[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Misuzu]

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

Maria helped her become Beatrice, Jessica and George both wanted for her to be something she could not be.

It's more like Maria thought all the Beatrice stuff she told her was really cool, and Jessica and George liked the people she pretended to be for them. She never even tried to show them her real self.

And what did Kumasawa, who was essentially a mother to her, do to her?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Young age? She's probably in her 60s when she died.

Well, of course young in this contest merely refers to the fact she's not so old you'll think she has outlived or reatched her lifetime expectative. In fact according to EP 3 she's dying due to an incurable illness not due to old age and apparently it's an unknown disease as she says the doctors don't know what's killing her.
Plus in Umineko it was shown Eva, prior to the incident, was a rather healthy person that made a lot of sport activity.
Sure, the tragedy might have been a big blow for her, along with the stress but somehow to me she seemed a tougher nut to crack.

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

3. I believe that murder story Yasu has plenty of motivation. She blames Nanjou and Genji for her present physiological state. She blames the family for driving Battler away and to him forgetting her. She basically can construct reasons to blame just about all her issues on everyone else there as needed. Everything is present to make her into a villain for the sake of her plot. Everything but love. Love is the magic that Yasu needs to escape from becoming the Golden Slaughterer in the end. Battler does come through, so she does not commit the crimes, but she had planned them all the same, and the island is still blown up.

The problem is the motivations aren't presented as convincing.

For example she seems to be in good relation with Jessica.
Now this can be a subjective view and maybe in Yasu's view Jessica was a spoiled brat who constantly made fun of her, teased her and placed her in uncomfortable situations.
However Yasu's view is not presented. Jessica, for all his faults, seems to honestly be a friend for Yasu, to care for her and to wish for her happiness.
Yasu can dislike Gohda, Kanon actually says he hates that guy. However, this seems just strong disliking because the reasons Kanon give to hate Gohda don't look nowhere near enough to kill him.
And the same can be said for all the other characters.
Yasu might have hated them but this isn't presented in a convincing way.
She feels like Black Battler from forgery 'don't-remember-which-number' who kills people just because 'he's evil'.

[Ayu-ayu]

Okay, yeah #3 is pretty much crack, then, unless Yasu has totally lost it. I'll go back to the drawing board then on that one.

I don't think #1 is anything new really, but I'm curious on opinion about #2. If we factor in the pre-arrangements and screwed-over accomplices, this seems like a recipe for a break down not entirely unlike Bern's scenario in ep 7.

[AuraTwilight]

Isn't it Shannon who was too timid to make a phonecall?

Same person.

I thought chick Beato was not the same Beatrice. And Clair's history shows a completely different personality for Yasu even when she was a child.

Zero Beatrice, imo, was just a metaphor for the aspect of Shannon that loved Battler and would do anything for him before she became "Beatrice" as we know her. The modern Beatrice wasn't born until that love was basically suppressed.

[Captain Bluebeard]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Same person.

But each persona has its own unique carachteristics and personality and is perceived as being a different person residing in the same body.

[Remon]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Same person.



Zero Beatrice, imo, was just a metaphor for the aspect of Shannon that loved Battler and would do anything for him before she became "Beatrice" as we know her. The modern Beatrice wasn't born until that love was basically suppressed.

But Zero Beato was born before Shannon had met Battler. Yasu became Zero Beato in fact, because she was tired of being a normal servant. She was done acting the part of the servant, so she became a witch. However she couldn't bring herself to delete Shannon so she still kept her around. They would not be together anymore however. Shannon is not aware that she is a split personality. Zero Beato/Yasu is. That's why I believe Yasu is Beatrice.

[Renall]

Eva's death is really very unusual. All of the Ushiromiya children were fairly healthy given their ages (40s-50s, I think Rosa was in her 30s), but Eva especially was noted for being extremely physically active for a woman her age. To deteriorate and die within 12 years would be quite unusual, especially of unknown causes (it's fairly rare that doctors can't tell what's killing somebody).

The best explanation that could be come up with, basically? Extreme stress. Having to take care of Ange and the Ushiromiya Group, to say nothing of whatever guilt was eating at her after the incident (which, it seems, only she and Ange will ever know), could probably kill somebody within a decade. Especially if she had a few nervous breakdowns and suffered early-onset dementia (which did happen, and looking at Kinzo, the family may even have a history of dementia). She probably also didn't have as much time to exercise and everything.

Kind of depressing, isn't it? She did all this work to show off how awesome she was and how much better she'd be than her brother at running the family affairs, and when she actually had them all dropped into her lap, it was too much.

[Remon]

I thought it was cancer. Since at that time treatment wasn't that sophisticated.
Future Ange went through it as well. Perhaps that was a hint?

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Eva's death is really very unusual. All of the Ushiromiya children were fairly healthy given their ages (40s-50s, I think Rosa was in her 30s), but Eva especially was noted for being extremely physically active for a woman her age. To deteriorate and die within 12 years would be quite unusual, especially of unknown causes (it's fairly rare that doctors can't tell what's killing somebody).

The best explanation that could be come up with, basically? Extreme stress. Having to take care of Ange and the Ushiromiya Group, to say nothing of whatever guilt was eating at her after the incident (which, it seems, only she and Ange will ever know), could probably kill somebody within a decade. Especially if she had a few nervous breakdowns and suffered early-onset dementia (which did happen, and looking at Kinzo, the family may even have a history of dementia). She probably also didn't have as much time to exercise and everything.

Kind of depressing, isn't it? She did all this work to show off how awesome she was and how much better she'd be than her brother at running the family affairs, and when she actually had them all dropped into her lap, it was too much.

I find it entirely plausible that psychological factors such as stress played a role in her early death. She was probably completely alone in facing all of the burdens you mentioned (even her only surviving family member hated her and blamed her for everything). Okonogi is the closest thing she's got to a support group.

Pretty rough. In some ways, Eva is the most tragic character of the whole story.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I find it entirely plausible that psychological factors such as stress played a role in her early death. She was probably completely alone in facing all of the burdens you mentioned (even her only surviving family member hated her and blamed her for everything). Okonogi is the closest thing she's got to a support group.

Pretty rough. In some ways, Eva is the most tragic character of the whole story.

It's very logic that stress, guilt and desperation killed her.
However it's said what's killing her is an unknown illness, not just that her body 'gave up' or that her constitution became weak due to what she went through.

That's what leaves me perplex.
Why to say 'unknown illness' when cancer or health deterioration due to stress would have worked just fine?

Also, but maybe this can be due to how police in Japan work, there's the sign 'No entry, Tokyo Metropolis' with the fence.

By the time Ange goes on Rokkenjima the police had finished investigation and the island should have been returned to the Ushiromiya so that sign (that don't mention the police so I don't know if it was placed there by the police) should have been removed... as it's not said Eva sold the island.

So, is the island still dangerous?
I would say considering how big the explosion was that whatever explosive was there should have exploded that day so... why the Tokyo Metropolis forbid the entry? Shouldn't there be an 'Ushiromiya property. No entry.'?

Can they still keep the place off limit after they declared the whole thing an incident?
Or the police merely forgot the sign and Eva didn't bother removing it?

Though it can be this is not a part over which we're supposed to make guesses but just to take it as it is.

[AuraTwilight]

But each persona has its own unique carachteristics and personality and is perceived as being a different person residing in the same body.

But they are all different aspects of the same person. They have the same problems, worries, and concerns. It's not like she has split personalities, she's just acting.

But Zero Beato was born before Shannon had met Battler. Yasu became Zero Beato in fact, because she was tired of being a normal servant. She was done acting the part of the servant, so she became a witch. However she couldn't bring herself to delete Shannon so she still kept her around. They would not be together anymore however. Shannon is not aware that she is a split personality. Zero Beato/Yasu is. That's why I believe Yasu is Beatrice.

Er...Battler's been visiting Rokkenjima since they were both babies.

And Zero Beato was, in her own words, "born to love and serve Battler." The "Witch" Beatrice you're talking about is the trickster/prankster spirit of the night that she pretended to be, which existed before Zero Beatrice and is thus symbolically treated as an "older sister."

Zero Beatrice is basically Yasu's love for Battler, personified. She also does not have it in her to kill another person, even if she tries.

Meaning Yasu probably can't kill at all, since Battler is treated as her only possible motive for even trying.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

So, is the island still dangerous?
I would say considering how big the explosion was that whatever explosive was there should have exploded that day so... why the Tokyo Metropolis forbid the entry? Shouldn't there be an 'Ushiromiya property. No entry.'?

Can they still keep the place off limit after they declared the whole thing an incident?
Or the police merely forgot the sign and Eva didn't bother removing it?

Though it can be this is not a part over which we're supposed to make guesses but just to take it as it is.

If we accept at face value the explanations given for the tunnels (military base) and explosion (military ordnance), the Japanese government has every reason to keep the place off-limits. Who knows how many of those things didn't detonate and are still sitting there to this day? It's a bit like landmines in countries that have seen a lot of warfare. A field might look perfectly safe, but thanks to violence ten years ago it could have a bunch of undetonated mines in it and as such is incredibly dangerous to let anyone visit.

We also don't know that Eva and Okonogi didn't just tell the police that they were perfectly fine with declaring the island restricted. Why wouldn't they? There's basically nothing there anymore but horrible memories for Eva. And if there were some truth Eva didn't want anyone to find on the island, certainly she'd be just fine with the police saying no one should be going there even to this day.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

If we accept at face value the explanations given for the tunnels (military base) and explosion (military ordnance), the Japanese government has every reason to keep the place off-limits. Who knows how many of those things didn't detonate and are still sitting there to this day? It's a bit like landmines in countries that have seen a lot of warfare. A field might look perfectly safe, but thanks to violence ten years ago it could have a bunch of undetonated mines in it and as such is incredibly dangerous to let anyone visit.

We also don't know that Eva and Okonogi didn't just tell the police that they were perfectly fine with declaring the island restricted. Why wouldn't they? There's basically nothing there anymore but horrible memories for Eva. And if there were some truth Eva didn't want anyone to find on the island, certainly she'd be just fine with the police saying no one should be going there even to this day.

Well, the Japanese government should have thought so before selling it to Kinzo.
Actually they should have gone to the island and checked there was nothing that belonged to the army and that could be used as a weapon, not just explosives but also guns and submarines or other military vehicles. (Also the explosion changed the shape of half of the island... I don't think this is the result of some mines but of explosive that was colected together... so I doubt there are mines wandering around... and if they were near to the explosion they likely detonated as well...)

Also the island is still declared Ushiromiya's property in EP 4.
Maybe in Japan things work differently but here either the government would confiscate it from you (in which case you aren't amymore the owner and it makes sense there's a sign saying 'X-city's property. Do not enter') or you're still the owner in which case the sign would say 'This island is mine. Get out.'

The only exception would be if they were still investigating... which they're apparently not.

So what I find weird is not that there's a sign that stop people from going around but that sign is signed Tokyo Metropolis and not Ushiromiya.

(also no one in EP 4 seems worried there can be more explosions. It's said boats don't want to take people on the island because they fear it to be haunted not because it's dangerous or, more important, off limits).

However this can be merely due to my lack of knowledge about how things work in Japan.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Here's an idea. There was a Murder Mystery Game and Yasu didn't intend for any hijinks, but let's say one of the adults took the opportunity to get away with murder. Perhaps Yasu didn't imagine anyone would live after like half of them were dead or something, so she set off the bomb thinking "Well I'm not going to let the culprit get away with it!"

Too bad that I yet have to receive my actual print copy of Our Confession and can thus only rely on the incomplete scans and the typed down excerpts on some Japanese fan pages, therefore I can only draw an incomplete solution.

As it appears somebody actually was deranged enough to kill people on the island and I think our actuall work here is to make up our minds and decide who that was. To me that TIP actually proves that this is what it is all about and this is the true core message that it all ends up with, you have to blame somebody. Be that somebody one of the parents, one of the servants, one of the children, the mysterious 19th person or even the witch Beatrice from some magical Golden Land. What we do is actually stalling time in making up our minds.
There is enough evidence to say "Character X is the killer" but then somebody comes around and drops the infamous "But...". Be it that the character is depicted as likable in certain scenes, that you can't believe s/he would do something like that, that it's impossible that we are supposed to believe that a character we were lead to like during the plot is actually a deranged psychopath...there are many reasons for not wanting to decide who to blame. And that is actually what is keeping us from placing the blame.
"How could Ryûkishi go and make Yasu or anybody likable when she actually planned on killing those people? That sends such a deranged message to the readers."
No, actually it doesn't. It shows that caring for somebody is actually making you unable to see certain truths just as much as having no love at all. Does that make the characters very ambigious and possibly most of them into a bunch of jerks? Yes, but for me that is the point...they are jerks if you look at them ojectively, but that doesn't stop them to be likable from a subjective, limited perspective.

To go for the extremes here, even Hitler had a wife and he maybe even had a loving relationship with her and his children. But that didn't stop him from becoming a mass-murderer by proxy and leading his whole family to an early grave. From a poilitical perspective we needed to focus on his bad deeds and not his good deeds, reducing him to a monster...but that doesn't mean that all he actually did all day was sit in his bad-guy hideout and cross names off a list of people he had killed with a sinister laugh.

That does not mean that I actually believe that Yasu/Beatrice killed people during the actuall event, but she was prepared and ready to do so and Battler was probably only blinded by his feelings enough to let that slide. The fact that he is still around and continuing her cover is, I think, prove enough that he at least believes she wasn't the murderer. It would be still as much her fault that people died as the person's who actually did commit the murders in the end.
Either that or Battler actually feels that guilty for driving her so far that he believes that he is responsible for the murders.

Spoiler for Our Confession TIP:

She basically makes Flauros say that if the parents were to blame somebody for being killed it shouldn't be her or Beatrice, it should be the man who went away for 6 years and started the whole tragedy...so that's Battler.

She also seems to view Genji as merely a tool, him having nothing to say at all about anything, and Kumasawa as a pretty mean old hag who thinks it's fun to play pranks on people and will bail once she has the money...just as Gohda seems to be quickly bribed by it.

This reveals that she is, at least when writing her stories, pretty critical, if not spiteful, of those people and analyzes them merely by their flaws and not by their merrits.

[Ayu-ayu]

LyricalAura has provided a lengthy synopsis translation (which I meant to say thanks for!) here (which we've been discussing on and off since): http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...ostcount=26755

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Spoiler for Our Confession TIP:

She basically makes Flauros say that if the parents were to blame somebody for being killed it shouldn't be her or Beatrice, it should be the man who went away for 6 years and started the whole tragedy...so that's Battler.

She also seems to view Genji as merely a tool, him having nothing to say at all about anything, and Kumasawa as a pretty mean old hag who thinks it's fun to play pranks on people and will bail once she has the money...just as Gohda seems to be quickly bribed by it.

This reveals that she is, at least when writing her stories, pretty critical, if not spiteful, of those people and analyzes them merely by their flaws and not by their merrits.

Spoiler for Our Confession:

Unless my own scans are incomplete, I'm not sure where this information came from. Flauros doesn't have any dialogue, and in fact never appears on the game board since Beato hadn't written any of the fantasy scenes yet. Kumasawa isn't portrayed especially spitefully either.

Are you saying there are pages missing from the version that was making the rounds?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Too bad that I yet have to receive my actual print copy of Our Confession and can thus only rely on the incomplete scans and the typed down excerpts on some Japanese fan pages, therefore I can only draw an incomplete solution.

So the scans that were shared are incomplete?

Originally Posted by haguruma

As it appears somebody actually was deranged enough to kill people on the island and I think our actuall work here is to make up our minds and decide who that was. To me that TIP actually proves that this is what it is all about and this is the true core message that it all ends up with, you have to blame somebody. Be that somebody one of the parents, one of the servants, one of the children, the mysterious 19th person or even the witch Beatrice from some magical Golden Land. What we do is actually stalling time in making up our minds.

As cruel as it sounds I'm all for pinning the culprit.

Personally what stops me from saying that Beato was willing to kill anyone is that, apart from the bit in which she complain about the fact she's forniture in EP 7, all the episodes, expecially EP 7, presented her relation with everyone else as good. I was hoping EP 7 to have a subjective Yasu vision so, since I didn't find in it anything that could imply she really disliked those people to the point of wanting them dead, although I made some theories about how she could have hated them, I could find little to no evidence for it.

In fact it was one of my main complains how Yasu looked motive-less for a kill.

To make up for it the Kirye and Rudolf culprit scene in EP 7 made them unbelievably cruel. I'm personally prone into believing they could have killed everyone but not that they've done it in the way the scene was presented. Somehow it felt too over the top to be true.

Spoiler for Our Confession TIP:

Originally Posted by haguruma

She basically makes Flauros say that if the parents were to blame somebody for being killed it shouldn't be her or Beatrice, it should be the man who went away for 6 years and started the whole tragedy...so that's Battler.

It really annoys me when she does this but maybe in her words there's more that I can figure.

Originally Posted by haguruma

She also seems to view Genji as merely a tool, him having nothing to say at all about anything, and Kumasawa as a pretty mean old hag who thinks it's fun to play pranks on people and will bail once she has the money...just as Gohda seems to be quickly bribed by it.

This reveals that she is, at least when writing her stories, pretty critical, if not spiteful, of those people and analyzes them merely by their flaws and not by their merrits.

This is something I didn't find in the summaries so I apprecciate the info a lot.
It makes much more sense if finally we can see that in Yasu's visions people weren't as good as they looked and provide her with a more concrete motive making more sensate she was willing to kill them.

I really look forward to read a translation of Our confession. I hope to be pleasantly surprised by it as I was of the second half of EP 8 once I could read the translation. I appreciated Umineko a lot more after reading it whole...

[LyricalAura]

Alright, this is very strange. I've just checked the umineco.info wiki, and they have partial text from the booklet up through the 2nd twilight. However, it contains text that isn't in the scans, and that text does include a scene with Flauros for the 1st twilight. I'll read through it in more detail and see how it fits in with the summary I already posted.

EDIT:
Okay, I thought the opening and ending were a bit abrupt. Assuming the text on umineco.info is accurate, there is a section of introductory text, and what I thought was Dlanor's foreword must actually come at the end.

[Ayu-ayu]

Ah, I see. I thought it was the same text but translated differently. Interesting that the new text revealed is closer to my #3 speculation after all...but I'll hold off re-revising my opinion until the full text comes to light, then. Maybe there's more of an answer in the booklet than we expected by now.

Is it possible that R07 is messing with us with the booklets? Like breaking them up randomly so different people got different fragments? I wouldn't put it past him...

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Spoiler for Our Confession:

Unless my own scans are incomplete, I'm not sure where this information came from. Flauros doesn't have any dialogue, and in fact never appears on the game board since Beato hadn't written any of the fantasy scenes yet. Kumasawa isn't portrayed especially spitefully either.

Are you saying there are pages missing from the version that was making the rounds?

I just now discovered your summary thanks to the link, so yeah that's pretty much what I read so far except some few things.

Spoiler for Our Confession:

Either that or umineco.info is making up certain parts, which would be rather strange as the parts that are from the scans are 100% accurate copies...though they seem to be omitting some passages for reasons unknown. It's also not yet finished and stops after the 2nd twilight (though there were parts added at least three times since I first checked already).

It has a beginning that is not in my scans, with Dlanor being announced by Ronove and her and Beatrice having a little chat about how Beato's work is still in the same state as icecream before the ingredients are mixed.
Then the narrator talks to us how this story is the cat's entrails and if we continue we would never be able to love or kill the cat ever again. We are asked wether we want to kill the cat or leave it be and are told that in old age Featherine regretted having ripped out the guts of so many stories.

Then it switches directly to the story (without the talk between Dlanor and Beatrice about the 999 to 1 dillema or Dlanor's commentary page).
In the story there are some passages missing (with the comment Omission added to the text) but there is up till now at least two additional scenes:

After the さらさらさら……。 there appears to be another Omission (which might be the illustration of Flauros) and then at least two pages (with two further Omissions) of what happened in the study.
Beatrice summons Flauros and greets her, saying that she had formerly served an enemy witch and that it is funny that she was now summoned by her. Flauros is depicted as rather uncontrollable and more about enjoying her work of ripping people to shreds.
Kinzô is amused and the parents are scared shitless by the events which are described as Flauros turning into a panther. At the same time it is said that Piece-Beatrice is reaching into the darkness behind the sofa she is sitting on and reveals that she has Kinzô's gun collection at her disposal. And then she shoots several shots.

Beato then muses about how after having Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolph, Kyrie and Rosa shot to death, she would mutilate their corpses with equipment prepared in the study. She also says that the walls of the study are thick and therefore Natsuhi, Krauss and Kumasawa probably wouldn't hear a thing.
She also thinks about changing it so that Flauros turned into giant panther and swallowed Kinzô whole, maybe leaving only his robe behind. Also she admits that she would have to destroy the parts of the bodies where the gunwounds would be visible to not destroy the illusion.

Then it switches back to the fantasy plot of Flauros turning into her demon form and destroying the study in a fiery explosion, killing everybody inside and ripping a hole into the wall. Beatrice scolds her but she is enjoying it too much and escapes into the darkness of the night. Beatrice is amused because this crime scene looks like nothing a human could do.
Then it switches over to それから、この場に蔵臼と夏妃 also explaining why she mentions dust on their clothing and why they would escape.

The other missing part is right after her explanation of Boucher's locked room definition, after 蔵臼と夏妃のどちらが疑わしいかは、火を見るより明らかなはずだ.
She says that when people would try to give a solution by applying such events to witches and magic, they would be considered the culprit or accomplices right away. And also that mystery lovers would off course laugh at such an explanation and try to rationalize it away immediatly...but just for this 1 person in a group of 1000 this might become the key to this all being fantasy.

She then talks about how after that the women and children go to the 2nd floor of the guesthouse and Krauss and the male servants stay on downstairs. So George and Shannon are together so she'll make them the 2nd twilight. But this time she will interpret it as kidnapping Shannon and thus "tearing them apart".
It then continues with 紗音は１階の使用人室へ寄った後.

So I really do wonder if what I read is just made up...but it's really strange how the scans are for example missing things like the cover and how those parts fit too well into the script to be made up.

EDIT: Oh yeah, so you found it yourself ^^°
Yeah, I actually wondered as well whether Ryûkishi is messing with us here, distributing different versions of the same story...but I think it's rather the fault of incomplete scans.