[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[ErenselTheJester]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Battler is a serial murderer and if his memories come back he might snap and kill Ikuko and hunt down Ange to finish the job

Really no idea, I could guess that after procrastinating for over 20 years he might have some reservations of it if he actually remembers some of it. It seems his life is kinda torturous though, running away from a reality that long. Haven't anyone in this series heard "Truth hurts - not the searching after; the running from"?

It feels like everyone is escaping from it, even the author!

Actually, you might've touched something there. Maybe he did recover some bit of memory that made feel like he shouldn't be Battler.

Personally, I think the truth is something quite simple and that Battler is the cause of it. It could be that he was the one who detonated the bomb, possibly by accident or purposefully did it under some form of influence.

On an extra note, I realized something about the Originals. I noticed that no matter how much you look at both and piece them together, you won't get the whole picture. Both would tell you stuff about the real Rokkenjima, but only Turn can tell you anything about the murders (if I recall, Legend was written before the incident) and that was written as if the author didn't see what was going on which leads me to believe that the person was in Kuwadorian at the time.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Actually what the TIP says is "that neither people in the manic nor the depressions state commit suicide. They do it when one state changes to another"

That is correct, and only those affected by maniac depression, also known as bipolar depression, pass through both states. So what I said and what the TIP said is basically the same thing.

Now it is true that depression renders people inactive and therefore less prone to find the resolution to commit suicide, and it's also true that a rapid change from depressive state to a normal state or even maniac state can be very risky because it just removes what in some cases prevents someone with suicidal ideation to actually kill themselves.

However Ryuukishi claimed several things that are completely inaccurate.

The first is that people in depressive state do commit suicide and quite often, even without a rapid change to the maniac state that bipolars experience. Simply put the despair and suicidal ideation can overcome quite easily the other effects of depression, in this case the reduction of willpower and initiative.

In addition maniac states themselves can be as dangerous as depressive states, not because the subject wants to end his life, but because people in that state often engage in dangerous activities without the realisation that they are potentially lethal.

The other error is that a maniac state isn't necessary at all to cause the kind of effect Ryuukishi describes. This is actually a frequently discussed problem of anti-depressant. A sudden change from depression to normality might have the effect to cause the subject to regain his willpower before his suicidal ideations subside.

[AuraTwilight]

I have one question: Why is Battler trying so hard to keep his Toya identity?

Because it's who he is right now. He doesn't want to stop being the person he's been for twelve years, and even though he remembers being Battler, it has no emotion. it's like seeing the life of a stranger.

What I'm not so fine with is his idea that Battler's memories will overwrite his own personality, erasing it.

Complain to Toya, he's the one who believes it, not us.

How could Toya stop to exist and become Battler merely because he gains the memories of his life as Battler? Toya can't go back being a 18 high school student that was considering if moving back to live with his parents, erasing all his actual life, personality and memories.

Because in a lot of ways, your memories define who you are.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by ErenselTheJester

I have one question: Why is Battler trying so hard to keep his Toya identity?

Because Battler isn't trying to keep his Tōya identity. Hachijō Tōya is the one trying to preserve his own identity. He probably felt that if he gained Battler's memories, he'd probably lose something about himself. Like say, let us suppose you've lost your memories and you've build up a new life, then you begin to recover your memories and find things you don't like, things that may conflict with who you are right now. For example, you could have been a cold blooded murderer, but right now you've lead a life with strong values and you've got a strong sense of justice. So, that's very likely to make you feel you've lost part of your identity, not because you've reverted to your old self, but because the things you've learnt about yourself that are causing you cognitive dissonance. Furthermore, there could also be painful memories you'd rather not have back - and Battler quite likely went through a lot of bad experiences that Tōya doesn't want to know.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

He won't wake up one day as Battler.

And why not? How do you know? If we suspend our disbelief and suppose this fictional disorder to actually have occured in Touya, then we are looking at a unique, scientifically unresearched disorder with no guarantees whatsoever about anything, including the stability of his identity. In fact, what seems to be the closest representation to Touya's state is a fugue state, of which often times the end result is a return to the original personality and memory loss of the fugue personality.

You're just armchairing "logic" to a psychological disorder that has emotional ramifications that neither you nor I could ever begin to understand. After going through the experiences Touya did, would you be confident enough in your assumption to stake your life on it?

Originally Posted by ErenselTheJester

I have one question: Why is Battler trying so hard to keep his Toya identity?

Touya's identity doesn't belong to Battler; it belongs to Touya.

As for why Battler wants his own identity to remain submerged, thematically, I think it's because Battler is in love with Beatrice and wants to exist in her world; and to exist in Beatrice's world, he cannot exist in the real world.

Originally Posted by ErenselTheJester

(if I recall, Legend was written before the incident)

As the fisherman story goes, yes, both Legend and Turn were written pre-incident. However, several of us think the idea that it was written pre-incident is a big fat lie.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Exactly what I would say as well.

I will have to reread those passages in a whole as well before I say anything else, but considering a quick read of the Japanese version of Jessica's and Kyrie's call I'd say it's highly likely that they were either pre-recorded or acted.
What speaks for prerecording also is one thing that Kyrie says...that is that she was attacked by the golden string of light through the keyhole 3 times already. The problem in the mansion is that there don't seem to be any rooms with keyholes because they were all changed to...I think they are called deadbolt locks in English. So there is no way that anything would enter through a keyhole...which hints to her not knowing the room she was in or maybe even planning to put her in a different room.

Late reply to this but now that you mention it, it does make sense from that perspective as well. I remember the scene in EP6 where Natsuhi tries to unlock the door while Beatrice is killing her and made it look like you didnt need a key to do so. I immediately thought it was a hint to something. I connected it to a different place though, I thought it was a hint to Battler's original game. One where he expected Erika would use the detective authority and where fake deaths wouldn't be possible.

The issue now with the acted or recorded phone calls is that the person that wrote the script shouldn't have known about the doors. Or is this a small intentional clue left for Battler to make it solvable?

e- We cant rule out author incompetence either. See this is a problem when you decide not to rip apart your own text at the end of the story. You can never tell if its a clue, a herring or just something you never noticed.

[Renall]

Yeah I'm not sure I'd discount the keyhole thing when Ryukishi forgot an entire door existed in Banquet.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah I'm not sure I'd discount the keyhole thing when Ryukishi forgot an entire door existed in Banquet.

Different games can have different setting details, so there isn't really a problem with that door being deleted or having a lock added for the third game as long as the difference was made apparent in the narrative. Way back in the day we didn't understand the fictionality, so we thought the worlds had to be perfectly consistent, but at this point it shouldn't be an issue.

Also, since Battler explicitly pointed out that all of the doors in the mansion had cylinder locks and that the keyhole thing was weird, isn't it fairly difficult to argue that it was some kind of mistake on Ryukishi's part?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Different games can have different setting details, so there isn't really a problem with that door being deleted or having a lock added for the third game as long as the difference was made apparent in the narrative. Way back in the day we didn't understand the fictionality, so we thought the worlds had to be perfectly consistent, but at this point it shouldn't be an issue.

Maybe, but I think he just honestly forgot about it. The way it's written makes it seem like he didn't really do it deliberately, he just kind of forgot about it.

Besides, it's based on a "real" setting to some extent, and the authors at least appear to try to cleave to that in some capacity. It's not like the kitchen door ceases to exist in narratives that aren't Turn and Alliance just because no one happens to mention it. And any attentive person reading Banquet after it came out would not have just handwaved it away by saying "Well, the author clearly intended that there was no second door out of the boiler room in this story." These forgeries are, to some extent, expected to be similar to the originals. In the originals, the boiler room has two doors.

It would've been as easy as just offhandedly acknowledging that some wood had been wedged in the doors to the courtyard so nobody could enter it from outside. That would've made it clear the culprit could not have gotten out that way unless Kinzo let them out, blocked the door, and committed suicide, which is already disclaimed by the red.

[Jan-Poo]

Renall is right, when Will explained his reasonings in EP7 he crossed informations among different episodes on a regular basis. You are supposed to do that.

Plus, even supposing that Beatrice made that door disappear, it's just dumb that Battler nor anyone ever tried to explain the trick of the chained closed rooms with that blatant evidence. Especially when everyone (in EP5) accepted that "no one could mistake Kinzo by sight" was valid for every episode (even future episodes!), even though Beatrice (in EP4) never specified.

Anytime a change in the basic setting occurred (for example the presence of Erika) it was duly specified or at least discussed. How can a door disappear without notice and without anyone wondering about that?

This is a blatant mistake in my opinion.


As for Kyrie's story's inconsistency, this is something I noticed very early but I just thought it was just another proof of the fact that the anti-mystery perspective made no sense (it was still that time). In this case it's hard to guess whether it was a mistake or a hint that the story was plain impossible. One thing however I think it's sure: the rooms in the Mansion have a manual lock on the inside and therefore there is no keyhole a golden string, magical or not, can pass through.

[Wanderer]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Unless it was just Battler being incompetent.

[Cao Ni Ma]

I'd like to believe that Battler was incompetent from start to finish. That is from EP1 till EP8. Idiot Battler theory.

When Ange actually got to meet him all that was left was broken down husk. Ikuko would wheel him in the chair and he'd go " Huuuuuur.....Huuuuuuur" or say something completely nonsensical like Kamile in Zeta Gundam. Before EP8 came out, that was the only way I would accept an "Amnesia" end.

[Jan-Poo]

I'm not going to buy that. If the door was stealthly removed by Beatrice and Battler didn't realize that because he was incompetent, his incompetence should have been exposed somehow.

Something like Beatrice ranting that she went all the trouble to change the setting by removing the door and it turned out to be a waste of time because Battler completely forgot it existed in the first place.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

And why not? How do you know? If we suspend our disbelief and suppose this fictional disorder to actually have occured in Touya, then we are looking at a unique, scientifically unresearched disorder with no guarantees whatsoever about anything, including the stability of his identity. In fact, what seems to be the closest representation to Touya's state is a fugue state, of which often times the end result is a return to the original personality and memory loss of the fugue personality.

A fictional disease?
Wait, are you suggesting Toya might have some sort of Purupuru Pikopuyo disease?
Sure, if he has something of the sort then everything is possible.
However forgive me however if I'm not interested in discussing a fictional disease Ryukishi made up.

If Toya's problem is he's suffering of a fugue state (which is already a rare psychiatric disorder), Ryukishi is altering the normal description of a fugue state for his own means. In short if it's rare to get a fugue state, to get an anormal fugue state should be even harder, if it's even possible.
It borders in the realm of fictional diseases and therefore again I'm not interested in it.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

A fictional disease?
Wait, are you suggesting Toya might have some sort of Purupuru Pikopuyo disease?
Sure, if he has something of the sort then everything is possible.
However forgive me however if I'm not interested in discussing a fictional disease Ryukishi made up.

If Toya's problem is he's suffering of a fugue state (which is already a rare psychiatric disorder), Ryukishi is altering the normal description of a fugue state for his own means. In short if it's rare to get a fugue state, to get an anormal fugue state should be even harder, if it's even possible.
It borders in the realm of fictional diseases and therefore again I'm not interested in it.

Knox 9, observers are permitted to express their own conclusions and interpretations.
Tohya is allowed to form a belief about his memory condition and what might happen if he prods it too much, even if that belief is irrational and wrong. He's not some unbiased expert psychiatrist, he's a man suffering existential terror because of a mental problem he doesn't understand.

[AuraTwilight]

Exactly. It doesn't MATTER if Toya CAN or CAN'T cease existing. it's possible that it could, and Toya doesn't know for sure, and he absolutely does not want to risk it.

And yea, Toya is suffering from a made up psychological disorder one way or another. You're gonna have to accept that.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah I'm not sure I'd discount the keyhole thing when Ryukishi forgot an entire door existed in Banquet.

To be honest, I've always thought that was done on purpose.
The people in the mansion were made to focus solely on the keys, so that - along with the tenseness of the situation - they probably wouldn't even think about the other door in the boiler room. It'd also be consistent with the idea of big risk. There's also the possibility there were 1 or 2 accomplices in the adults' group who tried to keep their mind off the other door.

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

" Huuuuuur.....Huuuuuuur" or say something completely nonsensical

That'd be Judau in ZZ.

[LyricalAura]

It's probably also worth pointing out that in EP6, the meta narrative advanced the idea that identity is a product of memory and experience. Whether you think the meta world is Tohya's writing or a metaphor for his mental process, his fears should probably be considered in light of that belief.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Exactly. It doesn't MATTER if Toya CAN or CAN'T cease existing. it's possible that it could, and Toya doesn't know for sure, and he absolutely does not want to risk it.

And yea, Toya is suffering from a made up psychological disorder one way or another. You're gonna have to accept that.

I'd personally be annoyed if Toya's problem is a fictional one (I don't really like lack of realism) but this would make sense so I wouldn't have problems accepting it.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

It's probably also worth pointing out that in EP6, the meta narrative advanced the idea that identity is a product of memory and experience. Whether you think the meta world is Tohya's writing or a metaphor for his mental process, his fears should probably be considered in light of that belief.

I agree with this belief about what makes a personality... which is why I don't really think the Toya's personality can disapear. At best it can evolve in a faster manner (a personality is in constant evolution)... if Battler's memories are influencing enough or he has a personality that's easy to influence enough. It won't regress.

Actually Ep 6 presents a reverse situation as Beato seems to wish to become as close as possible to her past self.

Plus Beato presented a very weak personality (she was just born while Toya definitely wasn't 'just born') and, if she were to get back her memories, she would likely try to evolve into the old Beato.
We don't know if the new Beato was completely erased though. Once she gains her memories back she gets the confidence of the old Beato and her knowledge about tricks but she doesn't seem to be the same as she was previously.

She wasn't erased or possessed, she merely gained the knowledge to become closer to who she wanted to become.

It's as if from a child state she moved to an adult state in a way faster way then normal.

So if this was supposed to be aparallelism with Toya's condition it plays on the reverse side... which can be viewed as his own mind trying to reassure him he shouldn't fear the changes recovering his memory can bring but welcome them.

(In Ep 5 Dlanor also said something to Battler about how truth can look painful at first but then time will help a person to recover... I can't find the exact words... I always thought it was his mind's attempt to encourage him to face the truth...)

[Used Can]

Personally, the way I see Tōya and Battler is the same way I see Lion and Yasu. It's basically the same person living under different experiences and thus becoming different people.

In fact, I think Featherine's explanation about EP1-4's Beatrice's death also would apply for Battler. The whole thing about disappearing for several years and then returning to find everything different would explain why Tōya found Battler's memories to be alien to him.