[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Cao Ni Ma]

Doubt it means much but even if it did and the siestas are supposed to be characterizations for the rifles, Battler still took a face full of lead in EP3. This is even after they took a shot at him and got it bounced in the metaworld.

I just think it was RK07 saying "Those this look cool? Fuck yeah!" and adding it.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Doubt it means much but even if it did and the siestas are supposed to be characterizations for the rifles, Battler still took a face full of lead in EP3. This is even after they took a shot at him and got it bounced in the metaworld.

I just think it was RK07 saying "Those this look cool? Fuck yeah!" and adding it.

They are the Winchesters. Ryûkishi basically revealed in an interview that アイがあれば視える...even though of course this only works with some heavy screwing around with Katakana readings in Japanese and it doesn't really work in English.

He basically says that Siesta is the wrong reading, it's actually Chiester. And if you loose the I (Ai being the reading of 愛 -> love) you get Chester, which is short for Winchester.
It doesn't really work, because you never pronounce [CH] as [SH] in English and it's not Winshester it's Winchester...but I'll leave that to the problems of English<>Japanese and Ryûkishi being a little to eager.

I think it does mean something because Eva Beatrice (culprit X) must be in possession of the Winchesters (at least one) to kill. Also Goldsmith in EP4 who is most likely Yasu (anglicisms and his overall demeanor) also brings along the "Chiesters".
The fact that they can't hurt Meta-Battler is just because he doesn't believe in magic...I think we have to differentiate between pure Meta-World and magical interpretations. In EP6 (I think you meant that because of the wedding) it just shows how "Beatrice" has to fight her own creations in order to regain control of her story again...because it was taken from her by people like the Witch Hunters.
At least that's how I see it.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by haguruma

They are the Winchesters.

This is sort of a tangent, but the Siesta's are also Maria's rabbit orchestra. I've seen a lot of people make statements like "magical character X is physical object Y," but fictional characters don't have that kind of simplistic lineage, right? They're more like a mixture of inspirations that were stirred together over time and evolved into a new being.

If you say that "the Siestas are rifles" or "the Stakes are cheap American paperweights" or "Bern is Ikuko's cat", isn't that on the level of dismissing a wedding cake as "just flour"?

[Cao Ni Ma]

They could also have a little bit of beatrice in them as well. Kanon/Shannon/Yasu are the 3 ones that are still alive and the 4th one is the one that Rosa killed which in this case would be Beatrice 2.

[AuraTwilight]

Point is, Meta characters are inconsistent because they're not people and their behaviors are 100% dictated by what the narrative needs them to do.

[FirstTwilight]

I was re-reading some episodes and with Bern's game two things caught my mind:

- When did ep VII funeral happen?

It can't be between ep V and VI because Battler was trying to resurrect Beato and didn't know she wasn't going to come back. So i assumed it happened during ep VII, but then in ep VIII Beato pops again, it seems weird to give her a funeral when she's still walking around. (Yes, technically they are different Beatos since that Beatrice cannot be resurrected, etc, but Battler always treated her as the previous one... the even talk about their game, etc)

- Do the previous gameboard happen in any meta-level?

I mean, even IF everything was fiction, i always assumed in the fictional world these games happened... but then, there is ep VIII Bern game, where the characters play a game like the previous ones without any concern for the pieces. It was like they were playing chess!

[Cao Ni Ma]

I think that last scene in EP6 was just the "Happy ending" that really doesnt happen. I think RK07 stated that he thought of it as the happy magic ending, while ep7 was made for those that wanted a little more meat in answering some of the mysteries.

What Im trying to say is that if you didn't want to think about the possibility of a bad end in the series then you needed to stop at ep6. If you wanted to see what might really had happened, even if it was a bad end, then you need to watch ep7. EP8 is more of like, weeeeelp you got this far and you still have problems with the series and its plot have a party and murder mystery with a side dish of clichéd amnesia and/or "it was all (the meta world) a dream after all!".

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Point is, Meta characters are inconsistent because they're not people and their behaviors are 100% dictated by what the narrative needs them to do.

This exactly. There is no consistency whatsoever in the behavior of many magic/meta-characters. They fulfill entirely different roles and have entirely different levels of threat depending on what the episode merits. The power levels of the Stakes and Siestas especially vary wildly between episodes, as well as who they owe loyalty to and why. Only a handful remain in any way consistent (Bern, Lambda, probably Ronove, Zepar & Furfur basically, Will). Don't forget basic examples like Piece-Magic-Beatrice and Kinzo, who behave entirely differently where necessary.

[AuraTwilight]

- When did ep VII funeral happen?

It can't be between ep V and VI because Battler was trying to resurrect Beato and didn't know she wasn't going to come back. So i assumed it happened during ep VII, but then in ep VIII Beato pops again, it seems weird to give her a funeral when she's still walking around. (Yes, technically they are different Beatos since that Beatrice cannot be resurrected, etc, but Battler always treated her as the previous one... the even talk about their game, etc)

It happens exactly where it looks like it happens. After EP6, Battler has a funeral for Beatrice. Then in EP8 she comes back. You have to realize that events in the Meta-World are metaphorical; although the Beatrice he resurrected has Beato's memories, personality, and such, it's the Beatrice Battler remembers, not the Beatrice he knew.

Beatrice died before Battler learned the truth (Or when Toya regained his memories), so he can't revive her or speak with her again. What he CAN do, however, is remember her in his memories, and make her live on in his fiction.

- Do the previous gameboard happen in any meta-level?

I mean, even IF everything was fiction, i always assumed in the fictional world these games happened... but then, there is ep VIII Bern game, where the characters play a game like the previous ones without any concern for the pieces. It was like they were playing chess!

The Chess analogy was around ever since the VERY beginning. The only difference is that Bern didn't pretend she was doing anything else. All the Games are stories and fictions. They never happened. After all, how could they, when they exist entirely according to the whims of the godlike Gamemaster? How can they be real, when every character is effectively a puppet on strings? If these worlds WERE real, they'd be nightmares, because they're worlds with no future and no free will.

[cronnoponno]

Hm, I don't exactly remember, but when EP 7's gold was discovered, they call Krauss out for his concealment of Kinzo's death. Now, I don't remember, but were they told beforehand that Kinzo was dead? I'm pretty sure they weren't ENTIRELY sure, but they basically just assumed that was the case. I forgot whether or not Yasu mentioned he was dead to them...

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by haguruma

He basically says that Siesta is the wrong reading, it's actually Chiester. And if you loose the I (Ai being the reading of 愛 -> love) you get Chester, which is short for Winchester.
It doesn't really work, because you never pronounce [CH] as [SH] in English and it's not Winshester it's Winchester...but I'll leave that to the problems of English<>Japanese and Ryûkishi being a little to eager.

And they're WinChesters because they clearly run on a Microsoft OS? Pleaaaase?

Eh, maybe not.

[Wanderer]

Most of the magical characters were crap. They had no core for the reader to explore as characters; yet they got a shitload of airtime, and it only got worse as Umineko went. I almost always found magical scenes too drawn out. In Chiru, a lot of meta-scenes were too long too. I wanted more Rokkenjima! I would have also much preferred 2 more question-arc Games that ran all the way through (unlike how Games 5-6 stopped shortly after the first twilight), that focused less on consequences in the meta-world. And one more thing I would have really liked, probably as an ep8, would have been a full Game from Yasu's POV; just the methods and accomplices would all be a yet-unused variation, with some mix-and-match-borrowing from other Games. Now that would have been interesting.

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Hm, I don't exactly remember, but when EP 7's gold was discovered, they call Krauss out for his concealment of Kinzo's death. Now, I don't remember, but were they told beforehand that Kinzo was dead? I'm pretty sure they weren't ENTIRELY sure, but they basically just assumed that was the case. I forgot whether or not Yasu mentioned he was dead to them...

They were assuming. It was pretty immaterial at that point, what with a mountain of gold in front of them.

[cronnoponno]

I just reread the scene, seems Rudolph was pretty bold in his assumption: ''You really think you're in a position to bargain? When you're the one's hiding Dad's death?''


Rosa:
''Y, yeah, yeah...!! You've been swindling us the whole time, treating fathers wealth as if it were your own!''


Kyrie:
''All you need to do is split the gold evenly and we'll drop all the rest, it sounds very fair to me.''

Then Krauss totally owns them after that with his unmarked gold comment, and assures them they're in no position to take advantage of that weakness.

Seems a bit of a stretch that they'd just bluff like that.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Seems a bit of a stretch that they'd just bluff like that.

Well they have ample reason to suspect Kinzô's death.
While he was always a recluse and didn't seem to like being among people, he always seemed to attend the family conference...and for him to miss that 2 times in a row and not allowing anybody except Krauss, Natsuhi and the servants to even talk to him, that IS pretty suspicious.

I think they were actually bluffing, but they had pretty strong arguments on their side.

[cronnoponno]

Asking a lot of questions here, but if Lambdadelta didn't care either way who won, as long as she just plays with Bernkastel, why did she throw popcorn at Dlanor to stop her from using ''The special red truth Bernkastel gave her that denies Beatrice's existence?''.


Also, Erika might not have been the territory lord as you said Aura, while she does say it a few more times, an example being when Dlanor tells her to hide safely, she was basically just a speaker for Battler, and the purgatory totally said ''Fuck it'' and attacked Gertrude, if she was the actual territory lord, and not just using Battler as her bitch for the power, she surely could have prevented this...?

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

My problems with this is that Will uses a line like "the golden truth locks the lock of illusions" or something like that to describe this scene. My current hypothesis on the golden truth is that , using magic, you convert a painful truth into a more pleasant one. So who is Rosa covering for? "Beatrice", Herself or someone else?

I assume the golden truth referred to either "something all observers to agree to lie about", such as the chapel door or the knock in EP5, or "something that's plainly obvious but cannot be objectively proven", which I mostly get from Kinzo's corpse. I read it as something like "It's plain to everybody here that this body certainly is Kinzo's, and it'd be silly (though possible) to argue otherwise", which would be why sometimes it's inferior, sometimes superior, to Red Truth.

Of course, I also think the Gold Truth idea was something he introduced but wasn't entirely sure what to do with, so...

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Asking a lot of questions here, but if Lambdadelta didn't care either way who won, as long as she just plays with Bernkastel, why did she throw popcorn at Dlanor to stop her from using ''The special red truth Bernkastel gave her that denies Beatrice's existence?''.

Read it as you will. Lambda assures us she's no slouch in the "evil trollish dickery" department, but she's actually been rather sympathetic, if not entirely helpful, to Beato's / Battler's plight. I assume she either thought it was better to help Beatrice survive, as that would lead to Bern hanging around for more games or just thought it would be more INTERESTING if she got through. It would've been pretty anticlimactic if Beato was stopped before reaching Erika.

[AuraTwilight]

Asking a lot of questions here, but if Lambdadelta didn't care either way who won, as long as she just plays with Bernkastel, why did she throw popcorn at Dlanor to stop her from using ''The special red truth Bernkastel gave her that denies Beatrice's existence?''.

Because she DOES care who wins; she's explicitly mentioned as being Beatrice's, and then Battler's, guardian. She was neutral in the games because they keep Bernkastel 'trapped' by obsessive interest, but she doesn't want either of them to be actually hurt.

Also, Erika might not have been the territory lord as you said Aura, while she does say it a few more times, an example being when Dlanor tells her to hide safely, she was basically just a speaker for Battler, and the purgatory totally said ''Fuck it'' and attacked Gertrude, if she was the actual territory lord, and not just using Battler as her bitch for the power, she surely could have prevented this...?

Uh...I have no idea what you're going on about. During that discussion we were talking about the end of EP5, not the wedding.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Kealym

I assume the golden truth referred to either "something all observers to agree to lie about", such as the chapel door or the knock in EP5, or "something that's plainly obvious but cannot be objectively proven", which I mostly get from Kinzo's corpse. I read it as something like "It's plain to everybody here that this body certainly is Kinzo's, and it'd be silly (though possible) to argue otherwise", which would be why sometimes it's inferior, sometimes superior, to Red Truth.

Of course, I also think the Gold Truth idea was something he introduced but wasn't entirely sure what to do with, so...

I thought that when Will said "the golden truth locks the lock of illusions" he was literally referring to gold, not 'gold text'. In ep2 first twilight, the chapel door was never locked (hence "lock of illusions"), but instead there was a "truth" that it was locked by gold. In other words, there was a bribe (using gold) to lie about it. Remember the 3 golden ingots in the chapel, as well as Rosa's attempt to nab one of them at the end of that arc?

Actually, in thinking about this I think I've just about figured out ep2. Yasu is a culprit, as usual. Accomplices are Genji, Gohda and Rosa; Genji is always loyal to Yasu, while Gohda and Rosa are in it for money:

Spoiler:

First Twilight: I'm not sure exactly how the murders are conducted, but victims were likely lured by gold and killed in the chapel. In the morning the servants and Rosa find it "locked", then Rosa gets the key from Maria's bag and "unlocks" it, and the witnesses to see it unlocked are Gohda, Genji, and Yasu (Shannon and Kanon)* who complete the list of culprits/accomplices. They partake in a collaborative lie; the chapel was never locked in the first place.
*In the anime, Nanjo is also present for some reason.

Second Twilight: While in Jessica's room, Yasu-Beatrice mode destroys Yasu-Kanon mode, thus allowing for "Kanon was killed in this room". Then Yasu-Beatrice stabs Jessica in the back, leaves Kanon's key behind, exits the door, and locks it with Shannon's key.

Wolf and sheep puzzles: Rosa's discussion of Wolf and sheep puzzles at this point is quite relevant, but the twist is that she's actually playing for the wolf side. She knowingly splits the group up such that 2 sheep (Nanjo and Kumasawa) will be with 3 wolves (Yasu, Gohda, and Genji).

The monster in the kitchen: The 3 wolves simply attack Nanjo and Kumasawa, move them, lock the door, and report a fictional story to everyone else, making it seem like a supernatural event and a closed room corpse disappearance.

A word on Rosa here: She probably does not trust her allies (and rightly so!), and taking their keys is likely on her own survival initiative, not part of a wolf plan. Also, she may not have it in her to kill anyone directly, and she definitely does not want to kill anyone in front of Maria.

Natsuhi's room: About this, Will said "a coffin is not a closed room". Sounds like suicide to me. After the door is locked, I think Yasu-Beatrice, overriding Yasu-Shannon, kills George, turns on her accomplice (Gohda), and finally kills herself.

The mysterious letter in the closed room parlor: Probably a plant by Rosa to indite Battler (so she can abandon him but still appear innocent to her daughter). It's also possibly a plant by Maria on behalf of Yasu-Beatrice (I think she was doing a lot of this in ep1), and Rosa is covering for her.

[FirstTwilight]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It happens exactly where it looks like it happens. After EP6, Battler has a funeral for Beatrice. Then in EP8 she comes back. You have to realize that events in the Meta-World are metaphorical;

Even if they are metaphorical, they still have to follow a logic inside the story. I.e., they are part of a storyline, Battler can't just give her a funeral that doesn't make any sense.

although the Beatrice he resurrected has Beato's memories, personality, and such, it's the Beatrice Battler remembers, not the Beatrice he knew.

Beatrice died before Battler learned the truth (Or when Toya regained his memories), so he can't revive her or speak with her again. What he CAN do, however, is remember her in his memories, and make her live on in his fiction.

But Battler treats the new Beatrice just like the old one. Why would he give her a funeral when she still walking around?

The Chess analogy was around ever since the VERY beginning. The only difference is that Bern didn't pretend she was doing anything else. All the Games are stories and fictions. They never happened. After all, how could they, when they exist entirely according to the whims of the godlike Gamemaster? How can they be real, when every character is effectively a puppet on strings? If these worlds WERE real, they'd be nightmares, because they're worlds with no future and no free will.

But the gameboards were treats as real INSIDE the story. Whatever Toya said, inside the fictional world of Umineko he wrote there are kakeras, etc.

[m0h]

Originally Posted by FirstTwilight

But Battler treats the new Beatrice just like the old one. Why would he give her a funeral when she still walking around? .

If a relative of your is dead, don't you ever pay respects to them while he/she 's still alive in your memories? You can bury your dear one, but keep on having him/her on your side, in your heart.
He simply cherish his memory of Beato, and Beatrice The New is the cherished image of the deceased one.