[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[artirian]

Originally Posted by Antera Caramichael

The rules of Ep5 are the following:
==> Furudo Erika is the mysterious 18th person on the island.
==> She is the detective, which role was previous Battler's.
==> She cannot be the culprit.
==> She was not present in the previous games and had until now no influence on them.

By only this, I can support my theory which only requires her to exist in Ep5. She is stated in red, and so her presence was true.
And even if she were to be denied, then Battler is going back to his rôle of detective: Shanon and kanon were present in the same room, End of story.

Edit: Heu... hummm, It was hard to understand what you wanted to mean, so sorry if I said something totaly out of place^^

You mean something like `Erika said "I´m the 18th person", but one can see that just like "well, in a a sense of piece you could be the 18th person, it isn´t needed your physical presence in EP6 for that, so you are included as a 0 in the 17 persons group". At least until that part of EP6 we knew (probably, we had questions about that) that "there are no more than 17 people in the island" (well, except in EP5). Maybe it isn´t wrong to say `if we define as 1 a people-piece that is in the kakera and as 0 a people-piece that it isn´t in the kakera (at least in a physical way) you could say without problems "you are in the group, 17 plus 0 is 17 in that case (at least it is understood, right?)`.

One possible problem, what happens with "potential people-piece"?. If we define with a "x" these people, it isn´t impossible to convert "x" to "0", the inverse transform. Well, maybe one example is Erika being denied (well, one could say "no, in the best is a residue").

Well, I´m just trying to kill Shakannon theory XD.



Making sure I don´t have a huge mistake: I´m talking about people-piece as the people that is in the gameboard, at the non-meta plane, the "reality" (the island).

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

2) Hmm, I will have to go through this again, wait up a while, I will edit this after that.

Edit: Pfft, took me a while to find the exact place where that happens. And it wasn't worth the trouble at all. Battler simply states another one the blue truths that gets promptly cut in half by Knox's rule. That doesn't even begin to serve as proof that blue truth can me made of facts already disproved by red, its a new theory battler makes, not the same old one (although they are of similar nature and thus they do get denied by a standard red, its pretty much like all those +X theories, doesn't prove that you can make a blue truth of a fact denied by red truth and get away with it) and it gets cut down right away. And like I said, why would Bernkastel, who was going all out in that battle, hold back the "But you aren't the culprit" red truth?

If you'd like a clearer example, Lambda said at the very beginning of the game that Kinzo is dead. So why was Battler able to say that Kinzo jumped out the window of his study when Natsuhi wasn't looking, a theory that had clearly already been denied outright?

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

3)The impenetrable alibi theory has no proof. Battler, detective or not, can kill everyone and still appear normal before the survivors. If this impenetrable theory was true, there was no need to bring in Dlanor to declare that Erika was innocent by his rule that states that the detective can be the culprit. Simply by the existence of the necessity of bringing in Dlanor to prove it for Erika, the game proves that Battler, who didn't have Dlanor vouching him with red, had no such alibi.

Just as an example, for the sixth through eighth twilights of Episode 1, Battler was inside the study with four other people for the entire period between when Genji's group left and when they were found dead in the parlor. Are you saying that in spite of that, Battler was able to magically kill Genji's group with a shotgun on a completely different floor of the mansion without any of his companions commenting on it?

[imaginari]

Originally Posted by Arkwright

For Kanon, a ton of people saw him right after being attacked. Kumasawa (who followed after Kanon), Natsuhi (who followed after Kumasawa), Genji, and Battler (!). All of those saw him lying in blood in the boiler room.

Blood is easy to fake. A stake in the chest would be harder, but he pulled it out before anyone saw him.

For Shannon, we do not see this scene right when it's discovered, so it's hard to tell, but it seems likely that Shannon would have been seen by more people than just Hideyoshi and Kanon (probably Nanjo at the least.)

Nanjo alludes to having seen everyone. Then George asked if Shannon was there and no one was certain. (from memory, but I've reread this bit a few zillion times)

For Eva, Battler was never described as looking in the room. Instead, it said he found out what happened when George ran in the room and screamed. Then he is described as putting his back against the wall and crying. He doesn't say anything about the murders, he just says he feels sorry for George.

I just checked and, yeah, it never explicitly mentioned Battler seeing the corpses, although it never really said that he didn't. It did say that he and the other seven survivors were in the vicinity of Eva's room and it seems hard to control who would see them.

[k//eternal]

Bern doesn't know the answer either, so she doesn't have access to that red. Considering the way she was constructing her theory (via Erika), she probably didn't know that Natsuhi was innocent, either.

It looks like only the GM has access to the full set of red, and other witches can only use red that they know (humans are further restricted to "provable" red).

[Marion]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Bern doesn't know the answer either, so she doesn't have access to that red. Considering the way she was constructing her theory (via Erika), she probably didn't know that Natsuhi was innocent, either.

It looks like only the GM has access to the full set of red, and other witches can only use red that they know (humans are further restricted to "provable" red).

Spoiler for EP 6 major:

Then why did Featherine let Bern become GM for EP 7. Lambda said in EP 5 that the GM must understand the truth in order to play the game.

Besides Bern is a shrew person - she said she wanted to win above all costs. Natsuhi was the most suspicious, so she zero'd in on her for an easy win.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

If you'd like a clearer example, Lambda said at the very beginning of the game that Kinzo is dead. So why was Battler able to say that Kinzo jumped out the window of his study when Natsuhi wasn't looking, a theory that had clearly already been denied outright?



Just as an example, for the sixth through eighth twilights of Episode 1, Battler was inside the study with four other people for the entire period between when Genji's group left and when they were found dead in the parlor. Are you saying that in spite of that, Battler was able to magically kill Genji's group with a shotgun on a completely different floor of the mansion without any of his companions commenting on it?

I will concede that your example this time is much better, there is a leeway with Piece battler doesn't know the red truth. The detective Erika didn't use it either. Furthermore, the game master interfered to have the whole farce on, as 34 clearly denied Cornelia the trump card red of "the window wasn't touched". This still doesn't mean Battler could have gotten away with that blue at the end of the game because at the end, its already the final showdown, the clock has hit 24:00 and every blue will be refuted by any applicable red. Furthermore, unlike in the study, this battle happens outside the gameboard and thus the gamemaster can't interfere. Like I said, Bern would burn Battler in hellfire right away with "But you aren't the culprit! (Imagine those 'oh-you-pathetic-thing" eyes)

I gave an explanation for this already, Battler doesn't have to come kill them by his hand, the servants are under his control, all of them, and he has other accomplices as well. He simply had one person fake death earlier (anyone is fine, I am going with Kanon), and come kill the three later. That doesn't change the fact that Battler is the culprit, it simply means he wasn't directly responsible for the murder there.

But yeah, I feel like I wasted too much time on this already. This theory, while it still stands tall for now, is almost certainly a red herring because ryuukishi07 used it already. I was trying to look at things Battler's way but screw that now. I got annoyed because I was accused of thinking like Erika (my most hated character) but it seems I am not that different from her after all. Oh well. This battler culprit theory is just something I thought of as one of the possibilities, and it holds its own, I will defend it until someone clearly refutes it without relying on their emotions. But my initial aim was to think like Battler and figure out why he called himself the culprit...didn't go too far it seems -_- and my aim of framing other characters (apart from shkanon, Battler and Jessica, whom I did yesterday) as the culprit reached a complete standstill as well. Sigh, sorry about that Mr. Archer and Kaiba, I got a bit haughty apparently

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Bern doesn't know the answer either, so she doesn't have access to that red. Considering the way she was constructing her theory (via Erika), she probably didn't know that Natsuhi was innocent, either.

It looks like only the GM has access to the full set of red, and other witches can only use red that they know (humans are further restricted to "provable" red).

Bern shot down Natsuhi's delusion of Beatrice just like that. And its not that she is constructing her theory via Erika, its the other way around, with enough evidence, Erika can have her truth verified with the red. I also thought initially that Bern didn't know Natsuhi was innocent (and she got megatrolled by 34 obviously) however. The story got a bit inconsistent here but as has so far been established, all the witches that are officially recognized have access to the red and judging from just how absolutely random their red so far have been, they should have access to all of them.

The GameMaster has the gold truth.

Oh, here's a theory, The witches see the story as they fit, from their perspective. They will then try to announce what they believe as true in red, it just so happens that most of the time they are correct but they needn't always be. In other words, until they speak it out in red, they themselves don't know for sure that its the truth. Only the Gamemaster knows that their truth is absolute and unfalliable, which has the color of GOLD!

That would explain why Bern didn't shoot down Battler but it still doesn't explain why Battler could (or would) call himself Culprit and why he didn't use the red he got from Virgilia to demolish Erika's theory.

@Marion, well, she could have understood the truth at the end of Game 6 only. I mean, having the existence of your double denied would be like a wakeup call/cold water splash thrown at her

[Nontype]

Hey, Chii, I know it's totally off-topic but where is your AV from?

Also - Pony Theory's starting to look pretty good, no? Furthermore, we should really have a wiki for theories, since it doesn't look like they're part of the normal umineko wiki.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Nontype

Pony Theory's starting to look pretty good, no?

Only the part in which it was said that Battler had made a promise with Beatrice 6 years ago, the rest, not so much (most of it probably got shot down).

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Forsaken_Infinity

its clearly suspicious that Virgilia uses third person to tell Battler in person that "Battler-kun isn't the culprit."

Basically your point relies on this statement being off for that reason.
Let me shoot it down with the fact that in Japanese it is not strange to use what we regard as 'third person' to refer to somebody.
For a native speaker she is just being polite, not hinting at another Battler.

Like I said, Bern would burn Battler in hellfire right away with "But you aren't the culprit! (Imagine those 'oh-you-pathetic-thing" eyes)

To return this point. I think she was, despite her demeanor, pretty much amused by the game continuing.
Witches don't strive to defeat an opponent with simple logic (that is what the human side does), they wish to prolong the game to keep it interesting.
Just to add that as long as we don't know another reason for Bern and Lambda to compete in this game it is simply enjoyment.

Another fact heavily goes against your theory.

Spoiler for Episode 6:

The people in Episode 6 only became corpses when Furudo Erika killed them and it is proven that Furudo Erika is not Ushiromiya Battler.
Therefore it is almost proven that Ushiromiya Battler is not the culprit and that BATTLER as a gamemaster is merely saving the actual culprit, or person who kills, from detection out of unknown reasons.

[k//eternal]

I think most people here knew that Natsuhi hadn't met Beatrice and probably deduced that she was alone as well... so that's probably the level of truth Bern has access to, whatever stuff she manages to figure out. Well, it's just a theory, but it's obvious that Bern doesn't have the full complement of red at her disposal. For all I know, Bern could be making a few theories and attempting to mumble them in red until one comes out properly

It's also possible that the process is automatic, so if Bern pieces together a theory that has some basis and which happens to be true, she automatically knows that she can use red for it.

Two ideas for why Battler offered the "I did it" theory instead of crushing Erika's:

1. He was going easy on her. Two completely different ideas on the motive:

1a. Battler doesn't want the truth to become known, because now he's on the witch side. Offering an alternative theory makes the game a draw. If he crushed Erika's theory with the red, she'd have to come up with something from scratch, which might be the "real truth". The real truth can't be denied by any red, so if Erika hit upon that, it would be completely Battler's loss.

1b. Battler does want the truth to become known, but Erika has to find it for herself. Battler knows that if he crushes Erika right here, she might be destroyed and thus become unable to find it.

2. He's incompetent. Red truth, yeah? He just forgot that now that he'd become a "witch", he was able to use the red that he was unable to use previously.


Personally, I don't find it terribly likely that Battler would offer the true solution as his alternative theory, for the same reason that Beatrice never went "Battler, your blue text is all wrong because (insert the real solution here)". Maybe if he has a death wish, but that really wastes his great resurrection scene.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Spoiler for Episode 6:

Therefore it is almost proven that Ushiromiya Battler is not the culprit and that BATTLER as a gamemaster is merely saving the actual culprit, or person who kills, from detection out of unknown reasons.

I wouldn't say his reasons are that odd. In the end, it's his family (or people really close to him). So, he probably rather keep it private.

[k//eternal]

Preventing his family from being molested by that intellectual rapist? Certainly a noble cause!

I think a fair part of it is probably because he sees revealing the true culprit as the final nail in Beato's coffin, and at this point he'll have none of that.

[Megaolix]

<_< I wonder if I should even bother posting again if people are just ignoring what I say, only to say something I already said before. It is... quite frustrating really.

Battler want to end the game with Beato. For Ep5, he had to keep the darkness of the witch. For that, he needed to make another truth, not completely destroy Erika's theory.

If you can't trust the red about Battler not being the culprit, then you clearly hate the author. Good luck trying to solve the mystery.

[Marion]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Preventing his family from being molested by that intellectual rapist? Certainly a noble cause!

I think a fair part of it is probably because he sees revealing the true culprit as the final nail in Beato's coffin, and at this point he'll have none of that.

Agreed. Which makes me wonder what he plans to do. If he doesn't reveal the culprit then he won't be released from the game, as Bern said in EP 5. However, if he does do that then Beato will be dead.

I guess that means we can't put faith in Battler to reveal the murderer..

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Preventing his family from being molested by that intellectual rapist? Certainly a noble cause!

Nah, I'd say it's just family matters. You know "what happens in the family stays in the family". He probably doesn't want to reveal the truth to unrelated parties like 34 and Bern.

Originally Posted by k//eternal

I think a fair part of it is probably because he sees revealing the true culprit as the final nail in Beato's coffin, and at this point he'll have none of that.

Hmm... I wonder about that. Honestly, after EP6, there are some things I just don't understand.

Originally Posted by Megaolix

Battler want to end the game with Beato. For Ep5, he had to keep the darkness of the witch. For that, he needed to make another truth, not completely destroy Erika's theory.

That's possible.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Basically your point relies on this statement being off for that reason.
Let me shoot it down with the fact that in Japanese it is not strange to use what we regard as 'third person' to refer to somebody.
For a native speaker she is just being polite, not hinting at another Battler.

Now that is a valid point. Its still an interpretation though and thus doesn't completely refute the claim, especially since the game went through all that trouble of establishing how there are more than one Battlers.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

To return this point. I think she was, despite her demeanor, pretty much amused by the game continuing.
Witches don't strive to defeat an opponent with simple logic (that is what the human side does), they wish to prolong the game to keep it interesting.
Just to add that as long as we don't know another reason for Bern and Lambda to compete in this game it is simply enjoyment.

She wasn't going easy on Battler with refusing to repeat his red but uplifting every one of Erika's requests to red truth. And she was clearly annoyed at the end when Battler resurrected, she was literally like "Objection!" a couple of times but I see where you are coming from, its something I considered as well and I already gave an alternate explanation for Bern not using that red anyway (it doesn't even occur to her to use it, because in her book, Battler could be the culprit). That doesn't kill the theory though, it removes one of the circumstantial evidence but it doesn't prove Battler's innocence. And him calling himself culprit is still shady.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Another fact heavily goes against your theory.

Spoiler for Episode 6:

The people in Episode 6 only became corpses when Furudo Erika killed them and it is proven that Furudo Erika is not Ushiromiya Battler.
Therefore it is almost proven that Ushiromiya Battler is not the culprit and that BATTLER as a gamemaster is merely saving the actual culprit, or person who kills, from detection out of unknown reasons.

Actually,

Spoiler for EP 6:

Ushiryomiya Battler was the only who didn't get neatly decapitated and thus his death is the only one unconfirmed. If anything, it casts more suspicion on him. He would have had enough reason to hide the truth and continue the game if he was himself the culprit after all. Take the fact that he would have gone after the culprit right away in rage upon learning the truth and it hints strongly that he is the culprit. There is an alternate explanation, with Beatrice being a possible love interest of his (Jessica/Sayo, I am going with the first one) and he is therefore continuing her game (as a final wish or in hopes of reviving her I guess). But that doesn't disprove Battler-culprit theory either, it simply stops another evidence from adding to the theory.

Anyway, I am taking every event favorably for Shkanon, Battler and Jessica culprit theories, if they can be interpreted as favorable to all three, its more or less useless.

@k//eternal: I am going with the Battler incompetent theory. Fucker got too absorbed in Beato's charm. Its still shady, since Battler had so far always been like "I will kill you the moment I figure out your identity, you bitch" and yet he completely ignores that and even defends the illusion of the witch (i.e, hides the culprit, a crime on its own lol). It still supports Battler-culprit theory and both of the sassy-nee-chans as Beatrice theory (i.e, Jessica or Sayo as Beato; Battler is too much into titties to punch them, specially if there were juicy tidbits of emotional moments in the "truth" lol. Either way, excepting Jessitrice, the other two have either been used or so strongly hinted that they are almost certainly red herrings.

@Megaolix: Objection! (insert Battler's pointed finger image although I look more like George) Don't pass judgment on how I see ryuukishi07 based on how I interpret his story. It is precisely because he went to the trouble of proving that there are two battlers that the red can't be trusted, its not because I hate him, its because I think he is a freaking genius and I wouldn't put it past him. Don't you tell me I hate the author here, I haven't read many authors who can include references to all sorts of stuff (from Chinese history to western occultism to Buddhist ideals applied to childish fantasies to logical paradoxes to Agatha Christie to Ronald Knox to what no really) and I haven't read any other "literary" author describe them without making a complete mess, forget using them in a puzzle. In short, I freaking love the guy. If my Japanese was more competent, I would move to Japan just to be his apprentice or something.

[k//eternal]

What would be a really cool twist ending would be if one of the dead pieces in EP7 (maybe even Battler himself) becomes a new Meta-being and vows to expose the criminal, then proceeds to do so in EP8, killing Meta-Battler and his new Beato in the process.

Tragic, but really cool.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

What would be a really cool twist ending would be if one of the dead pieces in EP7 (maybe even Battler himself) becomes a new Meta-being and vows to expose the criminal, then proceeds to do so in EP8, killing Meta-Battler and his new Beato in the process.

Tragic, but really cool.

Too flashy. Too many meta beings. For me to consider the ending cool, the meta world has to be completely refuted, it was just an allusion to whenever the characters prosecuted a certain character with accusations or whenever there were two sides, one wanting to blame the witch (and thus hide the truth, aka defendant) and one wanting to find the culprit (and thus expose the truth, aka the detective/prosecution) pitting evidences against each other. All the demons were representations of real humans from the Defense side, the killings may or may not have actually happened (yes, I am suggesting that nobody actually died, the whole Ushiromiya family disappeared, he message bottles were a ruse, Maria is the only who died, most likely due to an accident), if they did happen, only one of the episodes is real, but most likely the order of killings was a mix between all the games. The rest is just something made up within the head of survivors or something. That said, as long as he gives a logical explanation for the meta world, even if it is something that relies on Magic, I will take his word for it. Atm though, I honestly believe he will refute the meta-world by the end.
Your story could be something like, Battler exposed the culprit but fell in love with her, the culprit already died but Battler has kept her alive inside his head. After a while, his wish to go back and live his life finds way through to his closed heart and thus Battler returns to the real world (i.e, Metaworld Battler and Beato perish) I guess.

I don't care if the ending is happy or cruel, I am fine with it if ryuukishi07 lets every single one of them live (Maria is dead though, poor little witch already has her bones confirmed) or if he has even their surviving relatives suffer a worse fate than Ange and Eva did in fictional future (the future bit, like the metaworld, is just thought up by the survivors, Battler is considering what would happen to Ange, she didn't really come to him in 1986). I want to be in awe over a story well-told and a puzzle well-created. I don't want all the questions answered but I do want a clear solution to the most burning questions.

[k//eternal]

The meta-world is the carried plot element from Higurashi, though. Given that the games are numbered as part of the same series, I doubt it'll be refuted (although I think in the end it will be disconnected from the real world, which may be the same thing depending on your viewpoint).

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

The meta-world is the carried plot element from Higurashi, though. Given that the games are numbered as part of the same series, I doubt it'll be refuted (although I think in the end it will be disconnected from the real world, which may be the same thing depending on your viewpoint).

Yeah, kind of. I don't care either way. I personally want it stated that the people playing chess in meta world didn't control the real world in any manner whatsoever, that is all. I am fine with people playing chess in a different world and their games matching up some real life event in our world actually, I have long thought of it as a possibility (long being really long, since I was in grade two, when I first learned chess). To take it one step further, I am even fine with the chess being the mechanism that controls the other world (its actually part of some Asian mythologies) but I want clear proof that them playing chess or not has nothing to do with people in Rokkenjima doing what they did. Sounds contradictory (and is) but since its what I want, I want the humans in Rokkenjima to have been masters of their own destiny. I am fine with him labeling it a result of a game played somewhere in the ura tea party though. AFTER ALL, THAT WILL BE A DEVIL's PROOF. WILL BE REALLY AWESOME IF THE WITCHES DARE DECLARE IT IN RED AS WELL.