[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Renall

Well yes, but that's the problem. The group she sends out is pretty much exactly the most likely group of Beatrice's accomplices. So if Natsuhi is acting, she just sent Beatrice her own crew. If she's not acting, Natsuhi made the single best guess in the entire series by shoehorning Nanjo, Maria, and Kumasawa in with Genji.

Then again, she kept Jessica and George. We'll see how wise that turns out to be.

Yeah... Nanjo, Kumasawa and Maria are all almost certain accomplices. Not so sure about Genji (if he is an accomplice, why does he suggest making them all leave the room both times...? I've thought of his move more as one of self sacrifice).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Yeah, most of the theories that have someone other than Yasu commit the actual murders is that they require another person doing the killing for them. Or someone that had the perfect alibi of being dead and not really being it. If thats the case then just about anyone could be the culprit given enough interpretation.

In fiction, yes. But the ep7 Tea Party clearly didn't give a shit about Kyrie and Rudolf being dead as Dillinger most episodes.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Renall

In fiction, yes. But the ep7 Tea Party clearly didn't give a shit about Kyrie and Rudolf being dead as Dillinger most episodes.

Im well aware of this, but in those two particular cases there was no red to restrict that possibility. Then again the red doesn't look like it matters if you can skirt around it the way they are using it now. Im still holding out for EP8, I want a sort of master stroke to make it all come together.

[UsagiTenpura]

Don't think the arc 7 tea party is that relevant.
Too much doesn't match up about it. It's too close to a repeat of arc 5's Natsuhi is the culprit theory to be the truth.

Beside, for instance in arc 4 Ange says that the gifts bought to her by her mother were always really thoughtful and chosen carefully and long in advance, which seems to outright contradict what's claimed of her in arc 7.

Generally speaking they act so much out of character it feels like connecting the Kyrie of arc 7's tea party to the Kyrie we generally know is like trying to match Rika from Higurashi to Bernkastel from Umineko. Same for Rudolph if not even more.

Finally there's nothing that begins to make sense with the epitaph murder pattern with what's presented to us in arc 7's tea party.

Generally speaking I'm willing to believe that a different gamemaster can result in a different culprit. However... the idea that each arc has a different culprit, tho somewhat appealing in a way, makes arc 1 a bit too convenient to just happens to have randomly picked up "Beatrice" as the culprit for her having no relation to most of the other arcs' murders.

There's also however the context of the bomber. I'm eager to believe the bomber is not the epitaph murderer. I even tend to believe that on Rokkenjima Prime no murder outside of the explosion occurred, and that the explosion might not have been caused by Beatrice, but I think by this point the idea that Beatrice is not the epitaph murderer in at least most arcs is trying to dodge some small problematic questions by creating much bigger ones and generally overcomplicating the answer.

[Renall]

All it proves is that the fiction can go any which way. The "fact" that one episode happens to point fingers at one character shouldn't be taken as gospel for anything but that fictional setup itself.

[UsagiTenpura]

It feels like you're saying each arc has a completely disconnected story from each other.
Or I guess that neither who dunnit nor why dunnit is really important.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm still bothered by the glaringly shittarded plot hole of like seven guns being piled right next to the gold and bomb. I mean, what the fuck? That doesn't make a single modicrum of sense.

[Cao Ni Ma]

They are apparently disconnected, they all have different possible solutions using different characters. While we want a single unified solution that covers all of the games or at least the first 4 ones, there really is no guarantee that would happen until EP8 is released.

[Renall]

A wizard* did it.

(*Kinzo**)

(**wouldn't put it past him)

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I'm still bothered by the glaringly shittarded plot hole of like seven guns being piled right next to the gold and bomb. I mean, what the fuck? That doesn't make a single modicrum of sense.

I'm guessing this is representative of how much Bernkastel doesn't care about anything. "Oops, I forgot to include a scenario with the murders. Let's compress it all into one illogical, plot-hole-filled but convenient short series of scenes!"

Basically if this is true then we've discovered the metaphor for Bernkastel. She's Studio DEEN!

[AuraTwilight]

Well, DEEN is pretty loveless, but in all seriousness, I found her much more to be a personification of people who are ripping apart the mystery to get to the truth as a game, with no regard for love or sympathy for the tragic figures involved. She doesn't care about reaching the truth so much as throwing out the most entertaining and satisfying answer to her; in other words, anything which she thinks sufficiently disproves the existence of Beatrice. Anything beyond that is unimportant.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Used Can

I think that ties up some things rather nicely, but it is leaving several things out. For example, in EP1, Hideyoshi is clearly involved to some extent in EP1's 1st Twilight, maybe Eva as well, due to her odd behaviour.

In EP2 I doubt Rosa could have killed Jessica, since I don't think she had the master keys at that point (and those keys were required for the creation of that closed room), and on top of that, I'm sure Rosa has quite a good alibi for that scene. The only ones without an alibi would be Genji, Gohda and Shannon.

In addition, why would George take part in this? He surely is Shannon's current love interest, but wouldn't he find it odd Shannon is doing all of this just for Battler, who he used to be jealous of?

Not to mention this idea relies on all of them flipping on almost every story. This would make that "accidents" fanart even more believable, if you ask me.

Well, in my setup, there are five groups:

- Hiding Kinzo group : Krauss(leader), Natsuhi, Nanjo, all servants except Gohda

- Extorting Krauss group: Eva (leader), Hideyoshi, Rosa, Rudolf and Kyrie

- Beatrice's team: Shannon(leader),, Nanjo, all servants (again except Gohda), George, and Maria

- Hideous motive group: Kyrie (leader), and Rudolf

- Innocene: The children, and Gohda


Eva always have plan B that if they failed to force Krauss to sign up the terms to give them cash (which failed in EP1, EP4, EP5) in half a year's time. They would setup fake deaths in order to break into Kinzo's study (implemented in EP5). But her fake death plan did not involve magic theme.

In EP1, Eva and Hideyoshi left early (before midnight), so as to make them to discoverer of the "corpse" (should be posed by Rosa, Kyrie and Rudolf). Shannon came after midnight to announce her fake death play. Kyrie and Rudolf flipped but failed. So in the next morning we observe their odd behaviour as if they know someone is going to disappear.

EP2, Rosa did not have any alibi. If we buy Shkanon, then when Rosa went to study to find Kinzo, she would not find Shannon. Then Genji had to reveal Kanon = Shannon. They went to Jessica's room then. Rosa killed Jessica because when Kanon's identity was revealed in front of Jessica. Jessica thought she was cheated and accused the servants as deceivers and murderers. Rosa feared that Shannon would expose her as the real murderer so she killed Jessica. Rosa agreed to cover up for the servants about Kinzo's death and Kanon's identity in exchange for them to cover up the death of Jessica. This explained the 180 change of attitude of Rosa and her lies after she came back to the parlor.

George only perceived it as an act to make Maria happy. Only Shannon knows it was also to pose a challenge to Battler.

Well, Eva surely have flipped in EP3. Almost certainly it was Rosa who placed the letter in the parlor after they went to check Natsuhi's room in EP2. Erika's flip was admitted in EP6. In other episodes, it was Kyrie and Rudolf who started all real murders, and that was not a sudden flip.


I believe EP8 will be used to redeem Kyrie and Rudolf. Cue Battler's comment that no one are really bad guys and Battler's mother is still kept as secret.

(Really, to say the whole incident was caused by a hyperimaginative girl driven to become homicidal because some punk promised something stupid 6 years ago is so underwhelming. I want to add more ideas and twists to make the answer more appealing even though it seemed to complicate a lot.)

[Used Can]

The problem is if we have so many people flipping out, we do not really have a mastermind. Sure, we could say Yasu planned something, but not the murders, as they would have been caused by different parties, who exploited the situation created by Yasu to kill the rest. I wouldn't know if something like this could be an answer for a mystery novel, and it would violate Van Dine's 12th rule - but, either way, we do not know if all the rules are valid in Umineko any way. I think it'd be of poor taste, though.

Anyway, in EP5, it seems someone knew about Yasu being the kid from 19 yeas ago. I doubt Yasu herself did those phone calls, and I doubt the one(s) who called Natsuhi just came up with some random story and by coincidence hit the nail.

Originally Posted by Renall

A wizard* did it.

(*Kinzo**)

(**wouldn't put it past him)

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the answer to all questions in life.

Thank you very much.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Used Can

Anyway, in EP5, it seems someone knew about Yasu being the kid from 19 yeas ago. I doubt Yasu herself did those phone calls, and I doubt the one(s) who called Natsuhi just came up with some random story and by coincidence hit the nail.

Yeah, the person knew about the baby and must have had access into the Nats room to lay the cards down. They make Shanon too much of a likely suspect in that scene so I doubt it was her. The knowledge of Nats favorite season doesn't matter anyways since you can bypass that with multiple cards.

[AuraTwilight]

I always figured it was Kumasawa who did it. She's the one who's demonstrated a "mother with claws" attitude towards Yasu, and she's demonstrated pretty damn good acting ability.

[Pikumin]

It's a bit of a stretch, but I've been thinking what if the phone calls in EP5 didn't even happen? What if Natsuhi took up all of those strange actions(like hiding in the closet) by her own will, and she is the culprit in EP5? The scenes of her being threatened on the phone are merely ornamented falsehoods that we see because the interpretation "has love". Because of this, she is deliberately portrayed as a tragic figure.

[Judoh]

You're right that is a bit of a stretch.

[Renall]

I'd call it unlikely not just because of the red, but because pretty much the first thing Bern says when Lambda pulls the phone call on her is "come on, did that really happen?"

While it's certainly always fun when the first thing offhandedly suggested turns out to be true, I'd argue we are also supposed to have the same reaction as Bern at that point, as the entire plot thread just seems to come out of nowhere. So if the immediate reaction is to dismiss it as having not actually happened or the caller not actually existing, it seems like Ryukishi wants us to wonder how it could be true even if it's not exactly as portrayed.

Or maybe it's a fake-out.

[UsagiTenpura]

It also makes arc 5 into ... something even weirder.

If we go by Battler's red then Natsuhi is innocent in arc 5, so without the phone calls threatening her and controlling her actions you have to find out a new explanation for all her off behavior, especially hiding in the same room as Hideyoshi when he was ... uh... "second twilight-ed" (I'm not going to say murder).

Also, this isn't really objective, but I always saw arc 5's phone calls as a confirmation that someone could fake voice (and thus that all the phone calls of arc 4 could've been done by a single caller).


Entirely different topic but I'm digging in the question arcs in order to make a more complete version of my Battler is only a furniture theory and I can't help but notice that Ange's memories of Battler never mentions him coming back to live with Kyrie/Rudolph.

[Renall]

Just when did he come back? It has to have been some time after October 1985.