[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Judoh

In episode 5 Gaap tells Natsuhi she can hide Kinzo in a world where no one will ever find him when they talk about making him go missing. This is just a thought. But maybe he was hidden somewhere, or he was buried, but his body wasn't taken care of very well.

That could explain the smell when they burn his body too. ( though I guess it would smell either way ^^U) I don't know if it would be harder to burn an already rotting body or not, and it sounds gross. But it seems less complicated than mummifying him to me. And it wouldn't matter much how his body looked before, after Yasu burned it.

I wonder if the real original plan in Prime was really to declare Kinzo as a missing person or that's merely something made up for the convenience of the story.
Couldn't Nanjo simply declare him death then Krauss would have him burned (isn't the Japanese custom to burn the corpses or am I remembering wrong?) before the siblings could have a say in it saying 'it was father's will'?

Also, would the Prime siblings have required an autopsy/second autopsy?

For all we know they might have been informed Krauss was hiding Kinzo's death and have agreed with it at first... to argue in 1986 because they were in need of money.

But yes, this is just speculation.

Krauss and Natsuhi don't really need Kinzo's body around.
For them it would be easier to burn him and hide/bury his ashes somewhere... maybe where Krauss' mother was buried if she was buried on Rokkenjima.
It would be sort of more respectful as well than keeping a decomposing body around.

If the timeline we're given in the games is right back then Yasuda wasn't planning yet the mistery game so she too wouldn't need Kinzo's body around.
No reason for her to tell Genji 'pretend you've burned him and give Natsuhi the lungs and the liver of a boar in his place'.

Keeping Kinzo's body around is likely a meta trick to allow Kinzo's corpse to be around (and it's one I didn't like because it hamper rational reasoning as there's no logic way for which a decomposing body should be kept around) but it's unlikely Kinzo's body was kept around in Prime (unless it was Kinzo's will to be placed in a magic body preserving glass coffin he created or something equally unlikely as this).

There's another possibility though. Kinzo's sickness in Prime might have gotten so bad Kinzo's brain is not anymore capable of rational thoughts (while still capable to control body functions like heart beating or breathing) so 'Kinzo' is technically dead although is body is alive.
Krauss might be hiding Kinzo's mind isn't working anymore and the siblings might have thought instead he's hiding Kinzo's body's real death.

This would allow 'Kinzo' to be dead while his corpse is not so he would be 'kept around'.

[Remon]

Would a dead body last for 2 years? It would have completely decomposed, leaving only the skeleton behind. They must have used some method to preserve it.
Though I'm not very confident about this (needs moar biology).

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Remon

Would a dead body last for 2 years? It would have completely decomposed, leaving only the skeleton behind. They must have used some method to preserve it.
Though I'm not very confident about this (needs moar biology).

Well, it depends on where you place the body, if the place is cold or hot, if there's air reaching it or not and so on, if they used some chemical substance on it or not and other factors. They could have asked Nanjo how to conserve it and Nanjo should know but the point is 'why to keep it?'.

In game 5 they say they didn't plan for Kinzo to be found so the easiest way to deal with him was to burn him and conserve his ashes in a proper place.
Keeping him around might have a purpose if they were planning to have his remains found much later, when the police would have given up on searching him and it wouldn't be possible anymore to say if he died by... let's say 2 or 4 years.
But since the plan requires to have the police searching through the place for Kinzo, would one really keep his body around?

'Oh, look, we found a skeleton with six toes on each feet... interesting the guy who disappeared yesterday wasn't also supposed to have six toes? And by the way Natsuhi-san, would you please explain me why there's a REAL scheleton in your wardrobe? He's not your ex-lover whom you forgotten closed inside, is he?'

Hum... it really doesn't sound well.

That's why I've made a different assumption, with Kinzo alive but with his intellectual abilities dead. If his persona is dead... well Umineko would declare him dead in red... but, of course, Natsuhi and Krauss can't get rid of him because he's still technically alive... though yes, this would mean the scene we saw in EP 5 isn't telling us the full truth but it's merely an interpretation of it.

[RandomAvatarFan]

Hmm... :/ My thinking is that Ep7 and Ep5 shows us the same scene for Kinzo's death. Where would they be hiding Kinzo if his body was still out and about?
Of course this begs the question: where would they have the body if he wasn't?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by RandomAvatarFan

Hmm... :/ My thinking is that Ep7 and Ep5 shows us the same scene for Kinzo's death. Where would they be hiding Kinzo if his body was still out and about?
Of course this begs the question: where would they have the body if he wasn't?

In Ep 5 they didn't find the body at all.
In EP 7 they didn't search for the body/Kinzo.
Kinzo might be hidden in Kuwadorian. Although Krauss wasn't told about the secret passage he might have been told about Kuwadorian or might have discovered it. Wasn't it said somewhere he was checking Rokkenjima?

Also EP 7 is from a subjective point of view so not fully reliable. If something happened during the meeting between Yasuda and Kinzo that pushed Yasuda to consider Kinzo dead she'll describe him as dead (for example if he had a heart attack or a stroke but survived it or she discovered he raped her mother).

Though mine is mostly a speculation about what could have happened in Prime than on the games. As the games are a fictional work there's no problem in them in keeping around a body for 2 years without no one noticing it or the horrible smell it should have. In the games we've rain that don't wet people so why not to have a 2 year olf corpse around as well?

[Toku]

Kinzo did not die until just before the starting time of all games (barring EP7 and potentially 8). Nothing was said in Red about the date of Kinzo's death other than the fact that it occurs before all games. Also, we already have proof that at least one part of the beginning of EP5 was unreliable. There was the near-constant presence of fantasy beings, and Bern even destroyed part of the fantasy to let us see Natsuhi sitting alone in the garden. Not only that, but there was something suspicious about Kinzo dying the very instant he manages to apologize to Yasu/Beatrice.

It's probably the least troublesome way to resolve this.

Also, preserving the body sounds like it won't work because of Knox's 4th: It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used!

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Toku

Also, preserving the body sounds like it won't work because of Knox's 4th: It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used!

Couldn't the body be preserved by freezing it? That's not an unknown drug or hard to understand scientific device. There would need to be a large enough freezer in an out of the way place, but such a thing doesn't violate the Knox rules.

[Kealym]

Spoiler for Cheese Riddle Stuff:

Originally Posted by Renall

Think about the cheese riddle again though. At its heart, it has two answers:

• The answer that was intended by the puzzle creator.
• The answer you can actually reach given the parameters of the puzzle as written.

These answers are different, but both right; the only way to know which of the two is specifically correct is to assume certain unrevealed details, such as the physical shape of the cheese.

A more complex reformulation would be something like: How many times can you fold a piece of paper? The answer ranges anywhere from "zero" to "an infinite number of times" depending on what you assume the piece of paper looks like and is made of, what shape it is, and how you define a "fold" (in half was never stated!). If you know that I meant a piece of ordinary 8.5" x 11" notebook paper, you know the answer I wanted, and that answer is right. But assume other parameters from unknown information and you get a different answer which is also right.

Now apply this to ep1-4. Understanding Beatrice's heart means knowing she wants to take the blame, ergo "Shkanon dunnit" is the intended answer. However, it may well be that there are other, unintended answers which are also correct, and not in the pseudo-correct sense that ep5's Natsuhi conspiracy was. My point is that one of these "unintended" answers may well be Ryukishi's or even Yasu's "intended" answer, in that it more closely reflects the truth. If you don't believe Yasu is really guilty in R-Prime, but you do believe she wants to scapegoat herself, wouldn't it be interesting if she also put the truth in there and it works as a solution just as well as the one she was expecting people like Will to reach?

It's not like she'd be disappointed in Will for figuring out the answer as she'd meant it. But maybe she subconsciously made sure the true culprit could also be fingered, depending on how you look at it.

I'm either unsure what you mean by this ("I intend for Shkanon to be the truth, but if you wanna accuse anybody else, well that's fine, too."), or you may be giving Ryukishi too much credit. I have thought about the cheese puzzle, and i's odd what I felt it was communicating. Yes, it has two answers, but the story didn't seem to be supporting Erika's douchey technicality-exploitation. And we're told that the shape of the cheese, and the answer, are in the booklet, we just were'nt told / shown them, which made the whole fiasco possible. Add in stuff like Black Battler and EP7 TP, and, I dunno, I see rather little room to doubt what Ryukishi intended for the gameboards. And he seems to give half a rat's booty about what happened on Prime, so... yeah.

Spoiler for Bribing Yoshi:

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Honestly I though Hideyoshi was bribed. My problem is that either he thought the other corpses were fake or he was willing to cover up a murder for money...
I can understand him to be willing to cover up 2 murders in EP 7 (Natsuhi and Krauss) because they were an incident of some sort and were directly involved and even Rosa's one (because covering it up was required in order to cover up Natsuhi and Krauss' and they were in a state of shock so they probably weren't thinking straight) but... well, I've hard time accepting he would be told 'hey, I'll kill 5 people, just pretend you saw me in the shed, here's the money' and would reply 'yeah, sure why not?'

Oh, I assume he's bribed, as well. I figured, though, that he was told it was just really really good makeup, and they were all actually okay.

Originally Posted by Toku

[COLOR="Blue"]
Also, preserving the body sounds like it won't work because of Knox's 4th: It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used!

Well, preserving a corpse isn't rocket science. I wouldn't say it's entirely common knowledge, either, but it's hardly comparable to Beatrice's argument that Kinzo built a freakin' time machine, in his bedroom. Especially since Erika was apparently able to use the stuff in the Study to improbably recreate an entire episode's worth of CSI forensic-sciencey-montage-stuff, and that was legit.

Anyways, Renall is right - there's no advantage to Team Kratsuhi keeping the corpse around, at all. Going on EP5, their plan, even at the end of their rope, is still to go "Oh, he's not in his study? Shit, we don't know WHERE he got off to, then." In Prime, their best bet would be to tie the corpse to something realloy heavy and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, right? Of course, it's -almost- as good to just bury him at some random spot on the island, since they have two squarish miles of uncultivated forest to do so, and we shouldn't underestimate how much forest that is. I mean, didn't they say it was difficult to even really walk around in it?

Another thing to consider, about the forgeries, is that the author -needs- to have Kinzo turn up at some point, or he's always going to be a prime suspect. All of the forgeries we've seen deal with it under the premise "Kinzo is dead", and burn him up, I think the exception being Turn, wherein I remember spending dozens of minutes thinking "Seriously, why isn't anyone looking for Crazy Grandpa?" - we can only even rule him out as a culprit there with the red that came in EP4 about his being dead.

[Toku]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Couldn't the body be preserved by freezing it? That's not an unknown drug or hard to understand scientific device. There would need to be a large enough freezer in an out of the way place, but such a thing doesn't violate the Knox rules.

Yes, ordinarily that would work, but by Knox's 8th, it is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented! Was it ever shown that such a freezer might exist on the island? I'm sure there were freezers used to store food, but there are servants who didn't know about Kinzo having died, like Gohda. And, Gohda prepares the food, so he'd know all about what's in those freezers.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Well, preserving a corpse isn't rocket science. I wouldn't say it's entirely common knowledge, either, but it's hardly comparable to Beatrice's argument that Kinzo built a freakin' time machine, in his bedroom.

I don't remember a time machine argument... But that would still be legit because she didn't actually make it happen on the game board. I would still say that corpse preservation qualifies as "unknown drugs" though, unless you're using something that most people could easily understand like the freezer idea.

Especially since Erika was apparently able to use the stuff in the Study to improbably recreate an entire episode's worth of CSI forensic-sciencey-montage-stuff, and that was legit.

That wasn't used as part of the actual mystery though, so it should be legit. As long as it's not something that we, the audience, had to solve, I think it's fine even if it breaks the entire Decalogue.

[Remon]

Embalming does not qualify as a hard to understand mambo jumbo, that rule applies to stuff like unknown machinery X that prevents decay. We know Kinzo's room is full of chemicals and stuff too (think ep 5). So there's no violations to the rules. Alternatively they could have buried him reaaaally deep underground. That way the body would last a while longer. Oh there's a shovel in the tool shack so no violation to the 8th.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kealym

In Prime, their best bet would be to tie the corpse to something realloy heavy and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, right? Of course, it's -almost- as good to just bury him at some random spot on the island, since they have two squarish miles of uncultivated forest to do so, and we shouldn't underestimate how much forest that is. I mean, didn't they say it was difficult to even really walk around in it?

I wouldn't tie him to anything and throw him in the ocean, as that has a really bad tendency to cause a half-eaten corpse to drift ashore someday. Throwing him in the ocean is actually a good idea, but it'd be better to seal him in a drum full of concrete or something, or cremate him, put his remains in a heavy and sealed container, and chuck that in the ocean.

Burying him in the woods in a random spot could work, but if you got to that spot with a rather bulky corpse it can't be that inaccessible, and if he's buried somewhere identifiable then anyone who helped you do it (surely Krauss didn't do it by himself) can rat you out. Plus they have cadaver dogs, they'd just need a whiff of Kinzo's usual scent (say, from hanging out in his office) and they'd have a shot at finding his burial spot.

If it were me, I'd put him on Krauss's boat, sail somewhere, and quietly bury him elsewhere with as few identifying features as possible. After all, you don't want anyone to find him, and the island is the first place they're going to look for him. The ocean would be the second choice, but getting together all the stuff you need to keep him down there is tricky. The advantage of burying him on another uninhabited island is we already know Krauss has a shovel and a boat, so nobody has to know he did it or when he did it.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Embalming involves the removal of organs and the blood. Filling the remaining parts with a concoction of preservation substances. Thats a whole lot of work for something that actually hinders what you are trying to accomplish.

This is just one of those plot holes that we just have to accept in the story. Trying to rip its guts out just makes us regret it in the end

[Golden Witch Drugs]

Originally Posted by Remon

Embalming does not qualify as a hard to understand mambo jumbo, that rule applies to stuff like unknown machinery X that prevents decay. We know Kinzo's room is full of chemicals and stuff too (think ep 5). So there's no violations to the rules. Alternatively they could have buried him reaaaally deep underground. That way the body would last a while longer. Oh there's a shovel in the tool shack so no violation to the 8th.

The scent of "medicine" inside of Kinzo's study that is described in episode 1 could be a hint. Embalming liquids and oils often have a very, very strong aroma that would give anyone a headache. If they really did mummyfy him, and did so inside of the study (For what reason they would do that I do not know, perhaps they felt it was the right thing to embalm him inside the room where he spent so much time) the lingering scents would have probably stayed there for a long time. And none of the visitors were really supposed to go into the study, so it wouldn't be much of a problem, if it wasn't for the scenario in episode 1.

[rogerpepitone]

I think Kinzo's corpse is in his study (probably in a formaldehyde-filled bathtub) at the beginning of most games.

1) Jessica complained about the odd smells from his room.
2) In Episode 3, they try to knock on the study door, and take Kinzo's silence as consent. Krauss didn't like that; why didn't he take the key from Genji by force or try to break the door down? Implication: there is something in the study Krauss wants concealed.

I think Krauss's plans go something like this:
1) Keep the body preserved and hidden.
2) Wait for a time when storms cut off Rokkenjima.
3) Claim that Kinzo's death wasn't discovered for 18 hours. ("He had dinner the night before. When he didn't answer the knock for breakfast, we didn't think much of it; he does that sometimes. When he refused lunch, we got worried and had Genji break in and found him.") Maybe even arrange for Genji to be off Rokkenjima to give an excuse to delay discovery.
4) Maybe use some sort of half-assed preservative (claim to remember the story about Admiral Nelson but screw up by using something with low alcohol content).
5) Get the body to Nanjo as soon as possible after the storm subsides and have him fake the death certificate. Use preservatives as a "short-term measure up to the funeral" to cover up the fact that they were used long-term.
6) By the time any other relative finds out, Nanjo will have destroyed the evidence.

[Renall]

Again, the plan was never to have a body found. It was to have him disappear entirely and not be declared dead for the legally mandated period of years before that could be done. Doing this would tie up his inheritance for the full period he's missing.

They just wanted to delay having to declare him missing as long as possible. There is no reason to keep the body and no reason to preserve it.

[Golden Witch Drugs]

Originally Posted by Renall

Again, the plan was never to have a body found. It was to have him disappear entirely and not be declared dead for the legally mandated period of years before that could be done. Doing this would tie up his inheritance for the full period he's missing.

They just wanted to delay having to declare him missing as long as possible. There is no reason to keep the body and no reason to preserve it.

It wouldn't suprise me if Natsuhi, with her big affection for Kinzo, highly went against his corpse just being thrown away. Perhaps she's like to keep it intact until the time when he is reported missing comes. That way, they could bury him under his gravestone, but telling the other siblings that it's simply an empty grave with his name on it.

[rogerpepitone]

The "seven years to be declared legally dead" is just one thing that suffices. For example, when the Titanic went down, anybody who wasn't picked up could have been declared legally dead as soon as the survivors arrived in New York.

With an island as small as Rokkenjima, a thorough search of the island is possible; when that failed, the presumption would be that Kinzo must have fallen into the ocean or something similar.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

The "seven years to be declared legally dead" is just one thing that suffices. For example, when the Titanic went down, anybody who wasn't picked up could have been declared legally dead as soon as the survivors arrived in New York.

With an island as small as Rokkenjima, a thorough search of the island is possible; when that failed, the presumption would be that Kinzo must have fallen into the ocean or something similar.

He has an entire secret mansion with its own dock. Can't Krauss just rub his head, be all "Huh, what do you know? I never knew those were there," and then suggest maybe Kinzo had a boat of his own that nobody knew about?

[AuraTwilight]

I figured it's pretty obvious Krauss had Shannon/Kanon or Genji or something dispose of the body, and instead they sequestered it for Yasu's shenanigans.

[Wanderer]

Yasu was planning to use Kinzo's corpse for her shenanigans over a year in advance?