[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by CrystalStarlight95

I don't understand how Erika wasn't really there at the island. I mean, she did kill everyone, people acknowledged her, so, a tad bit confused over here ._.

My theory can explain it.

"Erika" didn't exist before the same way "Beatrice" was said to not exist for Battler 6 years before.

However as soon as she "existed" she had a corpse to move with, exactly like "Beatrice".


This theory can also explain why Erika can see Shannon and Kanon, because apparently there's no problem with Erika seeing her own furnitures. It can't be denied that she sees Dlanor.


Erika first appears in front of Maria, at the same time and same place where usually Beatrice appears.
It is important to note that we aren't made to see Erika at that very time. If I'm right it's because Maria basically just saw Yasu. However Ep7 explained that Maria can see through appearances.
It is then said that Maria brought this new guest to Kumasawa and Genji. Not to her mother or her cousins. To Kumasawa and Genji!!! Do I need to say more?


And I have more. It is almost impossible to think that Erika and the "man from 19 years before" did not act in concert. Are their moves just happening to match that perfectly? Ridiculous! It's a lot easier to think they are two "persona" of the same being.


And then who could possibly pull off the part of a detective? Who in this story could be so knowledgeable about the mystery genre? Of course there's Battler, Kumasawa and Nanjo, but they couldn't really disguise adequately and why not going with someone which already had an aptitude to wear masks and become someone else?


Erika then clearly makes some evident "furniture talks". The most notable hint is when she says that her body is just "a cage of flesh". And whom did I hear that expression from again? Oh yeah: Beatrice, several times! And then Kanon!


Last: the final duel of EP6. Beatrice VS Erika. Doesn't that sound extremely similar to Shannon VS Kanon?

[Yopee]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

It is almost impossible to think that Erika and the "man from 19 years before" did not act in concert. Are their moves just happening to match that perfectly? Ridiculous! It's a lot easier to think they are two "persona" of the same being.

I did find it pretty suspicious how the intellectual rapist and Bern focused on the dining hall letter and knock but never tackled the other riddle before the first twilight - the young man from 19 years ago. The card under object trick was pretty easy to break apart too yet the intellectual rapist didn't mention anything about it.
It's like Erika wanted to leave room for Natsuhi to be the culprit at the expense of exposing a trick which means quite a lot to an intellectual rapist I think.

[AuraTwilight]

Erika as Shkanontrice wouldn't work since that would be akin to the detective withholding evidence from the reader.

Which is funny, because Erika does this ALL THE TIME.

[witchfan]

I'm slightly confused about what we're talking about, but are there any external inconsistencies with simply seeing Erika as an actual person on the Rokkenjima of EP5 and EP6?

[Jan-Poo]

Not really if you think that Lambda actually had the power to do that.

It is said that she scribbled on the gameboard it was never said that she actually changed it. Does the introduction of a completely new human in the closed circle qualifies as scribbling? It's hard to tell.

I think that Erika being a human in the fiction can still work and it does seem more consistent with the red that Roger Pepitone mentioned, however the hints about Erika being "furniture" really abound. Also humans on the gameboard shouldn't be able to be that "meta". As kylon said, they are fictions but that doesn't mean they can be completely inconsistent.

[witchfan]

I'd say Lambda has the power to do anything she wants as long as her board tells us something about Rokkenjima Prime*. If you think about it, the addition of another person to the island isn't too different from killing different people in the first twilight, or assigning them different roles, and it doesn't really affect the core of the mystery as we know it.

Additionally, Erika could be seen as an entity (despite being furniture) in the meta world, but a human piece in the board, and as such she has external influence on the board but is also an internally consistent human piece. A good analogy is a roleplaying game. We have pieces controlled by the game master who exist only in the board, but fellow players have characters both outside and inside the board. If you think about it, in a roleplaying game, there's nothing stopping your character from breaking the fourth wall. But we usually don't do it because it harms the spirit of the game.

Although, this isn't to say Erika can't symbolise something else (e.g. Yet Another Yasu Username ; -) in addition.

*Edit: to clarify, I don't think she'd be able to change the board in a way that changes Beato's core mystery. For example, if the same conditions as the Rokkenjima of EP1 occurred, but nobody was killed.

[CainSonozaki]

As much as it does seem to make sense, i dont like that it adds more to Yasus....."imaginary friends"......altough thinking about it more, "Erika" maybe created for Yasu to brun bridges with people close to her other personalities as seen with how she acts towards Jessica Battler and Maria, but strangely not towards George(that i recall). Sure creating Erika just so she could push people away and abandon those personalities to focus *cough settle cough* on George seems a bit much but hey why she them in the first place isnt that far off.

[Smeckledorf]

I have to agree yet disagree with Erika being Yasu. I agree that it fits from the angle of a persona of Yasu; however, I don't think Yasu is a murderer. Erika seems to be a murderer, so she seems to be a completely different person. Perhaps Erika as a persona is not limited to Yasu's motives.
I mean, Erika in this sense would be a good clue to how Yasu works, but Erika committing a murder AND being a part of Yasu seems wrong.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But then this brings up the possibility that Genji is allowing Kinzo the opportunity to try raping a total stranger. Which...is incredibly fucked up.

A total stranger he has no obligation to help, perhaps this would be where Genji gained his sense of loyalty to a complete stranger; he feels he must repent for putting a stranger in such an awkward position. The child of Kinzo and Beatrice II would be someone Genji has an obligation to protect.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by witchfan

*Edit: to clarify, I don't think she'd be able to change the board in a way that changes Beato's core mystery. For example, if the same conditions as the Rokkenjima of EP1 occurred, but nobody was killed.

I'm assuming you are talking about LD in here? Because for a second I mistook it for Erika.

If you are talking about the 'mystery genre', I don't think Beato have a 'core mystery'. She's depicted to have been on a brink of logic error herself multiple times when she was facing Battler and changing many of her own mysteries to corner Battler while equally risking herself.

Unless of course, you are talking about 'mystery' as the 'concealed truth' and not the genre. Even then this is debatable because if the 'truth' has to be present somehow in ALL games, someone should've been able to solve Umineko a long time ago by seeking consistencies.

That's why Rokkenjima Prime is still just speculation, because there is just not enough credible evidence and the stories together just lack consistency. Even the consistency of Battler showing up in 1986; the one thing that should be part of the truth; have been broken in ep.7.

Be as it may that ep.7 could be considered Bern's game (though she herself denied that), if you argue that LD couldn't change the core truths, what made Bern (or whoever the master of ep.7 is) can? Edit: What I mean is the game master could choose which part of the truth to present to us the readers, and decide arbitrarily how to present them, much to our dismay.

[witchfan]

A mystery, by definition, is a concealed truth. The opinion that a mystery does not exist is a valid one, but it does not allow further reasoning. People who participate in the debates here, I assume, believe that a mystery exists, and want to unravel it. That a mystery exists is an axiom we choose to accept, much like the axiom that "what is written in red is an undisputed fact". If we don't accept these two points, we have nothing to base our thinking on, and arguably, no reason to think at all.

[CrystalStarlight95]

Originally Posted by witchfan

A mystery, by definition, is a concealed truth. The opinion that a mystery does not exist is a valid one, but it does not allow further reasoning. People who participate in the debates here, I assume, believe that a mystery exists, and want to unravel it. That a mystery exists is an axiom we choose to accept, much like the axiom that "what is written in red is an undisputed fact". If we don't accept these two points, we have nothing to base our thinking on, and arguably, no reason to think at all.

Let's hope there is a mystery. There better be. Why would there not be? Even if it's revealed to be a fake mystery, it's still a mystery nonetheless.

[Zekses]

Ok, I get it - Ryuukishi is THE greatest troll EVER.

I've just started re-reading the 1st novel and with the knowledge of the latter 6 pretty much EVERY *****NG scene and dialogue seems to have at least 2 meanings. And every so often he even mocks us with "time to start getting tips" and alike after the major hints (totally unnoticeable during first read)

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But then this brings up the possibility that Genji is allowing Kinzo the opportunity to try raping a total stranger. Which...is incredibly fucked up.

If we accept the story as presented, Genji already did this without any complaint, plus allowed Kinzo to keep Beatrice-2 as effectively a slave or prisoner.

Genji is not a good person. If you believe what we're told, at least. But then again, the portrayal of Ronove seems to suggest a person who is not all that bad, though certainly sly. And Kanon and Yasu don't seem to think he's so bad candidly. So what is his deal?

Which brings me to a topic I wanted to raise. We have this notion of Meta-Beatrice as taking on certain aspects of the three Beatrices and called into being with Battler as the catalyst. However, there is a certain aspect of Beatrice's behavior which seems out of place, namely her ability to affect cruelty and perform cruel acts (whether or not she really enjoyed doing them). It kind of bothers me. Yasu has the creativity, Beatrice Castiglioni has the sass, Beatrice-2 has the innocence and desire to know herself, but Beatrice has a mean and even erotic streak that none of them appear to possess themselves. The argument "well Yasu could be like that, if she wanted to" is unsupported by strong evidence, even though I think this is a clear example of a place where that evidence is desirable (especially if she wants to be seen as the culprit; what better way than to show off her cruelty?).

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Sorta like say you wrote a story of the moon landing and they had one extra guy there. That guy should remain in the story, but if he suddenly disappears in one scene with the only excuse that he was never there for real... then this seems like the mark of a bad (really bad) writer.

As much as we distrust Hachijou, I don't think she's that bad... is she?

There seems to be a degree of misunderstanding here.

An author theory approach to Erika-as-independent-entity posits that "as concerns the stories in which Erika appears (End and Dawn), she is a human piece, a character on the board, and also a projected character on the meta-world scene." To use your moon landing example:

• Erika is a character in a story who is a human being in a human situation. The Third Man On The Moon is a character in a story who is a human being in a human situation.
• Meta-Erika is a projection of the fictional character in a setting designed for the engagement of fictional concepts. The closest equivalent here would be meeting The Third Man On The Moon and having him tell you his story about it.
• "Furudo Erika" may or may not have been a real person in the Prime universe who did or did not wash up on Rokkenjima and may or may not have died at sea, but we have no way to know without evidence. The Third Man On The Moon's story is disputed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (who say no one was with them), and his identity is revealed by a private detective to show he never worked for NASA. The "man behind the man" is the real person.

Hachijou has either heard about Furudo Erika's death at that time or made Furudo Erika up outright (but left it vague enough that real people wonder if she really existed, which Hachijou wants). She then wrote stories in which Erika appears as a character. This Erika is a normal person.

The question is whether she also wrote Meta-Erika and Erika's meta-knowledge in Dawn, or if the meta-world is an interpretive layer and Dawn was grossly derailed and mischaracterized in the meta-world (something we wouldn't initially notice, because we don't have the "correct" text of Dawn). Regardless of whether any of those interpretations are correct, it's fine for Erika to "vanish" from the meta-world; it's well-established that such things can happen there. It's not like she spontaneously disappears from the board. We never see any evidence of that. Presumably, she exists on the board/in the text of End/Dawn as normal, until the game/story concludes. Of course it's possible that, in messing up Dawn, she accidentally spontaneously ended the last story in which she was to appear, thus sealing her premature fate.

Originally Posted by witchfan

I'd say Lambda has the power to do anything she wants as long as her board tells us something about Rokkenjima Prime*. If you think about it, the addition of another person to the island isn't too different from killing different people in the first twilight, or assigning them different roles, and it doesn't really affect the core of the mystery as we know it.

Additionally, Erika could be seen as an entity (despite being furniture) in the meta world, but a human piece in the board, and as such she has external influence on the board but is also an internally consistent human piece. A good analogy is a roleplaying game. We have pieces controlled by the game master who exist only in the board, but fellow players have characters both outside and inside the board. If you think about it, in a roleplaying game, there's nothing stopping your character from breaking the fourth wall. But we usually don't do it because it harms the spirit of the game.

What I think happens is that Meta-Erika distorts the interpretation phase of the reading of Dawn to the point that it can no longer track the actual text that was written, dismantling the "manuscript" story and trying to twist facts and speculation. The actual justification for doing so is trickier. When we're operating at this level of meta-fiction, it's impossible to tell whether derailing the story is a metaphor or just the story itself taking advantage of its own meta-fictionality to add meta-world drama.

I'm sure there's somewhere else I could go with this, but the effort to even think about it is considerable. So I don't wanna.

[alarmadadna hadi]

And every so often he even mocks us with "time to start getting tips" and alike after the major hints (totally unnoticeable during first read)

Sorry, but can you elaborate on this part?

[Rattan]

Originally Posted by Renall

...Which brings me to a topic I wanted to raise. We have this notion of Meta-Beatrice as taking on certain aspects of the three Beatrices and called into being with Battler as the catalyst. However, there is a certain aspect of Beatrice's behavior which seems out of place, namely her ability to affect cruelty and perform cruel acts (whether or not she really enjoyed doing them). It kind of bothers me. Yasu has the creativity, Beatrice Castiglioni has the sass, Beatrice-2 has the innocence and desire to know herself, but Beatrice has a mean and even erotic streak that none of them appear to possess themselves. The argument "well Yasu could be like that, if she wanted to" is unsupported by strong evidence, even though I think this is a clear example of a place where that evidence is desirable (especially if she wants to be seen as the culprit; what better way than to show off her cruelty?)...

I assumed that it came from Elder Beato who is a combination of ghost stories in Rokkemjima and the witch Beatrice from, though.

[Rattan]

Originally Posted by Zekses

Ok, I get it - Ryuukishi is THE greatest troll EVER.

I've just started re-reading the 1st novel and with the knowledge of the latter 6 pretty much EVERY *****NG scene and dialogue seems to have at least 2 meanings. And every so often he even mocks us with "time to start getting tips" and alike after the major hints (totally unnoticeable during first read)

Yeah and one of the things I like was that Battler's first twilight scenes in EP6 is basically the entirety of EP2

[Zekses]

That was a quote of Hideyoshi from the first novel. I don't actually remember what exactly I noticed just previous to it but I'll try to find tomorrow at work, I'm taking notes there XD Maybe I'll bring my notes home to post them although I'm certain that I'm so slow at re-read that almost anyone found whatever I could already.

Of the most interesting facts I discovered - it was said quite a few times that no hidden doors can exist unless there's been a foreshadowing... in the hindsight it sounds more like "You're looking at the wrong place dumbass! There's been plenty of foreshadowings elsewhere!"
In particular - rose that withered FOR-NO-REASON-AT-ALL and the garden "imagine how it was back then" imo - these are clear indications of some sort of undeground passages/hideouts/storage holes...

Also, Kanon's first reaction to Battler (after the latter helps lift the bags) was a phrase "Even I,..." should it be continued as : ( cannot save you / cannot stop it ) now? I think whatever plan was set in motion was meant to be done in Battler's absense.

[Cao Ni Ma]

A rose withering could be for whatever reason though, and that one rose is just an exception as the other ones where doing just fine. I did find that particular scene odd though as it could be an allusion to Maria's life in school, that one flower decided to be the target of the witch to spare the rest of the flowers.

[Zekses]

It could have been for no reason, yes, but the existence of underground whatever perfectly explains the rose's disappearance later.

[Rattan]

Originally Posted by Zekses

That was a quote of Hideyoshi from the first novel. I don't actually remember what exactly I noticed just previous to it but I'll try to find tomorrow at work, I'm taking notes there XD Maybe I'll bring my notes home to post them although I'm certain that I'm so slow at re-read that almost anyone found whatever I could already.

No, please do. The more the merrier I say

Of the most interesting facts I discovered - it was said quite a few times that no hidden doors can exist unless there's been a foreshadowing... in the hindsight it sounds more like "You're looking at the wrong place dumbass! There's been plenty of foreshadowings elsewhere!"
In particular - rose that withered FOR-NO-REASON-AT-ALL and the garden "imagine how it was back then" imo - these are clear indications of some sort of undeground passages/hideouts/storage holes...

Actually I'm rewatching the Anime (that may or may not exist) and I'm starting to agree to Ryukishi that it's solvable. Right now I'm on EP3 and all these clues are popping up everywhere. Though that's just me

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

A rose withering for no reason could be for whatever reason though, and that one rose is just an exception as the other ones where doing just fine. I did find that particular scene odd though as it could be an allusion to Maria's life in school, that one flower decided to be the target of the witch to spare the rest of the flowers.

Regardless, Gohda took the rose for lunch! And considering WHO the gardener was at the time...Maria alone in the garden may be something planned.