to make it look all cool...`@` They made me look like some kind of knight coming to save Beato."`\

`"Lady Lambdadelta wants both witches and humans to be in balance, resulting in a draw. `@/

`.........With Erika's appearance, the scales tipped strongly in the favor of the human side,`@` so she manipulated the tale in a way that supports Beato."`\

`"I am aware of that.`@` However, pieces cannot do things that are impossible for THEM.`@` And they specialize in actions appropriate to their original PERSONALITY. `@/

`......Therefore, that was certainly something that you......that Battler was capable OF.`@` That is why I am grateful to YOU."`\

That was what Dlanor was saying to MetaBattler from EP5 (some of the lines were from Virgillia though)

Also the fact that when MetaBattler 'awakens' in the ???-tea party, we lose his point of view that we were following for 5 games long and suddenly he knew about things like the golden truth. The same happened with his piece version, but for that one already at the beginning of the EP.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I wouldn't even be sure that MetaBattler of Ep 5 is smarter than MetaBattler of Ep 2. The main difference between the two is that in Ep 2 he thought he had to deal with a real life mystery and felt horror at the idea one of his relatives could have done it. In Ep 5 he finally became aware it's all a game and so he managed to solve it.

MetaBattler from EP3 and EP4 also accepted that it is a game, or possibly even that 1 of the people he knew really was a murderer. And because of that his arguments have become a lot better. However it was still far away from his chiru capabilities. Also he only had to fight to deny magic and witches, while much later on he had to find out what "really happened".

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Considering that the solution for some deaths is 'giant bomb in the secret underground military base' the small bomb theory doesn't seem so bad... -_-

Yes, i found this fact always ironic... Beato laughted so hard about the "small bombs" and 'killed' Battler 5 minutes later with a giant military bomb. Well, since the blue truth was valid, it counted as a 'realistic', and 'non-magic' possibility too. So i give you that point.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And anyway Genius Battler theory still doesn't explain how the epitaph was solved but murders continued.

Somone solved the epitaph and found the gold, but never revealed it. Either to have the gold to him-/herself, or, if for example Battler found it, to prevent the gold being used as a weapon by his family against the others as we saw it in EP5 (or even worse in EP7).
Because of that Piece'Beatrice' never found out about it and assumed that no one solved the epitaph yet.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Also we don't really know how good Battler was at solving the mysteries he read.
He might have been pretty bad at it and totally unable to apply the solutions he knew once he was facing what he believed was a real mystery.

He might also have been an expert at it. But we will probably never get to know which of these assumptions is true.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And not that in Ep 1 he mentions mystery books... though in the end he can't figure out the tricks used because he's going at it in the completely wrong way, by trying to find an extra person and blame him/her in place of his relatives because he can't deal witht he idea one of them might do something that horrible... a problem he likely didn't have when reading a book.

That only worked for the whodunnit though. Every time he did a guess about the howdunnit, he didn't even name anyone who could have done it. So since he went at it with in such an abstract way, why couldn't he 'access' his mystery knowledge?

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And who says he didn't know whodunnit, howdunnit and whydunnit?

Because of this:

Originally Posted by EP5 Script

`......It isn't from the Decalogue, but Erika or someone said this:`@
`There are three riddles to be exposed in a mystery.`\

`One is the 'who dunnit'.`@` Who is the culprit?`@
`One is the 'how dunnit'.`@` How did they commit the crime?`@
`One is the 'why dunnit'.`@` Why did they commit the crime?`@

This doesn't sound like knowledge he has himself, but instead it sounds like something he as heard from 'Erika or someone else' for the first time recently.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Battler mentions more than once references to mystery novels:

*snip*

and note this:

*snip*

and this

*snip*

In the end he basically was very close to the solution already right in Ep 1 but then discharged it when he began to realize the implications of accusing his relatives and missed still some answers (for example how the culprit didn't care about the police investigating or of his own survival).

Is Battler really incompetent? Or he's being just a mystery lover that's facing a real murder case involving people he loves?

He's likely aware that in books the detective has detective authority or whatever you want to call it but he perceives himself as in the real world so, even in Ep 4 when he inspect the corpses he thinks the police can complain about it.

When in Ep 2 Beato remembers him Nanjo might be an accomplice (as he suspected in Ep 1) and suggests him to personally check if the guys are really dead Battler is fighting in order not to cry.

I doubt he would have cried while reading a mystery novel.

And there are mentions of mystery novels in Ep 2 as well, and in 4. Battler definitely had mystery knowledge prior to Ep 5.

Well he had the "mystery knowledge" in the story, but the question is, if he can use his expieriences with these stories, or not. If Yasuda is the author of the bottles, then she of course knows, that Battler is reading mystery novels, however she didn't see him for 6 years, which could lead to a "reverse Detective Conan"-Battler that is practically a 12 year old in the body of an 18 year old. A lot of scenes, escpacially in EP1 and EP2 make him look like a little child that does not know about the most trival things, that EVERYONE ELSE knows about, even Maria. Also i am not sure which of the quotes you provided are from PieceBattler and which are from MetaBattler, so i cannot really answer that.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

So, genius Battler.
If you remove from him the possibility he solved the epitaph his other accomplishments are 3.
Finding the culprit for Beato's games, creating an alternate solution for Ep 5 and building up a mystery in Ep 6 who required to be solved by ShKanon then letting himself be trapped in a logic error so that Beato could solve it.

Note that: Will found the culprit just using the hints from ep 1 to 4 (and we were supposed to do so as well according to Ryukishi), so he was more of a genius than Battler.
The first tricks presented in Ep 6 are pretty lame and really if the game had taken place in the real world Erika would have easily realized Battler and Co were faking their death as they were likely breating and their heart was beating.
If Erika had merely pressed a pillow on their face out of instinct they would have had to move to try to get some air, revealing their 'alive' status.

Genius Battler isn't really that smart the same way Ep 1-4 Battler isn't really that dumb, they merely looks so due to circumstances.

As you already mentioned, Battler is emotionally involved in the game and has a hostile stance toward "Beatrice" only later when he "opened up to her", he could solve the game. Compared to that, Will could calmly have a neutral stance from the beginning and could that way solve the game much easier.

Also we get disattached from Battler's POV at the end of EP5 and if we suppose "Genius Battler" is true, then most of the things we see in EP6 from Battler's POV is a lie too. In that case it is hard to really evaluate Battler in these episodes. But the 'lame' tricks are supposed to be 'lame'. That is part of the plan of getting trapped in the room. If you see it like this, it seems evident that he really looked down on Erika. And i understand why: She is a lame 'Meta-gamer' (her piece version preparing for a murder although she shouldn't know anything about a murder taking place at that point.) and even then she is unable to win the game. It is as if someone uses cheats in a game, but still loses. So he set the 'difficulty' very low and still won... RandomAvatarFan will hate me for saying this.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

This is certainly a very strong element in Chiru, but isn't it also heavily contrasted by how Battler had to grow out of his naivety of being unwilling to suspect people?

Who says that wasn't a mistake? After all in arc 5 he wasn't looking for a culprit.
He was trying to prove innocent someone who had everything pointing out to her being the culprit and was actually responsible for some amoral stuff going on. Yet out of nothing but faith, he wanted to prove her innocent.
And doing so, he solved everything.

Furthermore your suggestion reminds me of the red:
Battler immediately figured out red was a weapon that the witch would only use as a way to attack us. It took him much longer to figure out it was also a source of clues.
We're very much in contrast to this, we constantly considered the red to be the "only reliable clues" and I still think some people haven't figured out (or accepted) that the red was, as Battler said right away, a weapon used to attack our reasoning.

We looked down on Battler and considered his reasoning to have grew up when he started to consider the red a source of hints, but that's actually exactly where he was led astray. Just like we've been.

Basically what I'm saying is that even tho we tend to look down on him and the story pushes that even further, I think it's likely Battler's "wild guesses" are very close to the mark most of the time.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

A fair point, however:

*snip*

I'm not sure I would equate personality to ability.
Battler trying to solve the epitaph or to protect Beato or to act in a certain way with Dlanor must fit his personality but Battler being able to pull out all that successfully is tied to his ability and to calculate the amount of ability to do something is pretty hard to do.

(this of course doesn't keep in consideration the fact that the Japanese word used might include personality and ability).

All this to say: it's possible that deep down Battler has the ability to solve the epitaph (like theoretically any Japanese reader) but the problem is the stark difference between that Battler and the other in regard to how easily he does, a difference that even Battler marks as 'strange'.

In Ep 6, although smart enough to figure out the same answer as Erika in the quiz Battler doesn't reason it out as smoothly as he did with the epitaph.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Also the fact that when MetaBattler 'awakens' in the ???-tea party, we lose his point of view that we were following for 5 games long and suddenly he knew about things like the golden truth. The same happened with his piece version, but for that one already at the beginning of the EP.

Did he really knew or merely tried to force his truth believing somehow it would make it due to some obscure reasoning/feeling/whatever?
After all he didn't know about the logic error and needed to be instructed about it by Genji.

But honestly the golden truth is so random and unexplained I really wouldn't try to base any reasoning on it.

Also, he had a golden sword. If red sword can use red truth it was pretty reasonable to assume golden sword uses gold truth.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

MetaBattler from EP3 and EP4 also accepted that it is a game, or possibly even that 1 of the people he knew really was a murderer. And because of that his arguments have become a lot better. However it was still far away from his chiru capabilities. Also he only had to fight to deny magic and witches, while much later on he had to find out what "really happened".

Meta Battler is still not completely aware of it being just a game as he goes angry because Beato has fun into killing the characters and complains about the method. He rants about Beato becoming a good witch or something like that.
In Ep 4 he will still try to put the blame on an extra person before surrendering on the idea there's no extra person and will search for pitfalls.

In Ep 5 he still feels pity for Natsuhi at the idea she's faking talking with Beato when she's alone. That Natsuhi is just a character, not the real Natsuhi. He also is afraid at the idea he might be the killer.

He surely has improved a lot and keeps on improving compared to Ep 1 & 2 but it's only in the end he seems to truly figure out the game as he claimed himself as the evil culprit, not shying away from the idea it implied his piece version killed his cousins and aunt in cold blood.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Somone solved the epitaph and found the gold, but never revealed it. Either to have the gold to him-/herself, or, if for example Battler found it, to prevent the gold being used as a weapon by his family against the others as we saw it in EP5 (or even worse in EP7).
Because of that Piece'Beatrice' never found out about it and assumed that no one solved the epitaph yet.

The theory of someone solving the epitaph but not revealing it can barely work for Ep 3 (in the end someone handed the ring to Eva and it was Yasu who had the ring so Yasu should know Eva solved it... but let's assume she discovered this after she had killed everyone minus Eva)

But pieceBattler in Ep 5 found the gold and (apart from the cousins) everyone knew about it Yasu included as she handed him the ring and, what matter the most, Erika as well since this assure us that the scene in which the family saw the gold was reliable. At this point, if he had found the gold because he solved the epitaph, the murders should have stopped.

The murders continue instead ergo the epitaph wasn't solved.

It's this the core of the problem. We can discuss about the other details ab nauseam but regardless by them until someone doesn't come up with a satisfing answer on why in Ep 3 & 5 the murders continued when they were supposed to stop because the epitaph was solved and Yasu knew it I'm not going to believe Battler found the solution to the epitaph on his own in Ep 5.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Aye, in her case she said something only she could have known though.

I'm not questioning the fact that Natsuhi used red, I'm questioning your statement about Battler being allowed to use red only because he was told to repeat stuffs.
Repeating stuffs isn't a requisite to use red as Natsuhi and Battler successfully used red in Ep 4 & 5 without having to repeat anything.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Dlanor said that the golden truth can either be inferior or superior to the red truth.
The only way to be superior to Knox 8 in this particular case is having a clue. And yes i know that Dlanor countered it with Knox 2nd, probably because she knew which body Battler was talking about.

This is a theory.
Where would be the clue for the golden truth used by Beato the elder in Ep 6? Especially considering they knew it was a trick?

And which would be then the difference between a golden truth without proofs and a red truth without proofs?
or between a between a golden truth with proofs and a red truth with proofs?

The colour?

Why one is labelled as golden and the other isn't?

Originally Posted by Wanderer

All I can think of is Weekend at Bernie's.

LOL, that movie! And considering we're talking of a Kinzo wandering around and magic and rituals then we should also consider Weekend at Bernie's II.
Was there some music playing on Rokkenjima?

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Who says that wasn't a mistake? After all in arc 5 he wasn't looking for a culprit.
He was trying to prove innocent someone who had everything pointing out to her being the culprit and was actually responsible for some amoral stuff going on. Yet out of nothing but faith, he wanted to prove her innocent.
And doing so, he solved everything.

To prove her innocence however he had to find the real culprit so, in the end, he looked for the real culprit. It had always been his goal to prove people he loved were innocent however when he saw Beato defending Natsuhi he understood the only way to win wasn't trying to prove Natsuhi was innocent but to offer another theory according to which someone else was a culprit.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Furthermore your suggestion reminds me of the red:
Battler immediately figured out red was a weapon that the witch would only use as a way to attack us. It took him much longer to figure out it was also a source of clues.
We're very much in contrast to this, we constantly considered the red to be the "only reliable clues" and I still think some people haven't figured out (or accepted) that the red was, as Battler said right away, a weapon used to attack our reasoning.

We looked down on Battler and considered his reasoning to have grew up when he started to consider the red a source of hints, but that's actually exactly where he was led astray. Just like we've been.

Basically what I'm saying is that even tho we tend to look down on him and the story pushes that even further, I think it's likely Battler's "wild guesses" are very close to the mark most of the time.

I think red is a double edged sword as battler suggested in Ep 3.
It destroys some reasoning, that's for sure, but it also gives clues.
If we didn't get some confirmations any scene Battler didn't witness could be waved off as fantasy.
We could say Beatrice Castiglioni never existed, Kinzo stole the gold to... mafia guys then embellished his tale creating a mystery woman and ended up so enamoured with it he had a painter make a fake paint and in his last years of life even started believing his fantasy really happened.
The baby that fell from the cliff was a mere orphan.
Kuwadorian was Kinzo's secret harem filled with pretty blond women.
Knox actually isn't a rule on the gameboard and Rokkenjima is filled with people hiding in the forest.
And closed rooms were never closed room to begin with, not even for a moment.
Oh, and of course everyone was murdered by traps or committed suicide.

Red allows us to establish some things... if correctly used.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And which would be then the difference between a golden truth without proofs and a red truth without proofs?
or between a between a golden truth with proofs and a red truth with proofs?

The colour?

Why one is labelled as golden and the other isn't?

A gold truth without proof is just a belief. A red truth without proof is true, it just isn't explained why it's true. When Virgilia tells Battler Natsuhi is not the culprit, she doesn't explain in any sort of detail why not; however, we know from it that Natsuhi is not. Natsuhi is not the culprit, on the other hand, just means a consensus or belief that she isn't. But it could very well be that she actually is.

A red without proof is still kind of ridiculous even so, but whatever. That's all I can really think of to explain the difference. Since I'm sort of one of those who thinks gold was pulled out of somebody's ass, I don't think we're ever going to get a more meaningful distinction than that.

EDIT: Oh here's an example of a human truth that you could state in red that you can't prove. Say you're accused of a crime and you know that I was in my house all night, but can't present any specific evidence that proves that. You know it's true, but everybody else may not believe you.