[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Who says that wasn't a mistake?

Hmm. That's an interesting way to look at it. I hadn't thought of it because it had always felt to me as though the early story was presenting meta-Battler as being too naive. Beatrice seemed to go out of her way to make Battler suspect certain people, and his trust in people really did come of as a hindrance to him defeating the witch. Not to mention Krauss and Natsuhi in Our Confessions, and meta-Beatrice musing about how no one could possibly figure out how the letters appeared without suspecting them... Yeah, I can't quite buy your interpretation (well, at least as it's been presented so far).

Originally Posted by Renall

A red without proof is still kind of ridiculous even so, but whatever.

I really loved how Dlanor rejected Battler's recital of "Natsuhi is not the culprit." with Knox's second.

Actually, this is exactly what gold truth must be for. If you think about it, our own personal gold truth is ultimately all we have to rely on to understand the story, since we can't be 100% certain of anything being reliable, even red.

That's why gold truth is called "a human truth" and red "a witch's truth".

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

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.

Please don't take those reds out of context now.
In Natsuhis case it was somesthing she could definitely say herself, regardless of whether she was a witch or not. It was a simple truth only Natsuhi herself could know about. Not even Shanon would know that she was the only one who was tald.
Plus in this case its very likely that 'lamda just colored her sentence' red.

Regarding battler:
EP 5:

Before completely understanding the rules:
Natsuhi not culprit: Repeated from virgilia and also granted by her
Knox rules: The rules were a fact, plus Dlanor said them so often (notably in red) that this is also just 'repeating'

After understanding the rules:
After that he became game-master like, thus allowed to use the red, as a gamemaster.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

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?

I never claimed it wasn't.
This theory is simpy the logical consequence of the explaination Dlanor provided.
Dlanor herself said that it can be weaker than red or stronger than red. And considering how battler always spoke of 'that body' as if we had all seen it already one can easily conclude that something like the corpse moval might have happened.
And tbh, it wouldn't surpise me.
We were shown and escribed scenes that were much worse.
The point is, you don't think of it as 'that body' if you don't have a specific one in mind already.
From that one can conclude that we were hinted that the corpse exists in EP 5 too.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I really loved how Dlanor rejected Battler's recital of "Natsuhi is not the culprit." with Knox's second.

Actually, this is exactly what gold truth must be for. If you think about it, our own personal gold truth is ultimately all we have to rely on to understand the story, since we can't be 100% certain of anything being reliable, even red.

That's why gold truth is called "a human truth" and red "a witch's truth".

I agree, some of the reds are clearly untrue.
For example the one that Genji couldn't have left his room becauuse Eva sealed it and there were no finger prints.
If Erika had sealed that room ok, she has the detective authority and is thus allowed to seal a room perfectly.
Eva however is not, so Genji could have actually left his room from the window in EP 5.
Ep 6 gives the hint for that.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

This theory is simpy the logical consequence of the explaination Dlanor provided.
Dlanor herself said that it can be weaker than red or stronger than red.

*Lambda, not Dlanor

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

And considering how battler always spoke of 'that body' as if we had all seen it already one can easily conclude that something like the corpse moval might have happened.
And tbh, it wouldn't surpise me.
We were shown and escribed scenes that were much worse.
The point is, you don't think of it as 'that body' if you don't have a specific one in mind already.
From that one can conclude that we were hinted that the corpse exists in EP 5 too.

Ironically, the argument at the end of EP5 was about identifying a corpse that, according to your interpretation, no one could misidentify.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

*Lambda, not Dlanor

We are thinking of two different explainations about the golden truth here.
I'm thinking about the two sentences Dlanor provided when Erika was like 'wth?!'

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Ironically, the argument at the end of EP5 was about identifying a corpse that, according to your interpretation, no one could misidentify.

Not sure what you mean here. If you meant that I'm contradicting myself:
Not necessarily, you wouldn't misidentify Kinzo for someone else here or the other way around.

Umineko has, as Bern hinted, a lot of wordplays so Battler could have either lied or, as absurd as it might sound, really seen Kinzo. Since we already know that he is long gone the only valid way would be having seen his corpse.
Thinking a dead Kinzo is an alive Kinzo is very likely the loophole of this red, just as the loophole of Natsuhi's red is that Shanon could have told anyone just because she felt like it.
If you look at it from that light, Natsuhi's red appears to be there for the sole purpose of confusing people.

So a dead Kinzo moving around, by whatever means, is pretty much the loophole of the red about him.

[GuestSpeaker]

Who cares whether the actions of each character make sense as long as the readers get a mystery to solve?" So nobody suspected Shannon because of this; just not part of the script

The love in a mystery is tied to the heart, the heart is the motive. Maybe Lambda created a game where the gameboard characters acted without motive just to further the story, something Beato would never stoop to? I bet this will be shot down with examples post haste.


Also, I have it on good authority the manga of 8 says the message bottles are different practices stories that Yasu created for Battler that day, so a "what if I won completely" or "what if I never even truly appeared", which makes their existence much more sensible from a motive standpoint. What does a slightly loopy mystery lover do with her discarded drafts? Throw them into the ocean of course.

[RandomAvatarFan]

Maybe Lambda created a game where the gameboard characters acted without motive just to further the story, something Beato would never stoop to? I bet this will be shot down with examples post haste.

Why did Erika put duct tape on three rooms? Because she wanted to trap Battler in a logic error?

Heck... look how BATTLER handled Ep6. Why did Shkanon switch places with Battler on the gameboard... because... he (the game master) was... trapped in a logic error?

[Renall]

Similarly, why would Kyrie or Rosa or whoever call Battler on the phone and switch places with him in his original proposed solution? There's no puzzle reason to want to do it (Battler's supposed to vanish, not just transpose with another person), and if they were going to warn him about something... well they have nothing to really warn him about if they don't know Erika's going to kill everyone, and if Erika is going to kill everyone... they're already gonna be dead.

But with the criminally underdeveloped board narratives in End and Dawn it's impossible to even guess at what they were supposed to be like after their interruption. One presumes Erika never did any such sealing in the "original" Dawn, but how can we be sure?

[RandomAvatarFan]

I'm still with the theory that forgeries even include the Meta. Ange reacts to the Dlanor and Gaap skirmish in EP6, doesn't she? Featherine/Hachijou just tells her that there is an answer.

I just finished watching anime Banquet, and... EVA never confirms *anyones* death in red, except Nanjo's. She just goes on to confirm the location of the survivors. Beato did confirm 1st Twilight and 2nd twilight, but twilights 4-8 were never confirmed. I was kind of dissapointed, because Battler could have came up with a Natsuhi Culprit Theory just with that.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm still with the theory that forgeries even include the Meta. Ange reacts to the Dlanor and Gaap skirmish in EP6, doesn't she? Featherine/Hachijou just tells her that there is an answer.

Only Meta-Ange comments on it. Hachijou and 1998-Ange never comment on it.

I just finished watching anime Banquet, and... EVA never confirms *anyones* death in red, except Nanjo's.

Then the anime fucks up, because EVA confirms EVERYONE'S death at once. That's how she traps Battler and forces Beatrice's habd at the end.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by RandomAvatarFan

I'm still with the theory that forgeries even include the Meta. Ange reacts to the Dlanor and Gaap skirmish in EP6, doesn't she? Featherine/Hachijou just tells her that there is an answer.

There's no reason to believe that the meta is part of the Forgeries in my mind. I think the "Reader Theory" angle accounts for it better. Basically, there are two forgeries called End and Dawn, but we didn't get to read most of them. Instead, we read part of End up to about the Second Twilight and Dawn right up to the point where Erika discovers the letter outside the guesthouse. And we may or may not have gotten unfiltered versions of those narratives even so (honestly, I would suspect all the episodes make small alterations to the Forgeries as they were written in-universe).

I think it's possible to believe in an orthodox version of Dawn. Just remove all the meta-commentary and it basically works like it's presented:

• Erika shows up and makes an annoyance of herself.
• The four mothers, Maria, and Battler are "killed" in closed rooms.
• Erika begins to investigate, first by separating the survivors into rooms at the guesthouse.
• Erika discovers a letter informing her that Battler's body has disappeared.

The Forgery would then probably continue from there. Or perhaps it doesn't, and the draft of Dawn never gets that far before Touya and Ikuko start debating and discussing it, argue the "Logic Error" as a problem with the narrative, and shelve it. Or perhaps it was just to prove a point.

The point is a meta-narrative isn't a necessary component of the board narrative itself, even in "interrupted" narratives like ep5-6. Now, when you look at Requiem and Twilight, that might change somewhat. However, we know from ep6 that works called End and Dawn exist in some fashion, even if just in "Hachijou Tohya"'s collection of works (i.e. it's a Forgery the Hachijous were working on but never finished if it wasn't publicly released).

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

Similarly, why would Kyrie or Rosa or whoever call Battler on the phone and switch places with him in his original proposed solution? There's no puzzle reason to want to do it (Battler's supposed to vanish, not just transpose with another person), and if they were going to warn him about something... well they have nothing to really warn him about if they don't know Erika's going to kill everyone, and if Erika is going to kill everyone... they're already gonna be dead.

But with the criminally underdeveloped board narratives in End and Dawn it's impossible to even guess at what they were supposed to be like after their interruption. One presumes Erika never did any such sealing in the "original" Dawn, but how can we be sure?

Well, theoretically we can assume that the next 'magic' was for the corpses to switch places so Kyrie would have gone in Battler's place, Battler in... let's say Rosa's, Rosa in Maria's, Maria's in Eva's, Eva in Natsuhi's and Natsuhi in Kyrie's.

However as you say with the little plot we're told about Ep 6 there's no way to know if there was a planned reason for Kyrie to switch places with Battler apart a meta one.

Originally Posted by RandomAvatarFan

I'm still with the theory that forgeries even include the Meta. Ange reacts to the Dlanor and Gaap skirmish in EP6, doesn't she? Featherine/Hachijou just tells her that there is an answer.

I just finished watching anime Banquet, and... EVA never confirms *anyones* death in red, except Nanjo's. She just goes on to confirm the location of the survivors. Beato did confirm 1st Twilight and 2nd twilight, but twilights 4-8 were never confirmed. I was kind of dissapointed, because Battler could have came up with a Natsuhi Culprit Theory just with that.

I need to check this one but wasn't MetaAnge who reacted to it?
Though in Ep 5&6 there's so much back and forth from Meta sometimes I get confused...

In Ep 8 manga version is said that Dawn was a tale in which 'nobody was at fault' (and that's Dawn the tale he placed in Beato's grave in Ep 7) so it seems strange there were deaths in it, unless the whole thing means 'nobody of the people we love is at fault but it's okay for Erika to be the culprit as we don't care about her...'

[GabrieliosP]

Then it's probable that in Dawn the "faking deaths" game continued, Erika didn't kill anyone (because no meta reason to do so), and then they all laughed at their joke until the bomb blew up everyone.

Taking Renall's theory that the Episodes have alterations from the in-universe forgeries, then it all makes sense.

[Drifloon]

Ange DOES react to meta-scenes in EP6, though, and I mean the Ange talking to Hachijo with Amakusa, not the one talking to Featherine. For example, she comments on the 'chick Beatrice', and also the love trial which definitely has meta elements.

[battle22]

Guys, I can't remember the answer to this , can you help?
In EP6 , That letter. Who placed it? It wasn't Battler because the seal was intact If I remember correctly and everyone other than Battler should be dead(1st twilight "Victims")...Was it Shkannon?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by battle22

Guys, I can't remember the answer to this , can you help?
In EP6 , That letter. Who placed it? It wasn't Battler because the seal was intact If I remember correctly and everyone other than Battler should be dead(1st twilight "Victims")...Was it Shkannon?

Battler's intention appears to have been that he placed the letter. However, in the Logic Error reconstruction that isn't possible because Battler can't leave the room until Erika enters it, which is after she finds the letter.

Since the only other person who leaves is Kanon, I guess it has to have been Kanon. Honestly some part of me has always wondered if that wasn't a Logic Error unto itself.

[battle22]

Thanks for answering Renall . It probably had to been either Shannon or Kanon...

Honestly some part of me has always wondered if that wasn't a Logic Error unto itself.

I always thought Battler was just trolling with Erika hard... Because, Well You probably know it so I don't need to say it but , in EP8 Battler Or Beato said that nothing can happen on the gameboard without GM knowing about it... As for Reason for Battler trolling Erika.... Well Maybe he just wanted Beato to become herself again.. I just can't see any other explanation unless Ryu screwed up, Which I doubt...

[Drifloon]

To be fair, the meta-world's mechanics have never, ever been at all consistent between episodes. I've never really liked how people jump on that one inconsistency as evidence for Genius Battler theory.

Though I've talked about this before and I know most people here are pretty convinced of that theory, I don't think I'll ever really buy it. Battler just messing up seems much more in-character considering his portrayal up until that point, as far as I'm concerned.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Battler's intention appears to have been that he placed the letter. However, in the Logic Error reconstruction that isn't possible because Battler can't leave the room until Erika enters it, which is after she finds the letter.

Since the only other person who leaves is Kanon, I guess it has to have been Kanon. Honestly some part of me has always wondered if that wasn't a Logic Error unto itself.

Couldn't it have been placed before Erika sealed the rooms? There was a whole group of people "guarding Kanon" who could have done it while she was busy elsewhere. All they had to do was slip out a window the way Shannon did later and then climb back in.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Couldn't it have been placed before Erika sealed the rooms? There was a whole group of people "guarding Kanon" who could have done it while she was busy elsewhere. All they had to do was slip out a window the way Shannon did later and then climb back in.

Potentially. I suppose the broader question is who was supposed to have that letter in the first place, and why? If we assume everybody is in on it, I suppose anyone can hand it off to anyone else, but what's the chain of custody between whoever prepared that letter and whoever placed it?

Again that's trying to find logic in the Dawn board narrative but I think we can find some logic.

[RandomAvatarFan]

Quote:
I just finished watching anime Banquet, and... EVA never confirms *anyones* death in red, except Nanjo's.
Then the anime fucks up, because EVA confirms EVERYONE'S death at once. That's how she traps Battler and forces Beatrice's habd at the end.

I remember that: the inescapable web of truth. All I was saying was how strange it was for the anime to just cut that out. Of course Battler had examined all the deaths except Nanjo's, and "Bea" had already confirmed 1st and 2nd twilight.

In Ep 8 manga version is said that Dawn was a tale in which 'nobody was at fault' (and that's Dawn the tale he placed in Beato's grave in Ep 7) so it seems strange there were deaths in it, unless the whole thing means 'nobody of the people we love is at fault but it's okay for Erika to be the culprit as we don't care about her...'

You see, when I read EP7, I thought that Dawn was the tale BATTLER buried Beato with, but with EP8, I started thinking that Dawn and that book are different.

If I keep with the "Episodes as presented = Forgeries", I would doubt it because this book is supposed to represent The One Truth, which I don't believe Dawn does.

If you continue with the "Episodes = Work in Progress + Readers" I can see it happening then. Dawn is incomplete, and after finding the Logic Error, BATTLER was able to complete it, and truly dedicate it. Even still, does this still represent the One Truth?

If anything, a tale where no one was at fault would be EP8. The "magic" ending ends with: "I dedicate this tale to Beatrice." And it's not Beatrice Snicket, either.