[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[chronotrig]

Um, just to step in. There isn't any real contradiction between "There are no more than 17 people on this island at the start time for all games" and Episode 5 adding in Erika.

Remember that the red text is always true at the time you say it? In other words, when Beato said that line of red text, it was indeed true that there were 17 people or less on the island in every game. However, it a later game, it was possible to change that and add an 18th person.

This isn't proof that Erika is an "18th person" or that the red text must be interpreted this way, but it leaves that option open.

[Renall]

I think the point was more "let's continue to be evasive on the exact number of people." Beatrice never referred to the exact number of people, merely that there were eighteen or less, then seventeen or less. The red saying "everyone is here" is just another attempt to very carefully dodge that. If we do a headcount, we come up with a number, but the red doesn't specifically tell us what the number actually is.

I think it's a red herring. When you say "eighteen or less," you leave room for the fact Kinzo is dead. But when you say "seventeen or less" to account for Kinzo once his death is known, there's only two reasons for it:

1) There are in fact less than even seventeen people, and you want to hide that.

2) There aren't less than seventeen people, but you want to trick someone into thinking there might be.

Is 1) possible? Unlikely. You'd need a shkanon theory to make it even remotely work (note, not Shkanon itself, just some "one person is really two people" theory). Even then, there has to be some logical reason for it, and you need to explain how everyone was in the parlor together in ep5. But 2) is very possible. We were being trolled. We already guessed (well, some did) that "no more than x" means there was actually less, and with Kinzo our suspicions were confirmed. Would ryukishi do that again? Not really. He's already largely disclaimed any possibility of a Person X, and the only thing lowering the number of people would serve is to allow that. Otherwise, it just... lowers the number of people. There's not a whole lot of point to that, if we must still choose a culprit from among however many people there happen to be.

For Beatrice's "this applies to all games," I think it's clear that the red actually means "all games played or in the process of being played, unless circumstances change." At the time of Beatrice's statement, there was not nor ever was more than different 17 people on Rokkenjima. Nothing false there. The addition of Erika was explicitly noted to not conflict with this by stating it explicitly only applies to this game and this game alone. What would happen in a sixth game, I don't know. My assumption is Erika doesn't count unless she shows up again and is noted to count again. If she doesn't, I'd guess the old red governs, though perhaps someone would need to restate it to be sure.

In summation, who is on the island in ep5? I think it's the seventeen living people we've heretofore seen, and Erika. There's no trick, we're just being given evasive red to make it look like there is. We've been conditioned to expect the unexpected, so now we're being given exactly what things appear to be. There are seventeen (eighteen with Erika) people on Rokkenjima; who exactly these people are and what their secrets are we don't necessarily know for sure, but we at least know who they claim to be.

[ijriims]

One should be able to come up with the truth from EP1-4, accounting hows, whos and whys.

EP5 and onwards should just be providing additional hints but not necessary ones.

I want to know what EP5 has actually offered us the readers. Besides the Knox rules being tools to analyse the previous episodes and stated that Umineko was a anti-fantasy SN from the beginning. What's more?

---------------------------------

To think about the unexpected is interesting but futile....... I suppose everyone here has heard about a logical paradox that "there was a lion behind one of the many doors, but it must come out unexpectedly. Which door contained the lion?". Here, Ryukishi07's twist in the plots is the lion behind the door, and we think it will come out unexpectedly, where does this lion lie?

To give one example: you think that the twist lies in the plot that Nanjo could not be one of the culprits because it was largely expected? Then Nanjo being the culprits is unexpected to you by definition. And when you expect it again since it was unexpected, then Nanjo could be not one of the culprits was unexpected to you once again. The loop goes on and on...

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

Kinzo was always dead in retrospect this proves many "magical" scenes are false or there is some deeper meaning to them. For instance the return of Kinzo it is impossible for the one in Ep 4 to be the real one it was a fake, take a look at other scenes like where Beatrice antagonizes Kinzo in ep3 that makes the magical scenes even more unreliable. Or in Ep 1 Natsuhi and the servants are lying about Kinzo they all know this makes them not trustworthy. Kinzo's confirmation of death before any of the murders happen is one thing that is very important.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Dlanor .A. Nox

Kinzo was always dead in retrospect this proves many "magical" scenes are false or there is some deeper meaning to them.

A few things could be deduced from Kinzo's death:

1. Krauss, Natsuhi (from EP1), the one-winged-eagle-seal-bearing servants and Nanjo must have known his death and agreed to hide it from the family.

2. Rosa pretended to meet Kinzo and covered up Shannon and Genji in EP2.

3. In EP4, Kyrie proposed that Krauss was covering up Kinzo's death was a fatal blow to Krauss, if the subsequent murders did not happen....

4. In Ep2, Kinzo's body was nowhere to find, or at least no one put it inside the boiler... Conversely, someone has ordered the body to be put inside the boiler in EP1,3 and 4. (In EP4, the rationale for the burning of the body was clear, since Kinzo was said to be the culprit in that episode, so his early death must be hid by burnig. However, in other episodes, his body was used to be one of the sacrifices. Did the culprit know about Kinzo's death? If not, then does it mean that someone else needed to be killed in place of Kinzo?)

5. Kumasawa should also know Kinzo's death concerning her nosy and secretive character. Gohda had never entered Kinzo's study, so he had a high chance to know nothing about Kinzo's death before Oct4.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by ijriims

To think about the unexpected is interesting but futile....... I suppose everyone here has heard about a logical paradox that "there was a lion behind one of the many doors, but it must come out unexpectedly. Which door contained the lion?". Here, Ryukishi07's twist in the plots is the lion behind the door, and we think it will come out unexpectedly, where does this lion lie?

To give one example: you think that the twist lies in the plot that Nanjo could not be one of the culprits because it was largely expected? Then Nanjo being the culprits is unexpected to you by definition. And when you expect it again since it was unexpected, then Nanjo could be not one of the culprits was unexpected to you once again. The loop goes on and on...

Episode 4:
Ushiromiya Battler has a sin.
Because of your sin, people die.
Due to your sin, a great many humans on this island die. No one escapes, all die.

Battler wins the most suspicious character poll taken a few months after episode 4:
http://when-they-cry.net/Cgi/vote/umi_doub4/kekka.htm

Episode 5:
Battler is not the culprit.
Battler has not killed anyone.
This applies to all games.

Popularity poll for episode 5:
http://umineko.locker.jp/vote/

I think whoever ranks high in the popularity poll and low in the suspicious character poll has the highest chance of being involved with the murders.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Ssol

I think whoever ranks high in the popularity poll and low in the suspicious character poll has the highest chance of being involved with the murders.

According to this logic, Ange (ranked 3 in the popularity poll and 18 in suspicion poll) and Natsuhi (ranked 5 in PP and 12 in SP) had the highest chance to be involved in the murders.

But the former was not even on Rokkenjima and the latter was out-of-character to be a culprit or mastermind(if what you meant by involved in the murders was being a culprit or mastermind)

Not including Ronove (9 in PP, 47 in SP), Eva-Beatrice (8 in PP, 31 in SP) here.....

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by ijriims

According to this logic, Ange (ranked 3 in the popularity poll and 18 in suspicion poll) and Natsuhi (ranked 5 in PP and 12 in SP) had the highest chance to be involved in the murders.

That's the Ange from 1998 so of course she does not count.

Also, Natsuhi is not the culprit. After episode 5 I would apply that to all games.

Some characters have already been pretty much eliminated as being possible culprits. You have to take that into account.

Originally Posted by ijriims

Not including Ronove (9 in PP, 47 in SP), Eva-Beatrice (8 in PP, 31 in SP) here.....

Uhh... those aren't real characters on the game board.

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

Natsuhi? I kinda doubt she's the true mastermind.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Ssol

Some characters have already been pretty much eliminated as being possible culprits. You have to take that into account.



Uhh... those aren't real characters on the game board.

According to the revised theory that someone who ranked high in PP but low on SP, as well as not being stated to be non-culprit and non-fantasy characters and being on the Rokkenjima (excluding 17X theories here), were the most likely culprits, then they were:

1. Maria (15 in PP and 14 in SP)
(Not Rosa or Jessica or Kanon, since they ranked either BOTH high in PP and SP or low in PP but high in SP. (4,5), (11,4) and (12,2) respectively.)

2.Eva (19 in PP and 44 in SP)

3.Gohda (22 in PP and 25 in SP)
(Not Amakusa, as he was supposedly not on Rokkenjima)

4.George (26 in PP and 24 in SP)
(No Kyrie and Shannon here, since though they both ranked low in PP(23,24), but high in SP(8,9))


Try thinking out some hypotheses on them, I would not do so though.

[luckyssol]

You think Ryukishi would base who the culprit is on polls alone?

Give me a break.

As I previously quoted:

Originally Posted by Ryukishi

Of course. The clear difference between creating Umineko and creating Higurashi is that we pay attention to readers' reaction as we write. So Umineko's difficulty level is adjusted according to the reaction each game has garnered. That means Umineko is a game between me and the readers. Therefore, those who wait until the entire series is released and then play this game would not be able to experience the enjoyment these players have. Readers have come up with hypotheses about the theories witch Eva has thrown out near the end of EP3 and about the "Red Text Combo"; so in EP4 Beato completely disproves these hypotheses. If it looks suspicious for Nanjo to perform post-mortem examination, then all I have to do is make it so that even without a need for examination anyone can tell how the person died. Although ordinary people can't tell gunshot wounds, anyone can see clearly in cases like the facial-disfigured corpses in EP1. It is after reading through the players' answer that we let Beato disprove these assumptions.

You completely missed the point of what I was trying to say and instead just started crunching numbers.

The polls they make, emails they receive, message boards boards they read, etc. those all influence how the story is wrote.

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

I doubt Eva is the true mastermind as well since Ep3 showed what happened when Eva took over, it can't be her. After all why would she play a double role when she has that evil young evil persona already? Your damn right I used evil twice. lol I kept thinking the kids were innocent because they were always with Battler however Eva proved there was a way to kill someone and still be under watch.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Dlanor .A. Nox

I doubt Eva is the true mastermind as well since Ep3 showed what happened when Eva took over, it can't be her. After all why would she play a double role when she has that evil young evil persona already? Your damn right I used evil twice. lol I kept thinking the kids were innocent because they were always with Battler however Eva proved there was a way to kill someone and still be under watch.

I think Eva is not the mastermind because her character has been developed too much already and she wouldn't be involved with George or Hideyoshi's murder.

In episode 5 Natsuhi was manipulated behind the scenes. I wonder to what extent other characters are as well...

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

I got this new line of thought that maybe Beatrice killed a group of people who were planning something (the six of the first twilight in any game) but didn't count on others having their own agendas as well. I'm thinking that Beatrice killed in order to prevent the terrible crimes from happening but didn't count on others having their agendas. By killing one group and preventing a certain story another takes it's place much like Higurashi. Of course this is only a mere train of thought I was having so there is not alot of concrete evidence and whatnot.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by ijriims

2. Rosa pretended to meet Kinzo and covered up Shannon and Genji in EP2.

I can't remember this exactly, did she really pretend to have met Kizo or did she just say he wasn't present but assumed he was there?
But I remember her going up to the study and a golden butterfly latching on to her back, which I found rather suspicious back then already, especially concerning the whole story of the 'black witch', who seems to exist both in Rosa and Eva (from a magical perspective) and could be a representation of their guilt from being entangled in the events leading to the actual murders.

4. In Ep2, Kinzo's body was nowhere to find, or at least no one put it inside the boiler... Conversely, someone has ordered the body to be put inside the boiler in EP1,3 and 4. (In EP4, the rationale for the burning of the body was clear, since Kinzo was said to be the culprit in that episode, so his early death must be hid by burnig. However, in other episodes, his body was used to be one of the sacrifices. Did the culprit know about Kinzo's death? If not, then does it mean that someone else needed to be killed in place of Kinzo?)

The interesting thing is, that there is actually more reason for the body turning up in Episode 1 and 3 than there is in 4.
In 1 and 3 he was introduced as a cover up for the fact that actually the ritual was never followed correctly, he was neither among the victims of the first twilight, nor was he among the later twilights, he was just a body which got placed in the right place and prepared to make the ritual seem correct.
Yet I think there is actually something to gain from his way of 'death' in Episode 4.
Chess-board Beatrice (in the schooluniform) gives up and decides to abandon all plans he had...assuming she is the representation of the actual culprit he/she gave up because he couldn't achieve his/her goal.
If it was just to make it seem like Kinzo killed everyone/ordered his servants to kill them, there was no reason to abandon this illusion, there was no hint that this was wrong until now and his body would have vanished like every Episode before.
If it was to make it seem like magic existed, there is no reason either, because we had magician Kinzo, summoning demons, being aided by Beatrice...he could have just went to hell like we were shown in Episode 2, to burn Kinzo in the end serves no actual purpose at all.

Spoiler for Episode 5:

Actually by Episode 5 we learn, that Kinzo was not present in his study after the point in time when Natsuhi left the study in Episode 5.
So I think we can assume it is true for all Episodes that there is no Kinzo in his study from 23 pm until the next morning, yet we know that Kinzo's body must be hidden somewhere else on the island...because he turns up in the end.

Reason implies at first that the only people to know about that should be Natsuhi, Krauss, Genji, Kumasawa and Dr. Nanjo, yet we don't know what Natsuhi or Krauss ordered what had to be done to Kinzo after his death.
Either they ordered for him to be completely disposed off to make any detection of his death unknown, or they actually preserved him to serve for a later purpose.
In the second version they are clearly suspicious but in the first anyone among those 5 could have preserved Kinzo on his own (most probably Nanjo's help would be needed for that) and it came as a complete surprise for Natsuhi and Krauss too, that Kinzo turned up in other Episodes.

[Dlanor .A. Nox]

I also recall Suit-Beatrice going to meet Kinzo in Ep 2 I don't know if she was playing along with the delusion or perhaps she had no clue to what's going on to fit with the fact she follows the epitaph's literal meaning and not it's hidden meaning. I think it's the former.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Ssol

You think Ryukishi would base who the culprit is on polls alone?

Give me a break.

As I previously quoted:


You completely missed the point of what I was trying to say and instead just started crunching numbers.

The polls they make, emails they receive, message boards boards they read, etc. those all influence how the story is wrote.

I was merely extending your claim that those who ranked high in PS and low in SS were the most likely to be involved to be in the murders.

The real culprit, of course, could not be depended on reader's reaction. What depended on the reader's reaction was the intermediate episode and tricks put by Ryukishi07 to cover up the real culprit until the end.

Let me give out my conjecture here:

Anyone who ranked high on PP and SP but not the real culprits would be portrayed in the coming EP6 as the culprits.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Dlanor .A. Nox

I got this new line of thought that maybe Beatrice killed a group of people who were planning something (the six of the first twilight in any game) but didn't count on others having their own agendas as well. I'm thinking that Beatrice killed in order to prevent the terrible crimes from happening but didn't count on others having their agendas. By killing one group and preventing a certain story another takes it's place much like Higurashi. Of course this is only a mere train of thought I was having so there is not alot of concrete evidence and whatnot.

Episode 1: Krauss, Rosa, Gohda, Shannon, Kyrie, Rudolf
Episode 2: Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, Hideyoshi, Kyrie, Rudolf
Episode 3: Kanon, Shannon, Genji, Kumasawa, Gohda
Episode 4: Natsuhi, Rosa, Genji, Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf

Conclusion up to episode 4: The children are not targets. The seven adults are the primary targets. (Except for episode 3 where only 5 people are killed)

Why is episode 3 so different?

In episode 3 the gold is found after the first twilight. What if someone like Rosa had already found it before the first twilight?

Episode 5: Krauss, Maria, George, Jessica, Genji, Rosa

What happens here? Battler's family is not targeted. This is after Battler finds the gold and is congratulated via an envelope with a letter and the family ring inside.

How did the person who sent the envelope know they had found the gold? Lambdadelta's wall of red text regarding the envelope pretty much eliminates any of the 18...

Conclusion for episode 5: The six killed in this episode does not follow any kind of pattern related to the previous episodes.

[ijriims]

Something on my mind after knowing the Divine Comedy:

Before meeting Virgil, Dante(Battler) was on the verge of breakdown(EP.2), at the latter time (EP3) , Dante was rescued and guided by Virgil (Virgilia) through the Inferno and Purgatorio (EP3-6?). Finally, Dante met Lady Beatrice and entered the Paradiso (EP7?-8?).

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by ijriims

5. Kumasawa should also know Kinzo's death concerning her nosy and secretive character. Genji had never entered Kinzo's study, so he had a high chance to know nothing about Kinzo's death before Oct4.

I guess you meant Gohda.

Originally Posted by ijriims

According to the revised theory that someone who ranked high in PP but low on SP, as well as not being stated to be non-culprit and non-fantasy characters and being on the Rokkenjima (excluding 17X theories here), were the most likely culprits, then they were:

1. Maria (15 in PP and 14 in SP)
(Not Rosa or Jessica or Kanon, since they ranked either BOTH high in PP and SP or low in PP but high in SP. (4,5), (11,4) and (12,2) respectively.)

2.Eva (19 in PP and 44 in SP)

3.Gohda (22 in PP and 25 in SP)
(Not Amakusa, as he was supposedly not on Rokkenjima)

4.George (26 in PP and 24 in SP)
(No Kyrie and Shannon here, since though they both ranked low in PP(23,24), but high in SP(8,9))


Try thinking out some hypotheses on them, I would not do so though.

George is actually pretty high in my mastermind suspect list.

Originally Posted by ijriims

Something on my mind after knowing the Divine Comedy:

After enduring through the Hell (EP.1-4), Dante (Battler) was guided by Virgil (Virgilia) through the Purgatorio (EP5-6?). Finally, Dante met Lady Beatrice and entered the Paradise (EP7?-8?).

Actually Dante met Virgil at the very entrance of hell. Virgil guided Dante through all of hell and all of purgatory. Beatrice was waiting for him at the peak of purgatory, since Virgil couldn't go any further from that point onward Beatrice becomes Dante's guide.