[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jTiKey]

http://www.mangareader.net/umineko-n...lden-witch/1/2

LOL. About, how shkanon gets confirmation.

Because of course what the Kanon of a fantasy scene

Like every scene in EP7 and 8

also devious and set on killing everyone

You probably are missing that he was still alive at the 1st scene, and was already proclamed dead at the second one.
-------------
If shkshit is true, does that mean Battler has four digits per hand?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by jTiKey

http://www.mangareader.net/umineko-n...lden-witch/1/2

LOL. About, how shkanon gets confirmation.

I think it was already mentioned but we don't know if Ep 1-4 respected Knox and Van Dine. As there's plenty of mystery books who don't, included the Agatha Christie's books who clearly inspired Umineko here and there, I wouldn't laugh much.

Also:

R If everything happens in complete accordance to Van Dine’s 20 Rules of Detective Fiction, then the motive becomes basically obsolete and is removed from the cornerstones of the story. So that’s how it became my goal to eliminate the 20 rules and how they vanished from Umineko.

and

K The one Van Dine Rule I pained myself about which actually appeared in Red was „It is forbidden for servants to be the culprit!“. Is there a gameboard to which it can actually be applied?

R I actually inserted that Red to test whether a player had understood the true culprit in the fullest sense. People who did not understand would clearly be mislead.

=which likely means the thing works in the same way as an overmentioned Christie's book. The culprit is presenting himself/herself as a servant but he actually is not/isn't anymore.

Originally Posted by jTiKey

Like every scene in EP7 and 8

I seriously doubt Ep 7 contained solely fantasy scenes. Likely Jessica was pranked in her past, Maria suffered for her lack of father and met a person who claimed to be Beatrice, Kinzo met a woman named Beatrice, came into possession of the gold stealing it from Italians, had a relation with Beatrice's daughter and the same applies for many other scenes.

But anyway which is your point? What would make that scene more believable than the others? If, according to the Rosatrice theory, we're supposed to wave away Ep 7 & 8 as fantasy, why not that scene?

And anyway honestly I was hoping in stronger hints by a theory that aims to replace the official one, expecially considering you came here and asked for the solution of the official theory to be basically spelled in red and all I get is as circumstancial as saying that Jessica did it because she's blond as Beatrice.

Really, I'm disappointed. I was hoping for much more from the Rosatrice theory.

Originally Posted by jTiKey

You probably are missing that he was still alive at the 1st scene, and was already proclamed dead at the second one.

'Kanon was killed in this room'

...this room meaning Jessica's room and that's the only "proclamation" we have of Kanon's death.

Originally Posted by jTiKey

If shkshit is true, does that mean Battler has four digits per hand?

Uh? He counted five bodies (Rudolf, Kirye, Rosa, Krauss, Gohda), then was lead to think there was a 6th by Hideyoshi and Kanon staring at a point out of his vision... which would stop him from counting them all with one single hand.

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Anybody on Rokkenjima might have motive to kill any single other person, but kill everybody?

Also, the killer lacks an exit strategy. Whatever else happens, the next day will have the killer one of the few (only?) people left on the island. Any such person is naturally going to fall under suspicion.
Sure, Hideyoshi might have reason to kill Rudolf (to pull two names out of a hat), but why would he do such a crime on Rokkenjima? Why not do it off the island, where the suspect pool is way larger?

Yes, that's the general problem of explaining what happened to Rokkenjima.
Theoretically it's possible to assume that, as Prime isn't a mystery book but it's supposedly placed in the real world, we didn't have a single culprit, some deaths were due to incident, suicide and so on and that the culprits didn't act out of a premeditate scheme but due to impulse. Of course the number of deaths is so hight that even assuming this makes it as a really weird case of coincidences.

I remember in the past I tried making a random outline of how it was technically possible (although improbable even if it gets used in other stories who liked to deal with weird coincidences). But I think in the end, unless we get more clues, theorizing on what happened to Prime in details end up being pointless as, as of now, there's really too little info.

All we have is Ryukishi's hint we should suspect of the adults.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Anybody on Rokkenjima might have motive to kill any single other person, but kill everybody?

Yeah, that's one of the biggest problems with any of the potential culprits on Rokkenjima Prime. For example, George. Purple truth in ep 8 aside, George has said some things in the games which suggest he'd do anything in order to be together with Shannon. And his image song is really, really creepy. Plus, he's one of the few people that Eva would have covered for, and he's also somebody that Yasu might not have been willing to go against if she knew something was up. At first glance I would have thought he was a decent potential culprit.

However...there isn't actually anything that his family could do to stop him and Shannon. Rather than being crazed over needing money ASAP, George has shown signs of wanting to make his fortune on his own. If he didn't have his family's approval for his marriage, that wouldn't stop him. There isn't really anything for George to gain by murdering everyone on the island. Not his family, not the servants.

I can think of a motive for George to kill Battler, though. But that's only one person. An oops-Battler-must-have-fallen-off-the-cliff murder disguised as an accidental death, maybe. Other than that, George might kill someone if things went out of hand and people went crazy with paranoia, but that's not a special motive for him; there are plenty of characters who could do that. Or...there's always the Kinzo-style insanity option, where he might kill everyone if Shannon died. Judging by Ryukishi's interviews, George isn't somebody who would flip out and start killing people upon finding out that his fiancee wasn't born a woman, so that's an unlikely motive.

So...it boils down mostly to a motive to kill one person but not all, and an insanity option. And George is one of the ones who seems the most plausible to me, even. Plenty of the others have even weaker motives in my opinion. In the end basically all the potential culprits don't have sufficient motives, which leaves the options of an accident (from sitting on tons of improperly stored explosives...) and misunderstandings leading to paranoia and shooting people.

[detra]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I think it was already mentioned but we don't know if Ep 1-4 respected Knox and Van Dine. As there's plenty of mystery books who don't, included the Agatha Christie's books who clearly inspired Umineko here and there, I wouldn't laugh much.

=which likely means the thing works in the same way as an overmentioned Christie's book. The culprit is presenting himself/herself as a servant but he actually is not/isn't anymore.

There's also the fact that Willard didn't even use that red on Uminekos game board but for an entirely different mystery.

But seriously, what's the point of arguing with someone who obviously doesn't see anything but Rosatrice as the truth? Just look at this statement

If shkshit is true, does that mean Battler has four digits per hand?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Yeah, that's one of the biggest problems with any of the potential culprits on Rokkenjima Prime. For example, George. Purple truth in ep 8 aside, George has said some things in the games which suggest he'd do anything in order to be together with Shannon. And his image song is really, really creepy. Plus, he's one of the few people that Eva would have covered for, and he's also somebody that Yasu might not have been willing to go against if she knew something was up. At first glance I would have thought he was a decent potential culprit.

However...there isn't actually anything that his family could do to stop him and Shannon. Rather than being crazed over needing money ASAP, George has shown signs of wanting to make his fortune on his own. If he didn't have his family's approval for his marriage, that wouldn't stop him. There isn't really anything for George to gain by murdering everyone on the island. Not his family, not the servants.

I can think of a motive for George to kill Battler, though. But that's only one person. An oops-Battler-must-have-fallen-off-the-cliff murder disguised as an accidental death, maybe. Other than that, George might kill someone if things went out of hand and people went crazy with paranoia, but that's not a special motive for him; there are plenty of characters who could do that. Or...there's always the Kinzo-style insanity option, where he might kill everyone if Shannon died. Judging by Ryukishi's interviews, George isn't somebody who would flip out and start killing people upon finding out that his fiancee wasn't born a woman, so that's an unlikely motive.

So...it boils down mostly to a motive to kill one person but not all, and an insanity option. And George is one of the ones who seems the most plausible to me, even. Plenty of the others have even weaker motives in my opinion. In the end basically all the potential culprits don't have sufficient motives, which leaves the options of an accident (from sitting on tons of improperly stored explosives...) and misunderstandings leading to paranoia and shooting people.

Yes, theoretically we can go and try to have different culprits for the various murders but it's pretty hard to picture a single culprit.
I can for example assume that:
- Krauss did comit suicide unable to bear any longer hiding Kinzo's deaht and in hope this would stop his siblings from going against his family and his suicide note wasn't seen, leading people to believe he killed himself... or Jessica and Natsuhi couldn't accept the note as real and believed someone had staged his death.
- Rosa losing it and merely trying to beat Maria maybe while they're in the garden and ending up killing her by mistake then being shocked by it, backwalking and stabbing herself on the fence, as suggested by Ep 3
- someone attacking someone else who had a gun and ending up getting shoot or killed (always in Ep 3 but also in the teaparty of Ep 7)
- Nanjo or Genji or Kumasawa conveniently having a heart attack due to their old age and possibly the strain.
- George, Battler and Jessica having a fight which might end with one of them getting seriously hurt or even killed even though that wasn't the purpose (George, Battler and Jessica are all represented as pretty strong and versed to fight so they could have ended up doing more damage then they planned)
- someone conveniently tripping by the stairs or by the shore and dying
- general distrust among the surviving members who might be unaware of what had caused the others to die and might feel under pressure and threatened, ending up on attacking each other.

It's still a scaringly long list of incidents, coincidences and what else and anyway felt very much like Ep 4. We know people died but as we don't have reliable sources on how and when we can't really say how and when (only it's even worse as iin Prime's case we can't even say where on the island they died...).

So really, solving Prime is more or less impossible.

Originally Posted by detra

There's also the fact that Willard didn't even use that red on Uminekos game board but for an entirely different mystery.

But seriously, what's the point of arguing with someone who obviously doesn't see anything but Rosatrice as the truth? Just look at this statement

You're probably right.

[Leafsnail]

Or it could just be Kyrie. But ultimately I guess Umineko isn't really about who the true culprit is on R-Prime, so it's not a mystery we can really solve completely.

Also, Yasu a) is the head of the family, not a servant and b) is probably not the R-Prime culprit.

[ErenselTheJester]

Originally Posted by Renall

Arguably, Bern and Erika are right and that Golden Land doesn't exist anyway, except perhaps as an unattainable fantasy of Ange's imagination. Eva didn't die at her 1986 age (although Eva in ep8 acts like she both has and doesn't have her post-'86 memories anyway), Battler isn't even actually dead, and so forth. Allowing the Golden Land to exist is basically Ange's prerogative, so the disturbing implications of say Gohda (who has no family or close personal connection to anyone else) being "trapped" in the Golden Land whether he wanted to be there or not has nothing to do with "reality," where those people are simply dead. The whole thing with Tohya and Battler at the end of ep8 suggests either a metaphor for the former dying or just "allowing" the latter to escape to that mutual fantasy shared with him by "Yukari" so he can finally live as a person unburdened by Battler Ushiromiya's existence.

It's basically a pseudo-atheistic argument where the only "heaven" is conjured up by the living in the memory of the dead, so they behave as the living want and the living obviously can never join them there (if Ange dies, the fantasy of her memory dies with her unless it's shared)*.

The odd thing about trying to figure out what the Golden Land is that it has different interpretations for each character. So, while it's one thing for Ange, it was obviously a "heaven" for Maria and an "ideal world" of sorts for Beatrice. We can only agree that it's non- existent outside of the minds of its believers but, then again, that goes back to pseudo- atheism, right?

Originally Posted by jjblue1

The trick is in your own words. The family might have a substantial reason to kill each other and actually Umineko gave some:
money problems
discord between siblings deeply rooted in their past
Kinzo's death being hidden, which was a definite source of strain for Krauss and Natsuhi
Some siblings being prone at violent attacking each other
Instability of Rosa but likely, in a more subtle, tamer way, of Eva also
Kyrie and Rudolf's weak coscience

Also, although hinted way more vaguely, there could have been discord even between the cousins.

Now, all this doesn't necessarily have to cause someone to go on a murdering rampage in cold blood, and honestly I feel that EP 7 teaparty was way too strained to be believable, but it can lead to some accidents that might lead to others accidents in a sort of rock rolling down of a mountain and ending up creating an avalanche.
So it's possible the guys went there without planning to murder anyone but then something happened and things took a turn for worse.

Also Ryukishi clearly hinted that in Prime the adults did something.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

It's still a scaringly long list of incidents, coincidences and what else and anyway felt very much like Ep 4. We know people died but as we don't have reliable sources on how and when we can't really say how and when (only it's even worse as iin Prime's case we can't even say where on the island they died...).

So really, solving Prime is more or less impossible.

That's why I assume that their motives aren't substantial to cause a murder. While it is true that they have motives, it is hard to believe they would kill everyone on that basis. It is more believable if, like you said, one person killed someone else and that triggered the event. However, there is no info as to who did what, how, and when. Basically, the actual murders of Rokkenjima Prime are a blank canvas and the events can go any possible way that one can imagine. However, we can assume that there were no murders until the point of the explosion. That clears up the whole thing as a whole and only leaves the explosion as the sole cause of all the deaths. The only question is who caused the explosion and why.

Plus, there's also what Battler and Beatrice said to Ange about the family in EP 8 where Ange wondered why the family was so happy in their party and the two said that the family was always that happy. I would assume that this was a hint that the family, despite their problems, loved each other very much and the motives provided by the earlier games are an exaggeration of their more weaker aspects.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

While Yasu can have mental problems and likely had them, somehow I've heard time believing that, if she were to stage one of her games for real, it would have success. It requires quite a lot of cold blood from her but also from the accomplices, and a lot of luck. And, more important, it's sort of denied by the canon as Battler, while trying to escape with Beato, said she didn't kill anyone in their reality. My take of the scene is that Yasu might have thought to kill everyone, but either didn't have the gut to put her plan in action or was stopped.

So I'm more prone to think that Yasu only killed on the gameboard and, at best, she might have set up the conditions for the others to start killing, but didn't do the murders herself. Though we know so little about Prime that's hard to figure what really happened.

Yasu doesn't necessarily have to make her mystery fiction but she just needs to have a desire to kill them and her motives for doing so can range from a broken heart to a valueless view of life. As long as she feels justified for what she does, it doesn't require her to be "cold- blooded" or any amount of luck since all she has to do is flip the switch and wait until the bombs blow.

However, what you said is true since Battler didn't blame her. It is more than likely that she just simply blamed herself for what happened, possibly because she showed them the bomb and someone set it off.

[jTiKey]

I think it was already mentioned but we don't know if Ep 1-4 respected Knox and Van Dine.

LOL, why is it RED is the original, but black in the english ver.?

He counted five bodies

Read please.




Oh wait. I found how EP3 is solved:

[Drifloon]

Except he didn't look closely at Shannon's "body", not even closely enough to see that it was Shannon. Her name is the only one he doesn't mention. We can surmise that he saw something vaguely body-shaped, or even just inferred that there was a body there from the way the others were standing. This stuff has been discussed to death lots of times; these arguments aren't really anything new, you know.

[jTiKey]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Except he didn't look closely at Shannon's "body", not even closely enough to see that it was Shannon. Her name is the only one he doesn't mention. We can surmise that he saw something vaguely body-shaped, or even just inferred that there was a body there from the way the others were standing. This stuff has been discussed to death lots of times; these arguments aren't really anything new, you know.

the identities of all unidentified corpses are guaranteed

Guess, how many did he see? Hint: it was more then he had fingers on his hand.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Did you not read ep5?

Did you see that yourself, Miss Detective...? It may be true that all corpses, no matter whose, would not lead to a mistaken autopsy, ......but it has never been said that there was a rule against something other than a corpse being called a corpse.

I'd recommend everyone to just add you to their ignore list and just starve you off attention since that seems to be the only reason why you post.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jTiKey

the identities of all unidentified corpses are guaranteed

Well, Shannon was not unidentified, Hideyoshi and Kanon said she still had half her face and when they replied to George's question whether that body had a ring on it's hand it gave additional credibility to the identity of any possible body.

Guess, how many did he see? Hint: it was more then he had fingers on his hand.

EDIT: Managed to find the scene in a playthrough:

服装でわかる。
・・・・・・ウチのクソ親父に、霧江さん。・・・蔵臼伯父さんに楼座伯母さん。・・・・・・向こうは、・・ ・郷田さんに、・・・まだいるのか？何人死んでんだよ・・・。・・・・・・ふざけんなよ、片手じゃ折る指が 足りねぇぞ、畜生ぉおおおぉッ！！！

Which closely translates to something like:

You knew from their clothes. .......next to my bloody old man is Kyrie-san. ...Next to Krauss-ojisan is Rosa-obasan. ....over there, ...next to Gohda-san, ...are there more? That's too many deaths........you're fucking kidding me, I already ran out of fingers on one hand, son of a bitch!!!

Still, thank you Higurashi-Z!
Yeah, he basically starts with, "Next to Gohda...is there even more?!" which is likely because of Hideyoshi and Kanon positioning themselves in the far back.

[Higurashi-Z]

Can somebody please look up that line in the Japanese script? I'm searching for it, but can only find the Japanese scripts of Episode 4-6...
And my Umineko game-disc is not in my reach right now.

He is wrong. Battler only said that it couldn't fit in one hand after counting 5 and saying "まだいるのか?" but is never said that he saw 6 people there. But he thought that could be more than 5 because how people were standing there.

[jTiKey]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Did you not read ep5?

Did you see that yourself, Miss Detective...? It may be true that all corpses, no matter whose, would not lead to a mistaken autopsy, ......but it has never been said that there was a rule against something other than a corpse being called a corpse.

I'd recommend everyone to just add you to their ignore list and just starve you off attention since that seems to be the only reason why you post.

THAT WAS RONOVE'S BLUE TRUTH regarding Virgilia's red truth about the "at a glance everybody could confirm that they are dead". But who am I talking to?..

What about Will said about Shannon's dead face? How ridicilously will you interpret that?

[Pocuma]

Even though I find it entertaining with alternative theories, I have a really hard time buying the whole Rosatrice theory… Mostly because I, sadly, haven’t actually found anyone that can give a good explanation of how it’s supposed to work. I remember watching KNM’s video, but it’s hard to remember things since it was so long and overall confusing. (And the Wiki-page about it is… a mess to put it lightly. )

But I am still genuinely curious about it and would like to have it explain properly. I personally believe that ShaKanontrice is what Ryukishi intended as the solution, but that doesn’t make other theories are less interesting to read about if they are well done.

One big issue I with Rosatrice have is that I cannot understand how Rosa is supposed to have been able to fake her whole face being smashed in the first episode… (the whole “fake drug” things seems very farfetched and doesn’t really have any foreshadowing at all…).
Another one would be the whole George-as-an-accomplice since killing all his relatives would be either extremely unnecessary or downright counterproductive if his goal is to build a new life with Shannon/Sayo. And wouldn’t the purple truth (which is supposed to be regarded as the same thing as red truth as long as it’s not spoken by the culprit) about him not being able to kill adults stop him from being the murderer of Ep5 (which was the case according to the theory if I do not recall wrong.)
I also find it impossible to connect Yasu before she became Beatrice/“Clair” to Rosa… It’s hard afterwards as well, but it’s still possible to twist it enough for it to… sorta work. But I cannot seem to find any way connecting Rosa and Yasu-the-servant.
It’s also the thematic issues and the fact that you have to throw out pretty much all of Ep7 and Ep8…

This is me being genuinely curious about the theory. I would find it interesting if any Rosatrice-fan (or anyone for that matter) could answer this kind of things properly instead of just circling around and not actually answering the question(s).

[Cao Ni Ma]

It would really help if any Rosatrice backers would answer the post I quoted from Renall bullet by bullet.

I know its a daunting task but it shouldn't be an issue if there is a wealth of evidence that points to it right? It would go a long way in creating a coherent theory, something that a lot of Rosatrice believers actually think exists already but dont understand that there is a whole lot of fallacious thinking going around.

And wouldn’t the purple truth (which is supposed to be regarded as the same thing as red truth as long as it’s not spoken by the culprit) about him not being able to kill adults stop him from being the murderer of Ep5 (which was the case according to the theory if I do not recall wrong.)

According to Erika, George and the others were outright murdered shortly after the call to Natsuhi. Everything she's said regarding EP5 and 6 should be the deathknell for any Rosatrice theory. As if Will's denouement in EP7 wasnt enough or our confessions. Hell, even the fighting games points to Shkanon and has Rosa being an unwitting tool to Beatrice.

[Pocuma]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

According to Erika, George and the others were outright murdered shortly after the call to Natsuhi.

Did she say that in red? Or was it a theory of hers? Because their time of death wasn't defined in ep5, was it? (Please correct me if I’m wrong. It was a long time since I read it.) If it’s not in red, then it is still possible to argue that she’s wrong in her reasoning . (I don’t believe she's wrong, but it’s still possible if we follow the “only red truth can be trusted”-logic that seems to be the root of Rosatrice.)

Edit: Wait... Wasn't it Krauss who was killed after the call?

[Cao Ni Ma]

She didn't in EP8s manga, but given Battler's reactions I'd say she was right.

This isn't the VNs EP5, sorry for the confusion.

[Pocuma]

Ah, alright.


I also have a question for jTiKey; What about ShKanontrice is it you have problem with? The whole death-of-a-role/identity thing? I mean… the whole “that person is dead” concept has been around in a lot of other works… The StarWars example about Darth Vader probably being the most famous one. So what is the problem with it?

[Leafsnail]

I'll take a shot at the Rosa-as-Shkannon problem, why not.

By the time Rosa was born, Kinzo was already losing his mind and becoming obsessed with Beatrice-2, while his wife was deeply depressed. That means that Rosa was heavily neglected during her childhood, and was effectively raised by the maids who worked there. They resented her due to her status.

From there I think it sortof works. Rosa decides to try and work in order to gain the respect of the people around her. As such she develops the Shannon personality. The others arise as shown in ep7.

After the death of Beatrice-II and her daughter, Kinzo gets desperate. But when he discovers that Rosa has solves the epitaph he realizes something - his Beatrice was always here, and he had just been ignoring her. Or possibly he decides that the Beatrice title is gained by killing the previous Beatrice. Kinzo therefore recognizes Rosa as Beatrice and the next head.

Or if you want something really confusing: Rosa is Beatrice-II

edit: You know what, I'm gonna write this up as a crack theory. As a little hint for what's to come: On Rokkenjima, there was a woman named Ushiromiya Natsuhi, who was trapped in a loveless marriage. One day, she was given a child that was not her own, and was told to care for it.