[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Ssol

When they were solving the epitaph they figured out that instead of literally "killing" the sacrifices chosen by the key it meant to eliminate certain characters.

Lol i was talking about the red truths not the epitaph, that's a completely different matter

@Dlanor

Spoiler for ep5:

If I understand correctly Erika was indeed tampering with some mechanism. It is probably the purpose of the 10 twilights or a part of them, but I don't think it's relevant to the solution of the epitaph. Let me explain

If every part of the reasoning Erika and Battler made is correct then you have this situation:

1) The initial sentence is made of 11 or 13 characters, depending on the meaning of "tear apart" on the second twilight
2) At the first twilight you kill 6 characters
3) at the second twilight you kill or separate (put space between?) the two characters that are left close after the previous elimination
4) at the third twilight you reorder the remaining characters to form the "honorable name" (kinzo?)
5) from fourth to eight you kill the remaining 5 characters
6) at the nine twilight you are left with zero characters

This was one of the many things I've thought during my various thinking about the epitaph but ultimately I discorded it. Why?

First off what's the point in going to all the trouble to find the key only to reach to a "name" on the third twilight that you already know?

Second what's point of all this if in the end you are left without any character?

It is indeed incredible that Battler and Erika thinks that it is definitely the right way, because without a higher knowledge it is impossible to determine this is the best way of thinking. Proof is I have thought all that and discarded...

But if this whole thing is meant to be a step by step instruction to work on a mechanism, maybe something with a combination of letters, then it might make sense.

So in that case what's important is not what you get in the end (zero) but the whole process. Too bad that if that's the case we as reader can get at max to 9th twilight on the solution, and maybe not even there.

Anyway even if the mechanism is true, you can still try to get what kind of operations you need to do to reach that zero, and all the information should be available even if you don't have that mechanism in front of your eyes.

The problem is that no matter how much i've tried to find the initial sentence, I can't get something that fits with the reasoning described in the game.

You see both Battler and Erika agrees that it must be english. Is Ryukishi trolling us that much?

But the name must be 5 letters according to their reasoning, so I really can't see what else could that be beside "Kinzo". Other options are "右代宮金蔵" and　"うしろみや". But I find very improbable that it's in Kanji. Don't say Beatrice! It's NOT Beatrice the subject of this epitaph, okay?

The problem with kinzo is... "z" isn't very common in english words. and there isn't any single word that includes both z and k (unless you consider foreign words integrated in english).

Battler suggests there is a pun in the way the twilights are worded. Daiichinoban ni In other words, remove 6 characters from "daiichinoban". But Battler says it's probably english so he translates it as "1st night". But that's wrong, it doesn't even reach the 11 characters unless you say "the first night", then that work, but "first twilight" has also the same amount of letters. However if you think carefully both of them are "dame da, zenzen dame da ze!"

Why? Because you are supposed to get at least two words from them, the key and the name. Now count the vowels: that's three in total in both cases. You get it? There isn't any english word that is 6 letters long and only has a single vowel. And there isn't any name that is 5 letter long and has a single vowel. So both of them are wrong.

Another way could be The chapel writings. so in this case our initial sentence could be "quadrillion" (11 letters) or quadrillionth (13 letters). But what kind of name can you get from it? Certainly not Kinzo...

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

damn it...there goes my theory eh heh well I guess I'll put this epitaph to rest for another time.

[Jan-Poo]

Why not? your hunches are correct imho, the problem is you still need to solve the riddle regardless of that °°

[luckyssol]

Spoiler for Epitaph theory:

What if the epitaph is actually not meant for any of the pieces on the gameboard to solve but it's meant only for meta-Battler to solve and each game's epitaph has a different answer? All those answers could lead to the truth.

No gameboard has followed the epitaph exactly. Examples:
Ep1 - Kinzo died many years prior so he couldn't be the 4th twilight
Ep2 - Nanjo and Kumasawa were killed prior to George, Shannon, and Gohda. They should have been the fourth and fifth twilights. The stakes should have been in the head and chest.
Ep3 - Krauss and Natsuhi died by strangulation not by gouging the knee and leg.
Ep4 - It was said in red that Kanon was the ninth to die so that means he should have had the stake gouged in his head. However, it was Kyrie who was found with the stake in her head.

What is in common between all games is that six people are chosen but not necessarily killed (Example - Kinzo couldn't have been killed in ep3 since he was already dead).

First Twilight
Instead of trying to remove six characters immediately you can assume the first twlight's purpose is to give you your starting characters. Removing the characters can be done later on in twilights 4 through 8. It could be the first names of the victims:

EP1
蔵臼 - Krauss
留弗夫 - Rudolf
霧江 - Kyrie
楼座 - Rosa
俊朗 – Toshiro(Gohda)
紗代 – Sayo(Shannon)

EP2
蔵臼 - Krauss
夏妃 - Natsuhi
絵羽 - Eva
秀吉 - Hideyoshi
留弗夫 - Rudolf
霧江 - Kyrie

EP3
源次 - Genji
紗代 – Sayo(Shannon)
??? – ???(Kanon)
俊朗 – Toshiro(Gohda)
チヨ – Chiyo(Kumasawa)
金蔵 – Kinzo

EP4
夏妃 - Natsuhi
絵羽 - Eva
秀吉 – Hideyoshi
留弗夫 - Rudolf
楼座 - Rosa
源次 - Genji

EP5
源次 - Genji
楼座 - Rosa
蔵臼 - Krauss
真里亞 - Maria
朱志香 - Jessica
譲治 - George

At this point we have 11-14 kanji(2 katakana for Kumasawa's name from ep3) from the names but we don't know the order in which they should be placed.

Second Twilight
Seperate the two that are close could be interpreted as move the names that have the closest meaning farthest away from each other.

Third Twilight
Place ベアトリーチェ at the beginning of the phrase being formed.

Fourth through Eighth twilights:
Break down all the kanji into kana first then eliminate kana when possible. Since the six chosen change with each episode it is possible that sometimes no kana are eliminated in any given twilight. For example, 頭 = あたま(atama). This doesn't work for ep1 but for ep5 it would erase 真(ま) and 亞(あ) learving just り(ri).

Ninth Twilight
Hopefully after following this none of the original names will remain.

Tenth Twilight
You should will have enough kana/kanji left to put together a sentence.


I just made this up and haven't tried to work this out since my Japanese is terrible but it's just a theory.

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for episode5:

Doesn't work for several reasons.

The most important is that Eva, Rosa, Battler and Erika all solved the riddle. Therefore any knowledge of previous gameboards is completely out of the question

The second is that the epitaph has absolutely nothing to do with the killings, there are many proofs that the the epitaph isn't followed correctly by whoever is committing the murders. Plus solving the riddle is irrelevant to Beatrice, and the murders do not stop simply because of that (proved both in ep3 and ep5)

Beatrice is NOT the subject of the epitaph. Therefore the "honorable name" can't possibly be her name. The ending should be clear, why would Beatrice end the epitaph with "sleep peacefully my most loved witch Beatrice"? But there's also the fact that Beatrice has distinctive way of talking which is not reflected in the epitaph. If she was her she would have said "warawa", but that never appears throughout the whole epitaph. Rather the way the epitaph is written is pretty consistent with Kinzo's style.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for episode5:

Doesn't work for several reasons.

The most important is that Eva, Rosa, Battler and Erika all solved the riddle. Therefore any knowledge of previous gameboards is completely out of the question

Spoiler for Response to first part:

After finding the gold in ep3 and ep5 there is no revival of lost love and no one is resurrected. My theory is that that solving the epitaph on the game board will lead you to a pile of gold but that's it. Meta-Battler solving the epitaph may be one of the things that helps him remember his sin which is what Beatrice wanted.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for episode5:

The second is that the epitaph has absolutely nothing to do with the killings, there are many proofs that the the epitaph isn't followed correctly by whoever is committing the murders. Plus solving the riddle is irrelevant to Beatrice, and the murders do not stop simply because of that (proved both in ep3 and ep5)

Spoiler for Response to second part:

I never said that the epitaph and the killings are connected. I wrote that six are chosen but not necessarily killed. The example I gave was that Kinzo was obviously not killed in ep3 but was chosen as one of the six.

My theory is that the six names that are chosen per game are the basis for solving the epitaph.

Also, I agree on the point that solving the epitaph has no meaning to Beatrice.
My theory is that what is important to Beatrice is that meta-Battler remembers his sin. By putting together all the riddles from all the games (This includes the epitaph) he probably could remember it. Unless it's really true that there was actually a different Battler that was the real one who committed the sin.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for episode5:

Beatrice is NOT the subject of the epitaph. Therefore the "honorable name" can't possibly be her name. The ending should be clear, why would Beatrice end the epitaph with "sleep peacefully my most loved witch Beatrice"? But there's also the fact that Beatrice has distinctive way of talking which is not reflected in the epitaph. If she was her she would have said "warawa", but that never appears throughout the whole epitaph. Rather the way the epitaph is written is pretty consistent with Kinzo's style.

Spoiler for Response to third part:

I agree that Beatrice is not the subject of the epitaph. Kinzo wrote it to see if anyone could solve it.

Meta-Battler needs to understand the true meaning of this epitaph among other things that happened throughout the games to understand why Beatrice started all of this with the purpose to fight against him.

Anyway, besides the true intention behind the epitaph what comments do you have regarding the method I thought of for solving it?

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for Episode5:

I agree on the general idea that what Beatrice actually wants is for Battler to learn the truth about her (and consequently the sin), and the epitaph somehow is connected.

However what you are suggesting is that two completely different possible interpretation/solution exist for the same riddle. This is kinda hard to do. What if simply there is only one solution and using those info Battler should be able to reach the truth about the rest?

There is absolutely no hint in ep5 that would make think Battler solved the riddle in that "second way", And since he solved in the gameboard already there was no point for him to try and find to solve it again under another perspective.

Battler solved the riddle using the same lines of thoughts Eva and Rosa used in ep3. After that if he ever returned on the epitaph again we have been left completely on the dark.

Anyway, besides the true intention behind the epitaph what comments do you have regarding the method I thought of for solving it?

The idea that maybe the 6 sacrificies aren't letters to be eliminated isn't bad. I've thought something different though. I have imagined that that "raise" meant you need to move the selected letters to an upper row where the solution of the riddle will form. However the hints in ep5 makes me think that this isn't the right path.

As for the rest I've never been a fan of the "name" theory nor a fan of the "kanji" theory. There's been a lot of theories that revolve around the people names, but I always thought this isn't the right path. More than saying that both ep3 and ep5 never mention this as a possible solution and that Maria wasn't even supposed to be named Maria I don't know what kind of other argument I should bring up for this. Of course your idea that the way Eva and Rosa used to solve the riddle is the wrong one, and there is another one to solve it opens up a whole different dimension, but I already said why I think this is unlikely

In conclusion even if this second method exists, I'd rather use my brain to try and solve the riddle in the way that I'm sure exists, rather than in a way whose existence isn't even certain. Which doesn't mean you aren't entitled to speculate on that, it's just that I personally won't.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for Episode5:

I agree on the general idea that what Beatrice actually wants is for Battler to learn the truth about her (and consequently the sin), and the epitaph somehow is connected.

However what you are suggesting is that two completely different possible interpretation/solution exist for the same riddle. This is kinda hard to do. What if simply there is only one solution and using those info Battler should be able to reach the truth about the rest?

There is absolutely no hint in ep5 that would make think Battler solved the riddle in that "second way", And since he solved in the gameboard already there was no point for him to try and find to solve it again under another perspective.

Battler solved the riddle using the same lines of thoughts Eva and Rosa used in ep3. After that if he ever returned on the epitaph again we have been left completely on the dark.

Spoiler for ep5:

If I remember correctly some of the scenes meta-Battler remembers about just prior to "awakening" are related to the difficulty of each game. In episode 2 it was way too difficult so in episode 3 Beatrice brought in others to assist and give clues, etc...

Whatever truth he realized that allowed him to awaken with the golden sword involved him thinking about all the previous games. However, I don't believe we are given all the thoughts that lead him to the truth. After he awakens we also don't know his exact thoughts so whatever truth he realized we can't be certain of what it was. It's possible that truth involved the epitaph in some way.

I wonder how episode 6 will be. I don't think we've been shown Erika's thoughts and if Battler's important thoughts (the truth he learned) are hidden from us then it will probably feel like playing the game from a complete third person perspective.

[Kamar]

Spoiler for Ep5:

I'm assuming the reason Battler isn't just laying down what happened in red is the same reason his bit about Natsuhi wasn't allowed. So I'm guessing game six will involve him coming up with something that allows him to prove the truth with decisive evidence.

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for episode5:

Oh well, there is no doubt that we have been kept on the dark on many of Battler's thoughts. And he certainly thought something about the various games. But to me this is related to the serial murder case, I think that if he was reasoning on the epitaph again Ryukishi would have give us a hint at the very least, but I can't be totally certain about that.

Anyway what really caused a major outbreak in his line of thoughts was what Virgilia and Dlanor told him. And the vary last part of his thoughts involved thinking Beatrice as the one who waits at the peak of the purgatory.

Originally Posted by Kamar

[...] I'm guessing game six will involve him coming up with something that allows him to prove the truth with decisive evidence.

Most certainly that's what he will try to do. What I just can't fathom is what Bernkastel will try to do. What Bern has to gain from getting in Battler's way of the solution of this whole game? That would be a major facepalm if she'll end up trying to foil his plans just for a matter of pride. The problem is I have no doubt that Erika will do exactly that proposing her (fake) culprit again, and Bern already said she'll let her do that... wtf really...

[Leinne]

Has anyone thought that the treasures that are dispalyed are really to put the pieces again where they were before. I mean, the resurrection of all dead can mean retrieving all the lost characters andthe resurrection of lost love is the complete opposite to the 2nd, tear apart those who are close, then it menas make them one again. Just a thought, I have theries for murders, but for the epitaph it's another thing. Still, I noticed that all nights (twilights) with the excepstion of the second are six syllables in Japanese. Fasuto naito, zarudo naito... Still just random thoughts

[Jan-Poo]

I dunno about that last bit

as you can see here

The katakana transliteration is actually more like this:

FAASUTO
SEKANDO
SAADO
FOOSU
FIFUSU
SHIKUSUSU
SEVUNSU
EITUSU
NAINSU
TENSU

[Qilin]

Something really bothers me about Virgilia.
In EP3, she is shown to be an ally of Battler with an air of benevolence. By the end of EP3 until all throughout EP4, she turns out to be a villain, a very obvious villain (though mostly played for laughs in EP4).

My question: Given her 180 degree turn in character, is the profile of her listed in the TIPS even accurate?

She "devoted her life to the smiles and happiness of many people". I don't see how her villainous portrayal fits with such a description... Even if she changed somehow during her last thousand years, I just can't imagine how someone as benevolent as her could transform into someone as cruel as Beatrice.

[Jan-Poo]

Are you sure she's cruel? Virgilia is simply on Beatrice's side. Although she doesn't really like the methods her disciple uses, she understands what she's trying to do, and she helps her at the best of her possibilities. And being on Beatrice's side, doesn't necessarily mean that she's Battler's enemy.

[Qilin]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Are you sure she's cruel? Virgilia is simply on Beatrice's side. Although she doesn't really like the methods her disciple uses, she understands what she's trying to do, and she helps her at the best of her possibilities. And being on Beatrice's side, doesn't necessarily mean that she's Battler's enemy.

Fine. I'm not so sure is she's really cruel or not, but the EP4 depicts her as a stereotypical villain. Her sinister looking sprite reinforces that notion as well. What exactly is her disciple trying to do then? Killing a group of people endlessly for enjoyment? That sounds pretty much like the opposite of the "smiles and happiness of people".

I haven't read EP5 yet, but that's what I gather so far.

[Jan-Poo]

Well she does comfort the siestas, and she does play the villain there. But the scene where she actually kill someone is the same scene where Krauss defeats a goat with a single punch after bringing is power over nine thousand!!!! In other words does that really happen? Or is Virgilia just playing the role as part of Beatrice's plan?

[momobunny]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Well she does comfort the siestas, and she does play the villain there. But the scene where she actually kill someone is the same scene where Krauss defeats a goat with a single punch after bringing is power over nine thousand!!!! In other words does that really happen? Or is Virgilia just playing the role as part of Beatrice's plan?

I've wondered the same thing. I mean, there's no way a witch who can almost beat Beato and make such a strong impression be degraded so much that she can't even handle a few humans even WITH minions.

I think she was just acting. After EP3, it's not hard to believe that she'd be a good actress either.

[Key Board]

At this point I'm certain the following is not the master mind:

Battler, at least, Battler as we know him
Krauss. Too damn inept to plan anything. Might be an accomplice, though
Natsuhi. Delusional, but not master mind material. Might be an accomplice
Maria. Too young
Kumasawa. Too old
Eva. The was most likely an accomplice during one of the games, but she's not the master mind. The episode 3 ending happened because an argument broke out between her and the master mind. ( Hideyoshi was killed among other things )
Hideyoshi. See above
Ange. Obviously... she's more a victim

[Proto]

Well, you can always assume that there is more than one group of conspirators. Or a scenario similar to Agatha Cristie's Orient Express. Ad infinitum.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Key Board

At this point I'm certain the following is not the master mind:

Battler, at least, Battler as we know him
Krauss. Too damn inept to plan anything. Might be an accomplice, though
Natsuhi. Delusional, but not master mind material. Might be an accomplice
Maria. Too young
Kumasawa. Too old
Eva. The was most likely an accomplice during one of the games, but she's not the master mind. The episode 3 ending happened because an argument broke out between her and the master mind. ( Hideyoshi was killed among other things )
Hideyoshi. See above
Ange. Obviously... she's more a victim

I agree with all these and I especially agree with not having Kinzo on this list.

I want to know exactly who it was that everyone recognized as Kinzo in episode 4. I hope episode 6 gives us more details.