[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Except Yasu was never pretending to be a book, so herp derp.

Either way, it's a really, really crappy copout.

Yeah, but the crime wasn't "the murder of Yasu", it was "the murder of Beatrice".

[AuraTwilight]

Right, but there's better ways to represent it than a book in a coffin. A meta-corpse wouldn't be weird for this series.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Right, but there's better ways to represent it than a book in a coffin. A meta-corpse wouldn't be weird for this series.

Calling a book a corpse isn't weird for this series either. "there's no rule about something you call a corpse really being a corpse herp derp" Will knows the drill.

[AuraTwilight]

Yea but, as said, it's a bullshit copout.

You know, like personality death; but atleast that actually has relevance to the plot. This would just be word-fuckery for it's own sake.

[Renall]

Beatrice was murdered, and the festering corpse left behind is Yasu. Bern always lies through half-truths, after all.

At this level of cynicism, this reasoning is possible.

[AuraTwilight]

I guess that works.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Yea but, as said, it's a bullshit copout.

I actually don't know what's so much a copout about it...
The mystery that Bernkastel wanted solved by Will in Episode 7 was "Who killed Beatrice?" and as Beatrice isn't really that much of a person, but more of a concept, it's not that much of a surprise that there is no human body...

I think it was obvious from Episode 1 onwards that we're not really dealing with ONE Beatrice in the flesh...remember how the servants in Episode 1 (during the kitchen scene) insisted on how Beatrice-sama has no form or body and how she roams about the mansion in the form of golden butterflies.

For me it was pretty clear from the very beginning of that scene in Episode 7 that it was about unveiling that there is a chance of the Beatrice of 1986 never coming into existence at all...

And what else is a corpse than physical remains that once created a personality served as a transmitter for it?! And the story of Beatrice was just that...only that in this world nobody had any need for "Beatrice" to live on.

Of course it was wordplay...but I thought it was done well and it's not like this theme wasn't foreshadowed from the very beginning of the series.

[AuraTwilight]

I actually don't know what's so much a copout about it...
The mystery that Bernkastel wanted solved by Will in Episode 7 was "Who killed Beatrice?" and as Beatrice isn't really that much of a person, but more of a concept, it's not that much of a surprise that there is no human body...

Regardless of how sold the idea was, the point is that in the end Bern lied about there being a corpse. It can serve as very subtle foreshadowing of the shit she's pulling in the Tea Party. What I'm saying is that, technically, Bern broke a Dine rule here (in Dine novels, non-literal corpses don't fly; it's been tried).

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

What I'm saying is that, technically, Bern broke a Dine rule here (in Dine novels, non-literal corpses don't fly; it's been tried).

Well I think that is more a topic of interpretation and not solid fact.
For me it's Dine rules =/= Dine novels, of course Dine's novels would have followed most of the rules he created himself, but not every other author has to follow the same interpretation.
If everybody followed the rules in the same way Dine followed them, where would be the point in letting anyone except one author write anyway?

Only because the rule is not interpreted the same way as it was by van Dine it doesn't mean that it's cheap or a copout or bad writing at all, I think. It just shows that he used it in a different way and as long as the rule allows it why not?

There are limits to how far you can find loopholes to a rule...
It's not like the solution was "Because they ate ham for breakfast!", because that would be an answer that would totally ridicule the intent of the original message.
I think the most fun part about those mystery rules today is circumventing them without actually breaking them...like creating a secret passage but making it serve no purpose for the murder or making someone who appears to be a servant be the culprit but give enough evidence to make it obvious he isn't one...

[Judoh]

7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded. Americans are essentially humane, and
therefore a tiptop murder arouses their sense of vengeance and horror. They wish to bring the perpetrator to justice; and when"murder most foul, as in the best it is," has been committed, the chase is on with all the righteous enthusiasm of which the thrice gentle reader is capable.

I don't see any room for interpretation here do you? He blatantly broke and insulted the intention of this rule. The way your blathering on about interpretations and using secret passages as an analogy just makes you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

I think the most fun part about those mystery rules today is circumventing them without actually breaking them...like creating a secret passage but making it serve no purpose for the murder or making someone who appears to be a servant be the culprit but give enough evidence to make it obvious he isn't one...

There's no problem with finding a loophole or breaking a rule as long as it's written well, but that's the exception not the rule. The way Bern/Ryukishi did it is not exceptional.

[AuraTwilight]

You can only break the rules if you're really fucking good at what you're doing. The guy still getting his driver's license should not try to pop a wheelie in his car and change lanes illegally for a kickass action movie sequence. He'll get killed and look like an idiot.

[Renall]

Yeah. Learn to walk before you run. Learn the rules before you break them. Or just don't give a damn and there's a 1% chance you're Ernest Hemingway.

I like those odds.

[Sherringford]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well I think that is more a topic of interpretation and not solid fact.
For me it's Dine rules =/= Dine novels, of course Dine's novels would have followed most of the rules he created himself, but not every other author has to follow the same interpretation.

No authors follow his rules period. JDC put it best. Each author has his prejudices, and he will follow them to his grave. There is no reason for any writer to follow the Dine rules. Knox is another story, considering the detection club and all.

If everybody followed the rules in the same way Dine followed them, where would be the point in letting anyone except one author write anyway?

"Everyone, only Van Dine is allowed to write mystery novels."
"Didn't he just write 12 novels and then die?"
"Well shit the genre is dead."

Only because the rule is not interpreted the same way as it was by van Dine it doesn't mean that it's cheap or a copout or bad writing at all, I think. It just shows that he used it in a different way and as long as the rule allows it why not?

Because the rule doesn't allow for it.

I think the most fun part about those mystery rules today is circumventing them without actually breaking them...like creating a secret passage but making it serve no purpose for the murder or making someone who appears to be a servant be the culprit but give enough evidence to make it obvious he isn't one...

What? God no. If you get so hung up on the rules, you are going to end up being caught by the police because you thought that stopping for the lights was a good idea.

The rules aren't meant to be what God commands you to do. You shouldn't try to loophole them. They are, like Jack Sparrow put it once, general guidelines.

The only sacred rule in mystery novels is to never withhold a clue from your reader and to make the mystery solvable.

Originally Posted by The Essay I continue to quote every five seconds

Those are four golden maxims. In each one I believe. And each one you will find shattered-shattered admirably; shattered to bits, shattered by a mighty hammer-in the "best" detective novels, while the reader wishes to do nothing but applaud. Because they are not really rules; they are only prejudices.

But this is a minor matter; it is the author and his detective who count, "Then you still believe all that?" will be the whisper of kindly friends. "Haven't you learned anything in all these years?" Since I have learned wisdom in no other respect,it is useless to hope for it here. And a man should always be willing to defend his prejudices.: As he gets on in years, those prejudices may constitute the most satisfactory sum total of all the things he has-or is.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Judoh

I don't see any room for interpretation here do you? He blatantly broke and insulted the intention of this rule. The way your blathering on about interpretations and using secret passages as an analogy just makes you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

The problem is, this wasn't the rule that was featured in Umineko, this was Van Dine's original rule.
The way Ryûkishi brought it up was: "第７則。　死体なき事件であることを禁ず。" (Rule No.7: I forbid a crime without a corpse to exist.) and in that manner it was not actually broken.

Yes, of course you could argue wether or not it was legitimate to change the rules in the first place, just to fit what he was aiming at...that is the only thing where I would say he went a bit overboard.
Had he just referenced to the original version of the rules and then brought up his solution in Episode 7, I would agree about it breaking the rule...but he didn't, so I don't see the merrit in actually discussing it.

It's like judging Stephen King for bringing up the topic of Dracula in Salem's Lot, but not using the exact same mythology and logic that was used by Bram Stoker.

[Jan-Poo]

I think the main problem for me is that Ryuukishi mentioned those rules and wrote them in red after stating that red is the absolute truth.

So in the end I guess it all comes down to how he managed the red truths.

I did understand midway the problem that lies with "absolute truths" that aren't made using "absolute definitions". But then that defies the concept of "absolute truth" completely.
An absolute truth using ambiguous definitions loses all of its worth, in the end you can't rely on it, and you can bypass any red truth simply by changing the definitions of its words. That of course works for "mystery rules" which were written in red, but then what's the point in mentioning them in red, apart from confusing the reader?


As I pointed out many times, a good riddle or mystery is the one that once you learn the solution makes you slap in the face because you realize that it was solvable and yet you couldn't see how.
But if I realize that the only reason I couldn't solve a riddle was because I was respecting and trusting the rules, I don't really get that feeling. The only feeling I get is that the one who proposed the riddle won by cheating.

The way Ryûkishi brought it up was: "第７則。　死体なき事件であることを禁ず。" (Rule No.7: I forbid a crime without a corpse to exist.) and in that manner it was not actually broken.

I'm sorry but "corpse" has a precise definition. It doesn't matter like at all that it isn't exactly Dine's rule. It's still a rule, said in red, which completely redefined the meaning of a common word without any notice.

[Renall]

Red without clear definitions is fairly annoying. That was one thing I liked about Beatrice's interpretations (although she did pull it a few times). Generally, if she needed to define a term, she defined it; if not, the general meaning of the term was assumed and usually followed. Most of her misleading use of red was through improper conclusions from the red she presented, not twists of the red itself.

Ryukishi appears to have forgotten this for the ep5 "corpse is not a corpse" thing, even though Beatrice had already covered herself on this by generally avoiding calling people corpses until they actually were, or not calling the dead/"dead" corpses. Even the unidentified corpses red only applied to "unidentified corpses." If someone was identified, or not a corpse, that red never applied to them.

Using a "truth mechanic" ambiguously to make an uncritical reader jump to conclusions but give hints to a careful reader is fine. Using it to lie is cheating.

[LyricalAura]

I never really understood why there was an issue with the EP5 red. Observers are permitted to assert their own conclusions and interpretations, and Battler's argument about witnessing Kinzo demonstrated that observations are relative to the narration, so you can state them in red even if they don't correspond to reality.

When I figured out the device of the epitaph's riddle, I witnessed Grandfather. ......As has already been shown in red, Grandfather doesn't exist. It was impossible for me to witness him!

Even if it wouldn't have flown in EP4, the players were explicitly permitted to do this by the rules in EP5.

[rogerpepitone]

Minor item: Episode 4: Right after George challenges Gaap, it mentions that there's a full moon. I just looked on http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon and found that Oct 4 1986 was a new moon. Not sure if that actually means anything. (Or it could just be an indicator that the scene is fake.)

Renall: What red text did my Gohda / Rosa theory violate? I don't take that theory seriously at all, but I think it explains things at least as well as Shkannon does, or rather, as poorly as Shkannon does.

[AuraTwilight]

Minor item: Episode 4: Right after George challenges Gaap, it mentions that there's a full moon. I just looked on http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon and found that Oct 4 1986 was a new moon. Not sure if that actually means anything. (Or it could just be an indicator that the scene is fake.)

Ange's world isn't our world.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Renall

Ryukishi appears to have forgotten this for the ep5 "corpse is not a corpse" thing, even though Beatrice had already covered herself on this by generally avoiding calling people corpses until they actually were, or not calling the dead/"dead" corpses. Even the unidentified corpses red only applied to "unidentified corpses." If someone was identified, or not a corpse, that red never applied to them.

Using a "truth mechanic" ambiguously to make an uncritical reader jump to conclusions but give hints to a careful reader is fine. Using it to lie is cheating.

I thought this was what everyone in the meta-world meant when they said EP5 had no love. 8) And that Beatrice did not use dirty tricks like that with her games (Meta-Beatrice that is, so both Yasu and Tooya wrote her like that.)

But of course, we were all ready for Lambdadelta and even more so, Bernkastel to use such dirty tricks, right? Right?

For EP7, I thought the trick was that Will's rules spoken in red had no meaning because although Bernkastel presented a kind of mystery, it wasn't a detective story, right?



By the way, I've posted this before, but maybe it needs repeating. Something's been bugging me since the end of EP6, before Will appeared. It's said that first Battler and Erika were the 'detectives' in EP1-4 and EP5-6 respectively. But normal detectives solve the crime and present the solution in the last chapter. Before then they usually have the solution in mind and as a consequence of their investigation, they dig up the proper clues for us.

When did Battler and Erika do this? They both failed in their investigations (or weren't even aware that they were supposed to investigate, i.e. 無能) and presented nothing at the end.

That's why I propose that even if they had 'detective' powers, we needed to look at them from a different light. Especially in light of the Author Theory at that time. Basically, they weren't 'detectives' but a tool for the author to obfuscate the truth even more.


Then Will appeared and gave us an answer key of sorts and all is well. If we can figure out his cryptic messages that is... hmm...