[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Drifloon]

Hm, interesting. I think I pretty much agree with you in principle; the best way to approach things is to accept what is clearly demonstrated by the evidence, such as the immorality of Rudolf and Kyrie's business practice, while being careful to remain undecided on claims that are only circumstantial, such as that they are the culprits. And the latter can certainly be supported by evidence - the fact that they left Ange behind can be taken as them knowing something bad was going to happen; it's known that Rudolf needed money badly; and Eva's refusal to tell Ange can be taken to indicate that someone close to her is the culprit. The problem is when people are convinced enough by these reasonable-sounding arguments to then make the leap from there to "Because this is what the evidence supports, this is the truth". However likely the evidence makes something seem, as long as it's not conclusive, it definitely shouldn't be accepted as true - especially when it's something as serious as an accusation of mass murder. (And yes, I know that the case for Rudolf and Kyrie as culprits isn't even that strong - but even if it was, I think these arguments would still hold provided that it was unprovable.)

It is true that evidence suggests that "Kinzo was an asshole in general", but all that proves is that Kinzo acted that way publically. To make the leap from "Kinzo acted like an asshole" to "Kinzo was an asshole" is irresponsible, I think, since we can't possibly know everything about his actions. It's important to be clear that the body of knowledge known to the public about a person does not fully comprise that person, and so I think it's necessary for people to acknowledge that there are things about a person that they just can't know. "Kinzo acted like an asshole" is a demonstrable fact, and should be accepted, but when it comes to drawing a conclusion from that, it becomes more difficult. The conclusion might seem like the most reasonable has no guarantee of being true. It's entirely possible that Kinzo really could have acted the way he did in EP8 towards his family, and that the way he acted in public was just a way to intimidate people and succeed professionally. There's absolutely no evidence that can show that, but it's entirely possible for facts to be true without any evidence existing to support them. I think it's important to acknowledge that. I don't think any of Battler's portrayals of the family members in EP8 are actually demonstrably inaccurate; he chooses to emphasise certain aspects of their character over others, but the ways that they act in his game are definitely ways that they could very well have acted in real life. They obviously didn't act that way all the time, but I think it's a good point to make that however much evidence we may have about a certain aspect of a person's actions, there may well be other aspects that we know absolutely nothing about, which may have actually been just as significant and integral to said person's character as the actions that we know about - or, indeed, even more so. If this is the kind of point Ryukishi was trying to make, I don't think it was necessarily a bad one.

Also, it's not really relevant, but I'd like to make the point that we, as readers, can deduce a lot more about Yasu than anyone who actually knew her could possibly have done. Through the narration, we're given direct insight into her heart in a way that's not possible in real life. It is possible that Tohya may have deduced a lot of what we did as well...but if that is the case, then he has absolutely no way of knowing that it's true, and all kinds of other truths could be possible. We know what she was thinking because we have 'magic' that can tell us that, but that kind of thing unfortunately doesn't exist for real people. Again, it's not really relevant to my point, but I think it's an interesting thing to consider. And I also think that the fact that absolutely no one who was close to Yasu had any idea how she was really feeling is a pretty good demonstration of how we should always be hesitant to claim that we really know anything about someone, however much evidence we may seem to have. George obviously thinks he knows Shannon better than anyone else, but if you were to ask him to give you information on what kind of person she is, it would barely scratch the surface of what we know about her. I think a lot of people (and I don't mean you here, but people in general) are prone to judge a person based on a handful of actions that they know about, and don't even take into consideration that there might be a million things they don't know about which could potentially completely change that judgment. Again, I really have a lot of respect for Ryukishi for trying to explore issues like this, because it's really not something I see acknowledged much in fiction.

[DaBackpack]

It's likely that the characters' portrayals in the forgeries is an extrapolation of their known (and verifiable) business personalities. All of the four siblings are, honestly, portrayed as generally awful people. We can be pretty sure that Krauss was incompetent, Eva was a bitch, Rudolf was a scumbag, and Rosa had a temper. But did they necessarily exhibit these traits towards their beloved family members? Perhaps a little (especially in Rosa's case) but I don't think these descriptions encompass the entirety of the siblings' behaviors.

EP8 Battler doesn't try to deny these given personalities in a general sense. He only gives us the family interactions of a few hours on Rokkenjima. Sure, Eva's a mean person, but I sincerely doubt that "in real life" she would have done all the things she's said to do to her family members (the exception being her treatment of Ange, but that's partly justified because Ange rejected her).

If you think about it, the forgery adults' characterizations seem like "an outsider's guesses at what these terrible businessmen would do if they were in a family setting":

1.) Krauss is incompetent, so he probably needs money. Therefore, it is likely that he would do something absurd like cover his father's death when given the opportunity.
2.) Eva is jealous of Krauss, so she probably has a complex against him and her only goal in life (that we know of) is to somehow surpass him. She goes as far as to use George to achieve this.
3.) Rudolf is a sleazebag, so it would make sense if he was a whore and manipulated other human beings for his benefit. (In retrospect, this seems like a justified conclusion given the Asumu/Kyrie remarrying thing).
4.) Rosa is frustrated due to the absence of Maria's father and is subject to fits, so she probably had a violent relationship with Maria. (Once again this is partly justified given that other people clearly knew about this)
5.) Kinzo was... well, Kinzo, so instead of accepting his true family, he would hide himself away and try to summon Beatrice. This came at the cost of neglecting his own children.

I don't doubt that there were problems in the Ushiromiya family. Many of the conflicts probably actually existed. But I think Battler is trying to suggest that while these conflicts existed, it does not necessarily indicate that they couldn't be (at least partly) a happy family. Battler's EP8 portrayal and what we KNOW about the characters doesn't necessarily contradict.

On the other hand, NEITHER of these portrayals have entirely to do with the fact that (it is suggested that) people actually died in R-Prime. The forgeries at least provide motives for something that might lead to murder, maybe? At the expense of making the characters seem worse than they probably really were. Battler's interpretation doesn't explain the murders, but then again it probably wasn't meant to at all. He just wanted to show Ange "her family."

(To clarify, we still don't know if Battler was lying about everything. I'm just saying that the "R-Prime information about the family", the forgeries, and Battler's story don't necessary have to preclude each other.)

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

It is true that evidence suggests that "Kinzo was an asshole in general", but all that proves is that Kinzo acted that way publically. To make the leap from "Kinzo acted like an asshole" to "Kinzo was an asshole" is irresponsible, I think, since we can't possibly know everything about his actions.

Generally speaking "acts like an asshole to people" and "is an asshole" go hand in hand. It's possible it was strictly business, but if so it's a very ruthless and inhumane business strategy that rightfully ought to be condemned as overly confrontational. I'd say it's reasonable to conclude that, absent any other evidence aside "acted like a dick to everyone we know of who knew him" and "kept some young woman caged on his private island and may have also raped her" lets us say with some reasonableness that he was kind of a dick. Being "kind of a dick" doesn't mean he can't have a romantic side, but remember that while he was experiencing ~~~true love~~~ with Bice he was cheating on his wife. He may not have loved his wife, but if her situation is anything like Natsuhi's she did nothing to invite his unfaithful behavior. He is a man known to act irascible and commit morally dubious actions. "But he loved his grandkids!" even if true might only show that there were some people he wasn't an asshole to, not that he wasn't, generally speaking, an asshole.

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Also, it's not really relevant, but I'd like to make the point that we, as readers, can deduce a lot more about Yasu than anyone who actually knew her could possibly have done. Through the narration, we're given direct insight into her heart in a way that's not possible in real life. It is possible that Tohya may have deduced a lot of what we did as well...but if that is the case, then he has absolutely no way of knowing that it's true, and all kinds of other truths could be possible. We know what she was thinking because we have 'magic' that can tell us that, but that kind of thing unfortunately doesn't exist for real people.

The question really is did you need ep7 to draw that conclusion? Did you need the meta-scenes to draw that conclusion? How much can you know about Yasu from the scenes contained within the games? Since we aren't sure just how much of that is where, I'm not sure it's fair to say that information couldn't be deduced absent the "magic" we have.

That aside, the character of Yasu exists only within the narrative medium of Umineko anyway, so if we consider that to be the case then there's nothing especially "magical" about understanding her based on the totality of the work. The point I'm making is that we can understand such a person's nature (her "heart" I guess), even though we don't know everything about her. Indeed, we know very little about her factually, as even in ep7 she leaves a great deal of information out. Do you need all of that to find the shadow of Truth?

Originally Posted by Drifloon

George obviously thinks he knows Shannon better than anyone else, but if you were to ask him to give you information on what kind of person she is, it would barely scratch the surface of what we know about her.

I think that's kind of a bad example because I'm not convinced George knows much about Shannon at all, or cares to. That's part of what I've always found unconvincingly skeezy about him, he treats her more as a piece of the puzzle that will fit nicely into his life and "complete" it. Whether he knows much about her or not, it seems like he doesn't care to know beyond how she is useful to his vision of what he desires for his life.

The difference there is we're being asked to learn more about her, and as strangers to her life we have no ulterior motive to manipulate her existence to our own ends. At least I hope not.

[jjblue1]

Undoubtely George seems lacking of a genuine interest about Shannon in his way to deal with Shannon. There's to say George seems to like to assume he knows lot of things about others or why others act a certain way that aren't necessary true.
Battler's fear of boats in Ep 8 is explained with Rudolf scaring him but to George it was due to Battler copying Asumu's behaviour.
I seem to remember he also assumed a couple of things about Maria and Rosa's behaviour that later turned out wrong.

So it can be that's not genuine lack of carying but the naive idea he had already figured her out so he doesn't need more info from her. Surely Shannon is the type of girl who could only aim and love to live the life he wanted for the two of them.

And although this is stupid and arrogant from him, to his credit there's to say Shannon never dared to say something against this belief which might have lulled him into the idea he was right.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

But did they necessarily exhibit these traits towards their beloved family members? Perhaps a little (especially in Rosa's case) but I don't think these descriptions encompass the entirety of the siblings' behaviors.

Like Beato admits in the EP8 manga when Ange throws her fit in the VIP room and calls Battlers game a farce: "No, she's right...this is a farce. If all this were true then nothing like that incident would have ever happened." But still she remains on Battlers side in saying that they want Ange to see that sometimes there are more important things than just the plain truth.

The panels when Ange told how she knows of Kinzos violent temper is very telling. She saw him yelling at her parents and them admitting defeat. She understood this as her perfect parents, who could never do something wrong, bowing towards an evil, old man who was bullying them. If we consider this differently, we know that Rudolf and Kyrie fucked up a lot in their business ventures and often enough went into schemes that verged unto the criminal. Kinzo, who did his best to built up the Ushiromiya house, had every right to be angry at them.
Shouting at your children is wrong and it is not unlikely that many of his children exhibited different traits of Kinzo's bad manner of raising them, like Krauss' and Evas overprotection and pushing of Jessica and George, going as far as pitting them against each other, Rudolphs idea that throwing out money can solve problems concerning your child (and going by the fact that rumors existed maybe also the idea of having a mistress being alright) and Rosa using violence to control Maria.
Still, all of them very likely loved their children, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kinzo loved his 4 children by his wife as well, I just think he was disappointed by them because, adding to the fact that he didn't love his wife, they also turned out to be pretty big pieces of work.

(To clarify, we still don't know if Battler was lying about everything. I'm just saying that the "R-Prime information about the family", the forgeries, and Battler's story don't necessary have to preclude each other.)

Well, if we take the manga version of EP8 as evidence, then we have evidence that he wasn't lying about it completely but he wasn't telling the full truth either. Both he and Beato admit that his game is technically a farce but they also stress towards Ange, how it is supposed to teach her something that an account of the simple truth couldn't.
Battler also says that he could easily give her the Red Truth that "the family members spent this time getting along greatly" (親族達は仲良く過ごした) but it wouldn't change her outlook on things. She would refuse it as a trick or a lie and then everything would crumble. He believes she has to reach a truth of her own, but of course wants to steer her into his.

Originally Posted by Renall

The problem is that not all speculation is created equal

Completely true, but it's also important to see how Umineko stresses elements like the Devil's Proof and that the absence of evidence proofs (on a moral level) nothing beyond the absence of said evidence, not their non-existence.

The problem as I see it is that by making Truth a matter of opinion, it allows for truths to essentially be cooked up by these half-baked conclusions rather than allowing the conclusions to stand as exactly as strong or weak as they clearly are and acknowledging that we can go only so far.

Yes, this is really important, but I think to a certain degree Umineko went into this direction and did take a stance, it just didn't push it into our face as it being the one right approach. The one reason why I dislike some parts of EP8 is because they paint the truth seekers as too much of a bunch of assholes, while failing to highlight that there are people who search it for good reasons, but recently I considered that EP7 and 8 kind of stand as mirror examples in this exercise.
EP7 shows how you search for truth for moral reasons, to give the involved people (even the culprit) peace and closure.
EP8 shows how people search for truth for pleasure and/or satisfaction, so a completely self-serving goal.

I think Truth is less a matter of opinion, but it is rather that telling the truth is more than just making it a string of events or just telling what you believe. Ange was unable to accept either version she found in EP8 because they went against both what she believed (her direct family can't be that horrible people by her memory, but Eva could) and what was happening around her (there is a crater and everybody appears to be dead, so it can't be all flowers and sprinkles).

What I took as the core of it all was, that any "truth" must have meaning. It must create moral justice, it must give peace, it must give closure. Most attempts around Ange did none of that, they were sensational, they stirred things up, they kept things in the loop even though the police decided to let the case rest. Sometimes, if it is clear that anybody could be a culprit but it is impossible to pin the crime on a specific person, it should be as valid to let it rest in order to give the people involved at least some kind of peace.

Originally Posted by Renall

The difference there is we're being asked to learn more about her, and as strangers to her life we have no ulterior motive to manipulate her existence to our own ends. At least I hope not.

Of course we have an ulterior motive, we gain pleasure from finding out the truth, we gain satisfaction from finding evidence, we get frustrated when things appear different from our idea and then we might attempt to think in ways that favor our framework. The thing is, as soon as you are drawn into something you are not a total stranger anymore, something like complete objectivity does not exist.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Of course we have an ulterior motive, we gain pleasure from finding out the truth, we gain satisfaction from finding evidence, we get frustrated when things appear different from our idea and then we might attempt to think in ways that favor our framework. The thing is, as soon as you are drawn into something you are not a total stranger anymore, something like complete objectivity does not exist.

Even so, I don't require that her life story turn out a particular way. Whatever ending I might "like" to see, I can be satisfied or at least accepting of the outcome being what the characters and/or author wished that to be. I gain nothing from her manipulation within the story in any particular direction. George, being himself a character in the work with his own motives, does. So my perspective is at least more objective than his, regardless of whether I am perfectly objective. A scientist acting as observer on an experiment isn't perfectly objective (he or she probably has a hypothesis that the experiment is supposed to prove, or seeks grant money and so hopes the experiment is conclusive, etc.), but it's the rat in the maze that has a vested interest in getting that cheese at the end. Whether the rat gets the cheese or not is less important to the scientist than watching what the rat actually does. If you throw in two rats competing for the cheese, the observing scientist probably doesn't care which one gets it first, but it matters quite a bit to each of the rats.

I would imagine most people's motive with respect to the character is to do as she asked that we do; that is, to understand. It's not impossible to read something different into the whole thing and desire it, but I don't think that's a normal reaction. In that sense we're in a role not unlike Will's; although Will certainly invested himself in the story, he was brought in to act as a sort of impartial figure and reach a level of understanding that may have been easier because he was such. Now admittedly he did eventually become invested in a particular outcome, but I'd say that means he cared about that a lot more than most of us did, as we tend to be a lot more accepting that the events that happened did indeed happen! So even Will bears a considerably greater bias (understandable though, as he's actually in the story).

[Uberzaki]

I just found something curious when I was reviewing my notes. During the EP3 chapter "Rosa and the witch of the forest", it bothered me that when Beatrice II (or whichever Beatrice) dies from the fall, Meta-Beatrice proclaims "It's definitely dead". I originally noted that down because of the unusual use of 'It' rather than 'She'. This alone wouldn't be worth discussing on this board. But when I reviewed my notes, I checked the red truth page on the wiki for context. The page records it as "She's definitely dead". This means it may have been changed when they updated the patch for the first four episodes. I thought that the Beatrice in that scene was definitely female (being Bice's daughter).

I had previously played with the idea of checking the difference between patches for clues, but thought that my time would be better served elsewhere, but this is neat little find, don't you think?

[theacefrehley]

The original text goes like this:

間違いなく死んでいる！

Translation:
間違いなく = Certainly
死んでいる = is dead

No literal mention of who is dead (there's no 'she' there), so it's up to context (pretty normal in japanese language), and we can see it is 1967-Beatrice the person who they are talking about.

'It's dead' or 'She is dead' is up to the choice of the translator.

[Uberzaki]

Thanks for the information. I had thought that the contextual ambiguity of japanese might have been the reason.

My point is that it may have been changed in between revisions of the translation. If there was a way to get an older version of the patch then it might be possible to confirm that it was changed in retrospect, does anyone know how to get an older version of the patch?

Or maybe the red truth page was working off someone else's translation...

[MainCharacter]

This may seem like a stupid question, but it's something I'd like to ask you guys. I've mostly stopped paying attention to what's happened since Episode 8 was translated, so I'm way behind on what any interviews or supplementary materials say. Sorry if this has all been discussed to death before, but it's been bothering me, and I intend to reread Umineko soon so I wanted to get some input.

Has it ever been confirmed, Word of God style, that Yasu is definitely the one who was killing people on Rokkenjima Prime? Like, the actual events that really happened, not in any of the Episodes. I know that Our Confession apparently showed how "Yasu" was the culprit of some episodes. But did it, or anything after, actually confirm she was the real culprit?

If it has, could someone clear a few things up for me:

- Why did Battler accept Beatrice after he learned the truth? He was so very adamant about never forgiving whoever did this to his family, but once he learned the truth in Episode 5 suddenly he's fine with Beatrice being his wife and is totally accepting of her? At the time, I took this as confirmation that Beatrice (or whoever she represented) wasn't the murderer, and with what we learn in Episode 7, I have a hard time accepting that Battler would learn that Yasu killed his family and then just be totally fine with it, going so far as to apologize to HER for the torture HE put her through.

- Similarly, why was Battler being nice to her in the scene where they are escaping and she kills herself? It seemed like a situation where she'd blame herself but he wasn't blaming her. This also seemed to stay consistent with the implications in Episodes 1-4 that Beatrice was simply pretending to be the culprit and taking the blame.

- What was the deal with Ange freaking out upon reading the ultimate truth and her wishing she had never read it. She was holding onto a hope that someone else may have survived, Battler in particular. So when she was so crushed upon reading it to wish she never did, it seemed at first that she read Battler was actually dead. But we learn at the end that he wasn't dead, he survived. So if this thing was the ultimate truth (and not just in the real world where mistakes could happen, but the meta world as well), then why would she flip out upon reading this? I'm sort of hinting that maybe she read that Rudolf and Kyrie were actually the culprits, as that's the only other thing that makes sense to me. We saw how it could happen in EP7 and it would explain why Eva kept it from her.

Sorry if I've gotten some details wrong, it's been years now (feels weird so much time has passed), and I haven't gotten around to rereading it yet. If I've forgotten some details that answers all these questions, please tell me. If Yasu as real actual murderer is also confirmed for fact, please tell me.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by MainCharacter

Has it ever been confirmed, Word of God style, that Yasu is definitely the one who was killing people on Rokkenjima Prime? Like, the actual events that really happened, not in any of the Episodes. I know that Our Confession apparently showed how "Yasu" was the culprit of some episodes. But did it, or anything after, actually confirm she was the real culprit?

No, it never has confirmed that she's the real culprit on Rokkenjima Prime, and likewise I think that the narrative and Battler's behaviour towards Beatrice suggests that she isn't the real culprit.

I can't really help explain about Ange's behaviour there, since I don't entirely understand it myself either.

[jjblue1]

The culprit in Prime is never clearly stated but Ryukishi implied the adults were the ones to blame for the incident.

We don't know exactly what Ange read but we know it's the truth... at least from Eva's perspective. So, for example, if Kyrie went and told Eva she killed everyone and Eva wrote this in her diary, she wouldn't be lying even if Kyrie lied. The fact 'Kyrie told Eva she killed everyone' would be the truth but not the fact 'Kyrie killed everyone'.

So Eva's informations might be true but not the truth behind what happened on Rokkenjima.
Of course it's also possible that Eva wrote the truth and the truth is that nearly everyone was to blame. For example a popular theory is that Yasu really set in motion a mystery game but it was all an act like the one in EP 6 was supposed to be, someone freaked out not knowing it was all a game, paranoia escalated and people ended up killing each others.

We're waiting for the manga to see if it'll clar up things.

On the positive side the manga explained why Ange's character "regressed" in Ep 8.
They said that seeing Bern's game in Ep 7 Teaparty caused her to reject her understanding of Eva and decide she had to be the culprit.
Metaphorically speaking this might mean during her life Ange was trying to understand and accept Eva but when the Rudolf's family culprit theory came around, in order to deny that theory she ended up rejecting any possible understanding she had of Eva.

Also when Battler said to a sleeping Ange that although they were different most of what she heard were the selfish speculations from people outside the island Beato was surprised then sadly thoughtful. I wonder if this has an extra meaning. Or am I reading too much in that scene?

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Also when Battler said to a sleeping Ange that although they were different most of what she heard were the selfish speculations from people outside the island Beato was surprised then sadly thoughtful. I wonder if this has an extra meaning. Or am I reading too much in that scene?

Well, it was implied several times that Beato was disappointed in her "fandom" and therefore also regretting her decision to throw those message bottles into the sea.

[GuestSpeaker]

Ah, I seem to remember theorising on this board that that was why Ange metaregressed, Word of God gold star to me (and all else who said as much)


I wonder if Beato looked shocked because SHE wrote the first two, which means it wasn't just selfish speculation by outsiders, but at least somewhat informed by fact and the adults' personalities. I assume she is shocked Battler is outright lying to Ange to the nth degree, but thoughtful because she knows what he is trying to do and doesn't think it would be helpful to interject with "But I did know them, and when they were in a bad mood they did do terrible stuff"

Also, I am not sure I buy into paranoia and everyone killing eachother (otherwise why would Eva have needed to be told, she would have been there), but I can buy into the fact that Yasu had some hand in it (and has repeatedly been said to have been prepping to do something terrible) but that the adults were probably largely to blame. Eva was likely involved and feels super guilty about it. We always used to ask who she would protect Ange from learning about, well if everyone was involved that would be good motivation. "Sorry Ange, your entire family including your parents had a big selfish fight and blew eachother up".


Maybe Kyrie even flipped the switch on the clock, using her chessboard logic (but getting it so wrong). That would be ironic.

Maybe the fight even broke out over the clock, and deciding which way to switch it (while not trusting Yasu, who had already fled or died). Maybe all the kids ran to the tunnels, and Eva tried to follow them but went the wrong way, and then only Battler survived the boat trip. I doubt he'd have left his alive cousins behind, so he either went to the tunnels before trouble started, thought they were there, they were there or they were dead. Likewise, Eva wouldn't leave an alive George or (dependent on how it affected George) Hideoyoshi behind, but would try and run after them.

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Much as it's been speculated that Eva hiding the true events of Prime somehow implicates Rudolf and Kyrie, I wonder if it's to cover up her own failure to save Battler. In the Ep8 "magic" ending, Ange (summarizing Battler's exposition) mentions that the two of them were traveling together to reach Kuwadorian and became separated. Battler "dies," Eva makes it alone, and then has to raise Ange with her huge brother complex. Ange's accusations would pretty much be a twisting of the knife there, and given Battler's fate, provide a tragic sort of irony.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

I wonder if Beato looked shocked because SHE wrote the first two, which means it wasn't just selfish speculation by outsiders, but at least somewhat informed by fact and the adults' personalities. I assume she is shocked Battler is outright lying to Ange to the nth degree, but thoughtful because she knows what he is trying to do and doesn't think it would be helpful to interject with "But I did know them, and when they were in a bad mood they did do terrible stuff"

Well, Battler, more than lying to Ange is raising a likely legittimate point. There's a huge chance the media presented a rather horrible image of the Ushiromiya in their wish to paint them as culprits. Think at what Erika did in Ep 5 with Natsuhi.
Beato's 2 tales likely were a drop compared to the huge amount of fanwork Ange had to deal with and likely that fanwork wasn't Ange's only problem. Think at the scene in which all her goat-classmates toss at her the Rudolf family culprit theory. Likely this bugged her much more than Beato's 2 tales in which Rudolf and Kyrie were barely developed and surely weren't culprits as they died pretty quickly.

Honestly I've been wondering if the reason for Beato's surprise is that Battler's reasoning applied to her too. Yasu let herself be influenced by what others said about Battler and lost fait in the fact he would return which caused her to wallow in misery and possibly long for death the same way Ange was doing.

In Ep 3, 5 & 7 is said Battler had honest feelings for her and wasn't making fun of her when they were children yet Yasu never seemed to realize it. Even in Ep 7 when Will informs Clair in the end Battler understood her message he never tells her Battler had feelings for her as a child and wasn't just making fun of her with his words.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Also, I am not sure I buy into paranoia and everyone killing eachother (otherwise why would Eva have needed to be told, she would have been there), but I can buy into the fact that Yasu had some hand in it (and has repeatedly been said to have been prepping to do something terrible) but that the adults were probably largely to blame. Eva was likely involved and feels super guilty about it. We always used to ask who she would protect Ange from learning about, well if everyone was involved that would be good motivation. "Sorry Ange, your entire family including your parents had a big selfish fight and blew eachother up".

Eva might not know exactly what had happened to everyone because it's possible all the residents of Rokkenjima didn't spend all the time coped up together but parted ways.
However, while I've no problems thinking Rosa might have had a paranoia attack seeing a corpse or what she believed was a corpse due to the trauma of seeing Beato's death, other characters doesn't seem so prone to go paranoid although some of them can get violent or aggressive enough to the point to push others to become violent.

Still, as I've said many times in the past I don't really find easy to work up a believable explanation that would justify the death of so many people, including the children and the servants.

As for Eva and Battler's escape it could be interesting if we had a setting similar to Ep 7 Teaparty only Eva, after killing Kyrie found Battler and wanted to save him so lead him to escape in the tunnel with her with some sort of explanation.
However something happened between the two (either Battler said something that made Eva believe he was Kyrie's accomplice or she said something that caused Battler to decide to try to return back on his own only he took the wrong way) and they parted ways.

Another alternative would be that, unaware of what was going on among his parents and assorted relatives, Battler instead than trying to reach Kuwadorian wanted to escape with Yasu. As they're in the tunnel or about to leave the bomb explodes. Yasu dies and Battler is under shock. He leaves in a confusional state gets on the motorboat thinking to ask for help or something but only ends up capsizing the motor boat and, as if this wasn't bad enough, when he reaches the land he's involved in a car incident.

After all it's Ange's assumption Battler was escaping with Eva toward Kuwadorian. He could have been trying to reach the submarine base with someone else using the same passage that also lead to Kuwadorian.

In fact Battler just said:

"On that day, ......I escaped through the underground passage. .... I was told that an underground passage led to a hidden mansion on the opposite side of the island. ......However, the place we escaped to was a submarine base, not Kuwadorian." ... "From there, I got away on a motorboat. ......However, ......it must have capsized somewhere along the way."

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Maybe Kyrie even flipped the switch on the clock, using her chessboard logic (but getting it so wrong). That would be ironic.

Maybe the fight even broke out over the clock, and deciding which way to switch it (while not trusting Yasu, who had already fled or died). Maybe all the kids ran to the tunnels, and Eva tried to follow them but went the wrong way, and then only Battler survived the boat trip. I doubt he'd have left his alive cousins behind, so he either went to the tunnels before trouble started, thought they were there, they were there or they were dead. Likewise, Eva wouldn't leave an alive George or (dependent on how it affected George) Hideoyoshi behind, but would try and run after them.

Now wait... this brings me back to the first tea party in EP1... "Battler if you don't believe, the revival magic loses its power". Maybe it was actually Battler who killed everyone because he didn't trust "Beatrice". He didn't believe in her miracle and flipped the bomb on "on". This would bring a LOT of sense into the story and would be a good reason for Eva to hide the truth from Ange, I mean imagine Eva saying: "Sorry Ange, your brother was doubting someone and by doing that killed everyone but me, I know that sux but deal with it."

Who knows... maybe there were no killings at all until the bomb exploded.


EDIT: Seems Tohya doesn't really remember what happened on the boat...

[GuestSpeaker]

I've always thought that there doesn't have to be many killings or even any killings before the bomb goes off, you don't need a motive to kill all the relatives, servants and cousins when they will all die anyway.

While a cool idea about Battler, if he had flipped the switch I would imagine he'd have hung around the clock. Why would he escape if he thought everyone was safe? The fact they were escaping to the hidden mansion at all implies they were running from something or someone. You could argue fighting broke out and Yasu told Battler to go hide in the mansion, but I am not sure she would leave the other cousins behind, and he sure wouldn't.

[MainCharacter]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

No, it never has confirmed that she's the real culprit on Rokkenjima Prime, and likewise I think that the narrative and Battler's behaviour towards Beatrice suggests that she isn't the real culprit.

I can't really help explain about Ange's behaviour there, since I don't entirely understand it myself either.

Cool, thanks for the info. I don't really like the idea that Yasu is actually the culprit, it just raises too many inconsistencies for me. Unless it's confirmed for a fact, I don't see myself buying into it.

Ange's behavior when reading the Truth could be explained by seeing her parents were actually the culprits. That's my personal theory anyway, because I like it and as far as I can tell it fits.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

On the positive side the manga explained why Ange's character "regressed" in Ep 8.
They said that seeing Bern's game in Ep 7 Teaparty caused her to reject her understanding of Eva and decide she had to be the culprit.
Metaphorically speaking this might mean during her life Ange was trying to understand and accept Eva but when the Rudolf's family culprit theory came around, in order to deny that theory she ended up rejecting any possible understanding she had of Eva.

Also when Battler said to a sleeping Ange that although they were different most of what she heard were the selfish speculations from people outside the island Beato was surprised then sadly thoughtful. I wonder if this has an extra meaning. Or am I reading too much in that scene?

Can the manga be considered canon? I mean I know it's written by him, but it's still an adaptation and sometimes scenes are shortened or different and I always feel weird letting any adaptation be used as evidence for the original. An author can decide later to add something in that doesn't work in the originals but works in the manga, which would create inconsistencies. I think VNs and official statements on the VNs should be all that's used to prove or argue anything.

Again, unless he's come right out and said "anything that happens in the manga can definitely be considered canon in relation to the VNs, even if it didn't happen there", at which point I can't really fight against that.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by MainCharacter

Again, unless he's come right out and said "anything that happens in the manga can definitely be considered canon in relation to the VNs, even if it didn't happen there", at which point I can't really fight against that.

He officially said in an interview that he was talking with the manga around the time when EP8 was finished, how they would insert more information into the manga adaptations EP7 and EP8 to make several aspects a little bit more clear since many people seemed to have problems with it.