[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Pika_power]

Originally Posted by Moogleking

It sure is suspicious. I don't think Erika can be a real person.

If she is a real live person, then it just doesn't make any sense that she goes around killing people she doesn't even know. With all of the emphasis placed on motives and heart in these games, I just can't accept a random person murders people.

She's a detective. A murder has been (apparently) committed. She knows about the usual cases, such as in And Then There Were None, where the culprit has faked his own death. She pre-empted this, and executed the corpses in order to assure the safety of those kindly people who had taken her in. She specifically didn't discuss it with them, because they would naturally be against the decapitation of their loved ones' corpses, and if the killer had accomplices, they would certainly object. Clearly the thought that it was all a setup didn't cross Erika's mind.

There's a plausible reason for Erika to kill the FT victims.

[Mirrored]

My why done it for Jessica is basically the same thing as Nats.

Kinzo is not a great dude. The only way he got that gold is because no one else on the island lived to talk about it. He also slept with his daughter.

And there's rumors about him having inappropriate conduct with the kids from the orphanage.

I don't think its much of a stretch to imagine him pressing himself on someone else. Though I much preferred the Ep 7 reveal.

---

Murder 1 would be Yasu setting up the island so that Murder 2 is bound to happen. However, what's disappointing is she didn't even need to do that much, the siblings would do it themselves if they ever find the gold and some guns.

---

Something else interesting and my favorite part of Ep 7 alluded to in Ep 6, is that the last part of the epitaph is left unexplained.

The first part is about identifying the key word, Qilian. It's an identity question.
The second part is about the process itself. It's the "how" of the epitaph.
The final part, which none of the characters have answered, is what the bit at the end means.

Does that part really serve no purpose? None of the last 5 lines are ever explained or looked at. Erika or Bern says that she doesn't understand the last part in Episode 6.

What I think, is that the final bit of the Epitaph is going to be important in Ep8. My version of Ep8 would basically be a cry-fest where the family reconciles, where all of the truth comes out, and everyone lives.

We'll see what happens. Can't wait.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Pika_power

There are seventeen people. Erika is the eighteenth person. I fail to see the problem here.

If I have a bowl of oranges, and there are seventeen oranges in it, if I add in another orange, that doesn't change the fact that "There are seventeen oranges in the bowl". It changes the fact "There are NO MORE THAN seventeen oranges in the bowl", but I can state there are seventeen, sixteen or three oranges in the bowl, because it's still true.

The actual line is literally "it (the number of people) is seventeen," not "there are seventeen people (at least)," so the loophole you're trying to use doesn't work.

[Pika_power]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

The actual line is literally "it (the number of people) is seventeen," not "there are seventeen people (at least)," so the loophole you're trying to use doesn't work.

How does that fit into context? I don't recall the number of people being mentioned, so what does 'it' refer to?

I am the visitor, the 18th human on Rokkenjima!!
[......Sorry, but...] Even if you do join us-
It's 17.

[Mirrored]

Erika is really obviously a write-in who wasn't there. The best explanation I have is that she's an alternate personality for Jessica. However, with the extreme silly antics Erika gets up to, I wouldn't take her existence seriously.

She's climbing up yo window and sealing your people up,
Tryin to tape em so ya'll need to
Hide yo kids, hide yo wives, hide yo husbands too,
Because Erika is taping e'rybody out here.

Granted, she was a blast of fresh air the series needed and her absence was dearly felt in Ep 7.

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George goes unexamined a lot. But I don't really see a great motive for him. Unless he thinks he's about to get ditched for Battler, which is hinted at a lot.

I also liked that Jessica's tarot is moon.

---

As for the trick to hide Jessica's gun.

Desk drawer, string, recoil knocks revolver in. I think its mentioned she's in a corner of a room near a desk, or something like that. But basically, knocking the gun into any sort of hidden or out of view spot (like under a bed) might be a good call.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Im well aware of that, when WH asked RK about the name Lion they suggested alternate spellings for it. As far as I remember ( I could be wrong), RK specifically said that it was Lion. There might as well be a hint as to what the author is trying to tell us considering the other cases of the personas names. All of them seem to allude to Jesus.

VVV
il leone di giuda

Well but why Ryuukishi would use the wrong pronounce for Lion if he wanted to suggest it's the Lion of Judah?

I think EVANGELION is a more probable explanation for this.

Originally Posted by Kirroha

I thought it was more of the fact that "Lion" is kind of Italian.

Actually no. There isn't an Italian name of that sort. The animal's name in Italian is "Leone". Leone can be in fact both a first name and a last name (Sergio Leone anyone?), but in katakana it would be: LE-O-NE, quite different from LI-O-N.

[Vylen]

Heh, for all we know, Ryuukishi probably saw a Li-ion battery and thought it would make a good name

[Kirroha]

We shouldn't think too hard on it. We'll just get a headache.

[FM6]

Dead humans aren't "people" I think.
Don't forget Erika is one of the pieces that has a low chance of appearing.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Pika_power

How does that fit into context? I don't recall the number of people being mentioned, so what does 'it' refer to?

That bit is lost in the translation. Battler's line has a person counter attached to the number, so you can either read it as "it's seventeen people" or possibly "you're the seventeenth person". Although I'm hesitant to say whether the second interpretation works in Japanese since it wasn't an ordinal number like in Erika's line. Witch Hunt might have left it ambiguous for that reason, now that I think of it.

[Mirrored]

Originally Posted by FM6

Dead humans aren't "people" I think.
Don't forget Erika is one of the pieces that has a low chance of appearing.

Or entirely an illusion.

Still, she's an awesome piece and makes the game 20x nuttier. Her and Eva-BEATRICE are both really fun.

Zepar and Furfur reaally annoy me.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Well but why Ryuukishi would use the wrong pronounce for Lion if he wanted to suggest it's the Lion of Judah?

I think EVANGELION is a more probable explanation for this.

Also aware of the EVANGELION thing, but that wont explain why the servants and main persona names would also allude to Jesus. As to which is more probable, names seem to have meanings in some cases, Maria created her fantasy based on her name. What if Yasu, Sayo, etc did the same?

[Pika_power]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

That bit is lost in the translation. Battler's line has a person counter attached to the number, so you can either read it as "it's seventeen people" or possibly "you're the seventeenth person". Although I'm hesitant to say whether the second interpretation works in Japanese since it wasn't an ordinal number like in Erika's line. Witch Hunt might have left it ambiguous for that reason, now that I think of it.

Not a very nice line to translate, it seems.

So how should I interpret it? "The number of people on the island is 17"?

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Witch Hunt might have left it ambiguous for that reason, now that I think of it.

That's exactly what Chronotrig said he did IIRC. Remember that little drama they had with the GameFAQ's translators during the episode 6 translations? They made up later, but part of the misunderstanding was how he had that line translated in the script at the time. But he intended to edit that red later I beleive.

[AuraTwilight]

So you're saying Erika is a different kind of fictional character from Kanon, and doesn't count when we're counting up all characters on the island?

Erika was never on Rokkenjima.

A person that doesn't exist at all and yet kills people? I can see a partially existing person partially killing someone but how can person that doesn't exist kill someone? So if Erika doesn't exist in EP6 we should discard all of it, no point of having that episode.

Snape killed Dumbledore.

See? It's easy. And don't be stupid, the episode has plenty of relevancy, because it gives us new and useful information.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Also aware of the EVANGELION thing, but that wont explain why the servants and main persona names would also allude to Jesus. As to which is more probable, names seem to have meanings in some cases, Maria created her fantasy based on her name. What if Yasu, Sayo, etc did the same?

I wouldn't be so certain that all the references to Jesus are actually made on purpose. It's not Ryuukishi's fault if Jesus on top of having many different names and appellatives is subjected to various different spelling and pronounces.

Yasu is clearly a reference to a trope derived from some NES games, a sort of in joke. If the name of the original character of the games was Maru then now we would be all talking about this Maru.

There is no evidence that Ryuukishi actually wanted Yasu to be a reference to Jesus.


Yoshiya is a little more probable, but I still have doubts. What was the purpose in comparing Kanon to Jesus? It's a bit too much to say he's like Jesus just because he sacrificed himself for a single person.

Snape killed Dumbledore.

But wait... Snape exists... how is that relevant?

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

But wait... Snape exists... how is that relevant?

Don't be silly, of course he doesn't.

[Helmet-kun]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

But wait... Snape exists... how is that relevant?

He's trying to say that Snape-

Don't be silly, of course he doesn't.

...Don't make me explain the joke.

[AuraTwilight]

There is no evidence that Ryuukishi actually wanted Yasu to be a reference to Jesus.

I don't know, she is essentially the martyr of the series.

[ivan_mccormik]

What do you guys think Ryukishi07 will write about after Umineko?

Ryukishi07 has written 2 stories so far in his When They Cry series: There is Higurashi, which has Eastern motifs such as tataris, ancient japanese curses and other distinctly japanese occult types of things. In contrast, Umineko has a more Western feel to it; We mostly see references to western literature such as Dante's Divine Comedy and Agatha Christie novels and various western occult figures.

After Umineko no naku koro ni, I predict that he'll go with one of the two remaining cardinal directions: Northern and Southern. By southern, I mean that the next work will be more influenced by cultures of the southern hemisphere, which includes African Voodoo, South American Santa Muerte, or whatever occult figures that Australian Aboriginals believe in.

If he goes with the Northern cardinal direction, he'll probably just write something involving Santa Claus.

Or Ryukishi07 could also possibly abandon cardinal directions and go with up/down. He could write something sorta like a hard sci-fi murder mystery in an orbital space station (such as the International Space Station) UP above earth. Or write about the legends of the mole people DOWN below.

Thinking about all the possible names for the future works is kinda fun too.
When penguins cry: Pengun no naku koro ni ペンギンのなく頃に
When kangaroos cry: Kangaruu no naku koro ni カンガルーのなく頃に
When they cry in space: Uchu ni kikoenai no naku koro ni　宇宙に聞こえないのなく頃に