[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[luckyssol]

My theory for this game:

• 1998 is the real world.
• The games boards and meta-world are just parts of the stories written by Yasu and Asumu.
• Asumu and Hachijou are the same person. Asumu won’t ever get her own sprite.
• For the game boards, the culprit for every single murder is Yasu. The trick is either: the murder was faked or some variation of Shkanon (Erika included)
• The purpose of this game is not to search for a real world culprit. The purpose is to accept the witch and understand her world. By solving each of her games, where she is the culprit, her heart is revealed. As it was stated in ep7: People are riddles. Yasu created this riddle so that people would solve the mystery that is her.
• There is no culprit in the real world.
• What happened on that island on that day will forever be closed within a cat box. Well, the island could have blown up in a volcano explosion but that has nothing to do with the truth Ryukishi wanted people to find.

I'm already giving this game a 10/10 because of how much I enjoyed the series throughout and I don't see any way that Ryukishi would mess things up at the very end.

[Qaenyin]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Now this doesn't really makes sense. Do you really think that all the fascists were persecuted after war to the point were they would also look for the relatives?

Beatrice was simply the daughter of a high ranked official, she had nothing to fear from the new government and no one was looking for her to kill her or imprison her as far as we know.

She had disappeared on board a submarine with a ludicrous amount of gold that just vanished into thin air. If I were her I'd be VERY scared of the italian government coming after me, and that's if it really was even just legitimately Italian gold(which, as Nanjo speculates when mentioning the one-winged eagle's origins, it may very well NOT have been).

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

This is not a fact, this is your interpretation. We don't know what are Kinzo's motivations for this. And actually if Kinzo already regretted what he did Genji wouldn't have lied to him for so many years.
Kinzo obviously decided to go with a different plan for Lion but that doesn't mean it was because "he didn't trust himself".

Of course it's interpretation. The whole thing I posted was interpretation, that's kind of the point of this threat is speculation. I simply posted a full explanation of how the ep 7 main game's story could be entirely legitimate, and it holds true up until the guts scenes and Rika's little charade on Rokkenjima after the game ends, both of which are of highly skeptical legitimacy(even moreso than ep7 itself), as it seems to be created purely to antagonize Ange and Lion rather than for the purpose of being in any way legitimate.

I'm just saying the ep7 explanation makes logical sense, but the 2 year gap before the Epitaph murders is left blank, and all the events prior to that don't provide motive for Yasu to murder everyone. Motive is important, Will said so himself. So while Ep7 itself may make logical sense, albeit with an assumption Kinzo is rather deranged(which is understandable given his circumstances), there's no explanation for why Yasu killed everyone. I could see her killing Battler out of spite for leading her on in her mind, but everyone else? She has no real vendetta against everyone else, Kinzo didn't ask her to do it, she actually LIKES Jessica and George presumably, she barely knows Eva, Rosa, Rudolf, Kyrie, and Hideyoshi. Ange isn't even there and she barely knows Ange.

Yasu has no reason to kill anyone unless someone specifically convinced her to, and thus far there is no evidence whatsoever that Kinzo did, or that any of the servants would be motivated to. That, essentially, leaves George and Jessica, and to be quite honest I don't think Jessica has the brains for that kind of plotting. Other than Natsuhi and Krauss, no one else had enough contact with her to manipulate her to that degree.

So ultimately either George is the culprit or ep 7 is completely false and utterly worthless from an explanatory standpoint(and I'd really like to think that Ryukishi didn't write an entire episode full of totally useless fake information).

[Cao Ni Ma]

Even with a mastermind culprit like George going about pulling the strings it wont make sense in some of the episodes. He/she would have to convince Rosa in EP2 to lie about the chapel and everyone seems to die in each episode. There could be the dual culprit thing going on that would complicate things.

Here's what I want to happen in EP8. One absolute culprit that ties perfectly with the first 4 episodes, if it also works on the 5th and 6th then its even better. It has to have a twist, a big one. Something that was under our noses the whole time but we didn't take into consideration and spins everything under a new light. If there are any bad ends they should be mind blowing, they should hint as to what really was happening and lead you to the correct path.

[Qaenyin]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Even with a mastermind culprit like George going about pulling the strings it wont make sense in some of the episodes. He/she would have to convince Rosa in EP2 to lie about the chapel and everyone seems to die in each episode. There could be the dual culprit thing going on that would complicate things.

Here's what I want to happen in EP8. One absolute culprit that ties perfectly with the first 4 episodes, if it also works on the 5th and 6th then its even better. It has to have a twist, a big one. Something that was under our noses the whole time but we didn't take into consideration and spins everything under a new light. If there are any bad ends they should be mind blowing, they should hint as to what really was happening and lead you to the correct path.

Similar to 999 in that respect, which handled the multiple endings thing very well.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Qaenyin

She had disappeared on board a submarine with a ludicrous amount of gold that just vanished into thin air. If I were her I'd be VERY scared of the italian government coming after me, and that's if it really was even just legitimately Italian gold(which, as Nanjo speculates when mentioning the one-winged eagle's origins, it may very well NOT have been).

You are assuming that they know that she is implicated in the embezzling of that gold and that they'd have the power to get her. That's not very realistic to make such an assumption.
You need to consider that when she departed from Italy the "government" was the Salò Republic, and they probably made it all in secret. Even if some document existed they'd probably burn it.

The government formed later didn't exist before, so it's very unlikely that they'd be aware of the secrets of the previous one.

In fact it is a well known fact that a lot of gold (some sources claim 119 tons) vanished from Italy after the war, but as far as I know it was never recovered, and no one was ever put on trial for that.

Originally Posted by Qaenyin

Of course it's interpretation. [...]

I'm just saying the ep7 explanation makes logical sense

I don't think it's correct to make that reasoning. You either make an interpretation as a theory or you explain why a story makes sense.
There are several problems implicated in making an interpretation that assumes stuff never stated in a story and then use that as a way to explain that "everything makes sense".

1) With enough fantasy and skill you can make sense out of almost every story, but that would be your story as you rewrote it that'd make sense not the original.

2) By making up stuff in order to "fix" something you might fail to notice an inconsistency that is supposed to give the reader the ability to understand that it's false. For example if someone in the past tried to make sense out of "magic" in umineko regardless of all the blatant inconsistencies, he would have just wasted his time in an attempt to deny the obvious.


I'm not sure I can explain it well... but basically when you say "it makes sense" you are making a judgement about a story or a part of a story. A judgement should be impartial objective and devoid of biases.

You can make theories, but you can't use your theories as an argument to claim that a story makes sense, even if your theory actually fixes every plot hole! What do you know? Maybe you got an idea that the author himself never had and never intended to be true.

At any rate the very definition of "plot hole" is the lack of a clear explanation about a certain fact in the story. It matters not if you can come up with an explanation. The story requires that such explanation must be given, and if it wasn't, it's a plot hole.


For example Character A calls Character B by name even if they just met and they never introduced each other. That would be a no brainer to fix this, you'd just need to imagine that they already met in their past. But how do you even know if that really happened or if that's supposed to have happened? It wasn't mentioned, it wasn't hinted, it wasn't implied then you simply conclude there is an unexplained inconsistency.

[Qaenyin]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I don't think it's correct to make that reasoning. You either make an interpretation as a theory or you explain why a story makes sense.
There are several problems implicated in making an interpretation that assumes stuff never stated in a story and then use that as a way to explain that "everything makes sense".

1) With enough fantasy and skill you can make sense out of almost every story, but that would be your story as you rewrote it that'd make sense not the original.

2) By making up stuff in order to "fix" something you might fail to notice an inconsistency that is supposed to give the reader the ability to understand that it's false. For example if someone in the past tried to make sense out of "magic" in umineko regardless of all the blatant inconsistencies, he would have just wasted his time in an attempt to deny the obvious.


I'm not sure I can explain it well... but basically when you say "it makes sense" you are making a judgement about a story or a part of a story. A judgement should be impartial objective and devoid of biases.

You can make theories, but you can't use your theories as an argument to claim that a story makes sense, even if your theory actually fixes every plot hole! What do you know? Maybe you got an idea that the author himself never had and never intended to be true.

At any rate the very definition of "plot hole" is the lack of a clear explanation about a certain fact in the story. It matters not if you can come up with an explanation. The story requires that such explanation must be given, and if it wasn't, it's a plot hole.


For example Character A calls Character B by name even if they just met and they never introduced each other. That would be a no brainer to fix this, you'd just need to imagine that they already met in their past. But how do you even know if that really happened or if that's supposed to have happened? It wasn't mentioned, it wasn't hinted, it wasn't implied then you simply conclude there is an unexplained inconsistency.

That's true, but I'm attempting to set a distinction between an "unexplained inconsistency" and an unexplained contradiction, as people have stated Kinzo's behavior to be. There's a difference between someone taking actions that can make sense within reason and someone taking actions that are just flat out contradictory. I'm simply making a point that Kinzo's actions are the former and not the latter.

Just because he did something that is not explained doesn't mean that he did something that should be discounted as impossible simply because of the lack of explanation. That's the whole point of theorizing. If you don't make "What if"s then you're not going to get any closer to a solution than someone making incorrect "What if"s.

[Cao Ni Ma]

-edit posting in the EP7 thread instead

[Renall]

My predictions are pretty well covered (although not necessarily 100% in line with anyone else, just about everyone else has said something I think is likely).

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Is there anything that calls into question Kinzo's story besides the red guts scene, which is very questionable in it's trustworthiness?

Hmmmm, well, yes.

• Kinzo makes himself out to be both Greek tragic figure and dashing romantic knight all in one. He lets his own nobility bleed suspiciously through everything.
• Bizarre motives that don't seem to square with reality. Kinzo wanted to die and felt like a puppet, but avoided front-line duty. He didn't have anything to do with stealing the gold, or maybe he did. The Italians might be plotting to slaughter the Japanese despite being in Japanese territory with a non-functional submarine and 10 tons of contraband they can't get rid of. Kinzo feels nothing for his official family, yet at the very least has to have fathered Rosa after meeting the love of his life. He's got two sons and a daughter already and has met the woman he wants to be with forever, why is he still sleeping with his wife? Dude must go a long way to keep up appearances.
• Love at first sight. I can buy that Beatrice and Kinzo would become friendly quickly, but they're practically moments from boning each other at the end. They probably did it in one of Nanjo's examination rooms ten minutes after he checked her injuries.
• There are conveniently no survivors other than himself and Beatrice after he kills Yamamoto, Yamamoto is the only person he kills, and he does so in justifiable defense of Beatrice. Essentially, his hands are magically clean of any wrongdoing at all.
• The gold is hauled off a submarine and... 2km through some tunnels? When did they do that? With what? That's 10 tons of stuff. How long were the Italians there before they started killing each other?
• What is that room, anyway? It seems to be roughly under the chapel, right? Two entrances, one made/converted by Kinzo into the chapel epitaph place, one secret. There's a bed and such down there and ten tons of gold. What's all that doing there? Kinzo has a perfectly serviceable secret house for beds and his mistress's dress and whatever. Now none of this is in Kinzo's own story, but in no fewer than three episodes we've been shown this storage room. So if Kinzo's story is accurate, it leaves out when and how the gold got there and why everything else that's in there other than the clock is there.
• The aforementioned explosives debate. Either the outpost was not as minor as everyone said (i.e. was something top secret for a reason, meaning Kinzo was somehow able to lie or was somehow unaware of it), or there's no reason to have that much kaboom in it for any purpose.
• Kinzo and Beatrice both speak a language no one else speaks and spend an enormous amount of time together. Coincidentally, Kinzo and Beatrice are the only two people to walk out of there. I'm not saying there's evidence of them colluding as such, but if you picture what happened at the base as a cat box, it starts to look suspicious as hell.
• Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the government did forget about the island base and the Americans never caught on to it. What about all the families of the Japanese troops who died? Surely somebody wanted to know where their husband or son disappeared to at the end of the war? And if anybody not on the island at the time of the massacre knew Kinzo served with somebody who disappeared, wouldn't he have to deal with their questions? People aren't really disposable in that fashion, especially people who weren't sent to the front lines. Combat deaths are one thing. A whole base just up and vanishing without American attack (and Nijima's civilians probably would've noticed American bombers nearby)? Surely someone suspects foul play, and unlike 1986, he can't just blow up the evidence.

[witchfan]

Renall, can I still convince you to post your views? I was looking forward to reading yours and Jan-Poo's.

***
I partially agree with some theories here, but here is my take on a few issues. Keep in mind this a very short summation. And I can't really say I have a complete solution; I couldn't find enough evidence for a lot of conjectures I won't mention here, especially regarding the motive.

Spoiler for Shkanon, Whydunnit, Whodunnit:

* Yasu was planning to play a game that may involve murder (but who knows whether she succeeded). I don't know whether she actually did murder anyone in R-Prime, but I believe she is the one person who consistently plans murders throughout the first four games, and as such she is the closest thing to a "mastermind" I can think of.
* A kind of fictional Shannon in all episodes; she is Yasu's avatar in her stories.
* Kanon is an actual person. In episodes 5-7, he is alive and well on Rokkenjima. In episodes 1-4 (I have minor doubts about the 4th episode), he is dead, but his body is most likely on the island. The reds tell us Kanon was murdered and where; my guess is that Shannon killed him, but who knows.
* Kanon is the mysterious "young man" in EP5.
* A variant of fictional Shkanon in the first 4 EPs.
* Kanon died somewhere after the conference of 1985 and before the conference of 1986. Yasu and Kanon's interactions in that period were primary motivation for the murders in 1986, but not necessarily for the game itself.

Spoiler for Howdunnit:

I have some explanations for the howdunnit, and most of those involve these themes:
* The first six deaths in the first two episodes are fake. Most reds related to them refer to future events. (Edit: not entirely sure about episode 2... but they weren't killed in the chapel, in any case)
* Not very surprising, but of episodes 1-4: the first two are the default scenario where nobody solves the epitaph. The third is a scenario where some people solve the epitaph halfway through the murders. The last one is a scenario where everyone solves the epitaph before any murders occur (it's played much like Bern described it, but with some key differences and definitely a different motive).
* Erika is an actual person who appeared in EPs 5-6 (she's not anyone's personality/identity/imaginary friend; there were 18 people on the island in those episodes).

Spoiler for The Author:

* The first four games were authored by Yasu. "Maria's Diary" was either authored by Yasu, or authored by Maria, in which case the first four games were dictated to Maria, too.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Kinzo feels nothing for his official family, yet at the very least has to have fathered Rosa after meeting the love of his life. He's got two sons and a daughter already and has met the woman he wants to be with forever, why is he still sleeping with his wife? Dude must go a long way to keep up appearances.

Oh you didn't get this? At the time Rosa was conceived Beatrice was already dead and Beatrice2 was too young. Kinzo had some urges to satisfy...

No matter how you look at it Kinzo is a lustful scum.

[Helmet-kun]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Oh you didn't get this? At the time Rosa was conceived Beatrice was already dead and Beatrice2 was too young. Kinzo had some urges to satisfy...

No matter how you look at it Kinzo is a lustful scum.

Or a sex dummy (perhaps a blow-up doll is a better term), if you consider Kinzo's other wife to be the lustful type.

I mean, they did have FOUR kids, compared to one from Beato.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Oh you didn't get this? At the time Rosa was conceived Beatrice was already dead and Beatrice2 was too young. Kinzo had some urges to satisfy...

No matter how you look at it Kinzo is a lustful scum.

When you consider how possessive she was of Kinzo and how the marriage was both loveless and arranged...Well, someone had to take the initiative for those other three kids to be born in the first place.

Not to mention that the overly possessive ones throughout the series have all been the wives and women in general, George being the exception. It's not a stretch to say that Kinzo's legal wife waited for him to get drunk and then made it happen.

I mean...Absinthe, right? It does things. Maybe Kinzo was drunk enough to think his wife was Beatrice, and that's how she found out?

[Jan-Poo]

That isn't as nearly as probable as the other way around.

Kinzo had become a new man after meeting Beatrice, he was no longer a puppet but the Kinzo we all know. We know that Kinzo's wife suspected that he had a mistress, if he was really a puppet his wife would have made him spill the beans. Plus Kinzo is totally a chauvinist he wouldn't let a woman (other than Beatrice) command him. That would be completely out of character.


And then what really settles the matter is the huge gap between Rudolf and Rosa. If it really depended on Kinzo's wife, then there is no explanation for this. However if you take in account the time Kinzo has been in war, the time he's been with Beatrice and a few years of mourning. Then it becomes quite clear why such gap exists.

The evidence is all against Kinzo.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

That isn't as nearly as probable as the other way around.

Kinzo had become a new man after meeting Beatrice, he was no longer a puppet but the Kinzo we all know. We know that Kinzo's wife suspected that he had a mistress, if he was really a puppet his wife would have made him spill the beans. Plus Kinzo is totally a chauvinist he wouldn't let a woman (other than Beatrice) command him. That would be completely out of character.

I said he was drunk. His drinking habit is established as being part of his character, and he never said he stopped during the time he was with Beatrice. Him getting drunk and then getting punk'd is well within the margin of possibility.

There's no reason why all of his children couldnt have been conceived this way. Equally probable. Much like Lion, so too are Kinzo's pants a catbox.

And then what really settles the matter is the huge gap between Rudolf and Rosa. If it really depended on Kinzo's wife, then there is no explanation for this. However if you take in account the time Kinzo has been in war, the time he's been with Beatrice and a few years of mourning. Then it becomes quite clear why such gap exists.

The evidence is all against Kinzo.

Getting himself drunk from mourning, or just getting drunk. There's not much evidence proving hes a horndog, just that hes a drunkard and somewhat insane.

[Jan-Poo]

He had sex with his daughter and he's got 4 children from a woman he didn't even love, one of which was conceived when he was an elder already. The faithful Genji lied to him for years because he feared he'd rape his granddaughter as well. I believe that's enough evidence.

[Cao Ni Ma]

It be hilarious if Kinzo's actually had a severe alcoholic dependency and that somehow affected the quality of his sperm causing all his children to be raging idiots.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

It be hilarious if Kinzo's actually had a severe alcoholic dependency and that somehow affected the quality of his sperm causing all his children to be raging idiots.

Pretty much what I was thinking.

And Kinzo could have been drunk out of his damn wits when the wincest incident occurred.

My god. Absinthe was the culprit. It's the reason behind all of the ridiculously stupid actions the members of the Ushiromiya family have taken.

He had sex with his daughter and he's got 4 children from a woman he didn't even love, one of which was conceived when he was an elder already. The faithful Genji lied to him for years because he feared he'd rape his granddaughter as well. I believe that's enough evidence.

Absinthe.

It's been foreshadowed from the very beginning. And let's not forget that the mental trauma known as senior love exists in this world.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by TehChron

Absinthe.

It's been foreshadowed from the very beginning. And let's not forget that the mental trauma known as senior love exists in this world.

Nowhere in Kinzo's story in EP7 absinthe was used as an excuse for his actions. In addition the fact that Kinzo is alive in Lion's world proves that he never indulged in an unhealthy manner in his drinking before the baby died. There is no proof whatsoever that Kinzo was a drunkard before that.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Nowhere in Kinzo's story in EP7 absinthe was used as an excuse for his actions. In addition the fact that Kinzo is alive in Lion's world proves that he never indulged in an unhealthy manner in his drinking before the baby died. There is no proof whatsoever that Kinzo was a drunkard before that.

Nowhere in episode 7 is he said to be interested in Black magic or chess either. And yet we are made to beleive he was in several other places. Don't just throw everything out just because it's not in the newest text.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Nowhere in Kinzo's story in EP7 absinthe was used as an excuse for his actions. In addition the fact that Kinzo is alive in Lion's world proves that he never indulged in an unhealthy manner in his drinking before the baby died. There is no proof whatsoever that Kinzo was a drunkard before that.

He spent his time before enlisting in the army with strolling through the rose garden and "drinking unpleasant drinks" or something in addition to reading. Why wouldn't that be referring to alcohol? Maybe not specifically absinthe, but sake or some other liquor is well within the realm of possibility.

And are we really about to get into the discussion about the likelihood of Kinzo's drinking affecting his lifespan? Does that even matter?