[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 6 Dawn of the golden witch

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

To me, that suggests that the whole first twilight was fake; Gohda and Kumasawa were in on it.

Which follows the logic from Episode 5 and 6, which says that all of the First Twilights were (originally) fake. In fact, I'm almost positive that the six who "died" in the First Twilight were alive up until shortly before Kyrie's group escaped/were killed to appear like they had escaped, and were imprisoned similarily to Kyrie's group.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by ijriims

They found a new lock in the garden shed, and threw the key to Gohda. Just like what was done in EP1. I suppose

There's no mention of the shed already being unlocked / open when they get there; there's no mention of opening a padlock. The anime clearly shows George locking the shutter itself. When Battler tries to get in, there's no mention of trying to cut the lock off instead of wrecking the shutter.

[Renall]

George gives Gohda a key he identifies as the shed key. The point of giving it to them is supposed to be to keep them safe, but it could also be to create a fake closed room. If you imagine a fake First Twilight, then everything that happens up to and including the "hangings" could have been faked. The real killer then ambushed Gohda and Kumasawa while they were completely incapable of defending themselves. For whatever reason, when everything died down at the end, Battler was the only person not fake/real murdered, and he dies anyway to the event which is probably not tied to the other killings.

Think about it this way, and it seems there are at least three separate killer/"killer" groups:

The Fake First Twilight Team: The goal of this team is to stage theatric fake murders. They have access to makeup, probably costumes, maybe the stakes, and of course lots of fake blood. They plan to stage a fake epitaph murder, at the very least a First Twilight. They're not worried about suspicious behavior, so they're probably the easiest of the groups to infiltrate and betray. This group basically has to include a servant, and probably a "Beatrice" (there may be more than one). Nanjo is almost certainly a member of this group (but he may be in others). I can't say who else is in it (it may change depending on who is recruited to "play along"), but it seems probable that Battler is not in it (except maybe in ep5-6), Maria may not be aware she's in it (Battler and Maria seem the most likely candidates anyway), and Natsuhi may also be in the dark for some reason.

The Exploit Killer: Someone, maybe solo, maybe a group, who is exploiting opportunities created by a fake murder plot to kill people for real. It seems almost a certainty that it's one of the people who is always "in on it." May have access to Kinzo's guns, wherever they are. May also have the stakes, or be using the stakes to attempt to implicate another member of the fake group. This killer has specific targets; there are people he or she will not kill unless they have been tapped as "victims." It seems likely that Battler and Maria and possibly Nanjo at the very least are people this person does not intend to kill. At some point the fake murders would probably stop as the people in the other group realize there is a real killer. Their actions might then turn around on trying to figure out which of their group is the traitor. This may be what happened in ep2, and more important, it appears to have been successful.

The Event Killer: Whoever set up the midnight incident. I can see no reason why the others would be this person too. If you're faking murders, you're not going to want to blow everyone up, and if you're risking defection from the plan to kill people off one by one, why not just wait? Of course, killing may or may not have even been the intention of this person.

Note that Jessica and George must be considered possible members of the fake team in ep4. George arranges the whole shed incident and Jessica knows information she shouldn't know. However, if they thought the First/Second Twilights were fake, their behavior could be harmless and following a script. Someone did eventually really kill them, but they may have assumed nothing was wrong, especially after Gohda and Kumasawa showed up according to the plan.

[Raiza Sunozaki]

But why couldn't the Exploit Killer and the Event Killer both be the same person? If I read your theory correctly, Exploit is also the person who kills everyone else throughout the game (except for the bombing at the end). But if they knew that it was likely they would fail in producing the Epitaph murders (which, with a murder that complicated, is very likely), or if the chance of themselves being killed was fairly high, it seems reasonable to design a contraption to use the boiler or volcanic gas to kill everyone who remains, so that the original objective is accomplished.

[Renall]

It's just kind of in defiance of common sense. If you have a totally-undisclosed method to kill nearly everyone (if indeed that's the event's purpose, which we aren't totally sure of), why risk murdering people? It's too much trouble, and too risky. The whole point of the event, if it's actually what it appears to be, is to kill everyone without fail. If it's guaranteed to kill seemingly everyone who doesn't find Kuwadorian, what's the point of going out killing?

EDIT: Also, you could argue the undisclosed event killer is Lambdadelta's piece, who is manipulating Beatrice's piece similar to how Lambda herself manipulates Meta-Beatrice. In that case, it would make metaphorically more sense if they were separate people, and the closest "match" to a piece under Lambda's jurisdiction or guidance would be a person who is killing without fail. The only sure event seems to be whatever happens at midnight on the second day, so why not attribute that to Lambda's involvement somehow?

[Nihilartikel]

I like the theory, but I'm not sure I see why a Fake First Twilight Teams is necessary or even likely.
What would anyone gain from staging a grisly ritual murder during the family conference? Besides having a darn good motive (and I can't think of one except for faking their own deaths in order to carry out the other twilights freely), whoever is behind this should be able to convince a different group of people in each game to play along and scare their loved ones half to death.

As far as I can see, the Fake First Twilight only works for the Episodes 5 and 6:
- In Ep.5, either the "victims" were the group who planned to kill everyone else later on (they placed fake corpses in the beds and had Nanjo confirm their "deaths"), OR the whole family was acting in order to entertain Erika or something along those lines (this seems much less likely, as I don't think the family would go as far as to let Erika accuse Natsuhi like that without stopping the game and explaining the truth).
- In Ep.6, it looks as if the whole family is staging a fake murder case to screw with Erika, who gains their enmity during dinner by being an A-hole. Things go to hell, of course, when Erika goes ahead and re-kills the "victims" later on to get her hands on some much-needed Red Truth.

Am I missing something? I just don't see what the Fake First Twilights explains in Episodes 1-4.


I agree that whoever is carrying out the epitaph murders is probably not responsible for the the event that kills everyone (except Ep.3 Eva) at the end of each game. What's the point of setting up murders that look impossible for a human being to commit if a) there won't be anyone left to tell the tale and b) (given the fact that the midnight event is an explosion of some kind) your carefully constructed crime scenes are going to be destroyed anyway?

Of course, there's also the letters describing the murders to take into account. Were they written by the Epitaph Killer(s) as a narrative meant to explain the scene that the police were supposed to find? Were they written by the Event Killer to continue the legend of the witch even though everyone would appear to have died in an accident? (in which case we can even wonder if the epitaph murders happened at all or in a fashion similar to what the text narrates).

Finally, all of this leads to the question of who, other than Kinzo, would go this far to promote the legend of the witch. Any theories on who is to gain anything from it?

[arson88]

is it possible that Battler is going to be introduced to his fiancee, Erika in Rokkenjima 1986?

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

It's just kind of in defiance of common sense. If you have a totally-undisclosed method to kill nearly everyone (if indeed that's the event's purpose, which we aren't totally sure of), why risk murdering people? It's too much trouble, and too risky. The whole point of the event, if it's actually what it appears to be, is to kill everyone without fail. If it's guaranteed to kill seemingly everyone who doesn't find Kuwadorian, what's the point of going out killing?

EDIT: Also, you could argue the undisclosed event killer is Lambdadelta's piece, who is manipulating Beatrice's piece similar to how Lambda herself manipulates Meta-Beatrice. In that case, it would make metaphorically more sense if they were separate people, and the closest "match" to a piece under Lambda's jurisdiction or guidance would be a person who is killing without fail. The only sure event seems to be whatever happens at midnight on the second day, so why not attribute that to Lambda's involvement somehow?

I agree that the exploit killer and the even killer can't be the same person unless they totally lack common sense.

However the fake murder schemer might be one of the other 2.

It is almost certain that the fake murder schemer's goal is to create an incredible murder mystery scenario. it's still unclear what's the ultimate purpose but it might be because s/he wants to show it to Battler.
Anyway it goes without saying that such a thing it's a lot easier to do if you have accomplices. And it's also quite clear that you have a lot better chance of getting someone's compliance if you tell people you want to create a fake murder case rather than a real one where they are the victims.

So the "fake" part is made to get the help of clueless accomplices, while the "real" part is from a bigger plan where the schemer actually kill the accomplices after they have completed their task.

This can be true both in the case the schemer is planning to have a mass incident to close the show with a bang, or in the case the schemer is planning to have an easier way at performing a serial murder by making the clueless accomplices isolate themselves while retaining a minimum number of people that actually try to stop this massacre (because the accomplices think it's just a game and they don't really try).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Nihilartikel

Am I missing something? I just don't see what the Fake First Twilights explains in Episodes 1-4.

Episodes 2 and 4 especially make vastly more sense if you assume that there is initially some kind of script.

EP2: Genji recognizes the human Beatrice and treats her like a guest. Why? What purpose does that display serve? Why would the chapel be so elaborate if the plan was just to kill some people? Many people have already theorized it was something else co-opted by the real killer, hence why it's so gross. Why are the servants acting so suspicious and conjuring up stories about Kanon? Maybe they're suspicious of someone else like Rosa or Battler.

EP4: The whole thing starts to come together a bit more if you assume an initial script. Why do George and Jessica know things they shouldn't know? Why did George create the shed closed room with Gohda and Kumasawa, and why were the latter two fake-hanged? What was with Gohda and Kumasawa's story? Why would anyone kidnap the victims instead of just killing them if they didn't actually want anything? Of course, somebody seems to have really killed everyone by the time Battler arrives on the scene, but that person may have taken advantage of the script to act.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Nihilartikel

- In Ep.5, either the "victims" were the group who planned to kill everyone else later on (they placed fake corpses in the beds and had Nanjo confirm their "deaths"), OR the whole family was acting in order to entertain Erika or something along those lines (this seems much less likely, as I don't think the family would go as far as to let Erika accuse Natsuhi like that without stopping the game and explaining the truth).

I thought it was obvious. Reread the part at the end when they're heading to Natsuhi's room. A living Kinzo can't exist outside the house. Do you have something to say? A living Kinzo can't exist outside the second floor. Do you have something to say? A living Kinzo can't exist outside Natsuhi's room. That whole scene was practically screaming "Just admit that Kinzo is dead and the humiliation will stop."

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

I thought it was obvious. Reread the part at the end when they're heading to Natsuhi's room. A living Kinzo can't exist outside the house. Do you have something to say? A living Kinzo can't exist outside the second floor. Do you have something to say? A living Kinzo can't exist outside Natsuhi's room. That whole scene was practically screaming "Just admit that Kinzo is dead and the humiliation will stop."

I was thinking something along the same lines. If the first twilights are all originally faked, I thought that it might be some way to either get Kinzo out of his study, or get somebody to confess that he's dead.
Still, it doesn't make sense why Krauss and Natsuhi both participate in the fakings throughout the Episodes. They're trying to hide Kinzo's death.

[kaitwospirit]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

I was thinking something along the same lines. If the first twilights are all originally faked, I thought that it might be some way to either get Kinzo out of his study, or get somebody to confess that he's dead.
Still, it doesn't make sense why Krauss and Natsuhi both participate in the fakings throughout the Episodes. They're trying to hide Kinzo's death.

I don't think dying in a first twilight necessarily means that they're in on the faking plan. Remember that the fake first twilight plan is consistently sabotaged by someone. It's possible that, for example, that whoever betrays the fake first twilight group goes to Krauss and Natsuhi claiming that they have information on what the others are up to and then takes advantage of that to kill them. The only game in which the fake first twilight plan appears to go off without a hitch is episode five, and in that case, Krauss isn't found with the fake bodies but is killed elsewhere.

[Kylon99]

As I was saying in the Spoilers thread, look at who ends up faking. Here are the reasons people would refuse fakery if it was just some servant asking them to do so:

Krauss - Believes he's the master. No servant can order him.
Natsuhi - Believe he's the master's wife. It would be undignified for her to do so.
Kyrie - Could suspect something is wrong; this person would not stay dead for long.
Rudolf - Kyrie would be suspicious and investigate immediately. He also may become suspicious.
Eva - Would refuse as there would be no benefit.

If you were to use force, coercion, bribery then most of these 5 would stand up to you, yet they easily went to fake their deaths in EP6. And EP5 seemed to suggest they were ready to fake for a long, long time, and see it through even though their loved ones were screaming and crying. Plus, you can hardly imagine Eva and Natsuhi co-operating on anything of their own will... unless....

Someone with a greater 'will' has ordered them to do so. Someone like... Kinzo's will. That's my theory anyways.

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

As I was saying in the Spoilers thread, look at who ends up faking. Here are the reasons people would refuse fakery if it was just some servant asking them to do so:

Krauss - Believes he's the master. No servant can order him.
Natsuhi - Believe he's the master's wife. It would be undignified for her to do so.
Kyrie - Could suspect something is wrong; this person would not stay dead for long.
Rudolf - Kyrie would be suspicious and investigate immediately. He also may become suspicious.
Eva - Would refuse as there would be no benefit.

If you were to use force, coercion, bribery then most of these 5 would stand up to you, yet they easily went to fake their deaths in EP6. And EP5 seemed to suggest they were ready to fake for a long, long time, and see it through even though their loved ones were screaming and crying. Plus, you can hardly imagine Eva and Natsuhi co-operating on anything of their own will... unless....

Someone with a greater 'will' has ordered them to do so. Someone like... Kinzo's will. That's my theory anyways.

What if it wasn't just some servant, but one of the siblings? If the plan is to lure Kinzo out of his study by pretending a murder is happening on his island, I'd think it would make more sense for one of the siblings or spouses to suggest it. In this case:
Krauss - Might be forced into going along with it, to prevent having to explain why he's against doing it in the first place.
Natsuhi - Same reason as Krauss
Kyrie - In my opinion, most likely to suggest the death faking, being the most intelligent adult there.
Rudolf - Would agree to it, since he completely trusts Kyrie. Elsewise, anything to get Kinzo out/prove to Krauss that Kinzo is dead.
Eva - In my opinion, second most likely after Kyrie to suggest the idea. Would go along with it to force Krauss to admit Kinzo is dead.

Though I also do think the people who intend to fake their deaths don't always manage to do it. Specifically, Episode 4, which is like Umineko on crack anyway.

[Kylon99]

If the plan is based from the siblings then I would think some of the servants wouldn't agree to it. They might appear to at first but they'd probably refuse to stay dead the whole time and go rogue.

And Krauss and Natsuhi may also go along with it at first but then probably not stay for long. I mean, unless they were also coerced into taking out a knockout drug.

But everyone has been selected by now except for Nanjo. And then a lot of the people are killed quite easily; it's like there's no resistance to the first twilight... until after that is by the remaining people, most likely.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

If the plan is based from the siblings then I would think some of the servants wouldn't agree to it. They might appear to at first but they'd probably refuse to stay dead the whole time and go rogue.

Nah I'd definitely have to disagree with that. You have to consider rank here. The servants have to follow orders from anyone with the one winged eagle and Kinzo is dead. If they were ordered to fake their deaths they would have to do it,and that's a lot different than ordering them to murder people although it gets the same result. They can also be bribed too but... Well anyway the only people who might object are Kanon and Shannon. Kanon is shown to object more than Shannon would. But in the long run I think they would do it.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

But everyone has been selected by now except for Nanjo. And then a lot of the people are killed quite easily; it's like there's no resistance to the first twilight... until after that is by the remaining people, most likely.

Well the reason for that is simple. Nanjo is always in a closed room when the first twilight happens. He's protected by the barrier of Kinzo's room. The siblings, the cousins, are known to loaf around at times, and the servants have jobs they have to do. Episode 3 is the only time they have the conference all night and the siblings don't loaf around. That's probably why the servants were chosen instead of the parents, but if you beleive what episode 3 says they were called out to meet at the place they were murdered. So I wonder if that happens every time.

[Kylon99]

Actually, wasn't Nanjo in his room in the guest house in EP5? He could've been chosen, as well as Kumasawa instead of Genji...

But the main point of that paragraph wasn't really about Nanjo, it was about how after 6 first twilights consisting of 35 willing participants, everyone has been called on for the first twilight (except Nanjo). And it seems no one actively resisted the plan. Kanon, Eva, Kyrie, Natsuhi, Krauss, Rudolf, Battler, Jessica, Rosa all went along with it...

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Actually, wasn't Nanjo in his room in the guest house in EP5? He could've been chosen, as well as Kumasawa instead of Genji...

Your not listening to me are you? That's not the only point. The siblings and the cousins are said to loaf around the mansion at night. and the servants have jobs cleaning and patrolling the halls, which make them perfect targets. When the sibllings don't loaf around, and stay at the conference, or in Natsuhi's case when she returns to her room, they aren't killed episode 3 shows this. When they do loaf around for some reason they are killed. "So it's possible that loafing around in the hall ways = target for a murder scheme". That's what I think...

Plus in episode 5 Battler isn't around to see that so...

[Kylon99]

I don't disagree with you, but I wasn't talking about who was getting targetted.

I'm trying to say that no one really has anything convincing to get 35 people to play dead in all episodes. Something 'greater' must be at work here. I was responding to:

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

I was thinking something along the same lines. If the first twilights are all originally faked, I thought that it might be some way to either get Kinzo out of his study, or get somebody to confess that he's dead.
Still, it doesn't make sense why Krauss and Natsuhi both participate in the fakings throughout the Episodes. They're trying to hide Kinzo's death.

[Renall]

I'm not sure Nanjo's location is stated at all in most games at midnight on the 4th. The anime does show him asleep in a few instances, and in ep5 we can assume he's in his guesthouse room, but in most episodes his physical location is not the least bit fixed.