[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I don't really understand. It seems to me like you've just added an arbitrary restriction that personalities can't be destroyed for some reason. If we're entertaining different models, why can't we have one where they can?

What's the difference between a 'destroyed' personality and a personality that is never used again?

You can't KILL ideas. You can't DESTROY concepts. A thought cannot cease to exist.

Even if Shannon or Kanon ever take control of the body until Yasu dies, the possibility still exists that they COULD, Yasu only has to choose to let them. So long as Yasu lives, they are all technically alive. It's more like going to sleep, and it's indeed what it's usually compared to in REAL Multiple Personality Syndrome.

[Asuka0NK]

See this is what I don't like about Yasu. The fact that people think she has MPD or DID whatever you want to call it but I personally do not believe that at all. I actually think that Yasu is just a very good actress. I think that she just gets into character very well. Like a dumb example of what I'm talking about is let's say Roger from American Dad. Roger has several characters and gives them there own stories and actually plays the roll of the characters. So this is what I believe Yasu does. If this is a mental disorder I have no idea what it's called.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Asuka0NK

See this is what I don't like about Yasu. The fact that people think she has MPD or DID whatever you want to call it but I personally do not believe that at all. I actually think that Yasu is just a very good actress. I think that she just gets into character very well.

welcome to animesuki forums. a lot of us share your opinion here.

[Kealym]

Hm. I agree with LyricalAura. I think, in Umineko's conceit about how these things "work", when Shannon or Kanon is claimed to be dead, we can pretty much consider them destroyed forever, and unable to use the body again.

The only kerfuffle present is the "zombie Shkanon" that occurs in Banquet. (Am I using that right? When the body is doing things with no readily identified personality available to do them?) And I'd more readily put that down to a fault in Ryu's writing than a fault in the idea behind it.


I also thought we were all in mass agreement that Yasu totally does not at all have some kind of MPD.

[Asuka0NK]

Originally Posted by Judoh

welcome to animesuki forums. a lot of us share your opinion here.

And this is what I love about this place I don't have a bunch of annoying people shoving there ideas down my throat and telling me everything I think is wrong.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Aberrant psychology should not be used as a basis for a statement of truth.

Objective truth, maybe, but I'd say red is supposed to conform to Beatrice's subjective reality, which is likely pretty... warped.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I'm a bit curious now. What is the Love Duel about under KnownNoMore's theory?

Instead of it being an irreconcilable issue between the different aspects of ShKanonTrice, it's an irreconcilable issue between the viability of Beatrice-Battler, George-Shannon, and Jessica-Kanon. Beatrice-Battler requires everyone dying, since that's Rosa's goal. George-Shannon requires everyone BUT the two of them dying, since that's George's goal. Jessica-Kanon requires the two of them not dying, which is incompatible with either of the others' goals.

It's pretty bad IMO. It pretty much ignores Battler's and Shannon's say in what their partner does to fulfill their love. Also, although KNM accounts for Beatrice not having a real chance at winning being because her victory includes her own suicide, he doesn't really account for why the duel is between Shannon and Kanon- why would they be the belligerents?- like, why would Kanon have a need to metaphorically or actually destroy Shannon? The instigators of the whole problem are Rosa and George!

ShKanonTrice is by far the better interpretation for the love duel. Even KNM would probably admit so.

Originally Posted by Asuka0NK

ShKanon is a deception by RK07, to fool everyone except those who can see through it.

This is one of the things that just makes him sound so coincided

It's true, though. Then again, if he weren't so bold he wouldn't get as much attention.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

What's the difference between a 'destroyed' personality and a personality that is never used again?

You can't KILL ideas. You can't DESTROY concepts.

You can according to various philosophical discussions by characters throughout Umineko.

Originally Posted by Asuka0NK

See this is what I don't like about Yasu. The fact that people think she has MPD or DID whatever you want to call it but I personally do not believe that at all. I actually think that Yasu is just a very good actress. I think that she just gets into character very well. Like a dumb example of what I'm talking about is let's say Roger from American Dad. Roger has several characters and gives them there own stories and actually plays the roll of the characters. So this is what I believe Yasu does. If this is a mental disorder I have no idea what it's called.

Sure, no one here thinks of Yasu having DID, but that's not really the issue, anyway. Whatever you call it, we still have a single body constituting multiple people; and the way these "people" necessarily must interact with each other in order to be consistent with various reds is, at least according to some people here, impossible by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally Posted by Kealym

The only kerfuffle present is the "zombie Shkanon" that occurs in Banquet. (Am I using that right? When the body is doing things with no readily identified personality available to do them?) And I'd more readily put that down to a fault in Ryu's writing than a fault in the idea behind it.

I never considered the resurrections to be complete in the first place. The Shannon and Kanon we saw at the end of EP3 were like... shadows? echoes? It's "finite magic", like how Virgilias could repair the broken vase, but only temporarily: They might appear to be alive, but they're really already dead.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I never considered the resurrections to be complete in the first place. The Shannon and Kanon we saw at the end of EP3 were like... shadows? echoes? It's "finite magic", like how Virgilias could repair the broken vase, but only temporarily: They might appear to be alive, but they're really already dead.

Yes, I totally agree. I was moreso referring to the presence of the stakes on Kyrolf, Hideyoshi, and Kratsuhi, which basically throw the "what was REALLY going on" of Banquet into, at best ... a murky, murky place.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Hm. I agree with LyricalAura. I think, in Umineko's conceit about how these things "work", when Shannon or Kanon is claimed to be dead, we can pretty much consider them destroyed forever, and unable to use the body again.

The only kerfuffle present is the "zombie Shkanon" that occurs in Banquet. (Am I using that right? When the body is doing things with no readily identified personality available to do them?) And I'd more readily put that down to a fault in Ryu's writing than a fault in the idea behind it.

It isn't even really a problem. Beatrice can dress up like Shannon or mimic Kanon's voice without actually becoming them. Renall wouldn't even be batting an eye if it were, say, twin sisters mimicking each other. I don't see any reason to believe in some cheating resurrection when there's a perfectly acceptable alternate solution that's consistent with the story themes.

Originally Posted by Kealym

I also thought we were all in mass agreement that Yasu totally does not at all have some kind of MPD.

Yes. It's really a nuisance that we can't talk about Shannon and Kanon without ending up using terms like "personality" when they're totally inaccurate. As far as I'm concerned, the author just decided to reify her personal problems as three people who share a body on her game board and fight each other. It's a literary condition, like Gregor Samson turning into a cockroach.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Yes, I totally agree. I was moreso referring to the presence of the stakes on Kyrolf, Hideyoshi, and Kratsuhi, which basically throw the "what was REALLY going on" of Banquet into, at best ... a murky, murky place.

One red that a lot of people forget about is that Kyrie never did anything to suggest that she wasn't going to the mansion for food right up until the moment she died. It basically proves that she never got to the point of revealing her suspicions, so there was never any way for a firefight to start for the 4th-6th twilights unless Beatrice was the one who started it. So I got to thinking, what if Eva actually didn't kill anyone besides Battler? You can explain all of the stakes easily if Beatrice was the one committing the murders.

If Eva was chosen as the bribed/threatened sibling this game, then she could have been deliberately lured into having no alibi for Rosa's murder despite never actually leaving her room. Then for 7-8, Beatrice could have spiked the coffee with Rosa's missing sedatives so that the already-exhausted survivors would fall asleep, and she could strangle Krauss and Natsuhi and drag them away at leisure.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

One red that a lot of people forget about is that Kyrie never did anything to suggest that she wasn't going to the mansion for food right up until the moment she died.

It was translated as Until the last instant before she died, Kyrie preserved her pattern of behavior which states 'not going to get food=not going to the mansion', which is fairly confusing.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Yes. It's really a nuisance that we can't talk about Shannon and Kanon without ending up using terms like "personality" when they're totally inaccurate. As far as I'm concerned, the author just decided to reify her personal problems as three people who share a body on her game board and fight each other. It's a literary condition, like Gregor Samson turning into a cockroach.

It's Ryukishi's fault for suggesting a solution which requires him to stoop to absurdities. If that isn't what he meant to do, he screwed up in communicating the matter properly. I would agree that literary conceits and/or a single actor are the most sensible explanations, it's just the stumbling block of one silly set of reds (and some odd interview answers) that create the appearance that Ryukishi meant something with more a more awkward technical explanation. A technical explanation which does not, and cannot, actually work.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

You can according to various philosophical discussions by characters throughout Umineko.

I would add to this that Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice, to me, are less ideas - and of course not personalities - but rather "an emotional state of being fashioned in different appearances". What "killing" them basically means is that this emotion or emotional goal has no longer any bearing on the game. Be it by Yasu's own decision or an outside force.
When she decides that her love for Battler (and thus a more overarching spiritual connection) is more important than her relationship with George (and fulfilling the concept of a classical girl) or her feelings towards Jessica (and being a rather typical example of a boy) she tosses those longings aside and any action towards those becomes meaningless. This doesn't mean that she can't act in a fashion that would indicate her return to such a state of mind and thus be interpreted by an outside observer as her being "that person again", but that does not mean that she is any longer actively pursuing this idea...which is why Kanon is the witches furniture in EP2 and nothing more than a ghost summoned by the witch in EP3.

It's basically likening the act of abandoning a goal to killing a part of yourself.
And this is possible to portray in Umineko as killing somebody because it has been established long and excessively that everybody carries different personas within that are used depending on the circumstance. Like Nice-Mama and Possessed-Mama or Kinzô and Goldsmith or Nice Daughter Jessica and School Jessica. Had they not the same appearance they would appear as completely different people to an outside observer and one suddenly disappearing would be
as if that one person suddenly died.

I still think, and I will stay by that position, that people are still trying too hard to actually push the idea of Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice appearing as different people on the island forward.
The only people still alive who were on the island that day are a wheelchair-bound insomniac who talks in riddles and a crazy old lady who refuses to talk. Ange would probably not even remember two servants that she met 1, 2 times a year for 2 days between 1 and 5 years old.

[Drifloon]

Yeah, I think Ryukishi screwed up with that ONE red, the "6 people: Shannon, Kanon, Genji, Kumasawa, Gohda, and Kinzo are dead!" one. Every other red in the game can be interpreted without resorting to multiple personalities - you can say that "Shannon is dead" means that Yasu's feelings for George are dead, and so on. But that one red actually defines Shannon and Kanon as "people", which really bugs me. It seems like Ryukishi wanted to let people decide their own interpretation of Yasu, but this one red really restricts it, and it's not even NECESSARY to define them as six people to make that red actually work in the context. I have no idea why he did it, and I think a lot of people would be happier with the resolution if this one red was just worded differently.

[LyricalAura]

I have to wonder whether Japanese readers really had the same gripe about it, because it looks like a translation issue to me. The word that was translated as "people" is a somewhat broader category in Japanese that includes a variety of things that are sufficiently person-ish.

Something similar happens in English with the word "men". I can say "There were six men in the room" and "The army was a million men strong", but the first one refers to males and the second one doesn't specify.

[Asuka0NK]

You know what I actually wonder if the whole reason we even question the true theory is because of translation. Maybe in Japan the actual story is written without all these confusing things. But I don't know if anyone can read japanese and actually say this is wrong which it most likely is.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I have to wonder whether Japanese readers really had the same gripe about it, because it looks like a translation issue to me. The word that was translated as "people" is a somewhat broader category in Japanese that includes a variety of things that are sufficiently person-ish.

Something similar happens in English with the word "men" in English. I can say "There were six men in the room" and "The army was a million men strong", but the first one refers to males and the second one doesn't specify.

Still I really wonder if everyone in Japan would recognize that the "人" counter can be validly used for "an emotional state of being fashioned in different appearances" as Haguruma suggested.

I think that in the end you still end up in a matter of philosophical interpretation that defies common sense.


Anyway I'm one of those who doesn't flat out dismiss the possibility that Yasu actually has a multiple personality disorder in R07's view.
Of course you can say: that's not how DID is supposed to work.
Yeah, no doubt about that but two things:

1) MPD or DID is a disorder that has always been contested and it still is. In other words it might not even exist as it is intended and in the ages its definition has been changed and manipulated dozen of times until it completely changed name. So in the end you might be arguig about the lack of realism in something that doesn't even exist in the first place. I mean... 30 years ago you would claim that MPD works in a way that it is now denied.

2) The fact that it's not how DID is supposed to work doesn't mean that it's not DID. You'd have a hard time convincing me that R07 wouldn't "do it wrong" or that he would bother with being absoluely realist or that he wouldn't make use of overused narrative gimmicks. After all in there is a wide narrative where MPD was used wrongly, why do you think R07 would be different?

[GuestSpeaker]

I would say if Shannon is never reactivated then she is dead. Ignoring that Ry7 once defined dead as unable to act even if they have not physically passed yet, even the death you describe is not permanent. Not only can we not say that people can't be revived in the future, but you can still meet the medical criteria for dead and be revived by resuscitation. Does this mean the person was never dead? Death by common definition is actually not always all that permanent.

But yes, I believe it more likely Ry7 sort of half made up a condition which does not exist, but can be inferred from his clues. I agree with the body definition of existing, and doesn't it just seem like a trick Beato would love? This isn't just fanboyism, this is because if I were Ry7 creating the reds, I would know that EXACTLY what they said would become a matter of vital importance to any reader who cared, and therefore the wording would be more important than a mistake in the white. I really just hope he gave it the thought it deserved.

I also agree that it isn't cheating for Beato to perfectly imitate kanon's voice (if this even happened at all let's not forget). If you were able to perfectly emulate someone's voice, it doesn't mean that you are them, even if you pretend to be.

[LaplaceNoMa]

I wonder if there's any possible way of going with Yasu=Shannon=Beatrice != Kanon approach. It would really cause problems with the love duel, but at least that ep3 red won't be contradicted that way.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I would add to this that Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice, to me, are less ideas - and of course not personalities - but rather "an emotional state of being fashioned in different appearances". What "killing" them basically means is that this emotion or emotional goal has no longer any bearing on the game. Be it by Yasu's own decision or an outside force.
When she decides that her love for Battler (and thus a more overarching spiritual connection) is more important than her relationship with George (and fulfilling the concept of a classical girl) or her feelings towards Jessica (and being a rather typical example of a boy) she tosses those longings aside and any action towards those becomes meaningless. This doesn't mean that she can't act in a fashion that would indicate her return to such a state of mind and thus be interpreted by an outside observer as her being "that person again", but that does not mean that she is any longer actively pursuing this idea...which is why Kanon is the witches furniture in EP2 and nothing more than a ghost summoned by the witch in EP3.

You understand how utterly ridiculous that is. "Oh, he's dead... but he can still appear, interact, and be blamed for things. He's just dead because I say so. You know, until I change my mind." Because apparently it is possible to change your mind and bring a character back for the shits of it, or to pose as them and act, behave, and think as them. But somehow still be "dead." And if you're going to tell me with a straight face that this is perfectly acceptable, I'm going to have to say you're behaving unreasonably.

...by the way, what the hell is up with that ep4 red about Kanon being the ninth victim? Victim of what? Who was in "Kyrie's group?" What was the point of that red at all? It seems designed to anchor the fantasy story around some real sequence of events, but it's entirely pointless to use Kanon's "death" as an anchor for anything because it can happen at an arbitrary time and place and be reversed at will.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I have to wonder whether Japanese readers really had the same gripe about it, because it looks like a translation issue to me. The word that was translated as "people" is a somewhat broader category in Japanese that includes a variety of things that are sufficiently person-ish.

Something similar happens in English with the word "men" in English. I can say "There were six men in the room" and "The army was a million men strong", but the first one refers to males and the second one doesn't specify.

The ideal translation in this circumstance would be to say "characters." "Character" is sufficiently vague as to potentially refer to the fact that they are physically dead people who happen to be characters in the story (which is true), but it could also suggest something like a fake murder game or even just a faked death in which the characters have been "killed."

This does open the door to the other First Twilight victims being alive, but it doesn't mean they have to be. You could put on a production of Julius Caesar where Caesar's actor is literally stabbed to death, but Brutus's actor dies a stage death. It would then be borderline acceptable to say Caesar and Brutus are dead. But you can't ever actually know which of the two is the case, so it would swing some doors wide open. That's just a consequence of the (supposedly intentional) imperfect definition.

It's still stupid, and Banquet would've been greatly improved without the red in it at all.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

I would say if Shannon is never reactivated then she is dead. Ignoring that Ry7 once defined dead as unable to act even if they have not physically passed yet, even the death you describe is not permanent. Not only can we not say that people can't be revived in the future, but you can still meet the medical criteria for dead and be revived by resuscitation. Does this mean the person was never dead? Death by common definition is actually not always all that permanent.

The main thing is that if you accept this, you accept that nobody died. You can no longer definitively call any death mentioned in red permanent, as it has no foundation and indeed the only conception of "death" we have in Umineko is fundamentally non-permanent. If you're okay with that, then by all means.

But if Shannon is never reactivated, she isn't actually dead until the point where she cannot be reactivated (i.e. the death of the host). "That is not dead which can eternal lie."

But yes, I believe it more likely Ry7 sort of half made up a condition which does not exist, but can be inferred from his clues. I agree with the body definition of existing, and doesn't it just seem like a trick Beato would love?

No, it doesn't. Because it would run entirely counter to her purposes to lie in red, and the only reason she'd even have to lie in red is so Ryukishi can deceive his audience, as it doesn't actually help her deceive Battler (who would've assumed the First Twilight victims were dead even if she didn't actually confirm it). It retroactively messes up her character if true.

[GreyZone]

Well the issue may be resolved, if we look at Nanjo's death in Banquet... If ShKanonTrice is really dead since the 1st twilight, then Battler's blue truth in EP4 would be right... Until today it was never disproved, that someone killed Nanjo and died afterwards for some reason and was then deemed "dead" by Eva-Beatrice's red truth. If Battler's blue is wrong, then it means ShKanonTrice must be alive.