[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Jan-Poo]

ust to be clear, I don't actually believe in this theory. I'm just pushing it as far as I can as a thought experiment attacking the "dead personalities" thing.

I recognize that, while I do believe the shkanon theory is correct in one of its forms, I recognize that the "personalities can be included in "人" counts" can potentially lead to any kind of preposterous theory.

However I think it's fun to see if we can actually find a weak point in this Kinzo is still alive theory.

I wonder if you already found a counter for this argument:

the "personalities can die" trick can only apply to fake personalities. While a person X can stop being a personality Y if that personality is a fake one, person X cannot stop being personality X because that's its true identity. In other words this argument that Kinzo can die as a personality doesn't work because he is Kinzo and cannot stop being Kinzo not even if he wants that.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Well then, Kinzo was hiding in the closet. Playing chess with himself. And no one ever bothered to look because the Ushiromiyas have an aversion to looking inside closets.

I think at some point we became capable of saying this in red. Has anyone ever looked in a closet, or even been tempted to, other than Erika?

[Jan-Poo]

Only Natsuhi, and that was because she had no other choice. So the Ushiromiya will check inside a closet if you point a gun at their heads, but not for anything less threatening than that

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

the "personalities can die" trick can only apply to fake personalities. While a person X can stop being a personality Y if that personality is a fake one, person X cannot stop being personality X because that's its true identity. In other words this argument that Kinzo can die as a personality doesn't work because he is Kinzo and cannot stop being Kinzo not even if he wants that.

The problem is, when is a personality "fake?" There's really no such thing as "my" personality, as every aspect of my personality that other people can describe arises from my relationship to them; after all, nobody can know what I'm like except in how they understand me.

What I mean by this is while you can say "Kinzo can't stop being Kinzo because he was always Kinzo," I'm not entirely sure the same couldn't be applied to Kanon, even if he's a fictional existence. And if you accept that it is true to "kill" a personality by ceasing to act like that person, I would counter that this makes it theoretically possible to "kill" the person everyone thinks you "really" are just as easily. So either Kinzo can't stop being Kinzo or he can. Personally, I don't believe Kinzo, whether or not he ceases to be "Ushiromiya Kinzo" in whatever form that takes, would suddenly alter a person count in any way, however. He remains a being with a body (or at least used to be one), and I still think that's what the count refers to.

[Judoh]

Is there a closet in Jessica's room? Becuase Rosa ordered everyone to look everywhere in the room for Kanon under the beds check the windows, etc.

So maybe it's possible for me to also say at the same time

Rosa is the only sibling that has no aversion to looking inside closets

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

the "personalities can die" trick can only apply to fake personalities. While a person X can stop being a personality Y if that personality is a fake one, person X cannot stop being personality X because that's its true identity. In other words this argument that Kinzo can die as a personality doesn't work because he is Kinzo and cannot stop being Kinzo not even if he wants that.

Well then, let's try.

Where does it say that the "personalities can die" trick ONLY applies to fake personalities? And who can decide what makes a personality "fake"?

A person may well choose to "kill" one personality and then adopt another one as their "true" personality. Thus, if Kinzo stop being Kinzo, he 'becomes' Beatrice. There's no red that can contradict this.

Really, the only thing that could contradict a theory of this kind is "common fucking sense", but this is Umineko, and...

Edit: Nevermind, Renall beat me to it. -_-

[Jan-Poo]

in this case "personality" is strictly connected to "identity". Kanon isn't just a "personality" it's also an identity with a backstory.

from such a perspective it's easy to tell which is the true identity and the fake one. Is the person X behind the kanon identity+personality really a male fukuin children who always looked up to his sister Shannon back at the orphanage? if that never happened, then this is clearly a fake personality.

[Laserworm]

So when Rosa went to unlock the door, she just happened to turn it at the right angle in order to get it open? I guess that works.

Rosa kept unlocking and locking the door after the crime was found, seems like the door opens without trouble.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

in this case "personality" is strictly connected to "identity". Kanon isn't just a "personality" it's also an identity with a backstory.

from such a perspective it's easy to tell which is the true identity and the fake one. Is the person X behind the kanon identity+personality really a male fukuin children who always looked up to his sister Shannon back at the orphanage? if that never happened, then this is clearly a fake personality.

Hmm, tricky. How about...
By this reasoning, a person with amnesia has a fake personality, even if they don't have any personality other than that one.

Originally Posted by Judoh

Is there a closet in Jessica's room? Becuase Rosa ordered everyone to look everywhere in the room for Kanon under the beds check the windows, etc.

So maybe it's possible for me to also say at the same time

Rosa is the only sibling that has no aversion to looking inside closets

According to the above evidence, Erika represents the abstract desire to look in closets. Therefore, Erika is Rosa.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

in this case "personality" is strictly connected to "identity". Kanon isn't just a "personality" it's also an identity with a backstory.

from such a perspective it's easy to tell which is the true identity and the fake one. Is the person X behind the kanon identity+personality really a male fukuin children who always looked up to his sister Shannon back at the orphanage? if that never happened, then this is clearly a fake personality.

I've been working on a theory where I think I can accept Shkanon it's not about personalities. It basically goes like this.

There is a person named Sayo or maybe one of the different servants like Manon or Reinon.

This person disguises as identities of real people namely Kanon and Shannon.

When Kanon died in Jessica's room. Cosplayer X's Kanon disguise was exposed. Jessica saw through the disguise before she was murdered. So Kanon (the disguise) technically died in that room.

That's all I've got. It's just something I've been thinking about. I have no explanation for episode 3. And personally I don't like it. But it was something I thought of without the Kanon is a fake person thing. He could be a real person who is off island for all we know.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

in this case "personality" is strictly connected to "identity". Kanon isn't just a "personality" it's also an identity with a backstory.

from such a perspective it's easy to tell which is the true identity and the fake one. Is the person X behind the kanon identity+personality really a male fukuin children who always looked up to his sister Shannon back at the orphanage? if that never happened, then this is clearly a fake personality.

Kinzo exists in Umineko only by the reconstructions of other people's opinion of what his personality was like. By this reasoning, if these impressions of Kinzo were false, the Kinzo we have been shown is in fact a fake personality.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Hmm, tricky. How about...
By this reasoning, a person with amnesia has a fake personality, even if they don't have any personality other than that one.



According to the above evidence, Erika represents the abstract desire to look in closets. Therefore, Erika is Rosa.

Remember, it's not just "personalities count". It's "pieces count". In the EP3 red text, Kanon and Shannon are referred to as pieces (since there is no human with those names). Pieces don't refer to a way a person thinks, they refer to a way a person acts. Sakutarou is Maria's piece, but he can't actually think, for example.

Another thing. This argument only applies to the last two reds of EP6. In all other cases (I think), just use Kanon/Shannon to refer to the human Sayo and it works out.

Edit: The first twilight of EP3 doesn't say "five people were killed", it says "these five were killed", so it isn't referring to humans in Shannon and Kanon's case. ...With this theory, at least.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Remember, it's not just "personalities count". It's "pieces count". In the EP3 red text, Kanon and Shannon are referred to as pieces (since there is no human with those names). Pieces don't refer to a way a person thinks, they refer to a way a person acts. Sakutarou is Maria's piece, but he can't actually think, for example.

Sakutarou is a piece? So then he adds to the count since he's in ep6, or...?

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Renall

Sakutarou is a piece? So then he adds to the count since he's in ep6, or...?

In EP6, Featherinne points out that Sakutaro is Maria's piece. However, Sakutaro is only a piece on Maria's "game board", not on the Umineko game board. In other words, Sakutaro "exists" for Maria, but not for meta-Battler.

Featherinne makes it clear that each person has their own personal game boards, and "the game" only takes place on one of these. The question then becomes "whose game board are we watching the game play out on?" It's hard to tell, but my guess is that it belongs to the players of the game.


Also, let me try to expand a bit on the theory. Not so sure about this part yet, so bear with me, but I think it might explain EP6 better.

Because of the "first rule of magic", a piece only exists if all witnesses claim that it exists. That's why no one can ever "witness" the characters in Ange's mental world (her game board).

So, when meta-Beatrice admits that Kinzo is dead, his piece is removed from the Uminko game board. Once she admits that Kinzo was a fake, the "piece" is only a lie that no one believes in, which means that it no longer exists on the game board. What if the same happens in EP6? Shannon and Kanon were separate pieces until that last red text removed them (or at least one of them) from the board.

[Shiro Kaisen]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Edit: The first twilight of EP3 doesn't say "five people were killed", it says "these five were killed", so it isn't referring to humans in Shannon and Kanon's case. ...With this theory, at least.

6 people: Kinzo, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, and Kumasawa are dead!

It clearly says "people." I'm not really sure that playing with semantics until "people" means pieces is really valid. Knox's 8th. Was it ever implied, ever, that the word "person" doesn't refer to a human being? I have a very hard time accepting the assertion that just because Kanon is a piece on the board, he can be an "alternate personality" and still count as a person...

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kaisen

6 people: Kinzo, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, and Kumasawa are dead!

It clearly says "people." I'm not really sure that playing with semantics until "people" means pieces is really valid. Knox's 8th. Was it ever implied, ever, that the word "person" doesn't refer to a human being? I have a very hard time accepting the assertion that just because Kanon is a piece on the board, he can be an "alternate personality" and still count as a person...

The Japanese version is a little more vague on that point. It uses a grammatical device called a "counter" that is used to count the number of something, people in this case, but that counter doesn't necessarily have to refer to actual humans.

And yes, it was implied that there are "people" seen in the game that aren't human beings. The whole section about Ange summoning the seven stakes, for example, and saying that they "might exist for someone else".

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

The Japanese version is a little more vague on that point. It uses a grammatical device called a "counter" that is used to count the number of something, people in this case, but that counter doesn't necessarily have to refer to actual humans.

And yes, it was implied that there are "people" seen in the game that aren't human beings. The whole section about Ange summoning the seven stakes, for example, and saying that they "might exist for someone else".

it was also implied people can beleive a person exists and that even though a everyone's internal game board changes there isn't actually an extra piece that counts. Episode 2 Kyrie says she sees the person in the painting and the narration says something like: "you could almost hear the pieces on Natsuhi's mental gameboard switching around in her head" or something like that.

But Beatrice doesn't have to really be there. On the contrary. Rudolf says he wants to go meet her at her room before the cousins leave. Whose to say they didn't come upon an empty room just like Jessica?

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

And yes, it was implied that there are "people" seen in the game that aren't human beings. The whole section about Ange summoning the seven stakes, for example, and saying that they "might exist for someone else".

I don't see how this implies or proves anything.

You keep going back to Ange and the Stakes to prove your theory, yet I still don't see anything of any importance in those sequences outside of simple character development.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

I don't see how this implies or proves anything.

You keep going back to Ange and the Stakes to prove your theory, yet I still don't see anything of any importance in those sequences outside of simple character development.

Then you aren't seeing much. I suggest you go back and read the whole thing again. It's long, and too much of it doesn't make sense for just character development. After all, grown up Ange isn't actually a character that affects the game. Unless you can think up some way that the character development is significant, then there must be another reason.

[Shiro Kaisen]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

The Japanese version is a little more vague on that point. It uses a grammatical device called a "counter" that is used to count the number of something, people in this case, but that counter doesn't necessarily have to refer to actual humans.

And yes, it was implied that there are "people" seen in the game that aren't human beings. The whole section about Ange summoning the seven stakes, for example, and saying that they "might exist".

Yeah, I know how counters work. 人　always refers to human beings though. I've never seen an instance of it not being literal human beings.

And whether or not the seven stakes "exist" or not, they are still never referred to as "humans." Ange doesn't say that the Seven Stakes "might be human." None of the magical beings are referred to as "human." That's the distinction--Gaap, Virgilia, the Stakes, Piece-Beato in 5, they're all pieces on the board but they don't count towards the human total because they're magical beings. That point about the stakes doesn't really imply anything.