[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Raiza Sunozaki]

I always thought the truth line went sort of like this:
"Without love, nothing can be seen."
"Without love, even the truth cannot be seen."
"Without love, magic cannot be seen."
"Without love, without sorrow, without anger, magic cannot be seen"

I think those are all the correct lines.
Just me wondering, but could this be the key Ryuukishi spoke of? If you look at the lines, with love, you can see both the truth and magic. Now we've known the first two lines since Episode 2, but if I remember correctly, we didn't get the line about love allowing magic to be seen until Episode 4, and we even get reinforcement of those lines in Episode 5. Maybe the point of it was to make the connection, like SeagullCrazy did earlier, that the fantasy scenes, approached with love so that you can acknowledge the truth in them, offer critical hints towards solving the mysteries.
I'm sure there are many people who have been doing this from the beginning, but it is true, then like Ryuukishi said, going back and applying the key (this concept) to fantasy scenes might offer the proper hints to solving Umineko.

And while I don't think it's neccessary, I think it would be very amusing to feature a Van Dine character in Umineko. Considering how much Ryuukishi seems to despise Dine's twenty rules he probably wouldn't have much to offer though.
I personally would rather see more demons out of the seventy-two, like maybe Baal or something. You know, the highest-ranked demon in Hell would make a pretty nice endboss for someone fighting against fantasy.

[ijriims]

Battler's fear, I don't think it was acrophobia (the fear of height).

It was more like aquaphobia (the fear of water, drowning) or dystychiphobia (the fear of accidents), possibly induced by cymophobia (the fear of wave-like motions).

George onced abvised him to go into the cabin, but he objected that most people died in shipwreck stayed inside the cabin. He yelled for parachute when he was on the plane.

So what he really feared were traffic accidents.

[ijriims]

And for the discussion of breaking the mirror and Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I don't think we need to think that deep into Christianity or biblical interpretation. It is no Neon Genesis Evangelion, I don't think Japanese readers need to know that much about Christanity to understand the symbolic meeting of breaking the mirror.

In short, I would suggest just treat breaking the mirror as doing something which shouldn't be done. Since the mirror was supposed to seal the evil spirit on Rokkenjima, breaking it is supposedly a wrong thing to do.

And for the purpose of doing so, well, I suppose someone was testing how much explosive was needed to completely eradicate the shrine, before this guy blowed up the mansion and its surrounding.

Recently I wonder if someone was enginneering Shannon to believe that she was the one responsible for the tragedy, capitalizing Shannon's shrift with Kanon (if Shkanon was true) and her naive belief in magic. You know, something like a plot in one of Agatha Christie's works

Spoiler for For those who have not read it yet:

ABC Murders

(and we know Ryu07 loves her works).

[J the Drafter]

You know, I've been tromping through the episodes again (albeit sporadically as of late) and I found something interesting during Ep 1's beach scene. Shannon is telling the cousins about the Beatrice ghost story and the strange incidents attributed to her. One of the instances she mentions is that of footsteps recently being heard around midnight. The fact is probably useless in isolation, but maybe it can help confirm something.

[Verg Avesta]

There has been one thing that has been bothering me, quite frankly, a lot in Episode 5, as that's what I've been playing through lately. And the thing that bothers me is that Hideyoshi is acting very, very aggressively. For example, every scene where the other parents are ganging up on Natsuhi, Hideyoshi literally takes the lead. This becomes especially apparent when Eva reveals the fact that she "sealed" Kinzo's room. It is actually Hideyoshi, not Eva, who explains what the seal means, and what it proves.

Now, there's other strange thing considering Hideyoshi. In the scene where Natsuhi is hiding in the closet, there's the gap of time which passes until Hideyoshi arrives. Now, when Eva arrives, she's clearly frantic, trying to get Hideyoshi out of the room. She even demands that his body is taken to the parlor. This could be explained very easily: The others have discovered the fact cousins + Genji + Rosa have been murdered for real (did they find their bodies in the place where they were supposed to hide?), and know there's a real killer amongst them. That is why Eva does not want to leave Hideyoshi alone, but instead wants him to be safe, somewhere where she can keep eye on him, so he would not be murdered like the others.

But here's the strange thing: If they discovered the others were dead with Hideyoshi with them, would Eva really have allowed Hideyoshi to lock himself in the room in the first place? I think not. One of the things that Eva is most obsessed about is her family's safety. Then there's the time, as Hideyoshi would have arrived far later if he had gone with others to check the bodies. But in that case...........why does he cry? How did he know about George's death? Or is he crying because of it at all?

[DaBackpack]

Haha, I was reading Episode 1 and stumbled upon an interesting quote from Battler:

Incredible. Also incredible are my parents who stuck that name on me, and the public official that accepted it... They are all at the top of my must-kill list.

So Battler planned it all
Battler planned the murders because he was angry at the way his parents named him. After all, Rudolf does die in the first twilight along with Kyrie. XD

On a serious note, I've been doing some serious thinking about Ep. 1. I think I'd like to give it a go at trying to piece together the "Whodunnit" and the "Howdunnit."

In this theory, the main culprits are Shannon and Kanon with at least Nanjo as an accomplice.

(Before I continue, I want to emphasize that the Red Text about "what kind of body doubles are allowed" confuses me. SO feel free to tear apart the theory )

Pre-game planning:
Shannon sets us up the bomb. Really, anyone could have done it, but she's suspicious in my eyes.
First Twilight:

Nothing really special here. Anyone without an alibi could have done this. For the sake of the argument, let's deem Kanon as the murderer, with Shannon's help. Shannon MAY or MAY NOT haved faked her death; in the long run, it doesn't matter too much. Nanjo gave a false diagnosis to Shannon because he's an accomplice.

Second Twilight:

Actually, I lied. If there were no body doubles, then this is going to be tough to explain. Let's assume Shannon is not really dead:
Shannon snuck into Eva and Hideyoshi's room and killed them. She then hid in the room and nobody suspected her.

Kanon's "Death":

This is where things diverge from the "Shannon Body Double" idea.

The family members detect a smell somewhere. Kumasawa and Kanon check it out.
Kanon hears a sound in the boiler room. He leaves in a hurry for two reasons:

a.) Either he plans ahead of time to "kill himself" there, or
b.) He becomes suspicious that someone may find the bomb in the boiler room.

Probably a conjunction of these two.
Here's what happens:

Kanon goes in and "fakes his death" in the boiler room. After all, the stake that was found was not actually in his body! Nanjo investigated the body, but he lied because he's an accomplice!

EDIT: Wait, I just thought of something! Maybe, if Kumasawa was an accomplice, this could make more sense: They BOTH faked hearing the sound, and Kanon killed himself in the boiler room BECAUSE it's dark down there! Since it's dark, no one would be able to doubt Nanjo's claims!

The Stakings:

Kanon, who's not really dead, sneaks out to the parlor and anticipates that the exiles will head there. When Kumasawa, Genji, and Nanjo arrive, he kills them and tells Maria to sing to herself in the corner. He leaves a note for Natsuhi. Then he hides. As SOON as the others walk in, Kanon makes a mad dash for the door to escape!

If that is not possible, then pretend Kanon is still hiding.

Natsuhi reads the letter, then immediately runs away to the portrait. However, since the kids are distracted by Maria, Kanon can escape too!

Natsuhi's Death:

Since Natsuhi left and Kanon was able to escape, there was no problem for him to kill her!

Everyone dies:

Shannon's bomb detonates and kills all the survivors.

This level of reasoning is possible for Dabackpack. What do you think everyone?

Edit: Man, I wish I knew how to patent :P But I think we'd oughtta clean up on the Second Twilight--- I don't like the reasoning I gave for that. And crap--- forgot about the letters. Oh well, that's not too important.


Yet another edit: Sorry for all these edits, but it seems my "Shannon Body Double Trick" isn't going to work. I ask, then, where Kanon was when the second twilight occured? This complicates things a bit.

What really motivates me towards the "Kanon is the culprit" cause is this:

In short, no kind of human or dead person on the island could have killed Kanon!

So... he didn't die!

[Judoh]

Most people pretty much have the same train of thought on episode 1.


Anyway Battler said in episode 5 that the murders are really easy mysteries to solve.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Most people pretty much have the same train of thought on episode 1.

Well, I'm too lazy to read 10,000 posts of speculation

So score 1, DaBackpack

What about the second twilight, though?

[Laserworm]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Haha, I was reading Episode 1 and stumbled upon an interesting quote from Battler:



So Battler planned it all
Battler planned the murders because he was angry at the way his parents named him. After all, Rudolf does die in the first twilight along with Kyrie. XD

On a serious note, I've been doing some serious thinking about Ep. 1. I think I'd like to give it a go at trying to piece together the "Whodunnit" and the "Howdunnit."

In this theory, the main culprits are Shannon and Kanon with at least Nanjo as an accomplice.

(Before I continue, I want to emphasize that the Red Text about "what kind of body doubles are allowed" confuses me. SO feel free to tear apart the theory )

Pre-game planning:
Shannon sets us up the bomb. Really, anyone could have done it, but she's suspicious in my eyes.
First Twilight:

Nothing really special here. Anyone without an alibi could have done this. For the sake of the argument, let's deem Kanon as the murderer, with Shannon's help. Shannon MAY or MAY NOT haved faked her death; in the long run, it doesn't matter too much. Nanjo gave a false diagnosis to Shannon because he's an accomplice.

Second Twilight:

Actually, I lied. If there were no body doubles, then this is going to be tough to explain. Let's assume Shannon is not really dead:
Shannon snuck into Eva and Hideyoshi's room and killed them. She then hid in the room and nobody suspected her.

Kanon's "Death":

This is where things diverge from the "Shannon Body Double" idea.

The family members detect a smell somewhere. Kumasawa and Kanon check it out.
Kanon hears a sound in the boiler room. He leaves in a hurry for two reasons:

a.) Either he plans ahead of time to "kill himself" there, or
b.) He becomes suspicious that someone may find the bomb in the boiler room.

Probably a conjunction of these two.
Here's what happens:

Kanon goes in and "fakes his death" in the boiler room. After all, the stake that was found was not actually in his body! Nanjo investigated the body, but he lied because he's an accomplice!

EDIT: Wait, I just thought of something! Maybe, if Kumasawa was an accomplice, this could make more sense: They BOTH faked hearing the sound, and Kanon killed himself in the boiler room BECAUSE it's dark down there! Since it's dark, no one would be able to doubt Nanjo's claims!

The Stakings:

Kanon, who's not really dead, sneaks out to the parlor and anticipates that the exiles will head there. When Kumasawa, Genji, and Nanjo arrive, he kills them and tells Maria to sing to herself in the corner. He leaves a note for Natsuhi. Then he hides. As SOON as the others walk in, Kanon makes a mad dash for the door to escape!

If that is not possible, then pretend Kanon is still hiding.

Natsuhi reads the letter, then immediately runs away to the portrait. However, since the kids are distracted by Maria, Kanon can escape too!

Natsuhi's Death:

Since Natsuhi left and Kanon was able to escape, there was no problem for him to kill her!

Everyone dies:

Shannon's bomb detonates and kills all the survivors.

This level of reasoning is possible for Dabackpack. What do you think everyone?

Edit: Man, I wish I knew how to patent :P But I think we'd oughtta clean up on the Second Twilight--- I don't like the reasoning I gave for that. And crap--- forgot about the letters. Oh well, that's not too important.


Yet another edit: Sorry for all these edits, but it seems my "Shannon Body Double Trick" isn't going to work. I ask, then, where Kanon was when the second twilight occured? This complicates things a bit.

What really motivates me towards the "Kanon is the culprit" cause is this:

In short, no kind of human or dead person on the island could have killed Kanon!

So... he didn't die!

Two things; One, did Nanjo look at Shannon's corpse? I thought that only Hideyoshi and Kanon do. And Two; if Kanon doesn't die when Nanjo is helping him; then Jessica also has to be an accomplice, she is with them at the time.

[Judoh]

Second twilight there are three different theories.

There is mine: If Kanon killed Eva and Hideyoshi after cutting the chain it's not a closed room

There is Seagull's: Shannon hid in the bathroom and killed them

And there is Oliver's, which involves the magic circle being on a different room and discovering them in a room that wasn't locked. I'm not exactly sure how it works.

[Laserworm]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Second twilight there are three different theories.

There is mine: If Kanon killed Eva and Hideyoshi after cutting the chain it's not a closed room

There is Seagull's: Shannon hid in the bathroom and killed them

And there is Oliver's, which involves the magic circle being on a different room and discovering them in a room that wasn't locked. I'm not exactly sure how it works.

Mine is about the same as yours Judoh. Genji and Kanon are the killers. The chain was never on the door, and they painted the circle. Kanon then pretended to cut the chain in front of Kumaswa.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by Laserworm

Two things; One, did Nanjo look at Shannon's corpse? I thought that only Hideyoshi and Kanon do. And Two; if Kanon doesn't die when Nanjo is helping him; then Jessica also has to be an accomplice, she is with them at the time.

Well, the first part doesn't really matter too much. Either way, Shannon could still be alive because Kanon is a culprit, and Hideyoshi is just probably incompetent. Or he doesn't thoroughly examine her. Since the other 5 people were dead as could be, he probably just assumed the same of Shannon just by association. After all, Shannon's placement probably took advantage of this fact; they'd be too shocked to doubt her death anway. Or something, who knows.
Shannon's not really an important part of this theory.

As for the Jessica bit, that's a bit more complicated.

As much as she loves Kanon, I doubt she'd be an accomplice.
So really, it boils down to this:

a.) She was absolutely devastated at the situation
b.) The damage looked really bad from her perspective
c.) The boiler room was very dark. This is mentioned quite a bit.
d.) Well, she assumed that Kanon was dead because she didn't have a reason to believe otherwise.
e.) There are drugs that temporarily knock someone out; the play Romeo and Juliet featured a potion that faked death for a few hours. Although such a drug is never mentioned in the game. Kanon might have been able to take such a drug, but this is unlikely.

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Second twilight there are three different theories.

There is mine: If Kanon killed Eva and Hideyoshi after cutting the chain it's not a closed room

There is Seagull's: Shannon hid in the bathroom and killed them

And there is Oliver's, which involves the magic circle being on a different room and discovering them in a room that wasn't locked. I'm not exactly sure how it works.

Slight correction: Shannon hid in the closet and killed them
(because they actually went inside the bathroom, and would have definitely found Shannon hiding in there)

Also, this is something I've been wondering: was the closet ever mentioned before EP5?

[rogerpepitone]

As for the second twilight:
How did Shannon get into the room? If she tried to get in after they entered, Eva / Hideyoshi would never let her in. If she tried to get in before, how could she predict that anybody would leave the parlor, let alone who?

Re the final letter:
What evidence is there that there ever was a letter in the first place? Maria says she saw it, but she's not a reliable witness. There are also some scenes from a third person perspective. There is more evidence that Natsuhi spoke to a flesh and blood Kinzo than that she picked up a letter in the parlor.

[Laserworm]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Well, the first part doesn't really matter too much. Either way, Shannon could still be alive because Kanon is a culprit, and Hideyoshi is just probably incompetent. Or he doesn't thoroughly examine her. Since the other 5 people were dead as could be, he probably just assumed the same of Shannon just by association. After all, Shannon's placement probably took advantage of this fact; they'd be took shocked to doubt her death anway. Or something, who knows.
Shannon's not really an important part of this theory.

As for the Jessica bit, that's a bit more complicated.

As much as she loves Kanon, I doubt she'd be an accomplice.
So really, it boils down to this:

a.) She was absolutely devastated at the situation
b.) The damage looked really bad from her perspective
c.) The boiler room was very dark. This is mentioned quite a bit.
d.) Well, she assumed that Kanon was dead because she didn't have a reason to believe otherwise.
e.) There are drugs that temporarily knock someone out; the play Romeo and Juliet featured a potion that faked death for a few hours. Although such a drug is never mentioned in the game. Kanon might have been able to take such a drug, but this is unlikely.

Shannon is shown to only have half a head, at least in the manga and in TIPS. It is possible that this is a lie, and she isn't wounded like that, but I think we should trust the TIPS. The TIPS are what made me think either an explosion or fire happened at the end, before I saw the last riddle in ep4.

Jessica claims she was helping Nanjo operate, if I remember right.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by SeagullCrazy

Slight correction: Shannon hid in the closet and killed them

Also, this is something I've been wondering: was the closet ever mentioned before EP5?

I think so... at least, a few have. Maybe not that specific one.

In Episode 2, with the speculation of "What defines a hidden exit?" in Jessica and Kanon's death, I think? Or was it the Servant's room one?

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by Laserworm

Shannon is shown to only have half a head, at least in the manga and in TIPS. It is possible that this is a lie, and she isn't wounded like that, but I think we should trust the TIPS. The TIPS are what made me think either an explosion or fire happened at the end, before I saw the last riddle in ep4.

Jessica claims she was helping Nanjo operate, if I remember right.

Well, then I guess Shannon isn't a part of the theory then. Kanon's on a one-man mission

Or... perhaps Jessica is an accomplice?

I have a question though.

Is there any red text that states that everyone dies at the end of each game?

If not, maybe Kanon and Jessica were... I dunno... willing to kill their whole family in order to be together?

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

As for the second twilight:
How did Shannon get into the room? If she tried to get in after they entered, Eva / Hideyoshi would never let her in. If she tried to get in before, how could she predict that anybody would leave the parlor, let alone who?

Shannon cut the chain, entered the room with her master key, and repaired the chain from the inside.

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

I think so... at least, a few have. Maybe not that specific one.

In Episode 2, with the speculation of "What defines a hidden exit?" in Jessica and Kanon's death, I think? Or was it the Servant's room one?

That particular guest room was never used in EP2. I think there was a closet mentioned in Jessica's room, though.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

As for the second twilight:
How did Shannon get into the room? If she tried to get in after they entered, Eva / Hideyoshi would never let her in. If she tried to get in before, how could she predict that anybody would leave the parlor, let alone who?

This supports a "Servant as the criminal" theory, because Eva and Hideyoshi trust the servants.

If Kyrie were at the door, well, I'd be suspicious.

But Shannon probably was just pretending to "do her cleaning duties" or something.

Or she forcefully broke in.

[J the Drafter]

^^Or the chain was never originally set, and Shannon or whoever placed it after the murders.