[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Out of curiosity, how much of the additional information and concepts in the manga come directly from Ryukishi?

It's a good question and also why I always have to consider my position with the comment "If it is as it seems to be". He still seems to hold creative control over it and the comparatively slow release of the manga would imply that at least somebody is proof reading the stuff. Also he said once that he is planning to make a more proper solution out of Will and Claire's question round and has talked about these ideas with the mangaka as well.

It is of course possible that these are all false assumptions and all the mangaka are making stuff up as they go, but considering that so far neither inconsistencies nor complaints from Ryukishi himself came up, it is at least within our hand to treat them as canon.

[Kiltias]

Good Evening/Morning/Day depending on where you live.

Just thought I hear your opinion on this.

Beatrice mentioned Krauss' Blood having German heritage.
If you put Krauss in german you get Klaus.

Klaus name meaning is something like Victory.
Rudolfs name meaning is Honor,Glory but also hails from Wolf.
Evas naming is "Living One" or "Life".
Rosa means Rose as we know, a symbol of love.

Let's take the latter literal for a bit.
Rosa went mad at Maria again leaving her in the rain.
She was there for an hour looking for her "Rose".
Rosa comments that Maria will search something even if Spears fall from the sky and even if doesn't exist.

Is it too farfetched to say that:
She spent an hour not looking for a true rose but truly something that didn't exist, in EP 1's case, Love.
Or much rather, she stayed in the Garden awaiting her Mother to return and that the actual Rose what she searches for is her Mothers Love?

Wonder if there is meaning behind the others name as Kinzo got furious that Rosa named her daughter not him.
Ironically:
Maria can mean "Wished for Child".

[AuraTwilight]

Evas naming is "Living One" or "Life".

The best naming pun in Umineko. Everyone go home, we're done here.

[Kiltias]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The best naming pun in Umineko. Everyone go home, we're done here.

I find it better that the 3 oldest Cousins refer to their standings and rank in the family.

Jessica is Wealth.
George is Farmer.
Battler sounds exactly how an English would pronounce Bettler a german word for the poor.

That's a play on the social pyramid and their rank as Jessica>George>Battler.
Besides, one could argue that Battler has among the lowest of standing in the family seeing he was born by someone not even wed into the Ushiromiya and is a result of I think it's called Adultery in english.

I'm interest if Kinzo gave them those name seeing as he is the one who originally named Rosa's Daughter, she said she had changed it to Maria on her own defying Kinzo who was furious over it.
It's why Rosa once harbored the thought the Epitaph got to do with the names as Kinzo was said to be not fond of Maria.
Personally I can't blame her, Honor is in it, Life is in it, Love is in it, Wealth,Land.Victory ain't in there, but funnily Victory is the term Rosa used when she said Eva has to come out and tell she found the gold.

[Renall]

So here's a question that came up in a recent discussion: What does Yasu think of Ange? Is she resentful of her being the effective "cause" of Battler's departure? Was she mad at her over spurning Maria, or did she even specifically know? Just how much thought did she tend to pay Ange at any given point in time?

We know Ange apparently doesn't appear in any of her stories, and that she wasn't there; whether this was predicted or not I don't know, but the facts match the stories at least. She is mentioned, but it's rare, and the few times she does come up it's often in the context of tasteless and unflattering jokes about her illness. Just as often, Yasu-as-author seems to forget Ange even exists (such as Jessica's comment on all the cousins being together when Ange isn't there, no mention of Ange in the seating order discussion, etc.).

Meta-Beatrice seems to hate Meta-Ange quite a bit in Banquet and Alliance. It's hard to say, of course, how much of this is Yasu-as-author not liking Ange-the-child and how much of it is adult Ange being kind of a bitch and Beatrice being aware that she's an interloper that Bern has sent in to stir things up.

We do know what Ange thinks of Beatrice, and it's not flattering; on the other hand, it's also based on 12 years of suffering that didn't exist at the time the stories were written. There doesn't seem to be any reason to think six-year-old Ange had any animosity in particular toward Yasu, or even really had interacted with her that much.

It's clear Yasu was aware of Ange, but did she dislike her? Did she care? Did she know Maria was planning to initiate Ange into their secret club, or was that something Maria was going to do of her own initiative until Ange upset her (it was, after all, sort of Maria's club anyway)? Considering the somewhat important relationship that's supposedly established between Battler, Beatrice, and Ange, it seems like knowing what "Beatrice" thought of Ange is meaningfully important... but it comes up so very infrequently that it's hard to get a solid read on what that might be.

[AuraTwilight]

As I mentioned in that discussion, if not for 'Ange', Rudolf wouldn't of remarried so soon and Battler wouldn't of forgotten about Yasu for six years, effectively making her at fault for the 'thousand years of suffering' that made her into a witch. The catalyst for Battler's sin.

If Yasu was bitter enough about it, she could blame Ange for everything that happened on 1986.

As I've said before, Ange did it.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Kiltias

I find it better that the 3 oldest Cousins refer to their standings and rank in the family.

Jessica is Wealth.
George is Farmer.
Battler sounds exactly how an English would pronounce Bettler a german word for the poor.

That's a play on the social pyramid and their rank as Jessica>George>Battler.
Besides, one could argue that Battler has among the lowest of standing in the family seeing he was born by someone not even wed into the Ushiromiya and is a result of I think it's called Adultery in english.

Well, that's something only Rudolf should know as it's assumed he's the son of Asumu... and anyway later on Kyrie also married Rudolf.

Originally Posted by Kiltias

I'm interest if Kinzo gave them those name seeing as he is the one who originally named Rosa's Daughter, she said she had changed it to Maria on her own defying Kinzo who was furious over it.
It's why Rosa once harbored the thought the Epitaph got to do with the names as Kinzo was said to be not fond of Maria.
Personally I can't blame her, Honor is in it, Life is in it, Love is in it, Wealth,Land.Victory ain't in there, but funnily Victory is the term Rosa used when she said Eva has to come out and tell she found the gold.

... I'm not sure I'm following you...

Originally Posted by Renall

So here's a question that came up in a recent discussion: What does Yasu think of Ange? Is she resentful of her being the effective "cause" of Battler's departure? Was she mad at her over spurning Maria, or did she even specifically know? Just how much thought did she tend to pay Ange at any given point in time?

I don't think in the beginning Yasu was against Ange, it would have more sense if she were against Rudolf for cheating with Kyrie.
If Asumu hadn't died Ange's situation would have been sort of similar to Yasu as she would be the daughter of a lover and rejected by Asumu.

However it's likely that later on she grew bitter toward Ange as well. If she hadn't been conceived Battler wouldn't have discovered Rudolf was cheating on Asumu and he likely would have waited an acceptable time before marrying Kyrie (so that mother and son could be back together) so Battler wouldn't have had reasons to leave.

Ange also made fun of magic and Maria we know how personally Yasu takes this sort of things. Plus Ange was allowed to meet Battler. In Ep 8 Ange seems to see Beato as a rival but I wonder if it could be Yasu saw Ange as a rival as well.
Ange might have even said she would 'marry her big brother' or something like that.

Ange was also cut out of marriage sorcierer... so i think all in all the fact she's not present in the first 2 stories to the point the cousins said something along the line of the cousins being finally all back together when actually Ange is missing simply represent Yasu's wish to deny Ange.

As it seems she bribed the adults it can also be she was the one who demanded for Ange to be left back home. Ange was a kid who, when nervous, would easily get stomachaches. She could easily be fooled into believing her stomachache was actually something more and, in being left home, she would be denied access to Beato's golden land.

There's also to say Beato was again Ange joining in their club... though I can't say if it was due to her being Ange or due to the fact Ange wouldn't be as easily fooled as Maria into that whole 'I'm a witch' and could tattle her out (like she did with Sakutarou, asking Kyrie if he really talked and, once she was told it was a trick, she called Maria on what she viewed as a lie... what if Yasu had gone and told her 'I'm Beatrice possessing Shannon's body and she had told Kyrie and Kyrie had told her Shannon was joking, shared this with Natsuhi and Rosa causing both to get angry?')

So I think in the end, when Yasu was planning to kill everyone she probably was angry with Ange as well. However it was likely the result of a situation, not something that was always there.

Interesting enough Ep 8 sees Ange and Beato fighting with the parallelism on how Beato was killing Ange slowly without even touching her, by closing her somewhere and denying her food which is in a way how Ange's life was. She was closed in the world out of the golden land and she was denied love, which is the 'food' children need the most and that slowly caused her to take a suicidal attitude.

It's also interesting the contrast between Ange and Beato. Ange wants to face the truth and although she searches for a truth of her own liking at least she's searching for it and doing it in a very straightforward manner. Beato hides the truth she knows in illusions and rarely searches for the truth or, if she does, she uses a pretty roudabout way (oh, Battler, I'd like to know if you'll remember your promise but I'll ask you if you does in such a way you'll never realize what I'm asking...).

In the end though they both were going through a way that would have carried them to self destruction.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

As I mentioned in that discussion, if not for 'Ange', Rudolf wouldn't of remarried so soon and Battler wouldn't of forgotten about Yasu for six years, effectively making her at fault for the 'thousand years of suffering' that made her into a witch. The catalyst for Battler's sin.

If Yasu was bitter enough about it, she could blame Ange for everything that happened on 1986.

I would go with this thought as well. But on the other hand we also have to consider what we are told in universe about Ange's relationship to Rokkenjima.
Apparently she didn't visit every year for the conference and I think we can assume that Kyrie's and Rudolph's visits to the island were also fewer than those of let's say Eva. Out of the 5 family conferences Ange was alive she would have maybe consciously taken part in 2 or 3 of them and was to be introduced to the Marriage Sorciere only lately.

Also considering that Okinawa seemed to be the first visit to the world beyond the Izu islands for Yasu, she probably didn't have a clear picture of "how the world works". Being pretty much a game piece all her life herself (that of Kinzo, Genji or even the lower servants) she probably does not see the greater implications of her actions.

EDIT: In a way you could almost see Yasu's actions as pushing her suffering on Ange.
If she actually started believing that they would all meet again in the Golden Land, or at least saw some sweet release for all people involved when the end came, she would leave out Ange exactly for that reason.
But then again there is evidence that Yasu didn't plan to actually murder people until shit started hitting the fan and either somebody else or her Beatrice persona ran wild.

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Could Ange's lack of presence in the fragments be due to Beatrice hastily "writing her out" at the last minute, in order to make her forgeries match the actual events as closely as possible?

Or, alternately, considering she was planning on killing her entire family, she may have tried to think of Ange as little as possible, to shut her nagging conscience up.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by MysteriousLurkerGuy

Could Ange's lack of presence in the fragments be due to Beatrice hastily "writing her out" at the last minute, in order to make her forgeries match the actual events as closely as possible?

It's possible but difficult unless Ange had a really, really small part.

Originally Posted by MysteriousLurkerGuy

Or, alternately, considering she was planning on killing her entire family, she may have tried to think of Ange as little as possible, to shut her nagging conscience up.

Considering she had no problems to kill Maria that was only 2 years older than Ange I don't think coscience was the problem here...

[AuraTwilight]

Could Ange's lack of presence in the fragments be due to Beatrice hastily "writing her out" at the last minute, in order to make her forgeries match the actual events as closely as possible?

It's so unlikely as to be statistically impossible. Unless Ange has an effectively meaningless part, taking her out would've impacted the story significantly, and even if that wasn't the case, there's no talk in 1998 about hastened scribbles, erasings, or signs of editing to the manuscript, meaning Yasu would've had to get new sheets of paper and re-pen the entire story all over again.

Of course, there's indication that Ange's absence was known ahead of time by the other adults; Yasu probably had that tidbit of information when she wrote before the incident.

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

It's possible but difficult unless Ange had a really, really small part.

Toddlers generally do, unless it's "Full House" or something.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Considering she had no problems to kill Maria that was only 2 years older than Ange I don't think coscience was the problem here...

Thing is, Maria's in the catbox, so by Yasu's reasoning, she gets to play witch games with Beatrice in the Golden Land forever (at least, she goes to great lengths to convince herself of that). Ange has to live in plain old boring reality, with her entire support network stripped from her. Crazy people don't think like normal people, and the notion that her game has consequences outside the island might trigger Yasu's conscience in ways that the activities on the island might not. The bank letters, if they aren't simply payment for services rendered, seem to hint at some sort of remorse in this respect.

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It's so unlikely as to be statistically impossible. Unless Ange has an effectively meaningless part, taking her out would've impacted the story significantly, and even if that wasn't the case, there's no talk in 1998 about hastened scribbles, erasings, or signs of editing to the manuscript, meaning Yasu would've had to get new sheets of paper and re-pen the entire story all over again.

I can her re-penning quite a bit to make it match the "real" events. It's the effective equivalent of her last will and testament, after all. As far as signs of editing, none of the 1998 chapters go into it one way or the other. If she did it by re-writing whole pages, there would be little or no sign of tampering.

[AuraTwilight]

I can her re-penning quite a bit to make it match the "real" events. It's the effective equivalent of her last will and testament, after all. As far as signs of editing, none of the 1998 chapters go into it one way or the other. If she did it by re-writing whole pages, there would be little or no sign of tampering.

I'm just saying that since there's already evidence to suggest that Ange's absence was well-known before the conference AND Yasu clearly wrote the messages before the event.

Of course, it's also heavily suggested that Yasu didn't kill anyone so like whatever.

[Renall]

If there were some actual evidence of substitution in the first two stories or something then maybe we could say that's plausible, but I don't really see it. In Turn in particular (assuming Turn indeed is a message bottle story) the twilight selections seem pretty specific. If Ange were to have existed in some draft of the story, then either she hung out around Maria and literally did not do anything of interest in any way the whole time, or she was supposed to do something for which we have no evidence of an apparent textual alteration.

Granted we don't have this issue from Banquet and on, as we're no longer dealing with what the original author knew and it would've been a known fact thereafter that Ange wasn't there.

Also, why would the writer care about Ange being there being factually inaccurate? Eva dies in Legend and Turn. That automatically torpedoes (lol) any possibility that anyone would believe the message bottles were factual accounts. Unless someone were to claim Eva was part of a prank scheme, and we know the Witch Hunters aren't that sophisticated.

[Drifloon]

Well, we can assume that Yasu didn't know that Eva would survive; that would appear to have been a completely unforeseen result. Ange not being present is something she could have realistically known before writing the message bottles, so it's a completely different situation. That said, I don't see much reason to think that Ange was 'edited out' either; more likely that she just knew before she started writing that Ange wouldn't be coming.

I'm not really sure if Ange ever actually met Yasu as Beatrice at all; given that the only flashback we have to Ange's supposed time in Mariage Sorciere has Ange describing it as simply "playing with stuffed animals", I would assume that it was only Maria she was playing with. Also, the way Ange talks about Beatrice in EP4 gives me the impression that she never actually met her; it seems to me that all Ange knows about Beatrice is what's in Maria's diary. When Ange gets confirmation on the diary handwriting, her conclusion is 'so the message bottles were written by the same person who wrote this in Maria's diary', and not 'so the message bottles were written by that maid who used to play with Maria and pretend to be Beatrice, who I met as a child'.

As for Beatrice's point of view, she probably doesn't know too much about Ange aside from what Maria has told her, and I imagine she wouldn't be too happy about Ange making her disciple upset. I can certainly see that leading to her somewhat ignoring her existence in the message bottles.

Meta-Beatrice seems to hate Meta-Ange quite a bit in Banquet and Alliance. It's hard to say, of course, how much of this is Yasu-as-author not liking Ange-the-child and how much of it is adult Ange being kind of a bitch and Beatrice being aware that she's an interloper that Bern has sent in to stir things up.

This is tangential, but I'm curious as to where you're getting this, since I never got the impression that Meta-Beatrice particularly disliked ANGE. If anything I thought she seemed pretty impressed with her; she kept complimenting her for being much sharper than Battler on numerous occasions and never really acted in a particularly hostile manner towards her from what I recall. I guess there's the scene where Ange calls her out of the Golden Land, but Meta-Beatrice has a pretty good reason to be annoyed about that, not to mention that she's totally despondent and unresponsive towards EVERYONE by that point. And even there I wouldn't say she actually seemed at all angry at Ange.

I also seem to recall that EP8 Beatrice expressed regret at what her game did to Ange; I'll have to check out that part again. I think that in general, throughout EP8 Beatrice seemed just as friendly towards Ange as everyone else did, so...yeah, I'm not really getting where the idea that Meta-Beatrice hates Ange comes from.

[Renall]

She was hostile to a certain extent in ep3 and ep4. I may be overstating it with "hate." But part of that is that Ange was explicitly positioning herself as an enemy. That completely disappears in ep8, however, but it might be understandable why (at that point presumably she knows more about Battler's perspective, and she's more keenly aware of her own contributions to Ange's suffering in ep8 anyway).

It seems a near-certainty that Ange never actually met Beatrice (at least knowingly; she may have been vaguely aware of the existence of a servant, but had not made any sort of connection there). More than likely she only ever heard about her through Maria, if even that. How much Maria specifically talked about her I can't recall, but if future-Ange has Maria's diary then she is aware of a Beatrice, inasmuch as Maria wrote about her. Since Ange seems to have no memories to color this experience, one presumes her only exposure to Beatrice is through what Maria either said or wrote about her.

In general, however, there's something a bit off about Ange's hate for Beatrice. She basically acts as though Beatrice was definitely a real person, blaming her for what happened... but then she turns around and blames Eva for everything too. Ange knows that Eva is not Beatrice, or at least seems to believe as such... so what the hell? It's hard to even call it a meta/reality disconnect as Ange has an awful lot of bleedthrough in that respect, and she discovers information in ep4 that she couldn't possibly attribute to Eva (such as the handwriting in Maria's diary).

Which one was it? Did the witch take your family or did Eva do it? If Eva did it, what was the deal with the witch then? You even know Beatrice had a darker side, because she taught it to Maria in the diary which you have read. How does Ange reconcile these seemingly contradictory concepts?

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Well, how about this?

Yasu knew that Ange's presence would keep the game from working. Even at age 6, Ange didn't go for that witch magic stuff, and she would probably be kept with Maria most of the time since they are of simillar age. Therefore, Ange's presence would effectively neutralize her ability to use Maria in the game and make her difficulty level impossibly high.

For this reason, Yasu arranged for Ange to not be there on the island. She reached out to Kyrie directly, or maybe through Genji, and suggested that Ange and Maria weren't getting along well, so maybe it would be best for everyone if she just happens to have the flu.

[DaBackpack]

Well, from a meta-standpoint, Beatrice was the one "keeping Battler from coming back".

[Renall]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Well, from a meta-standpoint, Beatrice was the one "keeping Battler from coming back".

Yeah, but that has no meaning in a "real" Ange sense. Only Meta-Ange has that notion, and only because Bern told her so. The "real" Ange wouldn't believe that a witch is literally entrapping her brother, but would see it as metaphorical.

Yet her interest in Beatrice as a culprit seems to evaporate whenever Eva comes up, and then Eva gets blamed. Yet if her thought is "Eva killed everybody and then covered it up," why would she (1) believe Battler could ever return, since Eva must've killed him too; and (2) think anything in particular about Maria's "Beatrice" is relevant, given that "Beatrice" was not Eva and thus didn't have anything to do with it?

Does she think they were working together? I mean the whole ep7 Tea Party vaguely explains a way that a parent could be the culprit but Beatrice could be somehow responsible, and she freaks out over that. Granted part of it is the choice of culprits, but still, it's like she's never considered the idea before. So how does she balance this interest in "Beatrice" with her supposed certainty that Eva did it?