[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Magic implies that it is supposed to bring out curiosity and excitment and leave the audience in awe. The presentation itself was the goal.
However Trick implies that actively fooling the audience for achieving a certain selfish goal is the motive. The presentation is just a means for another goal.

Which leads me back to a question I asked ages ago, why was "hand" presented in Violet Truth? Doesn't it clearly hint that our own perception of doubting or believing this trick is intrinsically linked to our belief or disbelief into what Beatrice and therefore the message bottle narratives are trying to tell us?
Only the culprit is able to lie while using the Violet Truth, so what does this tell us about this riddle and what it poses towards the whole story?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Which leads me back to a question I asked ages ago, why was "hand" presented in Violet Truth? Doesn't it clearly hint that our own perception of doubting or believing this trick is intrinsically linked to our belief or disbelief into what Beatrice and therefore the message bottle narratives are trying to tell us?
Only the culprit is able to lie while using the Violet Truth, so what does this tell us about this riddle and what it poses towards the whole story?

Well, here's the problem. There's a number of questions we'd have to ask there:

• What does it mean when purple statements are used for a non-declaration? The scene in question is a third-person narrative, not a line of dialogue. If it is a declaratory statement of fact, then...
• ...who is declaring it? Beatrice isn't declaring it; the scene is describing her doing it. If anyone is declaring her hand status to be fact, it's the person writing the scene. So...
• ...who wrote this scene? It doesn't seem like it belongs in somebody's work of fiction, does it? I mean if it did, we could maybe say the writer was Beatrice, or Battler/Tohya, but in that case does it mean that if Trick is valid, that writer is the one who is the culprit (as only the culprit can lie)? Is the writer Ryukishi, as this is omniscient third-person narration? Is he incapable of lying since he's not even a character in the story and thus can't be a culprit? Is he capable of lying because he sort of is the culprit, as the author and thus the one who made all the deaths happen? It gets too meta-fictional-messy to provide valid and useful information.

Let's assume that he's just blatantly mucking about with his own notion of what purple text even is and that we're supposed to believe these statements are red truth unless we think Beatrice is the culprit. What does that even matter thematically? Ange doesn't even think Beatrice is the culprit. Is it strictly for our consumption as the audience? It'd have to be; nobody can see that text but us. In that case, is it asking us "do you think Beatrice is the culprit?" How does that comport with the notion of us believing, say, that Rudolf and Kyrie are the culprits? Surely that's also just as wrong as thinking Beatrice is, as it's based on essentially the same level of information (i.e. none, actually arguably even less). What is the point of those purple hand assignments in context, given that they don't agree with the rules established for them?

Also worth noting one of the rules of the whole purple game was "Outside of spoken statements, there are no lies in the narration," which would sorta directly contradict that whole "purple text in narrative description." You can argue that only applies to Bern's game specifically, but in that case why the hell is purple being used anywhere else? Why should some rules apply, but not others? If we take every single rule to apply then we must conclude that the statements are true, because the rules tell us they are... or I guess we could argue they're meaningless, as they're used in violation of the rules, but even if they're meaningless we could still believe them to be true.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Which leads me back to a question I asked ages ago, why was "hand" presented in Violet Truth? Doesn't it clearly hint that our own perception of doubting or believing this trick is intrinsically linked to our belief or disbelief into what Beatrice and therefore the message bottle narratives are trying to tell us?
Only the culprit is able to lie while using the Violet Truth, so what does this tell us about this riddle and what it poses towards the whole story?

"Left Hand" and "Right Hand" are in purple. And the rule you talked about can only be applied for the segments of the sentence that are in purple. Maybe it is supposed to show that Beatrice is not the culprit but just giving the front of one? Although she is tricking and lying all the time she did NOT lie with the purple truth. This may or may not involve a "devils proof", that, while a culprit can lie, the culprit doesn't have to. But can you imagine any significant lie there?

If she would indeed lie about the hands then it is either:

1. Using pockets on her dress
2. Simply switching right and left in both cases, which essentially doesn't change the sleight of hand in any way
3. "Hiding" the fact that she "really" used magic by showing a version that is more plausible as a sleight of hand, but this just seems ridiculous

So my bet is that that purple declaration is... true

[Renall]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

"Left Hand" and "Right Hand" are in purple. And the rule you talked about can only be applied for the segments of the sentence that are in purple. Maybe it is supposed to show that Beatrice is not the culprit but just giving the front of one? Although she is tricking and lying all the time she did NOT lie with the purple truth. This may or may not involve a "devils proof", that, while a culprit can lie, the culprit doesn't have to. But can you imagine any significant lie there?

Yeah but the problem is Beatrice isn't lying (or not). The descriptive narrative is lying (or not). What would be true/untrue about the specific purple statement is only whether the narrative is actually describing the left/right hand in describing Beatrice's actions.

What Beatrice does would not change in this scene were the hand status in purple, red, or no color at all. She is not making any statement of fact in those lines; the narrator is. So she... kinda can't lie in this scene as I see it, because she didn't say anything and the only person who can use those descriptors is the author, not Beatrice herself.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah but the problem is Beatrice isn't lying (or not). The descriptive narrative is lying (or not). What would be true/untrue about the specific purple statement is only whether the narrative is actually describing the left/right hand in describing Beatrice's actions.

What Beatrice does would not change in this scene were the hand status in purple, red, or no color at all. She is not making any statement of fact in those lines; the narrator is. So she... kinda can't lie in this scene as I see it, because she didn't say anything and the only person who can use those descriptors is the author, not Beatrice herself.

Regardless under whose authority these purple declarations were made, it is still unlikely that they were lies. It seems more like these purple declarations were intentionally (mis)used as either a hint or a misdirection/red herring for the trick or magic decision.

[Drifloon]

I think you might be reading too much into this? I assumed the purple text was just used as a way to emphasise the fact that she switched hands, making the 'trick' blindingly obvious for anyone who would be inclined to expose it. The fact that it's purple doesn't really matter; any other means of emphasis would have served the same purpose.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Let's assume that he's just blatantly mucking about with his own notion of what purple text even is and that we're supposed to believe these statements are red truth unless we think Beatrice is the culprit. What does that even matter thematically?

It is not necessarily going back to the question of guilt, I'd rather say it is about freeing people from guilt. In case we believe in magic everybody is free from guilt and even Beatrice is absolved from being the embodiment of murder. It is basically the magic of the cat box coming true in full circle and magic fulfilling itself.
What I find important (in my reading) is that it is a conscious act of ignoring an obvious lie. Ange in this moment is in front of making the decision whether to be satisfied with the truth she built for herself or to keep trying to destroy the truth that other people built for themselves in order to make her's the only truth.

But please let's not go into the whole schtick of whether this is morally right on a grander scale again.

Also worth noting one of the rules of the whole purple game was "Outside of spoken statements, there are no lies in the narration," which would sorta directly contradict that whole "purple text in narrative description."

As far as I understood that rule and this might be my personal understanding this meant that there would be no descriptive tricks (a genre of it's own in Japanese mystery writing) in Bern's game. This was not a comment on the purple truth itself, it merely meant (to me) that, if there is a lie it is hidden in the purple statement of whoever is the culprit, not something like omission or perspective narration by the author (like it was often done in the main Episodes).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

As far as I understood that rule and this might be my personal understanding this meant that there would be no descriptive tricks (a genre of it's own in Japanese mystery writing) in Bern's game. This was not a comment on the purple truth itself, it merely meant (to me) that, if there is a lie it is hidden in the purple statement of whoever is the culprit, not something like omission or perspective narration by the author (like it was often done in the main Episodes).

Either way, it's not a "statement." Bern's game was clearly set up to be the sort of game where you have to find a contradiction in testimony, and the purple exists to provide context for the game through a series of testimonial statements. Transitioned into a narrative, it doesn't actually seem to serve any purpose. As Drifloon said, all it really does is call attention to the action Beatrice takes. Yet it uses a mechanic that was rather extensively developed through a series of rules earlier.

It's like laughing in red without the dramatic gravitas laughing in red provided when Beatrice actually did it in the first few episodes.

[Dormin]

Maybe the purple truth actually has no deeper meaning, and was introduced only as a gameplay element making bern's challenge possible? I know this is bit of a lame theory but I wouldn't put it past Ryu.

Also sorry to break the flow of the current discussion, but I was wondering something that I at least don't remember. I was replaying ep 5, and Natsuhi receives a phonecall, probably made by Yasu. Is the phone call considered a "fact" and a prime-world event, and is the caller actually Yasu?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Dormin

Maybe the purple truth actually has no deeper meaning, and was introduced only as a gameplay element making bern's challenge possible? I know this is bit of a lame theory but I wouldn't put it past Ryu.

The issue here isn't its use in Bern's game, where it's fairly clear what it is and what it does. The issue is at the end near the Trick/Magic choice where it's inexplicably used again. Or maybe that text just happens to be purple... or... something.

[Dormin]

To be honest I don't even remember the part so my speculation might be a bit useless, but I'd say I pretty much agree with drifloon and his theory:

I think you might be reading too much into this? I assumed the purple text was just used as a way to emphasise the fact that she switched hands, making the 'trick' blindingly obvious for anyone who would be inclined to expose it. The fact that it's purple doesn't really matter; any other means of emphasis would have served the same purpose.

It could be seen as a way to underline the entire concept of magic possible to explain with tricks and therefore give the reader possibility to make his own conclusion of the existence of magic

[Valkama]

Pretty much what Drifloon said. The purple is used to bring attention to important parts of the story as Bern said I believe.

[DaBackpack]

I imagined the use of purple as "the story's final riddle" and a prelude to the decision Ange (the reader) makes with with Trick/Magic ending. So I didn't really look into precisely who the purple "belongs to" (the narrator or Beatrice) that much because the point is pretty much the same: do you believe Beatrice? Do you trust that it's magic or will you deny it?

I can see where you're coming from, but it's not worse than Beatrice's Ahahahahaha!s throughout EP2 (laughter is not a statement and cannot have a truth value).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

I can see where you're coming from, but it's not worse than Beatrice's Ahahahahaha!s throughout EP2 (laughter is not a statement and cannot have a truth value).

Actually it is worse, because of exactly what you said. There's no way to interpret red laughter as true or false, but it seems like there's some kind of fact statement being made there, it's just not really being made by anyone.

I'm pretty sure the intent is clear as people have said, it's just... probably an awkward implementation, is all.

[Dormin]

I can see where you're coming from, but it's not worse than Beatrice's Ahahahahaha!s throughout EP2 (laughter is not a statement and cannot have a truth value).

I don't know if this is discussed to death, but the red truth and their truth values are very trivial in umineko. I feel like Ryu is trying to tell us lessons about subjectivity of "truth", but in concrete evidence things like pretty much every red truth concerning Yasu are absolutely subjective: most of the time they seem to play with the definition of what makes a human (for example Beatrice seems to think a person doesn't need a body), and therefore cannot be considered as absolute objective truths.

In this way the entire concept of "red truth" becomes very ridiculous: with twisted logic that umineko is trying to get us to follow while thinking the riddles, we can pretty much discard every red truth. Even things like claiming someone to be dead in red can be claimed to be false (maybe the subjective definition of "death" varies) or actually point towards the prime-world where the said character is dead, the bastardy options of bypassing the truths are limitless.

Maybe the purple statements could be seen also as some kind of subjective clusterfuck. I don't know if we should trust purple any more than red

[ndqanh_vn]

Originally Posted by Dormin

I don't know if this is discussed to death, but the red truth and their truth values are very trivial in umineko. I feel like Ryu is trying to tell us lessons about subjectivity of "truth", but in concrete evidence things like pretty much every red truth concerning Yasu are absolutely subjective: most of the time they seem to play with the definition of what makes a human (for example Beatrice seems to think a person doesn't need a body), and therefore cannot be considered as absolute objective truths.

In term of gameplay, if it is a game, I still considered that whole "personality death" to be blatant cheating.

But it's not like Umineko to be fair anyways.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Dormin

Maybe the purple statements could be seen also as some kind of subjective clusterfuck. I don't know if we should trust purple any more than red

But the point of the purple is that we can trust it... in the original context where it's used. Because there, it's just a game rule and is carefully and clearly defined, and nobody attempts to subvert its meaning (Erika exploits a definitional loophole, but she doesn't defy the actual rules). Unlike the red, those rules aren't violated in Bern's game. The solution conforms entirely with the rules established.

In the second context where it's used, it's not clear it has any rules to it at all, so it's not even a subjective thing so much as a kinda-pointless thing.

[Kealym]

I wouldn't call the red worthless, at all. We should know as early as "You are incompetent!" that we are working with some very relative truth values, and it's not like Battler never figured out (again, pretty early on) that there are points for particular phrasing, and intent.

I think most of what we need to know about the red is well summarized by Virgilia in EP5, when she's talking about "Why do dragons sleep in the day" and she wanted you to solve it and etc. etc. While I certainly had hoped the shenanigans would've been pulled off more elegantly (I''d agree in calling EP3 ... well, I wouldn't call it honest, but I wouldn't call it cheating), for us IRL readers of "When They Cry, by Ryukishi!", the red allowed us to come to a pretty precise solution by reasoning. Even if you throw away any kind of body-switching tricks because it's dumb / aren't we still getting over Shmion, you don't have very many reasonable choices besides Shannon with sprinklings of Kanon accomplice, by the end of EP4.

Regarding the purple at the end of EP8, I basically agree with Drifloon - it was a blatant flag for "there is almost certainly a dumb trick at work here", so when Ange / you makes the choice, it's more a choice of whether or not you choose to call it out as such. Like, not acknowledging magic, but acknowledging that this is what magic IS.


... ... ormaybe just lolRyukishi writing ala' "let's throw in a gold text! and never ever use it ever"

[Ryuudou]

On the Episode 5 gameboard why can Gertrude and Cornelia use red truth for things they haven't directly witnessed?

They are pieces employed by Bernkastel who isn't the game master, so where does this authority came from?

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Ryuudou

On the Episode 5 gameboard why can Gertrude and Cornelia use red truth for things they haven't directly witnessed?

They are pieces employed by Bernkastel who isn't the game master, so where does this authority came from?

I think it is because Lambda ALLOWED them to. At the same time she could negate these red truths if she wanted to, as she did with the "from the moment the rain started, the window was not opened even once".