[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Koi]

if not, she'll definitely be in her mid-30...

regarding the red paint, either the culprit want to frame Beatrice that much, or Maria drew it as 'Beatrice's order'. in Natsuhi's room, he/she can know whether the amulet is there or not if he/she have master key. But if that is so, then the culprit must know about the amulet, possibly one of the cousins AND Shannon, since Maria told them at the beach...
In Eva's murder, all that was possible if, one, he/she have the key and hid in the room with the paint hidden in the closet. after Kanon and Genji left, he/she can paint the door, and return to hide. the room was not searched, right? when the people there left, he/she used that chance to leave too, and head to the boiler room. There's never said if shortcut or another way existed, or he/she must passed the group or not.=p

[Kaiba]

Was anything about Beatrice's game simple? nothing was, Beatrice even twisted the red to assume Battler wasn't even allowed to play anymore.
She used red to show that Battler wasn't worthy of playing the game. Because of that I don't find any reason to hold back.

So you think it's alright to create any theory you like and twist the red as much as you like in order to make the story fit. That's bullcrap. As I've said again and again, I can use that logic to create a theory that rampaging grizzly bears are the culprit, and I can probably do it given enough twisting of the red, but that's ridiculous.
And there's a huge difference between making assumptions that are not directly substantiated by the red (say the chapel: if the answer to that puzzle is "it was never locked" than that's not twisting the red as Beatrice never used the red to say the door was locked in the first place) and directly twisting the red in and of itself.

Also, can you explain how your Beato gets around the no more than 17 rule?

[Koi]

no more than 17?
17, or 16?
I heard that Erika is the 17th person... so there're 16 people there?
Is it possible someone died at the beginning? before the 6 people murders? since those are considered the start of every game, right?

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

So you think it's alright to create any theory you like and twist the red as much as you like in order to make the story fit. That's bullcrap. As I've said again and again, I can use that logic to create a theory that rampaging grizzly bears are the culprit, and I can probably do it given enough twisting of the red, but that's ridiculous.
And there's a huge difference between making assumptions that are not directly substantiated by the red (say the chapel: if the answer to that puzzle is "it was never locked" than that's not twisting the red as Beatrice never used the red to say the door was locked in the first place) and directly twisting the red in and of itself.

Also, can you explain how your Beato gets around the no more than 17 rule?

He can make any theory he wants, regardless of whether it convinces you or not. Get off his back.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Koi

no more than 17?
17, or 16?
I heard that Erika is the 17th person... so there're 16 people there?
Is it possible someone died at the beginning? before the 6 people murders? since those are considered the start of every game, right?

Sixteen is also the number of pieces per side to a chessboard.

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Sixteen is also the number of pieces per side to a chessboard.

I've always thought that if you consider the fact that one of the 17 human pieces is the culprit, you already have 16 on the human side without having to have anybody dead/with multiple personalities.

[Marion]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

50-12=38 38-19=19
Add on a few years for the "around" part and it's possible even by your reckoning. Or are you really going to fight over a couple years using a Ryuukishi tachi-e?

And even if the ages didn't match up exactly, there's still the chance that Nanjo's granddaughter really did come from the Fukuin House. We know that the child from 19 years ago exists, and we know that it survived. The only people who could possibly have had anything to do with that are Nanjo, Kumasawa, and Genji. Unless someone took that child in, how did it survive? Of course, it's also very possible the child died and someone who knew the truth fooled Natsuhi. But if it did survive, there's only a very small number of people it could have grown up to be.

A little late here, but how do you suggest a child fell off a cliff that is around 10 meters high (which is roughly 32 feet) and survived. A baby for that matter. Sorry, but this is pretty much against the laws of physics and the human body. Unless his granddaughter is like Superman or something there is no way she could have survived.

And I still think the idea of Nanjo just giving away his own granddaughter to Kinzo is a bit far-fetched.

[Kylon99]

Hello,

I've read this thread since the days of when it only had 30 or so pages but I've never really posted here. I have my own theory to present and I wished I'd presented it earlier and not waited until EP6 gave me some blatant evidence. 8)

To some degree, I don't think this stuff is entirely knew, but it does form a bit of a Unifying Theory. I hope it will be useful at least. And it will be very, very long... my apologies. 8)

Spoiler for Theory spoils EP6 so watch out:

Ever since EP3 or so, I've been wanting to 'pierce' the meta world. In other words, find some explanation that, it too, isn't true; that there exists a real world theory. This theory is the result of that desire.


But it might be best to show how I arrived at this theory...

If you will, here's my theory on the red/blue/gold text as this will be important later. Each text color corresponds to Lambda's, Bernkastel's and Beatrice's power. The way the text can be presented also corresponds with what we've been told is their power.

Lambda - Witch of Certainty: Therefore her red text is absolute and cannot be denied once it's been presented. Perhaps this one is the most obvious.

Bernkastel - Witch of Mircales: Her power is to constantly try again and again and eventually succeed. We've been told this in EP6. The blue text, once presented can become reality, as this is how the game is fought. Unless it's denied it can stand true. However, if it's been denied you can try, try again.

Beatrice - Endless Witch: This one is perhaps the hardest one to see. We've been told her power has the ability to trap Bernkastel because no matter how you present the blue, she can shift the story around. Bernkastel said the game was like a maze with shifting walls. What this means for the gold text is that once the game is set up, you can declare 'truths' like Battler did but it's only relevant for this episode. The gold has been said to be the gamemaster's privilege; it's what went on in this episode.

Finally, it was said that Beatrice's Endless shifting can be defeated by Lambda's Certainty, like all three form a rock-paper-scissors trio. Well, no matter how you shift the game around Lambda can present red truth and pin you down. For example: "This is Kinzo's body!" in one game.. "This is not Kinzo's body!" and so on. However once the red has been presented, "Who cares, Kinzo was already dead," your shifting around has no meaning any more to whether Kinzo was in the study or sneaking around, etc. You can arrive at the truth with the red despite the gold.


Ok...

It was because of this power of the red that I started to question how to read the red. Like most of us, I believe it would be cheap for Ryukishi to get around the red by doing things like, "Nanjo is dead, but I really mean Nanjo Bunyu." At the same time a lot of us were unsure that whether the red text specified one game or all games. For example, All of the master keys were under Rosa's control! or Rudolf is dead. Or whether they specified a certain time, or no time, etc, etc.

However, I felt this was cheap too, if they could be made to say that they were ALL only specific for one game. But here is the problem:
In EP5, Battler's huge linchpin to declaring that he wasn't the detective was that, No person would mistake Ushiromiya Kinzo by sight. But this was declared in EP4. So we have an example of a red truth that jumped episodes. What other red truths have jumped episodes? After going back to review the red text it's clear that some can and yet some are specific to episodes. It seemed that unless the red text was given context by red or white text it has the ability to hold for all episodes. So things like, "Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa are not murderers," I now suspect hold true in all episodes.

Aha, but the most troubling red seemed to me to be, No more than 17 humans exist on this island!! in conjunction with This applies to all games!!! And yet in EP5, we were told that, "Ok there were 18 now." Or so I thought I had remembered. But if we look carefully at the red introducing Erika:
Furudo Erika only increases it by one person.
Besides her, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games.
In other words, the number of people in this parlor now is equal to the total number of people on this island.

I thought this was suspicious how the red kinda dodged around and didn't outright say, "Ok, there are 18 now." It seemed like it was still trying to hold to the number 17. So when the ending to EP6 hit I wasn't really surprised. 8)


Anyways, all these ideas of the red truth led me to one meta-world piercing theory that was suddenly validated, I thought, by a scene in EP6.

Based on previous games I believed that the structure of the world was like this:
Ryu and us --> Meta world (Battler, Beatrice, Lambda, Bern) --> Gameboard (what we thought of as the 'REAL' Rokkenjima)

My problem was this: If this is 'real' Rokkenjima... how can they keep coming back alive? Furthermore, we knew from EP5 that the stories conform to Knox rules... since when does 'reality' conform to Knox rules?

So my idea was that these were all writings from the message bottle... (and that Shannon was the writer since there's a hint in that scene where Kinzo told Shannon to write down his will.) But at the same time that seemed like a crazy idea because then "Everything would be fake!" This would just be as bad as if Ryu ended the story with, "And it was all a dream..."

What happened in EP6 to trigger it was this:
At the beginning we were shown that Featherine AND/OR Hachijou Tooya (the author) were observing the meta world. So it seemed like the layers were this:
Ryu -> Hachijou or Featherine -> Metaworld -> Rokkenjima board

However, Moemoe Beatrice (the cute one--who I will now refer to as Moetrice) needed to visit Featherine's study to read up on older episodes, which Featherine had supposedly written. Since when do written characters visit their authors' study? Not to mention Erika who already violated the Piece vs. Meta world by seemingly acting with Meta-world Knoweldge, in both episodes. It seemed like the layers turned into this:
Ryu --> One huge jumble of meaningless story.

I don't think Ryukishi would write a meaningless story. And I certainly don't believe Ryu collapsed these layers without purpose. So what is the compromise?



My theory is that the layers after EP6 are like this:
Ryu --> Hachijou + Mysterious writer of EP1/2 --> Meta-world and Rokkenjima story.

The reason these stories are not just "all made up!" are exactly as Hachijou said. Each writer must know the Core Truth before being able to write a valid Rokkenjima story. And that each episode, 1-6 was written with Core Truth in mind. This is how they can conform to Knox rules. Each episode presents a spin on the events of the day and yet also presents some Core Truth. Like Hachijou/Featherine said she researched some things about Kyrie's pregnancy (I believe it was that) and inserted it into the story.

My basis of this theory is an analog to the Historical Method. For example suppose there were only two biographies of Caesar, written 150 years after his death and all we have are copies of these biographies. Historians don't go, "Oh, we have no primary source, it's all fake!" They indicate that these copies point to two original biographies, which in turn point to the original Caesar. Sure, there are some exaggerations and we can't ever know the absolute truth, but the idea that they were made in the first place is in indicator that Caesar was alive and he did conquer.

In the same way, EP1-6 are just like secondary and tertiary sources. The Core Truth they present all point back to some primary source. This isn't the Historical Method exactly since that doesn't apply to fiction, but it should be similar in methodology.

My theory is that the Core Truth is the settings, the particulars, the reason why everything occurred; everything we've been searching for. The rest is what I called Author's Flavor. Incidentally, what *really* happened on Rokkenjima? Did Natsuhi run around with the kids waving a gun in the air? We may never know. But perhaps the reasons why she did, if she did, were more important (which may have been presented in EP5.)

Here's an example of Core Truth:
Kinzo is dead at the starting time for all games.
Here's an example of Author's Flavor:
This is Kinzo's body. In other words.. sometimes his charred corpse is his body.. sometimes it's not burned.

In other words; and this is why I presented my theory about the red before... Red reaches right into the Core Truth. Gold is this particular author's take on the story.


Ultimately our strategies haven't changed. Red truth is still what we're looking after. We know the author is obeying Knox rules so detective viewpoint is important. We know that the lies are also important because they seem to hide some horrible truth. But I gotta say, coming up with this theory kept us from going, "WTF? It's all going crazy!" in EP6.


Here are some more thoughts to consider.

1. Featherine is Hachjou's self-insertion character. Yes, she's writing a self-insertion fan-fic. Let's hope she doesn't turn out to be a Mary Sue. 8)

2. This explains Erika's existence and non-existence on the game board. As it says in the TIPS when you execute Erika, her family claims there was a chance she would've drifted ashore and gotten involved in Rokkenjima, but that there was nothing to indicate her existence there. The writers of the mysterious messages used this theory to add to the 'illusion,' so say the TIPS. http://umineco.info/?%E7%AC%AC%E5%85.../TIPS#yc88f1ea

3. Shannon and Kanon's unstable existence is a hint, perhaps that they were never even there on the day of the massacre. The ones we see are fictional characters written into the story. In fact, there's red that says that no one has different names, which means Sayo and Yoshiya could be different people entirely. It could be those were the people George and Jessica were dating outside of Rokkenjima and they were written into the story as fictional characters!

4. Even though this the episodes are so-called 'fake', I believe Ryukishi really did have all the tricks thought up beforehand. I think he will tell us how they were done eventually, but this is a different story than finding the Core Truth. Sorta like, how the Epitaph was solved isn't integral... but he'll tell us eventually.

What else is there? I have a ton more to say, but I fear this message is getting quite long already. I'll leave that up to everyone else...

[ErenselTheJester]

I know I might be asking alot, but I must request a replay of the first three murders of the First Game. I will request more, but I need to make a deep analysis on the situation.

[Arachanox]

Your entire post was wonderful, and I think you are approaching a solid grasp of the structure of the story. I have no problems with it and I think it's entirely plausible. I want to talk about the single point below, however.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Spoiler for Theory spoils EP6 so watch out:

3. Shannon and Kanon's unstable existence is a hint, perhaps that they were never even there on the day of the massacre. The ones we see are fictional characters written into the story. In fact, there's red that says that no one has different names, which means Sayo and Yoshiya could be different people entirely. It could be those were the people George and Jessica were dating outside of Rokkenjima and they were written into the story as fictional characters!

I like this idea, because of the absurdity of it. You could suggest that we have developed the Shkannon theory out of the community's collective genius, only to have that Ryukishi was quietly pushing us along that train of thought to come to that conclusion. When he adds more and more subtle clues which seem to help the Shkannon theory's validity, he is in fact pushing us along a dead end path which we believe to be right.

If neither Kanon nor Shannon exist, this would certainly bring down our count of people to

Spoiler for EP6?:

15, as 18 - 3 (Kinzo, Kanon, Shannon). However, since there has to be 17 people, that means that even with Erika the possibility of Person X reappears. I don't exactly like that, but it would be an interesting twist.

[Tyabann]

Battler saw them (only one at a time, mind you, but still) back when his viewpoint was reliable. They're probably not fictional.

[Arachanox]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Battler saw them (only one at a time, mind you, but still) back when his viewpoint was reliable. They're probably not fictional.

Spoiler for blah blah:

At least, they are not both fictional. One can be imaginary under the Shkannon Theory.

Also, a question for Kylon99:

Spoiler for Kylon's theory:

I'm not sure if you meant this, but after I read it I got this out of it: Are you saying that Battler's viewpoint is a part of the Core Truth? Isn't it said that Featherinne observed the game through Battler's viewpoint until EP6 when he became game master? That would imply that Battler's viewpoint is truly and undeniably 'red truth fact' (except for the first part of EP5).

Furthermore, when replaying EP4 I just noticed something:

Spoiler for EP4:

Beatrice says in red: "I am the Golden Witch, Beatrice. And I opened this game in order to fight..."

How could Battler possibly fight against her being a witch? She just declared it in red.

edit: Unless you consider it a title. Which would explain it, but is kind of lame. Because then that leaves the possibility for other people to have titles like Kinzo and Kanon in some people's theories...

[TTR]

Oh, I guess I'm a little late to the party, but has the baby from 19 years ago been explained any further? I still personally still believe it was another Beatrice!

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Arachanox

Spoiler for blah blah:

At least, they are not both fictional. One can be imaginary under the Shkannon Theory.

Spoiler for EP6 Spoilers... even if there aren't, just in case.:

I don't subscribe to the Shkannon Theory either. And I find it hard to believe that one of them has been fake all along, but I do admit the Shkannon Theory ends up showing how Kanon seems to have gone under Battler's radar all this time... but... I'm suspicious still that Ryukishi is pushing us in this direction. You just know he's going to yell "psyke!" later... 8)

But yah, I was thinking more that either is a fictional character rather than both.

I get the feeling this is the primary reason why Kanon disappeared from the closet, but I still can't figure that one out... does anyone have any ideas?

Originally Posted by Arachanox

Also, a question for Kylon99:

Spoiler for Kylon's theory:

I'm not sure if you meant this, but after I read it I got this out of it: Are you saying that Battler's viewpoint is a part of the Core Truth? Isn't it said that Featherinne observed the game through Battler's viewpoint until EP6 when he became game master? That would imply that Battler's viewpoint is truly and undeniably 'red truth fact' (except for the first part of EP5).

Spoiler for EP6 Spoilers for sure this time:

I missed that bit about Featherine doing that. Or I mean I missed the implications of it. But I'm not thinking it's 100% Core Truth.

I'm thinking that it will discover truth of both kinds. It could be only that episode's truth (Kinzo was burned to death this episode!) or it could be the Core Truth (Kinzo was never alive to begin with!). But of course the detective viewpoint of Battler isn't really a real Battler going around observing; it's what the author is showing the detective and thus the readers of the story...

Originally Posted by Arachanox

Furthermore, when replaying EP4 I just noticed something:

Spoiler for EP4:

Beatrice says in red: "I am the Golden Witch, Beatrice. And I opened this game in order to fight..."

How could Battler possibly fight against her being a witch? She just declared it in red.

edit: Unless you consider it a title. Which would explain it, but is kind of lame. Because then that leaves the possibility for other people to have titles like Kinzo and Kanon in some people's theories...

Spoiler for Extreme Spoilers for EP6:

I think it's that 'this game' may not necessarily be proving that Beatrice is not a witch but proving that she is not the entity going around committing the murders.

That is pretty interesting though. I think that red was to prove to us that Beatrice 'existed' in a form prior to the opening of the game. We have verification of this in EP6 with the Older Beatrice being the makeup of the rumors and the pranks from up to 2 years before the events.

I think we have further confirmation with what Moetrice remembered finally about that 'other' person making up a Beatrice for Battler to love. She seems to have conveniently forgotten about letting him feel up her breasts though...

By the way, I might have forgotten to say this, but I think the implication is that Mystery Writer is someone who is pretending to be Beatrice for Battler's sake. So the red does kinda make sense... the game of course is the mystery fiction, I think.

[great]

I'm seeing a lot of posts - around the net - saying that this is the end of Umineko franchise. Is there any truth to this?

Also, I've been lead to believe that :

Spoiler for ending ep6? (possibly):

means that :

Spoiler for ending ep6? (possibly):

the end of Umineko ep6 is more or less "Battler and Beato lived happily ever after"

Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks in advance.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by great

*snip*

Spoiler for Ep6:

As I understand it, it's the same kind of troll ending as Ep4 and Ep5... setting up a false ending before the ???? ruins (or fixes) everything. I fully expect Ep7 to do the same.

So no, Ep6 isn't the end of the franchise.

[great]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Spoiler for Ep6:

As I understand it, it's the same kind of troll ending as Ep4 and Ep5... setting up a false ending before the ???? ruins (or fixes) everything. I fully expect Ep7 to do the same.

So no, Ep6 isn't the end of the franchise.

So that screenshot is part of yet another troll ending? :x

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by great

So that screenshot is part of yet another troll ending? :x

Spoiler for Ep6:

It's BATTLER and Moetrice's situation at the end of the first tea party, as far as I know.

It's Bern and the ???? that screw everything up like always, yeah.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by great

So that screenshot is part of yet another troll ending? :x

Spoiler:

It's a troll ending in the sense that things will get complicated later. You see, all was fine and dandy during the Tea Party, but then we get to the ??? Tea Party, Bern shows up and meets with someone, and we're basically told EP7 will be a rough ride for Battler and Beatrice.

The screenshot you posted was part of the Tea Party.

[great]

Originally Posted by Used Can

Spoiler:

It's a troll ending in the sense that things will get complicated later. You see, all was fine and dandy during the Tea Party, but then we get to the ??? Tea Party, Bern shows up and meets with someone, and we're basically told EP7 will be a rough ride for Battler and Beatrice.

The screenshot you posted was part of the Tea Party.

Spoiler:

Am I correct to assume that Beatrice shown in that Tea Party / Screenshot is not the same as ep 1 ~ 5 Beatrice? I realize I'm more or less spoiling a critical part of the game for myself if you answer, but I highly doubt I have the will power to wait until translation is released in full.