[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Do you remember the scene near the end of EP5? Battler specifically asked Dlanor and Virgilia whether the Knox rules applied to Beato's game, and they didn't answer.
It was Erika and Bern that represented the mystery side in EP5, and if I remember correctly, they were the villains.

The reason they didn't answer is because they couldn't answer because there is one rule that cannot apply to any of the games. "Knox's 5th: it is forbidden for any chinaman to appear into the story" Erika = Chinaman

An alternate explanation is that excluding Knox's 5th there is at least one more rule that is questionable about applying to the story and they don't know which of the rule(s) it is yet. Therefor they wouldn't be able to say in red "that all of Knox's rules apply to Beato's games".

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Ryuukishi clearly told us "without love, it cannot be seen", meaning that as long as you trust the author, there will be a way to find the solution. His reason for saying this was because this genre Umineko is part of is completely new. If you decide to trust Ryuukishi, he guarantees that it's solvable. If you don't, then good luck.

Yes and you are not trusting that the author will let the characters find that solution. Your not trusting that the author put the Knox's rules in there because most of them should be true. Your not trusting Ryukishi like me. And your not in love with his mysteries like I am! Even if it's a different genre of mystery have you considered that because of that Ryukishi might have to add more rules so that we can write this genre he invented ourselves? You have clearly forgotten that Ryukishi said himself that the theme of Umineko is how to write a good mystery.

My red is true you just don't have enough love to see it.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Yes and you are not trusting that the author will let the characters find that solution. Your not trusting that the author put the Knox's rules in there because most of them should be true. Your not trusting Ryukishi like me. And your not in love with his mysteries like I am! Even if it's a different genre of mystery have you considered that because of that Ryukishi might have to add more rules so that we can write this genre he invented ourselves? You have clearly forgotten that Ryukishi said himself that the theme of Umineko is how to write a good mystery.

My red is true you just don't have enough love to see it.

Well, it's hard for the characters to find a solution when they're dead, which clearly happens in all Episodes 1-4.

As for them getting out of this situation in-game, EP6 actually got pretty close. Because Battler solved the game in EP5, he was able to make his piece remember his promise to Sayo in the start of EP6. When that happens, Sayo's primary motive for carrying out the epitaph murders is lost, and "Beatrice" doesn't try to kill anyone. If it weren't for Erika and possibly the second culprit scheming, everyone would have survived.

By the way, EP5 is where we learn about this mechanism. The Game Master can control nearly everything, but each of the main witches can directly control their own piece, as long as they make their pieces' personalities consistent. So Beatrice controls Sayo, Bern controls Erika, Lambdadelta controls the second culprit, and Battler controls himself. Except in EP5, when he abandoned control of his piece.

@Renall:
I think the things going on in Umineko are so complicated that no one would ever predict the solution to EP1, even if it might be technically possible.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Well, it's hard for the characters to find a solution when they're dead, which clearly happens in all Episodes 1-4.

Ange is always alive and she can solve it! It just takes a miracle for it to happen.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

As for them getting out of this situation in-game, EP6 actually got pretty close. Because Battler solved the game in EP5, he was able to make his piece remember his promise to Sayo in the start of EP6. When that happens, Sayo's primary motive for carrying out the epitaph murders is lost, and "Beatrice" doesn't try to kill anyone. If it weren't for Erika and possibly the second culprit scheming, everyone would have survived.



By the way, EP5 is where we learn about this mechanism. The Game Master can control nearly everything, but each of the main witches can directly control their own piece, as long as they make their pieces' personalities consistent. So Beatrice controls Sayo, Bern controls Erika, Lambdadelta controls the second culprit, and Battler controls himself. Except in EP5, when he abandoned control of his piece.

I am aware of these things, but it was established episode 5 that the game master cannot make a piece do something it is incapable of doing. Dlanor made this clear. Battler can cause himself to remember his sin because he is the game master becuase he knows what it is and he knows himself well enough to create the conditions for it to happen. Pieces on the game board must have limitations. Things they can and cannot do. But Battler is capable of remembering his sin. There must be situations in which a piece can't do certain things without being exposed or prevented from doing it. Likewise there must also be situations where they can do them. We have to figure out what the limitations are. There must be rules.

[chronotrig]

@Judoh:
Yes, the pieces do have limitations, and it is important to find those out. However, whether you take the author theory or the Game Master theory, it is possible to write anything as long is it is logically consistent. So, if a person has a disguise that has a 20% chance of being seen through over the course of the story, the Game Master can simply say in red "person X's disguise was not seen through". In this sort of situation, the person's disguise will only be seen through if the Game Master wishes to use that as a hint or a bluff.

Anyways, I still don't understand why you've created that particular rule about disguises when the Knox rules are clearly satisfied with my explanation.

[Judoh]

I just want my questions answered and my requirements satisfied. If you can't do that I'll find out myself. With or without help.

[Judoh]

What I'm saying is simple to understand. I provided you a riddle based on on my own interpretation of the Knox's rules. Who among the 17 characters satisfies the conditions? You only need to find the kind of clues I described for me to accept that a disguise can work in Umineko. It should be simple because you've read the thing dozens of times. If you can't even put this off another day to think on and give me an answer to my question I just won't accept that your interpretation of this theory is true until the author Ryukishi07 tells me a reason why, or I find out myself. I trust him and myself more than I trust you.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Judoh

What I'm saying is simple to understand. I provided you a riddle based on on my own interpretation of the Knox's rules. Who among the 17 characters satisfies the conditions? You only need to find the kind of clues I described for me to accept that a disguise can work in Umineko. It should be simple because you've read the thing dozens of times. If you can't even put this off another day to think on and give me an answer to my question I just won't accept that your interpretation of this theory is true until the author Ryukishi07 tells me a reason why, or I find out myself. I trust him and myself more than I trust you.

Sorry, didn't realize I had a time limit on this thing. No, I don't have a scene like you're describing off the top of my head, but the Umineko series has over 750,000 words long to date, so there might be something.

Let me try and explain what I mean by trust. Earlier, you stated more or less that you don't care what the openings of EP2 and EP4 had in them because they aren't part of the mystery. However, Ryuukishi put them in, filling up nearly a quarter of one game and a third of another. And yet, with your interpretation, all of that is little more than wasted space. Am I wrong? What do you think the point of those sections was? If it's character development, what kind, and why was it worth taking up such a huge chunk of the game?

If Umineko is not "solvable" with my interpretation, then how in the world did I create my theory with plenty of evidence in its favor?
I'll admit that I haven't explained enough yet to show you all of my evidence, but eventually, when I get the chance, I will.

[Renall]

There are hints that someone is capable of disguise ("Beatrice"). That said, Dlanor denies anyone disguising as Rosa. But since there is evidence of at least one other person using a disguise, I don't think prohibiting disguising as Rosa immediately precludes everyone.

That said, I don't believe anyone is disguising as one of the other people on the island, but if they were, there is at least some small bit of evidence that someone on the island is skilled at disguise.

[Used Can]

I still don't get what chronotrig means by "his theory". I've got to admit I haven't been following this thread for quite a while, and my only bases are the recent posts that I've read, but this doesn't sound any different to any of the previous Shkanon(trice) theories I've read before in other places in the net, and the things I've thought of by myself.

Mind you, I'm not saying Shkanon(trice) is not possible. In fact, I think anyone who has been able to read EP6 and be able to understand even a bit of it, can see that Shkanon(trice) has been hinted as blatant as it can be (not to mention that the idea of Shkanon and Shannontrice have been there since EP2; so, no one can say there's been no foreshadowing). Naturally, the fact I accept it doesn't mean I like it, but, in the end, that's just my own taste.

I'm not trying to ask this out of malice, but just out of mere curiosity. What makes your Shkanon(trice) different from what other people have said? So far, all I've read from you, is basically the same thing I've read from other people (not only about Shkanon(trice), but about the way the Gold Text works).

[chronotrig]

@Used Can:
Well, in part, that's because I still haven't finished the even second 5th of the theory. I guess I can wrap up most of that part for now.

Spoiler for chrono:

As I've shown before, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that Fukuin trains people on how to act. Maria's grimoire describes the beginnings of what could be called an acting technique, and both Fukuin servants have shown signs of following the same behavior as Ange. It's also implied that all Fukuin servants consider themselves furniture and bear the family crest, which means that they serve Kinzo so closely that the rest of the family is a little suspicious of them.

Since Kinzo heavily supports Fukuin and takes servants from there (note: the "best" graduates) it's likely that he's making use of this acting ability in some way. And EP3 describes exactly why he would need people capable of this. Remember Beatrice 2? The one Rosa saw? She was described as a homunculus, a human body vessel into which a soul is to be placed. Yes, Kinzo managed to "create" someone who looked like his Beatrice, but we can tell from the scenes about her that she didn't act anything remotely like what Kinzo expected. "Everyone calls me Beatrice the Golden Witch, but I know no magic." And then, before he could turn her into the person he wanted, Rosa ended up killing her for some reason (let's just call it an accident for now). Take note that, according to Natsuhi in EP5, this year is the one when Kinzo grew even more obsessed with black magic.

So, Kinzo's next step seems obvious. He couldn't brainwash the second Beatrice so easily, so he found a place to collect children with some acting training starting at a young age. It is hard to know if this was part of Kinzo's plan, but Kumasawa appeared to one of these children and taught her the rules of magic. If you look closely at Beatrice's flashback scene, "turning the cat into the perpetrator" is an example of the gold text rule of magic. If both people present believe in the magic and all other witnesses are fooled by it, then it retrospectively becomes the truth. So, the first rule of magic was taught to Sayo by Kumasawa, and the second rule was merely a technique she learned from Fukuin.

A warning here. I'm not saying that Kinzo is trying to brainwash Sayo. That's not a very precise or fitting term. However, if you combine the first and second rules of magic, you have someone not only able to put themselves into the shoes of a character, but actually believe that success will transform them, retrospectively, into that character. Remember that this is a gold truth, so it's only true if all witnesses agree that it is the truth. In Sayo's eyes, if she can convince Kinzo that she is Beatrice, then Kinzo will be reunited with Beatrice, if only for a short time. Since Kinzo constantly says "if only I could just see your smile, hear your voice one more time!!" we can assume that this would be enough to satisfy him if he could force himself to believe it.

And we have even more evidence. It seems that Sayo actually felt some affection for and pitied Kinzo. If you remember the scene in EP2 where Kanon watches an invisible Beatrice standing behind Kinzo, take a look at her behavior. She seemed truly sad that Kinzo couldn't "see" her even though she was so close by. And of course, she mentions the line "without love, it cannot be seen".

A little comment on that line. To make it easier to understand, let's rephrase it as "without trust, it cannot be seen". If you don't trust someone, you won't believe anything they say unless they can prove it. However, if you trust someone very strongly, you will believe as long as it isn't something ridiculous. If your trust is strong enough that it reaches the point of outright love, then you can sometimes believe in them even if your better judgment tells you that what they say is impossible. According to Beatrice, Kinzo's love was just not strong enough to see her. Translation: Kinzo's toxin was too great for him to believe Sayo was Beatrice, no matter how much she tried and no matter how closely she was able to replicate Beatrice's manner. The anti-magic toxin is lack of trust, the opposite of love.

So, to sum up, we have Sayo acting as a possible third Beatrice for Kinzo. As we so often hear, Kinzo has been experimenting with the -on servants. This doesn't necessarily mean he's been doing magical ceremonies or medical experiments on them, though he might have tried that too. The reason the -on servants stay in their roles 24-7 is to give them a chance to practice being someone else and become totally absorbed by the roles. As many stories will attest to, if you play a part long enough, you start to become the part over a period of several years.

Since Genji is so incredibly close to Kinzo and even calls himself furniture, we can assume that he knows and is helping to protect Sayo's secret. EP6 describes him as a father figure to her, which further supports this. Genji is the head servant, so he has the ability to change the schedules for the servants around as long as Natsuhi isn't ticked off about something. Kumasawa is known for "watching on from the shadows", so she might not help Sayo openly. It's even possible that Sayo doesn't know Kumasawa is Virgilia, since the stakes are unaware of this in EP3 and Beatrice says that she hasn't seen Virgilia in quite a long time. Though that gets into the next part of the theory.

I'll stop there for now. I told you it was long.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

One last thing about the Author theory again...



When I saw this back in Episode 4, I joked to my friend that, "Of course they'd be scared. As soon as they become Creator they have to deal with schedules, editors and publishing companies!"

That was when I was came up with the theory that Voyagers are like readers and Creators are like writers, like Maria (and her diary.)

So it's clear who Featherine is... now that she's making Bernkastel write the next story. She's an editor! *gasp*

Something I’ve always thought was strange was when Bernkastel and Lambdadelta appeared to be speaking to someone who was not present in the meta-world. Strangely, this has only occurred at the end of the first two games (the letters in the bottles).

The assumption was that they were speaking to Battler, but he was not shown and they never used his name. Some interesting quotes to consider:

• Episode 1, Bernkastel: “But you really are pitiful, so I'll help you out just a bit. First of all, about that girl... She does have the name Beatrice, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she is 'one individual woman'. See what I mean? In other words, she's not some human. Her existence is a personification of the rules of this world.”
• Episode 1, Bernkastel: “You are my game piece. Give it your best shot. I'll give you advice sometimes, out of her sight. Don't bore me okay? *giggle*giggle*giggle*”
• Episode 2, Bernkastel: “You are now just like I was in the past, when I was imprisoned inside Lambda's world. Shut inside a labyrinth of cruel fate, tormented by a witch, in a manner of speaking. I am a witch who was born from there. So maybe I'm like an older sister to you. So I decided that I'd lend you my power. However, even compared to my fate, yours is, truly brutal. Not only do I sympathize with you, I'm almost brought to tears by your tragic fate.”
• Episode 2, Lambdadelta: “That Beato, she's having fun torturing some piece called Rosa. At a glance, you'd think she has a really bad habit, right? Wrong. She's just killing time, hoping that you'll stand back up and return. It's a move to fire up your righteous indignation by intentionally doing something detestable.”
• Episode 2, Lambdadelta: “Ah! Don't tell anyone that I helped you out just a little bit! I mean, it's not like I helped you because I wanted to save you, okay?!”

I wonder if it was Kanon who wrote the letters in the bottles...

Bernkastel and Lambdadelta may have been speaking directly to the author of the first two stories who also happened to be a piece on the game boards. If that’s true then it’s possible that Bernkastel and Lambdadelta may have been speaking to Kanon at the end of the first two games. Maybe it was Shannon who persuaded Kanon to write in Maria’s book if, due to her shift, she was not on the island at the time.

Bernkastel was Battler’s ‘ally’ for the first four games but I think it would be an interesting twist if Kanon was Bernkastel’s piece for the first four games.

I think the fourth quote on the list above fits Kanon very well considering the magic scene shown in episode 6 where he puts Rosa out of her misery.

Kanon’s corpse is always missing but that may be due to him going after ‘Beatrice’ by himself each game.

If all of that were true then Kanon was fighting against ‘Beatrice’ all along. If Shannon is Beatrice then the duel between them, which was shown in episode 6, has significance beyond just attaining love. They said it was a duel of necessity but if Shannon and Kanon are different people there is no need for a duel. However, this theory might provide a reason for the duel.

[rogerpepitone]

(Haven't looked through chronotrig's spoilers, so I may repeat something he said.)

Comment: For each of episodes 1-4, there is one murder for which it focuses heavily on the exact whereabouts of every other living character. In Ep 1: Kanon, Ep 2: Jessica, Ep 3: Nanjo, Ep 4: Battler. (Natsuhi's death in ep. 1 had all remaining suspects together, that fact isn't really stressed, while the presence of alibis for Kanon's death are brought up repeatedly.)

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Ssol

[*]Episode 2, Bernkastel: “You are now just like I was in the past, when I was imprisoned inside Lambda's world. Shut inside a labyrinth of cruel fate, tormented by a witch, in a manner of speaking. I am a witch who was born from there. So maybe I'm like an older sister to you. So I decided that I'd lend you my power. However, even compared to my fate, yours is, truly brutal. Not only do I sympathize with you, I'm almost brought to tears by your tragic fate.”

Wait, what?

In EP6, Lambda said that Bern became a witch to escape from a logic error she was trapped in by an incompetent game master who lost sight of her goals. So if Bern was born from Lambda's game, then wouldn't that mean Lambda was actually talking about herself? Is she tagging along with Bernkastel because she feels guilty?

But Featherinne said that Bern was also her longest-serving miko, which implies that Bern was acting in a piece role for her. Bern also said that Feather was the one who "taught her the taste of human flesh". So what's their relationship, if Feather didn't create her?

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Wait, what?

In EP6, Lambda said that Bern became a witch to escape from a logic error she was trapped in by an incompetent game master who lost sight of her goals. So if Bern was born from Lambda's game, then wouldn't that mean Lambda was actually talking about herself? Is she tagging along with Bernkastel because she feels guilty?

That is interesting that Lambda would talk about herself that way.

Well, Lambda wanted to be the one pushing someone into hell to avoid being the one going to hell.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

But Featherinne said that Bern was also her longest-serving miko, which implies that Bern was acting in a piece role for her. Bern also said that Feather was the one who "taught her the taste of human flesh". So what's their relationship, if Feather didn't create her?

If you’re correct and Bern was Featherine’s piece in Lambda’s game then that implies that the game in the past was actually between Featherine and Lambda.

Ryukishi is trolling us by the making us think the game was Higurashi and the players were Hanyuu and Takano with Rika as Hanyuu’s piece.

I think the extra TIPS might give some additional clues regarding the game that occurred in the past:
Lambda’s Diary
Bern’s Letter

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

As I've shown before, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that Fukuin trains people on how to act.

How do the examples you've cited constitute evidence and not simply conjecture? There's no evidence that I see that proves Fukuin trains people to be Beatrice.

Even then... although I can see how this would prove Shannontrice (not that there isn't enough hints towards that already), and while I can also see where you'd go with this to get to Shkannon, I really don't see how this could disprove them just being different people with the same training.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Sorry, didn't realize I had a time limit on this thing. No, I don't have a scene like you're describing off the top of my head, but the Umineko series has over 750,000 words long to date, so there might be something.

I think until next next fall when episode 7 comes out is a very decent time limit. All I said was that you should take a day to think on it. I don't want anything immediately

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Let me try and explain what I mean by trust. Earlier, you stated more or less that you don't care what the openings of EP2 and EP4 had in them because they aren't part of the mystery. However, Ryuukishi put them in, filling up nearly a quarter of one game and a third of another. And yet, with your interpretation, all of that is little more than wasted space. Am I wrong? What do you think the point of those sections was? If it's character development, what kind, and why was it worth taking up such a huge chunk of the game?

I don' t think I ever stated that I don't care about the openings of ep 2 and 4. I think Renall pointed out you can ignore them. I explained part of this, but if you want me take more consideration of what kind of character development Ryukishi was going for I think I can do that.

[chronotrig]

Spoiler for chrono:

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

How do the examples you've cited constitute evidence and not simply conjecture? There's no evidence that I see that proves Fukuin trains people to be Beatrice.

Even then... although I can see how this would prove Shannontrice (not that there isn't enough hints towards that already), and while I can also see where you'd go with this to get to Shkannon, I really don't see how this could disprove them just being different people with the same training.

This is where I disagree about the best way to solve Umineko. Because of the magic scenes and the like, it is flat out impossible to prove anything beyond any doubt except for the red text. To solve the series, you need to make a few guesses and follow them out to their logical conclusion. Assuming that all games are connected and follow the same rules, this should be possible to do, and assuming that Ryuukishi has created a fair game, there should be hints spread throughout all games that all point to the true theory. All I need to do at this point is show that this particular form of Shkanontrice has more hints going for it and explains more elements of the backstory than any other theory I've seen. Call it a temporary theory, which is convincing but only somewhat convincing at this point. So far, I think I've shown that pretty much all backstory elements can be tied together to at least suggest Shannontrice.

Anyways, about the Shkanon instead of Shannontrice part. Once you can accept that much, you find several apparent contradictions. (sorry for repeating myself here) First off, the several scenes where Kanon is impossibly silent. In those, he's behaving exactly like Ange's furniture and Shannon's Beatrice. There is no particular reason for him to be described this way so often, so we can be fairly sure that this is either a hint or a troll for Shkanon. I can't prove which it is, but let's assume it isn't a troll for the time being.
If you read through the start of EP2 again, you'll realize that Kinzo is the only other person who sees Kanon, except for the time around the cultural festival...and Kinzo doesn't count since he knows everything.

If this fact existed in total isolation, it would be meaningless, but since we have the silent Kanon hinting that he might be furniture, a concept described at length elsewhere, we have to suspect that Shannon is the only one actually on duty here. The point here is not to prove a theory. The point is to make a guess and follow it to its logical conclusion. If Shannon is Kanon, are there ever any scenes that contradict that by showing them together? You'll find there are none in the question arcs, as long as you assume that a Kanon visible to us might exist only in Shannon's mind AND that scenes Battler doesn't see are based on hearsay and Battler's own assumptions. (part of the gold text rule, I can clarify if you want)

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Renall

There are hints that someone is capable of disguise ("Beatrice"). That said, Dlanor denies anyone disguising as Rosa. But since there is evidence of at least one other person using a disguise, I don't think prohibiting disguising as Rosa immediately precludes everyone.

That said, I don't believe anyone is disguising as one of the other people on the island, but if they were, there is at least some small bit of evidence that someone on the island is skilled at disguise.

I think there are plenty of hints all over the place for a person disguising themselves as another. What I said in my post about the Rosa red earlier is basically that hints that it's possible to disguise as Rosa were not the kinds of hints that Dlanor wanted. For some reason even though all the evidence was available that someone could possibly dress themselves up to look like Rosa Dlanor was able to say there were no clues for it. So I think Clues = Foreshadowing. It's possible that someone could disguise themselves as Rosa. wigs exist and her clothes exist on the island, but if none of the dialogue in the story points to that happening it would be unfair to the reader for the author to allow that to happen. I was using Chessboard thinking for why Dlanor made that red. I think that was a good hint for what we need to look for to satisfy Knox's 10th. And I think that it was purposely put in episode 5 as an example of that.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Judoh

I think there are plenty of hints all over the place for a person disguising themselves as another. What I said in my post about the Rosa red earlier is basically that hints that it's possible to disguise as Rosa were not the kinds of hints I think Dlanor wanted. For some reason even though all the evidence was available that someone could possibly dress themselves up to look like Rosa Dlanor was able to say there were no clues for it. So I think Clues = Foreshadowing. It's possible that someone could disguise themselves as Rosa, but if none of the dialouge in the story points to that happening it would be unfair to the reader to allow that to happen. I was using Chessboard thinking for why Dlanor made that red.

Couldn't you also argue that Dlanor said that because "there's never been any evidence for someone dressing up as Rosa anywhere in the series"? That statement would also be true. If that's the case, it should be possible to use evidence from one game and apply it to another, assuming that the same conditions that make a person use a disguise in one game also apply to the other games.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Couldn't you also argue that Dlanor said that because "there's never been any evidence for someone dressing up as Rosa anywhere in the series"? That statement would also be true. If that's the case, it should be possible to use evidence from one game and apply it to another, assuming that the same conditions that make a person use a disguise in one game also apply to the other games.

You could, but Like I said there is plenty of evidence that someone could disguising themselves as another. Especially in episode 2 with Jessica cosplaying and singing Tsurrepettan. From Dlanor's perspective though she thinks it would be unfair to allow that in the story without some kind of Dialogue to foreshadow it. There has to be something else besides evidence I think. That's just my interpretation, of course.