[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Renall]

Yeah, but Banquet is easier than Turn even if you don't have Battler's meta-discussions. If you filtered out everything but the magic (Beatrice's FT, Eva-Beatrice's various magic scenes), the episode is still pretty much solvable with minimal fuss.

[AuraTwilight]

Unless the Evatrice thing is a total redherring, which would thus fool everyone and raise the difficulty in that regard.

[Renall]

At the time, the stated goal was to deny witches. Consequently finding "a solution" and finding "the correct solution" would be functionally equivalent.

Obviously even then most of us were more concerned with what did happen than merely what could have happened, but it still would've sort of been a win.

However, any sensible analysis of the facts of ep3 exonerates Eva anyway, but that hardly means a solution cannot be found.

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah, but Banquet is easier than Turn even if you don't have Battler's meta-discussions. If you filtered out everything but the magic (Beatrice's FT, Eva-Beatrice's various magic scenes), the episode is still pretty much solvable with minimal fuss.

They did say the difficulty went from "high" in Turn to "equal" in Banquet.

[Kylon99]

Maybe I missed the discussion, but I thought that all of this was just him breaking the fourth wall in episode 8. I mean, hordes of brainless goat butlers with incompetent theories, Lamdadelta asking us to vote for her in the character polls (Bernkastel: "Who are you talking to?"), the Witch Hunters clamoring for juicy details from the diary...

Could Land be just another lighthearted reference?

[ClannadDango]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Maybe I missed the discussion, but I thought that all of this was just him breaking the fourth wall in episode 8. I mean, hordes of brainless goat butlers with incompetent theories, Lamdadelta asking us to vote for her in the character polls (Bernkastel: "Who are you talking to?"), the Witch Hunters clamoring for juicy details from the diary...

Could Land be just another lighthearted reference?

Yeah I though it seems like he broke the 4th wall alot more.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

That's how I remember it. I'm still very skeptical of this idea that "Land" was the best episode he ever made. If someone can find the interview please link it.

Yessir

http://community.livejournal.com/witchhunters/7366.html

R: Actually, the difficulty level in EP3 has been set much lower than originally planned. The original plan was to use "Land of the Golden Witch" as the subtitle and create a super hard game. Readers have already gone through EP1 and EP2, so I wanted to increase the difficulty level. But as everyone now knows, the difficulty level in EP3 "Banquet of the Golden Witch" only goes as far as being on "equal level". It's already much easier than EP2's "highest level". I wanted to see how much of the story the readers have grasped. Although there were many readers like Keiya-san who came up with answers for EP2 on their own, I believed many people will find the EP3 prototype too difficult to understand. Therefore, we've greatly lowered the difficulty level, and then added many sub-characters into the game to accommodate the readers. It's common practice in the gaming world to lower the difficulty level for the sequel if the players found the first game too hard.

K: There's this action game called "Chou Shittou" which I really like. The sequel for that game has also included an Easy level.

R: Exactly. That's why some of the content originally planned for the answer arc is now included in the revised version of EP3. Schrodinger's Cat is one of them. Initially we were planning on having the readers figure out on their own that in Rokkenjima, as-yet-confirmed things exist simultaneously (mystery and fantasy). But we thought it would be too difficult to fathom out, so we gave it away early. We ended up having to scrap "Land of the Golden Witch" altogether.

K: Some of the new mysteries introduced this time around have already been solved within the game itself. That hadn't happened before in either EP1 or EP2.

Regarding Land the interviewer basically asked if the stuff from Land was in episode 5 and he said he couldn't answer that in a panic, but he also said it's true that part of it is there and that some of the reds in episode 6 would have that content. Based on his reaction I think Ryukishi was just saying that if he answered that question it would be spoilers or something.

for reference the quote is here: http://community.livejournal.com/rokkenjima/188310.html

[Jan-Poo]

Well? That's exactly how I remembered it. There is no claim whatsoever that Land was the best episode or a particular important episode. It was just very hard, that's all.

[Renall]

Maybe he just couldn't come up with anything hard enough and had to drop it after exhausting his more difficult ideas. I mean, there's probably a reason Chiru never gets all that far. He at least managed enough good ideas to get to the end of ep4...

[Judoh]

In EP6, a huge bit of red text info will appear regarding this point......according to the current plan.

It's the first time I've noticed, but he said this as if he was going to answer some of the mysteries from Land in episode 6, and he left it open on whether he would do that. Maybe it was never put there...?

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Renall

I mean, there's probably a reason Chiru never gets all that far.

Actually, given that I still can't solve the letter puzzle (there not being a knock is one answer but it just doesn't feel like the correct answer to me) in Ep5 or the "There are only seventeen lololololol" puzzle (Given that neither Shannon, Kanon, nor Erika actually exist, no answer makes sense) in Ep6, I'd have to say that the difficulty of Chiru is relatively high.

"Difficulty" in the main menu seems to refer to something different than the difficulty of the puzzles, but we already knew that.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Maybe he just couldn't come up with anything hard enough and had to drop it after exhausting his more difficult ideas. I mean, there's probably a reason Chiru never gets all that far. He at least managed enough good ideas to get to the end of ep4...

I don't really think that's the point. Taking in account the fact that the "schroedinger cat" is what he considered to have lowered the difficulty, then the "difficulty" he's talking about is not something that is determined simply by the episode itself, it is actually very dependent on what the readers already know.

In other words if we were to read Land now, Ryuukishi would probably consider it easy.


By the same logic, EP5 that was considered "easy" because "what can trick you at this point?" would have been most probably the hardest episode ever if it was released directly after EP2.

[ErenselTheJester]

So what you're saying is that Ryukishi doesn't judge based on the actual murders but the content of the game? I always figured that the difficulty was based on a singular problem such as "Is Beatrice real" in Turn and "Is Eva the culprit?" in Banquet.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Actually, given that I still can't solve the letter puzzle (there not being a knock is one answer but it just doesn't feel like the correct answer to me) in Ep5 or the "There are only seventeen lololololol" puzzle (Given that neither Shannon, Kanon, nor Erika actually exist, no answer makes sense) in Ep6, I'd have to say that the difficulty of Chiru is relatively high.

Yeah, but there's only like two of them. If he'd tried to put the ep5 knock, first twilight disappearing corpses, and Hideyoshi attack in and maintain a 4th-9th twilight, he'd still have to come up with one or two more mysteries. I'm saying maybe he ran out, and decided to parcel his better ideas out more slowly.

If I were him I certainly wouldn't have wanted to get to ep8 and realize I ran out of tricks.

[CrystalStarlight95]

Quick question: Are the culprits from Legend to Banquet the same people, or do they change each episode? I thought they were different people, but I was wondering.

I thought this "difficulty" thing was whether you could explain it all without magic? That would have to be assuming Beatrice is the "culprit" EP1-4. So as in it's hard to explain Turn but it got easier when Banquet came along...?

Btw, what exactly is a Creator, how can a Voyager become one, and why do Voyagers fear being Creator's so much? :O

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by CrystalStarlight95

Quick question: Are the culprits from Legend to Banquet the same people, or do they change each episode? I thought they were different people, but I was wondering.

I thought this "difficulty" thing was whether you could explain it all without magic? That would have to be assuming Beatrice is the "culprit" EP1-4. So as in it's hard to explain Turn but it got easier when Banquet came along...?

Btw, what exactly is a Creator, how can a Voyager become one, and why do Voyagers fear being Creator's so much? :O

A Creator is a being with the ability to create 1 from 0, a rare trait that the power Endless Witches pales against (they can only use their magic to multiply 1; no matter how much you multiply 0, it will always remain 0). Given this, Creators can create entire universes from nothing; they're not so much witches as they are gods.

It's not really known how Voyagers become Creators (to me, anyway). But the thing about all witches is that there is one lethal disease that can kill a witch:

Boredom.

Witches can literally die of boredom. So they constantly seek out ways to entertain themselves. Voyagers probably fear that their imaginations won't last them long enough to entertain themselves if they were to create their own things and staying in one place for all eternity, so they always wander the endless sea of possibilities in search of entertainment.

Maria shows potential to be a Creator. However, her pure heart and wild imagination are probably enough to last her for eternity, so long as she's always with Beatrice, always playing with her. That's why the two of them are enough to create their own universe: Maria makes one and Beatrice expands it for her.

[ClannadDango]

Did Ryukishi07 release any recent interviews concerning the Umineko EP8? I would like to hear his "hints" in solving this mystery. From his previous interviews he stated that those who are smart enough should solve the mystery by EP2, those who dig hard enough should solve it by EP4, and the rest should solve it by EP8.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

It's not really known how Voyagers become Creators (to me, anyway). But the thing about all witches is that there is one lethal disease that can kill a witch:

Remember Lambda's diary tip? Voyagers can become creators when they no longer acknowledge physical limitations like up or down or gravity. Well they can, but it's not something they'd want to do at all.

Originally Posted by ClannadDango

Did Ryukishi07 release any recent interviews concerning the Umineko EP8? I would like to hear his "hints" in solving this mystery. From his previous interviews he stated that those who are smart enough should solve the mystery by EP2, those who dig hard enough should solve it by EP4, and the rest should solve it by EP8.

I remember that he said in an interview before episode 8 was released that the mystery ended with episode 7.

[ClannadDango]

The guess the question with Umineko is if you do come to the right conclusion is there a way to determine whether your conclusion is correct. I think Ryukishi07 addressed this issue with the Queen's problem in Anti-Mystery vs Anti-Fanasty. But, for example, when I'm taking an exam which I won't see the individual answers (like the SAT) can I be sure I got a particular question right.

I wonder if Ryukishi07 wrote Umineko in a way in which if you solve it correctly you realized you have come to the correct answer or if you are still left in the dark. Everything I guess is still in the cat box. In quantum mechanic terms Umineko is still not solvable we see the cat.

[Mcjon01]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Remember Lambda's diary tip? Voyagers can become creators when they no longer acknowledge physical limitations like up or down or gravity. Well they can, but it's not something they'd want to do at all.

It's more than physical limitations, though, Creators are freed from all limitations -- including those imposed by meaning and identity. Makes sense, I guess. If Creators are the ones that can create one from the sea of zero, and the creation comes from themselves, then they themselves would be the "zero" here. That's probably what it means for a witch to "die" -- losing all sense of identity, and it explains why Voyagers fear becoming creators so much. It's power at the cost of everything that they are.

Of course, I could be wrong, since I'm having trouble reconciling all that with the whole "boredom is the sickness that kills witches" thing. :P