[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Keriaku]

Originally Posted by Renall

I wanted to tangent for a second because I wanted to get back to a thing we were on a page or two ago and got away from.

Namely, I'm a bit perplexed by Ryukishi's thought process with respect to the Battler/Kyrie/Rudolf-as-culprits thing and whether we're supposed to believe it or reject it as him being a tease and a troll.

He loves teasing this theory, perhaps more than he likes talking about Yasu even. There's the ep7 Tea Party, Bern's game in ep8, Eva's behavior, BLACK BATTLER (*funk riff*) in an extra TIP, and all of it seems designed to throw the idea into our face, yet with so many questions and problems attached that it's almost like we're not really supposed to believe it.

Yet at the same time... he's not really offering us any evidence that we're not supposed to believe it. The only thing telling me Battler WASN'T the culprit is that the narrative has given me no good reason to believe he had a motive and the only reason I don't believe Kyrie is the culprit is that her stated motive makes no sense given her prior characterization. The facts themselves don't seem to exonerate the theory Ryukishi keeps pushing, only the meta-fictional notion that the narrative is somehow "wrong" if we accept it as true, leaving us with too many questions that aren't adequately answered. As dumb as Yasu's stated motive is, it is at least a motive. Battler isn't even given one. Why should I believe Ryukishi's teasing that he's the culprit?

Yet at the same time, why is he teasing me with something he knows I have too many problems with to believe? Who does he think is actually being fooled? Is his goal to fool anyone? What the hell is his goal with this whole branch of Umineko's endgame?

Is he trying to generate a dichotomy between "Yasu culprit" which has too many problems of fact and "Battler culprit" which has too many problems of motive, and expecting us to choose between them? Are we supposed to reject both and settle on a third answer? What's the evidence we're meant to use to discern and prove that, then? Certainly we've not been able to do it so far, and we've tried.

It seems to me that he's saying something like 'there doesn't have to be a culprit'.

[AuraTwilight]

But then WHO DID IT?

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Who would make for a truly satisfying culprit within Umineko?
Not like, after a theoretical arc that would explore such possibility, but with the current information. Suppose if you want Ryuukishi decides to just say the "answer" in a straight way.

Judging from Ange's reaction in arc 8 when she learns the truth.... it doesn't seem like a very satisfying nor even a shocking one.

I don't care at all about Rokkenjima Prime, but if I did I'd probably assume that something similar to Kinzo's backstory reoccured on Rokkenjima and that Battler's immediate family came off in an antagonistic light from the POV of the survivor, Eva.
Greed, fear, wanting to survive, wanting to protect the ones you love, and a lack of time to think straight between events can lead to a rapid everyone dies scenario where no one is really _the_ culprit.

Random reply, The culprit that i can think of was George and his family.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

That's totally unrealistic. But I don't think we should assume that the story Ryuukishi wrote is completely realistic at this point.

That's actually exactly why I think trying to limit our understanding of the serie on a mystery level is wrong.
It tend to gives answers that feels less elegant in their absurdities then the fantasy solution. Obviously that's a personal opinion.
I tend to see any attempt at fully solving Umineko from a mystery pov to be doing the same thing Erika tried with Dlanor in arc 5 relating to the boyfriend cheating thing, including Dlanor's final comment.

Originally Posted by unsuspectingvisitor

Random reply, The culprit that i can think of was George and his family.

What's with the George hatred/culprit obsession?
The guy's 23 and the most epic scene he got was the seemingly first time he stood up against his mom showed as a fantasy battle.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

What's with the George hatred/culprit obsession?
The guy's 23 and the most epic scene he got was the seemingly first time he stood up against his mom showed as a fantasy battle.

In the beginning he fascinated people because he's a nice guy who can do nothing wrong. So everything he does makes him suspicious somehow.

it also might have something to do with how his character song portrays him that way.

and he also seems to appeal to Ryukishi's ronery otaku fanbase.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

What's with the George hatred/culprit obsession?
The guy's 23 and the most epic scene he got was the seemingly first time he stood up against his mom showed as a fantasy battle.

Well for me that scene seems like a argument battle with eva though.

Random and unorganized post:

anyways, i think some scene will make sense if you consider that George , Eva , and Hideyoshi was the culprits. In ep4 , Eva survived the incident by going to the secret mansion. But what if she tried to kill Battler and saw him entered the secret tunnel but got lost and end up in the secret mansion. This can give us the reason why Battler was trying to escape from the island in ep8 and somehow a reason why he didn't want to met up with Ange after the incident.

Also possible that Kyrie and Rudolf fought back and killed George and hideyoshi. But they were killed by Eva. Also the reason they fought back was to help Battler Escape and if we assume that Beatrice with shannon's cloths was with Battler. That give us George motive to kill.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by unsuspectingvisitor

But what if she tried to kill Battler and saw him entered the secret tunnel but got lost and end up in the secret mansion. This can give us the reason why Battler was trying to escape from the island in ep8 and somehow a reason why he didn't want to met up with Ange after the incident.

Though that'd give us several new problems to work with:

• Why did only Eva escape? There are only 4 guns and with 3 in the possession of the Eva-party, why would they loose?
• Why would she spare Ange and also try to bond with her and sharing her wealth with her, when she had no problem agreeing to murder other children?
• Why would he leave his sister in the care of a murderer?
• Why is Eva portrayed as dying in almost every game except the one she's the culprit in?

[AuraTwilight]

What's with the George hatred/culprit obsession?
The guy's 23 and the most epic scene he got was the seemingly first time he stood up against his mom showed as a fantasy battle.

Well, for example:

* He knows about magic, and even encourages Maria to read the letter in EP1.
* He sucking claims he's willing to kill everyone on the island to be with Shannon.
* He's been known to fucking laugh evilly in things like his character song.
* He's obsessively possessive of Shannon to the point of literally ordering her to marry him. Let's face it, he's not so much in love with her so much as in love with being in love with her.
* He admits that he used to be a misogynist who used people and did underhanded things out of jealousy until he hooked up with Shannon.
* Ryukishi acknowledges that it's perfectly valid to consider that George hid Shannon's letter from Battler.
* He can kill children.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Standards! Standards!
What you say is different sin not a different standard!

And whether one is a mass murder and the other is not it's all to demonstrate.

Ah, sorry I was misinterpreting you to be lumping them together as one entity. My bad.

Certainly, within the context of each individual fiction itself, Yasu's murder of the family is a truly vile deed which warrants no sympathy. However, what interests me far more is why real-life Yasu would write herself in such a way.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I don't think that daylight part is a definitive proof of anything because the whole slideshow was shown in monochrome, which might have caused the scripters to think it wasn't important to show the nightime one and opted that one to make it more clear in monochrome.

That monochrome thing makes sense, but in any case the mansion was still shown before the blood.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

There is a reason why it is legal to possess a gun but not a machine gun (yes not even in the U.S.)

Are we Americans so stereotyped as gun-happy that this comes as a surprise to people!?

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I wish that people would acknowledge that a theory based on something that is actually written in the story has more ground than a theory based on a mere speculation. But maybe is asking too much.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I have however often the impression that a lot of people rather use the methods
1) What I like is true, what I don't like is fake
2) What fits with my pet theory is true, what it doesn't is fake

Somehow I get the impression that I'm one of the people you have in mind when you say these things (correct me if I am wrong), so I'll put in my defense of some of my theories and why I believe them not merely because I want to.

First, Ikuko=Yasu:
There's some solid thematic evidence of this, namely that Ikuko can be read as 19, her name means "many children", and she and Yasu share the habit of giving people names that can be read as numbers. I do not deny that Ikuko=Yasu raises numerous logistical questions about how the transition occured, but if ShKanon being the legitimate answer has taught us anything, it's that this kind of thematic evidence carries enough weight to overcome any logistical problems that the theory might create.

Second, the bottle-letter conspiracy (the idea they were written post-incident):
There's something awfully suspicious about them, and I'm not entirely projecting that; their origin is presented as mysterious. That they were created pre-incident is seemingly impossible, yet there is seemingly irrefutable evidence that they were created pre-incident. It's a puzzle quite analogous to a closed room murder, which are usually illusions, right? And who wrote this stuff? Beatrice, the master of illusion!

Originally Posted by Keriaku

It seems to me that he's saying something like 'there doesn't have to be a culprit'.

Yes; a witch did it with her magic.

But no one approaching from a mystery angle is going to buy that. Maybe, to put it another way, you mean to say that RK07 is saying that 'the actual incident shouldn't even be approached as a "mystery"'. Actually, I'd agree with that assessment. I still want to know, though.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

What's with the George hatred/culprit obsession?

I dunno but I like it!

Originally Posted by unsuspectingvisitor

anyways, i think some scene will make sense if you consider that George , Eva , and Hideyoshi was the culprits. In ep4 , Eva survived the incident by going to the secret mansion. But what if she tried to kill Battler and saw him entered the secret tunnel but got lost and end up in the secret mansion. This can give us the reason why Battler was trying to escape from the island in ep8 and somehow a reason why he didn't want to met up with Ange after the incident.

Also possible that Kyrie and Rudolf fought back and killed George and hideyoshi. But they were killed by Eva. Also the reason they fought back was to help Battler Escape and if we assume that Beatrice with shannon's cloths was with Battler. That give us George motive to kill.

Have you read the untranslated parts of episode 8? If you haven't, then it might change your mind. Eva-Beatrice is clearly portrayed as a character pretending to be evil, but really on Ange's side.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

He can kill children.

But not adults. Not a very useful murderer on Rokkenjima.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Though that'd give us several new problems to work with:

• Why did only Eva escape? There are only 4 guns and with 3 in the possession of the Eva-party, why would they loose?
• Why would she spare Ange and also try to bond with her and sharing her wealth with her, when she had no problem agreeing to murder other children?
• Why would he leave his sister in the care of a murderer?
• Why is Eva portrayed as dying in almost every game except the one she's the culprit in?

Kyrie was smart. They can think of a plan to kill them.

She was the only survivor so she was suspicious if you think about everybody's POV after the incident. If Ange suddenly died from Eva's care it would be easy for them to pin point who's the murderer. Also Ange wasn't in Rokkenjima at that time and didn't know the identity of the culprit.

he doesn't have powers though. Eva pretty much controlled the ushiromiya corporation. So it's possible that Eva will try to kill him if he revealed himself to the public.

Others was just a story to say the least and those stories shows to us the list of the possible suspect. In Ep1 Natsuhi, Ep2 Rosa, Ep3 Eva, Ep4 Kyrie. In the Real Rokkenjima only Eva returned alived so she was a possible suspect.

This is just based on my opinion.

[AuraTwilight]

But not adults. Not a very useful murderer on Rokkenjima.

What IS a child?

Everyone is a child to someone!

Ryukishi logic at it's finest.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

[About who George can kill]
But not adults. Not a very useful murderer on Rokkenjima.

Aren't those reds from the EP8 puzzle game? Are we sure those reds will apply to the overall George in general? After all, that puzzle game had Battler as the culprit... and that's not likely to be true at all for EP1-6 or Rokkenjima Prime.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

What IS a child?
Everyone is a child to someone!
Ryukishi logic at it's finest.

Are you sure that breakdown of logic actually works in Japanese? Or was that something you invented on the spot to dig Ryukishi because you hate his guts now?

[AuraTwilight]

I don't hate his guts.

And I thought it was pretty obvious that blue was a joke. In seriousness, it does work in Japanese, and it's ATLEAST as valid as the argument Erika uses; both are complete fucking abuses of semantics in order to break down the intended scenario.

Aren't those reds from the EP8 puzzle game? Are we sure those reds will apply to the overall George in general? After all, that puzzle game had Battler as the culprit... and that's not likely to be true at all for EP1-6 or Rokkenjima Prime.

How do we know that the EP8 puzzle game isn't the closest to reality?

The point, anyway, was to demonstrate why people think George could be the culprit; not definitively trying to prove it.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I don't hate his guts.

Technically, something that can be said in red. "Not his guts... literally, per se."


... anyways..

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

How do we know that the EP8 puzzle game isn't the closest to reality?

The point, anyway, was to demonstrate why people think George could be the culprit; not definitively trying to prove it.

I wouldn't mind an attempt to prove it. Further to what Renall was saying, if we enumerate the possible 'culprits' we have...

1. Yasu - put forth by Ryukishi as 'the solution.'
2. George - put forth by the fanbase, sorta... (on one of the character polls)
3. Battler-Prime - put forth by the fanbase as a minor theory
4. Rudolf/Kyrie/Battler mafia crime family - put forth from EP7.
5. Jessica - (I'm just going to throw this one on here.)


About Jessica, I'm still suspicious about her as we still don't know very much about what she thinks or what she knows.

For example, I don't remember observing her lying before (nothing on the level of say, Nanjo saying he met with 'Kinzo.') I haven't seen her take any aggressive actions besides out of grief or revenge. I haven't seen her express that she knows about or participates actively in any of the conspiracies. She's like a complete blank.

And THAT's why she's the culprit!


Anyways, that's from a meta-gaming perspective. The one you least suspect is the real culprit... of course that would mean Gouda is at least just as guilty... (although we've seen him 'trying' to lie before in EP4.)

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Aren't those reds from the EP8 puzzle game? Are we sure those reds will apply to the overall George in general? After all, that puzzle game had Battler as the culprit... and that's not likely to be true at all for EP1-6 or Rokkenjima Prime.

It's a joke, yo.

[Kylon99]

Yeah, but you guys weren't the first whom I've seen quoting reds from the puzzle game like they applied to everywhere else...

[AuraTwilight]

Well...THEY MIGHT.

We kind of don't have a fucking clue, at this point.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Well...THEY MIGHT.
We kind of don't have a fucking clue, at this point.

Aura, you need to speak for yourself. It's mostly you and maybe a few others I haven't noticed who have no 'fucking clue.' I really don't see things your way regarding the reds, nor do the other people arguing with you it seems.

[AuraTwilight]

The point I'm making is we know nothing about Rokkenjima Prime whatsoever; this is inarguable, and considering Bernkastel's personality, viewpoints, tactics, and what she seems to embody, it's entirely possible that her depictions of Rokkenjima are more accurate than any other Gameboard.

We just don't know for sure, so we can't discount the things her gameboards say wholemeal.

But thanks for responding like an asshole and insulting my viewpoint and my intelligence. That's totally appreciated.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But thanks for responding like an asshole and insulting my viewpoint and my intelligence. That's totally appreciated.

You're welcome. Now you know what it feels like. Turnabout of this minor amount is fair play after the months and months of vitriolic spew we had to endure from you. That's totally appreciated for it's brown offal like quality too. And that's not just me speaking here.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The point I'm making is we know nothing about Rokkenjima Prime whatsoever; this is inarguable, and considering Bernkastel's personality, viewpoints, tactics, and what she seems to embody, it's entirely possible that her depictions of Rokkenjima are more accurate than any other Gameboard.

We just don't know for sure, so we can't discount the things her gameboards say wholemeal.

Can you please say what you mean without resorting to hyperbole? I mean, do you seriously believe we know NOTHING" about Rokkenjima Prime at all? I mean... not even stuff about Eva surviving and Battler-Tooya? Is this absolutely in-arguable? I mean, here I am, arguing that we do know something about Rokkenjima Prime, are you going to strike me down as I speak?

No, I think we know quite a few more things about Rokkenjima Prime now. Your attitude smacks of the same EP2 "OMFG it's magic, it's all useless" attitude. Which I know you don't really have. So please, just tell us what you mean and stop this swearing and arguing in extremes.


Here, let's talk about something actually worthwhile. If you want to resort to saying everything is useless, go somewhere else. And like I said, if you want to question Ryukishi's authorial skills, please talk about it somewhere else.

---

Here's something I thought of while I was considering the argument from the others. Remember how we had these strange reds?

You are incompetent[!]
hi-hhihihhihihihihihihihihihihi[!!]

Renall, and probably others here have remarked how "You are incompetent" can't really be a red because it's not The Truth (tm). It's an opinion, which is, I think, on the same level as saying something like "Vanilla is the best ice cream flavor."

We've said red must be contexted to have any value; we've also noticed some reds have a general context ("No person would mistake Ushiromiya Kinzo by sight.") or an episode specific context. ("All of the master keys were under Rosa's control!")

So, I what I read from most people's arguments is that one more aspect needs to be taken into account: The point of view. It would explain these strange red texts. Well, the first one at least. Maybe the second.

Reasoning below:

Spoiler for Long winded reasoning. There's a reason why Renall had to summarize my posts before...:

The red is described to us as being true by the meta characters. In that it is 'simply the truth.' However, believing that the red is the 'simple truth' may be a mistake on the same level as believing the meta explanations for the other events. If we're to be taking the mystery point of view, red truth being 'simply the truth' can't be ... well.. true. So what is red text? At worst it's simply more white text, right? Well...


Back when I introduced what later became the Author Theory (link here: http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...postcount=5188), I said that the theory provides an explanation for the red at the authorial level:

To summarize, I noted that the authors (of whom we know are Yasu and Tooya-Battler) must have some kind of 'true' knowledge of Rokkenjima in order to write; or else they would be seen as incompetent. In addition there must be certain elements to the story that must fit reality (must be true) or else even an episode of Scooby Doo would qualify as an Umineko story. (This discussion came later)

I was saying that the red text must come from part of this knowledge. Essentially, red text (the generalized context kind) reaches right in to Rokkenjima Prime for its truth. It is the truth based on the point of view of the author. For example:

You are incompetent[!]
- This red truth isn't just the author's opinion. This red truth is a guarantee by the author to write Battler as 'incompetent.' And they both did, in the end as Battler as the detective was rather incompetent... to the end. Inside the story itself it was Beatrice who voiced it but Beatrice is a proxy for Yasu and Tooya-Battler. The other characters also were used as proxies for their writing as well when they spat out generalized red truth.


So, back to Shkannon. The reason I can agree that Shannon or Kanon can be 'dead' is because of two things:
1. Both Yasu-Prime and Tooya-Battler-Prime consider them to be dead. (Battler out of sympathy.)
2. But more importantly... that Yasu *must* write it this way in order to expose her misdeeds. She *must* kill Shannon and Kanon in Rokkenjima Prime and so therefore her stories, which must illustrate ultimately what she's thinking and feeling, MUST kill off Shannon and Kanon. The bad part is that she takes advantage of this.

You don't have to like it, nor do I. Because ultimately, this means we have a detective novel breaking event here. But I can see it happening this way. And I remember how Ryukishi talked about how evil this was; if this is what he meant was evil and unfair.