[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm not telling you this to be insulting or anything, it just isn't semantically possible to make a sentence "fool-proof."

It is, however, possible to do a better job defining meaning. One way to do this with a system like the red text is to establish rules (there was only one and it was semantically useless). The next step would be to not break those rules once established. Ryukishi did this, and thus fucked up.

I guess the idea is that sentences in red shouldn't lead to tricks.

In case of an objective narrative the narrative is factual so you wouldn't have it say in Ep 5 that 'a letter arrived, guy A said this and guy B did that'. You could have narrative saying 'guy A said that a letter arrived, guy A said this and guy B did that'. As soon as objective narrative WARNS you that what's reporting is someone else's subjective narration you're warned it's up to you to believe it, otherwise is supposed to be the truth.

Since we've not this warning we can never be sure about what's happening.

Now red truth originally seemed to be made to help us to get out of this problem since it was supposed to be the truth.

However red truth isn't objective truth, it's more like attaching the culprit to a truth machine and telling him that if he lies he'll be strangled by the machine.

So he doesn't 'lie' directly, he uses tricks to deceive you.

In the letter's case Lambda gave many red truths connected to it but she did it in such way.

When the letter arrived it was midnight.
At midnight guy A was here, guy B was here and guy C was here.
None of them put there the letter or knocked.

Note that all her red truth are structured to make it look like a letter arrived but basically do not confirm it. This is still subjective narration that's forced to give you some true facts. In short it's a different kind of deception.

Now... for the Kirye is dead thing.

Apparently you can't give red truths according to what you believe to be true or Battler would have been capable to say he was born by Asumu (at the moment he had no reason to believe he wasn't).
So you can't deny Ushiromiya Kirye's existence on the basis of 'I don't know that's Sumadera Kirye's new name'.
However, if you never met her when she became Ushiromiya Kirye it's possible you can say 'I never met Ushiromiya Kirye'.

I'm not even sure if you can say I met Sumadera Kyrie on the street this afternoon. Therefore, Sumadera Kyrie is alive because, if Kirye discharged that name Umineko seems to consider the person Sumadera Kirye as dead regardless of you knowing this or not. If Kirye kept using it though Sumadera Kirye and Ushiromiya Kirye would both still be alive.

However my reasoning work only if you keep your usage of red truth consistent with what Umineko does.
If you decide that each time you refers to a person his status refers to his body and not to the names he uses you met Ushiromiya Kirye's body and both Ushiromiya Kirye and Sumadera Kirye's bodies are alive... though it sounds weird to talk about meeting bodies normally when we expect someone to tell us the truth about a person's status we expect him to refer to that person's body, not to one of that person's identities...

[Renall]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

In case of an objective narrative the narrative is factual so you wouldn't have it say in Ep 5 that 'a letter arrived, guy A said this and guy B did that'. You could have narrative saying 'guy A said that a letter arrived, guy A said this and guy B did that'. As soon as objective narrative WARNS you that what's reporting is someone else's subjective narration you're warned it's up to you to believe it, otherwise is supposed to be the truth.

Since we've not this warning we can never be sure about what's happening.

Now red truth originally seemed to be made to help us to get out of this problem since it was supposed to be the truth.

I think you're approaching the fundamental problem here. My profession gives me some weight to this, so let me elaborate:

In a court of law there's a thing called Judicial Notice. Essentially, this is the judge looking at certain facts presented and making a declaration that the particular conclusions drawn from the facts are not at issue and need not be argued.

For example, if a particular crime is alleged to have happened at 12:45 P.M., and both sides agree this is definitely true, and visibility of the culprit escaping a house is at issue, it's possible for the judge to take notice that, for example, the sun was out at 12:45 P.M. on the date in question at the time of the crime. This is because the weather on a particular past date is not really in question (they record that, after all) and neither side disputes that's when the crime happened. Thus, it's neither necessary nor appropriate for the defense attorney to question an eyewitness as to whether it might have been dark out in the afternoon.

You'll notice I used red there. I'll get back to that. Here's a slightly less silly example:

One thing I often have to do in a case is have a police officer identify a defendant. This is more important than you'd think; it's very important to the case that a police officer be able to identify the person he arrested or ticketed is the defendant in this case. But that's not quite as easy as it sounds. To actually do this I'd have to ask the following:

"Did you come into contact with a person named Joe Smith?"
"Yes."
"If you saw Joe Smith again, would you be able to identify him?"
"Yes."
"Is Joe Smith present in the courtroom today?"
"Yes."
"Can you point out Joe Smith?"
"He's that guy sitting over at the table in the red shirt."

However, there is one critical step I can't finish; I can't ask my witness if Joe Smith is the defendant in this case! Why not? Because my witness doesn't have any way to know that. He knows he met a guy named Joe Smith and wrote him a ticket. He knows Joe Smith is in the courtroom. He knows a man named Joe Smith is on trial for an offense similar or identical to the one he wrote a ticket for. But he can't personally assure me that this particular Joe Smith is the one who is properly supposed to be on trial, because he doesn't know that.

But of course someone does know (or can determine reasonably based on what they know, the defendant's self-identification, and the witness's identification), the court itself. So I ask the court to take judicial notice that the witness has identified the defendant as Joe Smith.

Again, I used red there. If red were used as a form of judicial notice - that is, a statement of things to be taken as inarguable facts based on things which are not disputed between both parties - it would still be possible to quibble but things would be much, much stronger.

Of course, it's more generally used for the "word of the judge" early on, and that's fine too in a general sense. But then it gets messy and becomes subjective, wrecking it.

The only time someone should be permitted to quote red against a judge would be quoting the actual law, particularly laws which state that a judge must do something a particular way. Failure to do so allows for the claim of a Logic Error (an appeal on judicial error).

Essentially, red should be judicial decision rather than testimony. It behaves more like testimony. Testimony is equally unreliable whether it's in white or red or omniscient or first-person narrated.

Now... for the Kirye is dead thing.

Apparently you can't give red truths according to what you believe to be true or Battler would have been capable to say he was born by Asumu (at the moment he had no reason to believe he wasn't).
So you can't deny Ushiromiya Kirye's existence on the basis of 'I don't know that's Sumadera Kirye's new name'.
However, if you never met her when she became Ushiromiya Kirye it's possible you can say 'I never met Ushiromiya Kirye'.

I'm not even sure if you can say I met Sumadera Kyrie on the street this afternoon. Therefore, Sumadera Kyrie is alive because, if Kirye discharged that name Umineko seems to consider the person Sumadera Kirye as dead regardless of you knowing this or not. If Kirye kept using it though Sumadera Kirye and Ushiromiya Kirye would both still be alive.

However my reasoning work only if you keep your usage of red truth consistent with what Umineko does.
If you decide that each time you refers to a person his status refers to his body and not to the names he uses you met Ushiromiya Kirye's body and both Ushiromiya Kirye and Sumadera Kirye's bodies are alive... though it sounds weird to talk about meeting bodies normally when we expect someone to tell us the truth about a person's status we expect him to refer to that person's body, not to one of that person's identities...

There is one problem here: It assumes (and is somewhat supported by the notion that) you can only not say something in a particular context.

Battler was within a particular context in which someone - not him, but apparently Beatrice - had knowledge of something which was factually untrue. Battler did not know he wasn't born from Asumu, but Beatrice did. Therefore Beatrice's truth was stronger and Battler couldn't state something.

But in my "I met Sumadera Kyrie on the street today" example, you're assuming the knowledge exists in that context to prohibit me from saying that. What if the person I'm telling this to, just like me, doesn't know she married? What if the "Game Master" of my particular story or board doesn't know this? It's impossible that I would just magically be prevented from saying someone's name.

What if George likes to refer to himself as Pookie Worthington and refuses to recognize himself as Ushiromiya George, but he's never told anyone this? Would it be impossible to say anything about "George" in red in a Rokkenjima game? I don't see why.

Moreover, I don't see why my label is equally valid as anyone else's. Perhaps, even knowing Kyrie has married someone, I still prefer to refer to her as "Sumadera" and will continue to do so in the future. Why is my version invalid? Why can't I say it in red? So what if she doesn't use that name, so what if the law doesn't use that name, I use that name and my labels are equally arbitrary and thus, equally valid. If I were the Game Master, is it not entirely possible that you wouldn't be able to say "Ushiromiya Kyrie" if I preferred the term "Sumadera Kyrie" be used? If not, why should either one be valid? We might as well only be able to say "the individual whom <source> identifies as <name> did x and y." That would eliminate subjectivity of identification as a factor (though it would add uncertainty as to whether two people saw the same person if they have differing identification methods).

UNRELATED NOTE: I think this would make for a pretty cool exploitative forgery where some meta-character realizes that the subjectivity of known information controls what the Game Master is actually capable of saying and exploits this by intentionally withholding or releasing information they alone know. Sort of like Erika's "trap" on a grander scale. Letting things get to a point where the entire story is constructed on things asserted red that the participant knows to be false, then tearing the whole thing to shreds with information from outside the board that they were aware of all along.

The deductive equivalent of the Perry Mason surprise witness. Mystery fans' teeth would grind to the nerve, but whatever, the story would probably obviously not be the same genre after a little reading so they'd probably know not to expect it.

[LyricalAura]

I think what it comes down to is that interpreting red truth correctly is about getting inside the head of the person who wrote that red truth. It can be red because it's true on that person's internal gameboard, which they're sharing with you. If you believe your opponent is competing in good faith and wants you to solve the mystery, then "interpreting" a red should only be a matter of understanding what the speaker means in terms of their gameboard, not picking it apart for loopholes. The opponent is trying to trip you up logically, not semantically.

In the case of my example above, I explicitly said right there in the same paragraph that "these two statements convey the same information," and it should have been clear from my argument that I meant for that to be the case. And yet, jjblue and Renall considered the red statement in isolation and said "these don't literally mean the same thing, so there are loopholes." If you take the statement I made off of my gameboard and put it on yours, of course you're going to end up with different results, right?

For a more complicated example, there's the character death thing. Yasu is friends with Maria, she plays Beatrice with Maria, she incorporates Maria's characters and ideas into her story. On Maria's gameboard, "different behavior = different person." Yasu wrote her message bottles "as Maria". Tohya took over Yasu's gameboard and continued it. If you follow that chain, it's actually perfectly natural that on the gameboard in question, "different behavior = different person," but without putting in that effort you'd just get lost in the woods.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

In the case of my example above, I explicitly said right there in the same paragraph that "these two statements convey the same information," and it should have been clear from my argument that I meant for that to be the case. And yet, jjblue and Renall considered the red statement in isolation and said "these don't literally mean the same thing, so there are loopholes." If you take the statement I made off of my gameboard and put it on yours, of course you're going to end up with different results, right?

How can I know what you mean, though? Particularly if you don't define it ahead of time. Asking me to interpret what your personal game board looks like by actually playing your game is like asking me to win you a million dollars in a poker tournament when I don't know how to play poker. It's rather a lot to ask of someone.

EDIT: And putting that aside, the example you gave about Maria may be what Ryukishi intended, but it's definitionally absurd on its face.

[jjblue1]

Hum... LyricalAura might be up on something. Likely Toya (because the metas are his own) had made the rule that red truths about the dead of a character don't refer to the dead of a person but of a personality.

You can use red truth according to the rules Toya unconsciously extabilished so, if you're using a red truth that his rules don't approve, even if it's true for you, you can't say it on his gameboard. This work for any character of the meta like Battler but also like Beato. Since Toya allowed the pet lion Ange showed Beato to be called Sakutaro, Beato couldn't say anymore Sakutaro was one of a kind.

Funny enough for the red truth to be always true in the meta this requires Toya to know all the truth but this problem can be circumnavigated by the fact that, being the characters Toya's creations he can refrain from having them reply with red when he doesn't know something or to have them ask something for which he doesn't have answers.

Another option is that if he were to give red truth and later he would discover this truth is false (example: it's not real Battler was switched at birth, Toya/Battler is biologically the son of Asumu and the medical test that said he was Kirye's son was wrong) this red truth would never reach the meta or reach it in such a way it won't deny the previous red truth (no idea how).

Of course this assume Toya has a great if not total control on the meta world, in short he's not dreaming it he's picturing it in his mind in the same way one would do with a story.

I tend to think it's more logic if it's something in between. Dreams, feelings, flashbacks, intuitions and whatever else are later logically rielaborated in his mind into what we're shown.

So, although he didn't clearly remember it, he knew Asumu wasn't his mother so Battler couldn't say it and he saw other Sakutaro looking toys so Beato couldn't say Sakutaro was one of a kind.

Going back to the game:
Likely red truths follow some sort of rule... but how Renall said how can we guess which one without someone definining them ahead of time?

Which is likely why Battler asked to Beato to define what she meant with certain words.

I guess he forgot to check if 'death' meant death of personality or phisical death because:
a) Normally you refers to phisical death
b) He had no idea that Shannon & Kanon were the same person so he couldn't figure that part out. If he had asked a definition for death he would have figured a character could be declared death simply by abandoning his own actual identity permanently for another.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

How can I know what you mean, though? Particularly if you don't define it ahead of time. Asking me to interpret what your personal game board looks like by actually playing your game is like asking me to win you a million dollars in a poker tournament when I don't know how to play poker. It's rather a lot to ask of someone.

Ah, but now we're talking about a problem with human communication, not Ryuukishi's writing. Actually he brought this up as an issue very early, didn't he? "If you don't know what rules the opponent is playing by, you can't turn the chessboard over."

However, you can't just throw up your hands and say "I don't know what your words mean, so I'm not talking to you," or civilization would break down. You have to start with an assumed common basis and interact until the other person's meaning gets across. That's what happened with EP4, pulling Maria's and Beatrice's worldviews out into the open so they could be understood.

[cronnoponno]

Make When They Cry a genuine Fantasy, with all these brilliant designs for witches and furniture, I bet he can make one hell of a Fantasy story if he tried. Problem solved.

[Wanderer]

Well, as Beatrice said when she introduced red truth in the second game, you'll just have to trust her Red Truth or the game won't advance. I really liked that; I actually don't have much gripe with the reds that Beatrice said. Personality death was a kind of dirty trick, but at least it was also a clue to the truth; it was the only point where Beatrice abused the subjective nature of red truth, and Beatrice wanted us to figure it out. Even when it was deceptive in some way, Beatrice's red was always useful.

I guess that's kind of the point. Red Truth is abusable, and only really functions when you trust the person using it to play fair, which is why reds from Bernkastel and Erika are garbage.

[ErenselTheJester]

Personally, I would rather get rid of Red Truth and try to solve the story, and it is possible to do so. I see now that the Red Truth was meant to sort of "keep us on track" and to prevent us from questioning the story to the point of complete disbelief regarding the murders. Now that I know better I can seperate fiction from... fiction, and see the story at face value (and it looks too much like "And Then There Were None.")

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Ah, but now we're talking about a problem with human communication, not Ryuukishi's writing. Actually he brought this up as an issue very early, didn't he? "If you don't know what rules the opponent is playing by, you can't turn the chessboard over."

However, you can't just throw up your hands and say "I don't know what your words mean, so I'm not talking to you," or civilization would break down. You have to start with an assumed common basis and interact until the other person's meaning gets across. That's what happened with EP4, pulling Maria's and Beatrice's worldviews out into the open so they could be understood.

Maria's worldview literally isn't workable for a mystery though, and Beatrice selecting her worldview would be wholly disingenuous on her part precisely because it doesn't assume a common basis, as Maria doesn't generally share much commonality with the average person and certainly doesn't with Battler. Beatrice went into the game affecting a commonality of understanding with Battler. If she was actually using Maria's rules, she was lying to him.

Moreover, there's no way Touya could've known this unless he had Maria's diary himself, and had it before he wrote Banquet, but that's another matter.

Anyway, Maria's worldview and why it's moronic to use as the basis for red. Where to start, where to start. Okay, let's assume based on what the games show us that Maria operates in roughly this manner:

• Maria associates identity with a combination of appearance and behavior. Unlike with the average person, both must be in concert for her to make a positive identification. If Shannon is behaving like Beatrice, Shannon is Beatrice. If she behaves like Shannon, Shannon is Shannon.
• However, it is possible for multiple appearances and identities to have the same identification in Maria's world. If Shannon is behaving like Beatrice, Shannon is Beatrice. If Kanon is behaving like Beatrice instead, Kanon is Beatrice. Kanon+Beatrice Behavior = Beatrice, Kanon+Other Behavior = Not Beatrice. Therefore, to Maria, identity is not a unique combination of traits but a sum of a discrete behavior combined with a given set of known appearances.

Why don't I just say behavior = person? Because Maria makes indication that people exist by their appearances. If behavior alone defined identity for her, she wouldn't recognize that a person who isn't behaving in any identifiable way exists.

Why is that important? Consider the following scenario: Maria observes Kanon walking across the rose garden in the distance in a manner of stride and bearing which she does not recognize as being associated with anyone she knows. In other words, as far as she is aware, Kanon is not behaving like Kanon (therefore, he is not Kanon) and is not behaving like Beatrice (therefore, he is not Beatrice). If you asked Maria who she saw, what would she say?

If behavior alone mattered, Maria wouldn't be able to say she saw anybody at all, as an unrecognized entity doesn't exist until she identifies it (perhaps she'd give it a new identity, like Rosa's "Black Witch"). If appearance does matter, she would say that she saw someone but didn't know who they were. In neither case would she say she saw Kanon. She couldn't even say she saw a person who "resembled Kanon," as most people would, because to Maria identity is behavior + appearance; in other words, if Kanon isn't both looking like Kanon and acting like him, he does not resemble Kanon. For all she can tell based on what she knows, a Kanon spotted standing still in the distance could be Kanon, Beatrice, or someone else she doesn't know.

The obvious consequences of this on the use of red are dire.

• It is possible for the list of persons present on the island to change entirely at random. It's also possible not to know who is on the island whenever a character's behavior is untracked. After all, they could be behaving as a person other than themselves, and therefore be that other person.
• Nobody dies, ever, as long as they start behaving differently. New behavior, same appearance, new person entirely.
• It is entirely possible to tell Battler that none of the people you know committed the murders. As Battler knows his family, none of them are capable of murder. Since identity = appearance + behavior, anyone who exhibits the behavior "kills everyone" is not a person Battler identifies. Ergo, blame the witch. This is exactly the opposite conclusion Beatrice wants him to reach, yet is entirely philosophically valid if Beatrice is adopting a worldview she knows isn't accurate. If nothing else, this proves Beatrice isn't applying Maria's worldview (which might call this conclusion fine) honestly, and knows it to be false. By representing otherwise, she is being disingenuous.
• It is possible for people to adopt a new identity as long as they behave in a different manner. Shkanon is really only the tip of the iceberg here. For example, nothing would prevent Kumasawa from being Beatrice at any given time, and thus from that, nothing would prevent "Beatrice" from existing in two places at the same time.
• It is not possible for both Kanon and Shannon to exist at the same time. Well, okay, it's actually possible, but stupid (if someone other than Shkanon is filling in for one of them). Point is, it should never be possible to use red to describe the locations or actions of Kanon and Shannon at the same time. Interestingly, the red doesn't do this. However, if ever forced into a such a position, it would not be possible to do this, as Kanon should stop existing if Shannon does, etc. The narration in ep6 in which Battler says he could have named all the people in the other room is therefore flat-out lying to the reader, because he actually couldn't have done that.
• The entire discussion of "bodies" used in later episodes makes no sense, as does the assertion that no one can use a particular name other than "the person himself." Logically, "the person himself" is anyone who affects the personality and is recognized as such. If we're supposed to be using "Maria's rules," we should be able to say something like "Kanon has only one appearance which cannot be mistaken," which would limit the acceptable appearance set for Kanon to one (although this does not explain what it means if, say, someone else acted like Kanon).
• Again, the "they would not mistake Kinzo" or "they would not mistake Kanon" things don't really make a lot of sense if we're using Maria's worldview. Maria can't mistake Kinzo by sight, but she could easily see multiple people as Kinzo, including people who do not physically resemble Kinzo, as long as they act like Kinzo. I have trouble beleiving this is what Ryukishi intended.
• Erika Ball is back from the grave alive and well, as long as someone is "acting like" Erika.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Moreover, there's no way Touya could've known this unless he had Maria's diary himself, and had it before he wrote Banquet, but that's another matter.

You know... I really don't think Touya would have Maria's diary. He'd have to have gotten it from the island somehow. Then he'd have to keep it, not remembering what it is, only to have his memories triggered not by the mysterious diary, but by hearing of some so-called "Rokkenjima Incident" on the Internet. Or if Maria left it at home, he would have had somehow to obtain it somehow from Eva or something, years after the incident.

This doesn't preclude that Battler saw the diary on Rokkenjima or just learned this from direct interaction with Maria. But, Rokkenjima was the first time Battler met Maria since she was 3. It's pretty hard to imagine he learned much about her at all in those 2 days. Add amnesia into the mix, and Touya knows next to nothing about Maria that he didn't learn through Yasu's fictions.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

You know... I really don't think Touya would have Maria's diary. He'd have to have gotten it from the island somehow. Then he'd have to keep it, not remembering what it is, only to have his memories triggered not by the mysterious diary, but by hearing of some so-called "Rokkenjima Incident" on the Internet. Or if Maria left it at home, he would have had somehow to obtain it somehow from Eva or something, years after the incident.

This doesn't preclude that Battler saw the diary on Rokkenjima or just learned this from direct interaction with Maria. But, Rokkenjima was the first time Battler met Maria since she was 3. It's pretty hard to imagine he learned much about her at all in those 2 days. Add amnesia into the mix, and Touya knows next to nothing about Maria that he didn't learn through Yasu's fictions.

There's no mention they found Rosa's body/bodyparts on Rokkenjima so, although I can guess everyone assumed she died it might be she wasn't declared as death immediately. So... how much do you have to wait in Japan before a missing person is declared death?

Is it enough to say 'I think she died in the explosion' or, in case no proof of this is found you've to wait for a while?

If it's a time long enough Rosa's property still technically had to remain untouched for quite a while then Eva inherited it. She probably planned to sell what could have been of some value and toss away the rest.

However, if Witch Hunters by this time were already interested in Rokkenjima they would have paid to have the diary of the message sender's Maria.

Actually I think media might have been interested in it even before the witch hunters. It doesn't have to be the diary Maria was writing, it could be the one she had finished writing already and had kept at home because she had carried with her her new one.

It's also possible the new one somehow survived the explosion (I find it hard but it's not unprecedented).

Though I don't really think Toya needed to have Maria's diary. If he saw it on Rokkenjima and remembered about it, it's more than enough.

[Renall]

To give you an example of what Maria's thinking would do to red text, consider the following summary from MARIA of a game board she was Game Master over, which I have just made up but which follows the rules I had previously assumed a post or two back:

As midnight approached on the night of the 4th, Krauss was up in his bedroom with Kumasawa. Kyrie, Eva, and Rosa were outside at the chapel solving the epitaph. Shannon was with Kinzo. Battler was with everyone else in the dining room of the mansion.

Just before midnight, Battler went to the bathroom, where he was knocked unconscious. At exactly 00:00, Beatrice appeared to everyone in the dining room and they all died other than Jessica and Natsuhi, who were in the room the whole time. The two of them were then moved to Jessica's room. At exactly 00:00, Beatrice appeared to Kyrie, Eva, and Rosa in the gold room, and they also died. Also at exactly 00:00, Beatrice appeared to Krauss and he and Kumasawa died. Krauss's body was then moved to the gold room with the other bodies located there. Beatrice then ceased to exist forever.

Battler woke up in the bathroom at 03:00. He went upstairs to Jessica's room and found the bodies of Jessica, Natsuhi, Nanjo, and Kumasawa. He wandered over to the chapel and found the tunnel to the gold room. There, at 04:15, Krauss came back to life and met with Battler, and the two of them left. Outside, they met Rosa at 04:40, and the three of them went to the mansion. When they got to the mansion at 5:02, Krauss and Rosa suddenly and instantly died. Then Battler was shot at 5:05 and died.

No one committed suicide. Everyone who was killed was killed by another person. No individual in the body of a parent would kill the spouse or child of that body, and no person in the body of a child would kill the parent of that body.

I think this is technically valid, at least from Maria's POV.

[AuraTwilight]

But what about things like Battler being unable to say Asumu was his mom even though he believed it?

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But what about things like Battler being unable to say Asumu was his mom even though he believed it?

Battler doesn't know he is, he wasn't able to tell when he was born even if that's the knowledge he grew up to ''know''.

[AuraTwilight]

Then for the same reason, Maria doesn't "know" that Beatrice killed anyone, she was just brought up to 'know'.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But what about things like Battler being unable to say Asumu was his mom even though he believed it?

Well, my guess is that it's Toya who makes the rules. By Ep 4 he's starting to remember more stuffs though likely his memories are rather vague. So Toya knows Battler isn't Asumu's son (no idea how he found out, maybe in Rokkenjima Prime he managed to have a talk with his dad?) so Battler can't say it.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

But what about things like Battler being unable to say Asumu was his mom even though he believed it?

Someone in that scenario apparently had more knowledge than him. Beatrice, "God-the-Author," whatever. Someone on a level higher than Battler in that scene had factual knowledge that he was not Asumu-born. Otherwise we acknowledge that we just randomly cannot say things in red, yet have no idea when that would happen or why. If so, "x is the killer on R-Prime" repeat until you can successfully use red would actually work.

I was describing a scenario in which nobody has knowledge of something that is a fact, such as two people not knowing that Kyrie remarried. In a story structured by those individuals, why would the name "Sumadera Kyrie" cause people to suddenly choke up?

EDIT: Another possibility is that a person cannot use red to make a definitive statement of something they are not actually sure about. Thus, Battler can't say with certainty that he was born from Asumu because he actually doesn't know that. He merely assumes it.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Renall

Someone in that scenario apparently had more knowledge than him. Beatrice, "God-the-Author," whatever. Someone on a level higher than Battler in that scene had factual knowledge that he was not Asumu-born. Otherwise we acknowledge that we just randomly cannot say things in red, yet have no idea when that would happen or why. If so, "x is the killer on R-Prime" repeat until you can successfully use red would actually work.

I was describing a scenario in which nobody has knowledge of something that is a fact, such as two people not knowing that Kyrie remarried. In a story structured by those individuals, why would the name "Sumadera Kyrie" cause people to suddenly choke up?

EDIT: Another possibility is that a person cannot use red to make a definitive statement of something they are not actually sure about. Thus, Battler can't say with certainty that he was born from Asumu because he actually doesn't know that. He merely assumes it.

Battler could say ''Ushiromiya Battler is the son of Asumu''(or whatever he said exactly), this is because he ''knows'' it, even if it isn't technically true.

Battler could not say ''It was from Ushiromiya Asumu that Ushiromiya Battler was born'' because he didn't know.

Likewise, Erika and Bernkastel could spout bullshit reds likely because they knew more than they let on, all victims were very much alive before I killed them. I didn't tell anyone other than Shannon! When we entered this room, it's structure was clearly referred to

I think it's likely from not being sure, that Battler couldn't say it.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

I was describing a scenario in which nobody has knowledge of something that is a fact, such as two people not knowing that Kyrie remarried. In a story structured by those individuals, why would the name "Sumadera Kyrie" cause people to suddenly choke up?

Technically it wouldn't but in this case I think you aren't anymore on Umineko's game board and you can use red truth to lie as long as you aren't aware you're lying.

Originally Posted by Renall

EDIT: Another possibility is that a person cannot use red to make a definitive statement of something they are not actually sure about. Thus, Battler can't say with certainty that he was born from Asumu because he actually doesn't know that. He merely assumes it.

Well he could say Ushiromiya Battler was born from Asumu. Even this is something he was told by someone and not something he could confirm.