[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

P.S. While doing all that I couldn't help to think how funny it would have been if Beatrice wrote her stories first and then only later noticed that they wouldn't fit in a bottle.

ROTFL

This would have been really funny to see!

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Because she wouldn't of held the murder mystery game if he didn't come back, and if the game wasn't held, no one can use it as a coverup for their crimes.

Oh right, that. Then...was Battler's return announced to those in Rokkenjima beforehand? if it was, how long before the conference day? Or did he just suddenly comeback without anybody besides Kyrie and Rudolf knowing beforehand? But wouldn't that mean the game was held rather abruptly that day? Which means Battler's return should have been announced quite sometime before the conference for Yasu to be able to prepare everything (like the "return to sender" mails, though this one can still be done post incident), right? Was this mentioned in game? (sorry, it's been a long time so I kinda forgot what's what)

It could mean that Rudolf and Kyrie were already Yasu's accomplice before Battler's return. Then Yasu would just have to tell them not to bring Ange. That would give Yasu quite some time to write the message bottles with quite an accuracy before the incident. The typhoon though, I still can't think of it as anything other than a struck of luck.

Or perhaps, Yasu could've just secretly told the boat captain to return 3 days later and temporarily disconnected the phone lines during those times, and you don't need typhoon to prevent the families from escaping. But then, Yasu should've immediately called for emergency the moment there is a corpse for real. Perhaps the phone line was damaged, intentionally or not, such that it needed real repairs to get it back up (probably happened out of Yasu's control too).

[Jan-Poo]

I don't think a precise date exists about Battler returning to the Ushiromiya family register, but I don't think it happened at the last minute.

The story suggests that Battler had been living in Rudolf's house with Ange for a while, also I doubt he'd be that cheerful if his grandparents whom he had been living with for the past 6 years died as close as a week before.

Given that I'm sure that the main family was notified and therefore Yasu had plenty of time to think about what to do for the upcoming family conference.


As I said the only thing that really bothers me is how Yasu could know that Ange wouldn't attend the family meeting. The typhoon is not a big obstacle, it was probably announced 4 or 5 days before, Yasu would have plenty of time to rewrite a few pages where weather is mentioned or she could have wrote everything a few days before the family meeting supposing she is a speedwriter. We aren't even sure if the description of the weather was accurate.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I think it would be more interesting to know how many days earlier they can predict a typhoon course.

Well, the topic at the time was whether we could verify what kind of weather actually occurred on R-Prime.

Here's info on hurricane tracking. Notice how in 1986 they don't even have data for over 72 hours in advance. My guess is that it's because forecasting beyond 72 hours gives data that is too unreliable to (officially) bother with. After all, at 72 hours in 1986 the average track error is already above 300 miles (~500km).

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

If you start getting into specific materials requirements, the idea that these things would be dashed off in a hurry gets pretty questionable.

And notebook paper can be pretty thick relative to the stuff some books are printed on. To say nothing of some sort of diary/writing/calligraphy paper.

I checked the scene with Ôtsuki again, just in case to see what exactly he told Ange about the message bottles and if some things in the original might have been less clear than the translation might make it sound:

About how they were found he said the following
「左様です。式根島の若い漁師が、手紙入りのワインボトルを拾っていたことがわかったのです。
この若い漁師は興味本位からそれをたまたま保管していました。それが、右代宮蔵書で六軒島が世界的注目を浴 びた為、公表したというのです。」
"That is correct. It became known that a young fisherman on Shikinejima picked up a winebottle with a letter in it. Out of pure curiousity the young fisherman held on to that item. This was later made public when Rokkenjima was showered with international attention through the Ushiromiya book collection."

「後に、同様のメッセージボトルが、事故当日に警察による遺留品捜索で周辺海域から回収されたことが判明し 、センセーションを巻き起こす。」
"After this it was confirmed that an identical message bottle had been retrieved from the circumferent ocean area on the day of the incident by the police during the search for lost articles."

「警察は現場の状況とボトルの封印状況から、捏造の可能性は低く、事故直前の数日以内に投棄したものと判断 したようです。また双方の筆跡は一致しました。これにより、漁師の発明したノート片(*)の信憑性が増すこ ととなりました。
メッセージボトルの内容については、週刊誌などが繰り返し報道しているようですが、説明がいり ますかな？」
"Apparently the police cocluded, due to the state of the scene of the incident and the state of the seal, that the chance of a forgery was low and that it had been thrown out a few days just before the incident. Also the handwriting on both was a match. So the authenticity of the pages(*) that the fisherman brought to light grew."

(*) The term ノート片 is kind of ambigious, but it refers to some loose pages of any kind of memo paper. Either they were torn from a notebook or were loose pages from the start. At least for me it makes it appear like they weren't talking about a huge bunch of paper, but rather a collection of some pages that formed a batch but not anything that's really close to a full blown story.

So let's see how the content and the way of writing was described:

２つのワインボトルの中には、ノート片が何枚もぎっしり詰められていた。
それは、右代宮真里亞を名乗る本人以外の何者かによる、事故前日から当日を日記風に記した膨大な手記だった 。
"In those two bottles, several pages had been tightly pushed into them.
Those were extensive notes written down in diary style from the days before the incident until that very day, by somebody using the name Ushiromiya Maria who was not her."

この奇妙な日記風手記には、台風で島に釘付けにされた右代宮家の親族たちが、魔女復活の儀式に巻き込まれ、 次々に不可能な方法で殺されていく様子が記されていました。
そして最後に黄金の魔女ベアトリーチェが蘇り、全てを黄金郷に飲み込む。・・・・・・まるで、それこそが当 日の全容であるかのように記されていました。
"In those strange diary style notes were written down the circumstances how the Ushiromiya family became trapped on the island by a typhoon and were dragged into a ritual to survive a witch where they were killed one after another with impossible methods."

週刊誌の推理を持たず、メッセージボトルが本当に日記であるかは大いに疑わしい。
・・・・・・何しろ、文章量が膨大だ。
実際に連続殺人の渦中にあった人物が、冷静にそれからを記せたとは考え難い。
"Except for some reasonings in weekly magazines, it is highly doubted that those messages were actually diaries.
...No matter how you look at it the ammount of sentences is enormous.
A person swallowed by the maelstrom of a serial murder is really hard to imagine to calmly note something like this down."

While it is said that the ammount of text is massive and that there were several pages crammed into the bottle, it is never really implied to be constructed as a coherent narrative. Also the fact that it is said to be written in diary style makes it harder to think of a really complex narrative structure.

And there is something else that hints at the message bottles not being that surprising for any survivors:

そのノート片はマスコミによって、もちろん絵羽にも見せられたが、彼女が沈黙を破ることはついになかった・ ・・・・
The mass media of course showed those pages to Eva, but in the end she did not break her silence...

This at least strengthens the theory that she was ot at all surprised by the existence of the message bottles, which she should have been if their existence wasn't at least forseeable on the day of the tragedy.

Btw: I had some freetime and I made another map to show where the messagebottles were found (though the circumference of Rokkenjima is of course an estimation based on it being described as closest to Nijima and still far enough from the other Izu islands). It shows that none of the message bottles traveled a very long way after they were tossed out.

Spoiler for Bottle map:

[Jan-Poo]

Wait a second, I always wondered where Ikuko's house was, but are you telling me that it was actually said? In the mainland?

Also the fact that it is said to be written in diary style makes it harder to think of a really complex narrative structure.

I wonder how much literally we should take this. Because if it is really like a diary written by Maria telling what she see in first person then there shouldn't be any meta scene.

There is then to consider the fact that the forgeries were written using the same style. This is at odd with the implied fact that the second forgery (EP4) included Ange's escapapes in the future.

[Wanderer]

It makes me think that it could all be Eva's doing.

She certainly had the means to make it happen, and it was her selling Kinzo's occult stuff that started the whole thing off. Plus, it fits thematically with how Eva inherited Beatrice's position in Banquet and became Beatrice (Eva-Beatrice) herself.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Wait a second, I always wondered where Ikuko's house was, but are you telling me that it was actually said? In the mainland?

Nah, it's just him speculating.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Nah, it's just him speculating.

Actually it's not that much speculation at all.

In EP6 we learn that they were going to visit Ikuko before they would leave on the ferry to Nijima. There are two bigger ports with ferries to Nijima, one is in southern Tôkyô the other is in Shimoda on the Izu peninsula. Only the Shimoda ferry is a direct ride, the one from Tôkyô stops at several other islands in between.
We also know from EP4 and 6 that Ange left Tôkyô with Amakusa by car and they seemed to drive into open land for a while. And as they went by car to the Hachijô mansion it's rather unlikely that it's on any of the Izu islands. It was also said that Sumadera Kasumi went by plane which was easier than following them...which is more reasonable when they actually left Tôkyô, as they could have easily captured them at the harbour in Tôkyô. Also the ferry to Nijima from Tôkyô is an overnight ferry and the one Ange took supposedly went during the day.
And on another note the Hachijô residence seems to be in an area that is rather unpopulated going by the background when Ikuko found Tôya and how the Hachijô residence looks. This is not something that would be possible on the way from Tôkyô to Tôkyô harbour.

It would also make it much more reasonable how Battler could have been washed ashore. For it to be close to Tôkyô he would have to cast along some very harsh costal areas and into the Tôkyô bay. Shimoda has not that many steep shores and many beaches facing the Izu islands.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

P.S. While doing all that I couldn't help to think how funny it would have been if Beatrice wrote her stories first and then only later noticed that they wouldn't fit in a bottle.

Build the bottle around the paper. You can greatly increase the volume of stored paper this way. Science!!!

[Cao Ni Ma]

Yasu- Servant, Witch, Heir, Explosives Expert, Actor, Amateur Writer, Mastermind Culprit and of course Crystal Blower.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

P.S. While doing all that I couldn't help to think how funny it would have been if Beatrice wrote her stories first and then only later noticed that they wouldn't fit in a bottle.

Somebody call that Shroedinger guy and get him to draw this! : D

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Somebody call that Shroedinger guy and get him to draw this! : D

Before we do that though, let's try to use this theory to tie some other theories together...

Spoiler:

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Actually it's not that much speculation at all.

"Speculation" was just the best word I could think of at the time. Maybe I should have said it was your estimate. Although I admit I didn't realize how much research you put into it.

And I dunno why people think it's strange Yasu might have access to exceptionally large bottles. I mean... Kinzo collects all sorts of weird stuff.

[AuraTwilight]

Ship in Bottles - Ships = Success.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

"Speculation" was just the best word I could think of at the time. Maybe I should have said it was your estimate. Although I admit I didn't realize how much research you put into it.

Trying to succeed in the academic world by researching about Japanese fiction and popular culture I'm kinda used to some ways to research those ideas...among those is especially how many Japanese writers love to allude to certain settings and make it "perfectly obvious" (by their own standards) where their story is set, so you have to get used to gather some ways to do the math yourself.
Ryûkishi is actually pretty concrete when he describes the area of events. Especially when he depicts certain ways of travel, islands names.

I'd imagine it's easier to pick up on certain "hints" once your either pretty used (maybe even too used, so much it becomes "trained") to them or if you've lived in a certain area. For example a friend of mine once told me how specific the setting for the different Stephen King novels is...but it's a little harder for me to pick up on those hints because I've never been to the US.

And I dunno why people think it's strange Yasu might have access to exceptionally large bottles. I mean... Kinzo collects all sorts of weird stuff.

With all those images circulating you could almost make a comedy series solely based on those 4-koma gags. Like the police not wondering at all about a 600page novel format novel depicting the murder of the Ushiromiyas in a barrel sized bottle, shrugging it off with a "Hmm, can't put it past those rich folks...".
Not to mention the Kinzô alcoholic jokes...with a 10 gallon bottle of absinth with a Beatrice wig (there's nothing like combining your two greatest loves while drunk).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I'd imagine it's easier to pick up on certain "hints" once your either pretty used (maybe even too used, so much it becomes "trained") to them or if you've lived in a certain area. For example a friend of mine once told me how specific the setting for the different Stephen King novels is...but it's a little harder for me to pick up on those hints because I've never been to the US.

Stephen King's works are so localized and specific to his favored geographical area that I often joke that the moral to take away from his works is "Stay the hell outta Maine."

Seriously, going by King it's the most fucked-up supernatural hellhole in the United States. Good lobster though.

[AuraTwilight]

In fairness every other writer makes everything supernatural happen in Tokyo, New York, or Chicago.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Stephen King's works are so localized and specific to his favored geographical area that I often joke that the moral to take away from his works is "Stay the hell outta Maine."

Seriously, going by King it's the most fucked-up supernatural hellhole in the United States. Good lobster though.

Amusingly that's the same state where Jessica Fletcher lives and half of the crimes happen in her little village.

@Haguruma

Isn't it possible that Ikuko's house is in one of the Izu islands? Why it has to be in the mainland?
Suppose it's in an island near Rokkenjima, then Ange and Amakusa just decided to got there before heading to Niijima. That seems pretty logical. After that they had to take a ferry to reach Niijima and I suppose every island has its own ferry station.

[Cao Ni Ma]

I was reading an old interview by KEIYA and was surprised when he mentioned that the flower wormwood meant absence. He was basing that the scene with Kinzo drinking absinthe was symbolic and that it meant that he wasn't really there. But checking the meaning and origin of the words, its more like Bitterness or lack of sweetness. Also the flower as a whole means the torment of love that you suffer from being separated from some one you care for. So its more of Kinzo wailing about missing Beatrice than anything else.

e- I wonder how much symbolism you can squeeze out in this series. Like taking a really hard look at all the text to see things. I mean even things like plays on Kanji's to mean other things like the whole Cheister thing.

[Jan-Poo]

Thinking too much about symbolism is never a good idea in my opinion, you'll always end up seeing more things than you are supposed to, because it's easy to see symbols in almost anything.

I remember someone quoting a sentence in umineko where one said that a terrible event shaved three years of his life. And that was pointed out as a foreshadowing of Yasu's age being reduced by three years.

But in reality that's just a common saying. The same exact sentence appears in Higurashi.