[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

That's a really, really, REALLY silly idea. I can't even take it seriously.

For starters, Asumu's parents should be able to testify. It's not like they're dead.

[WitchOfDoubt]

Spoiler for Unreliable narrators make everything work:

What if Asumu's parents really did insist that Battler was at home with them? Would it really sink this theory? None of the forgeries would actually include Battler, but that doesn't mean that the narration we see wouldn't include Battler.

If what we're seeing are Battler's re-enactments of the events in the bottles and forgeries in his own mind, and he "places himself on the island" as a detective in order to solve the crimes, where's the contradiction? The same thing is done with Erika in episodes 5 and 6, after all. In a sense, Battler is both a reader and an author here.

"Battler added himself to the stories" really does clear up a lot! It helps to explain how the writer of the bottles could have had advance knowledge of Battler's arrival - they didn't - and it creates an alternative solution to some of the red truth puzzles involving the number of people on the island. It gives a little more weight to the idea that "if Battler had solved the mystery, he could have been reunited with Ange," because it's actually true.

(Later on, we're flatly told that Battler never came home from the island. But does that strictly mean that he died during the conference, or that he even attended it? If he disappeared soon after the conference, after having been seen en route to the island, it would simply be lumped in with the mystery of Rokkenjima.

Perhaps he drowned himself to follow Beatrice to the grave.)

I don't think it's quite a serious theory to compete with, say, Shkanon. But it's not a joke interpretation, either. It's an attempt to see the story in a different way and try to square away a few plot points without invoking amnesia.

[AuraTwilight]

But the problem is that the Toya that Ange meets remembers being on Rokkenjima those days. He just can't emotionally connect with them. It's not that he couldn't reunite with her, it's because he wouldn't.

Also, Battler didn't write the original message bottles; so why is he in Legend and Turn? And what about the Reds that address Battler by name?

And what about Yasu going on her spiel about how if Battler didn't return that year, there wouldn't of been a tragedy?

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

For starters, Asumu's parents should be able to testify. It's not like they're dead.

No, They are dead. It is one of the very reasons why Battler came back.

[AuraTwilight]

Bah, I must have misremembered, then. Oh, well, my latter point still holds up. Toya remembers things about October 4th and 5th 1986, so...

[WitchOfDoubt]

I'm going to put this in spoiler-tags, so that people who aren't interested in this fringe theory can skip it. It's a stretch, but stretching keeps the muscles limber.

Spoiler for Battler Wasn't There:

But the problem is that the Toya that Ange meets remembers being on Rokkenjima those days. He just can't emotionally connect with them. It's not that he couldn't reunite with her, it's because he wouldn't.

If we want to insist on the truthfulness of the Magic ending, we can say that the suicide-by-drowning attempt failed and left him with brain damage. Is that much worse than the secret boat tunnel? Either way, he washes ashore.

It definitely gives Toya more of an understandable reason to want to hide from Ange. If the truth was "Battler died by suicide", I can see why he'd be even more unwilling to face Battler's sister.

Also, Battler didn't write the original message bottles; so why is he in Legend and Turn? And what about the Reds that address Battler by name?

The first is easy; he didn't write them, but he read them. Then, on the island, he reconstructed the scenes in them, imagining himself there.

The Reds that address Battler by name are the real challenge for this theory - though there are surprisingly few of them. The cheap way out is to say that the Red Truth only applies to the mysteries that Battler has written himself into, and that they don't apply to Rokkenjima prime. I'd rather make them work. I think that most can be beaten by having Battler "visit" locations and "exist in them" while he re-enacts the bottles from memory, but there is ONE that has me stumped. In EP4...

After the master keys came into Rosa's control, never did any of them leave her hands! Except for the time when she lent it to Battler to unlock Natsuhi's room.

This refers to episode 2's events, and is the only case where a direct interaction between Battler and someone else is confirmed in red. Not that he's "present" or "supervising", but actually interacting. If I could explain this one line, I think there'd be no Red Truth against the "Battler was on the island later" guess in the first four games.

And what about Yasu going on her spiel about how if Battler didn't return that year, there wouldn't of been a tragedy?

We're shown a possible world where Battler showed up and Yasu set a crazy plan into motion, followed by the use of a bomb to erase the traces. "It was because he returned that this happened", we're told - it was his return that triggered the plan.

Let's turn this around, then.

"If Battler returned, this would have led to murders." ->

"If there were no murders, then Battler never returned."

No murders happened. The bottles Yasu wrote remained as plans for a possible mystery, not descriptions of actual events, because Battler never showed up to play. The bomb went off by accident when the relatives solved the Epitaph and fiddled with the clock.

Bernkastel spends most of EP7 setting a trap for Lion - "I will show you a world where things went differently, and it still ends in tragedy." This trap doubles as a trap for Battler. "Even if you had been there, see how much worse things would have gone!"

[Remon]

That's impossible. Where did he go during the conference? Why did he leave Ange alone? This was never hinted in the story as well. And also how does Battler know all that stuff if he never went to the conference?
How did he know about Beatrice falling off a cliff when Rosa met her? It was not mentioned in the first two message bottles. Or anything about Yasu's memories at all?
Right. He must have been there.
Also red truths denying your theory : When Jessica's corpse was discovered, only Battler, George, Maria, Rosa, Genji, Gohda, Shannon, Kumasawa, and Nanjo were in Jessica's room
Beatrice died in October of 1986. Therefore, the Golden Land she created was completely destroyed. Your family, which was made to live in the Golden Land, was destroyed along with it. Your father, mother, and of course Battler...will never return to you again, and will never speak your name again.


EDIT
You also seem to have forgotten that Eva survived.

[Jaden]

I never got the appeal in wondering about whose pespective the story is told from. Narrators are just narrators, they don't have to be personified in any way. That's why we can see things that are not known to the human characters of the story, for example the meta-worlds can be thought of as such things.

That's why I'm also unnerved when people start speculating about which character authored which episode, and what characters have access to what information. The contents of the message bottles and the forgeries in the story need not be equal to the episodes of Umineko. Actually they can't be, unless Yasu was producing visual novels in 1986 and packing them in bottles. :P

Anyway, I would be careful when juxtaposing our perspective with that of some character in the story. Only the writer should be qualified to do that...we should take the story we're told at face value.

[Renall]

It should be noted that 100% of the narration is not, and has never been, Battler, even stripping out all fantasy elements and whatnot. The story periodically slips into a third-person narrator and at times goes directly into the thoughts of non-Battler characters or even what amounts to the first-person perspective of characters (notably Natsuhi in ep5 and kinda in ep1).

So those parts of the story... what do we say about their veracity and reliability? Sometimes it's very matter-of-fact narration, sometimes it's telling outright lies. And it can't really be ascribed to Battler in one sense or another, as it's not his point of view. The narrative features his POV, but it's definitely not exclusive.

EDIT: I should also note there are sequences here and there in the story that not only can neither Battler nor Yasu have witnessed, but that basically no one could possibly even know anything about to begin with. Some of the Rosa/Maria stuff, for example, at least the parts that aren't explicitly stated to be part of her diary... which, if it exists, there's no guarantee the author even had access to. So the author is, if nothing else, conjuring scenes whole cloth out of nowhere based either on outright speculation or impossible knowledge.

[Remon]

Originally Posted by Renall

EDIT: I should also note there are sequences here and there in the story that not only can neither Battler nor Yasu have witnessed, but that basically no one could possibly even know anything about to begin with. Some of the Rosa/Maria stuff, for example, at least the parts that aren't explicitly stated to be part of her diary... which, if it exists, there's no guarantee the author even had access to. So the author is, if nothing else, conjuring scenes whole cloth out of nowhere based either on outright speculation or impossible knowledge.

Maria could have easily told that to Beatrice. Beatrice is quite well informed about Maria's life, like how she knows that Sakutaro was handmade by Rosa. There was also that magical scene where Beatrice helps MARIA torture Rosa. Which brings us to the question : how did Tohya and Ikuko know that? The more I think about it the more Ikuko = Yasu seems plausible.

[Toku]

I know you guys already know this, but it seems like some of you forgot:
Red Truths have no bearing on what happened on Rokkenjima Prime. That is, the real world. They only apply to the worlds of the game boards. The game boards are just stories that either Yasu or the Hachijos wrote.

In fact, there is absolutely no need to try and argue that Battler wasn't on the game board, because even without that, you can easily claim that "Battler wasn't there on Prime." There is basically nothing you can say for certain about Prime other than "most people died" and "Eva and Battler (and possibly Yasu) survived" and "Ange wasn't there."

There's also no reason for Yasu to have needed to know about Battler's coming in 1986, in order to write the first two message bottles. Her purpose in writing those message bottles is vague, but this much about it should be certain: She wrote these stories to convey a message to Battler.

In those stories, Piece!Beatrice tried to invite Piece!Battler to the Golden Land. I personally assign these definitions to them:
-Piece!Beatrice symbolizes Yasu's feelings for Battler, which she could never come to terms with, and which she wanted to finally put to rest.
-The Golden Land symbolizes the dreams Yasu had for her future.

With those definitions, the whole thing ends up becoming a perfectly suitable metaphor for the message she wanted to convey to him. Following this, she used the epitaph as a device to create a method for Piece!Beatrice to open the door to the Golden Land, and an outline for the murder mystery game she wants to play with Battler.

Prime!Yasu probably never committed murder or anything like that. She just wrote stories, and hoped for Battler's return. I doubt the murder mystery game even happened in Prime, it was probably just the subject of the stories she wrote for him.

I doubt Prime!Yasu was even in a romantic relationship with either Jessica or George. Putting that in the stories was probably just her way of portraying her intense emotional turmoil, and attempting to develop these characters she made up as people. George probably was jealous of Battler, but Yasu seems to be perfectly aware of that. And while I can't find any evidence that she dislikes him, I can't find any evidence that she loves him either. It's not too hard to see how superficial the ShannonxGeorge relationship is in the stories. She's always asking him whether he's serious, and when he speaks of their future, he only mentions his business, the money he'll make, the house they'll have, etc. And Jessica just seems to be Yasu's childhood friend.

So really, I think Prime!Yasu only loves Battler.

Furthermore, I doubt that there really are 900 tons of explosives on Prime. I simply cannot come up with a reason for why the government would say "oh, hey, we'll just let this old rich guy do whatever he wants with them." But unfortunately, while I can't justify the existence of this huge bomb, I also can't figure out a way to cover up the equally huge number of plot holes it would create if the bomb doesn't exist. Certainly, I could say that it only exists within the world of the game board, but that still doesn't explain why Eva needed to go all the way to Kuwadorian to survive on Prime, and why all the evidence disappeared, and why Ange didn't see the mansion when she went there in EP4, and more.

And I do personally accept the Ikuko = Yasu theory, but if you want me to explain my reasons for that, I'll do so in another post.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Narrators are just narrators, they don't have to be personified in any way.

They don't have to be, but in Umineko there is tons of reason to believe that they often are.

Originally Posted by Jaden

The contents of the message bottles and the forgeries in the story need not be equal to the episodes of Umineko. Actually they can't be, unless Yasu was producing visual novels in 1986 and packing them in bottles. :P

Which is some of the reason that I believe the episodes we see are edited by the "player's" interpretation.

Originally Posted by Jaden

Anyway, I would be careful when juxtaposing our perspective with that of some character in the story. Only the writer should be qualified to do that...we should take the story we're told at face value.

Face value? But the narration is sometimes blatantly unreliable. By writing the way he does RK07 is inviting us to wonder why it's unreliable. Viewing one or more characters in the story into a subjective narrator offers an explanation.

Originally Posted by Toku

Prime!Yasu probably never committed murder or anything like that. She just wrote stories, and hoped for Battler's return. I doubt the murder mystery game even happened in Prime, it was probably just the subject of the stories she wrote for him.

So it's just a coincidence that Yasu's murder mystery fictions took place on the same dates that the explosion did?

Originally Posted by Toku

Furthermore, I doubt that there really are 900 tons of explosives on Prime. I simply cannot come up with a reason for why the government would say "oh, hey, we'll just let this old rich guy do whatever he wants with them."

The government probably wasn't aware of them. I don't find it implausible that in the chaos of WWII and its aftermath that the Japanese bureaucracy lost track of those explosives, or perhaps Kinzo bribed someone. There was a lot of corruption in Japan during the years following the war.

[Toku]

The government probably wasn't aware of them. I don't find it implausible that in the chaos of WWII and its aftermath that the Japanese bureaucracy lost track of those explosives, or perhaps Kinzo bribed someone. There was a lot of corruption in Japan during the years following the war.

...Hm. This is plausible. I can accept this theory.

So it's just a coincidence that Yasu's murder mystery fictions took place on the same dates that the explosion did?

You have a point. This is a lot of why I wanted to join the discussion: to check my theories for holes.

I just don't see a reason to have the game on Prime. The purpose of the game in the stories and on Prime would be the same, right? To have a debate with Battler and hopefully manage to convey her feelings. On the other hand, one carries large risks and the other does not. The stories are already written.

Of course, I'm now willing to believe that the bomb does exist in Prime and did go off. And, the bomb pretty much has to exist on the game board. I want to say it's not a coincidence, but... Isn't it a coincidence regardless, if you believe that Yasu wasn't planning for it to go off?

If we need a reason for the bomb going off in Prime, most people seem to say something like this:
"At least one person ended up solving the epitaph and...
1. thought they were turning the switch off
2. wanted to use the bomb to cover up whatever had already happened
3. simply wanted to use it to kill everyone without any significant risk"

Of those, only #2 would tie in with the murder mystery game theory. And even with that, it's easy to use #2 without the game. After all, throughout the story, it's made very clear that tensions were very high among the adults, regardless of what Beatrice did or did not do.

Though, there's also the matter of the stories she sent out in message bottles. I'm not sure what her motive for sending those out could have possibly been... Even if we assume that she was following her fantasies of And Then There Were None (which I plan to read soon but haven't yet), that would imply that she plans for the bomb to go off and create a cat box.

Well, you certainly can argue that she planned for the bomb to go off... The only problem is that she has practically no motivation to do it, as far as I can see...

[AuraTwilight]

I know you guys already know this, but it seems like some of you forgot:
Red Truths have no bearing on what happened on Rokkenjima Prime. That is, the real world. They only apply to the worlds of the game boards. The game boards are just stories that either Yasu or the Hachijos wrote.

This relies on the assumption that Rokkenjima Prime even exists. It might not.

I just don't see a reason to have the game on Prime. The purpose of the game in the stories and on Prime would be the same, right? To have a debate with Battler and hopefully manage to convey her feelings. On the other hand, one carries large risks and the other does not. The stories are already written.

The purpose of the game is to resolve Yasu's love complications. In the stories atleast, she loves three people, and as beaten like a dead horse in EP6 and EP7, if Battler never came to the island, or came the year before or the year later, there would've been no tragedy. But he came at pretty much the worst possible time when the dam was at it's breaking point.

For that reason alone, I don't really see the value in speculating that Battler wasn't here. It largely invalidates almost everything about Yasu's big confession in EP7.

Of course, I'm now willing to believe that the bomb does exist in Prime and did go off. And, the bomb pretty much has to exist on the game board. I want to say it's not a coincidence, but... Isn't it a coincidence regardless, if you believe that Yasu wasn't planning for it to go off?

You are assuming that Yasu wrote the message bottles before the incident; what if she wrote them afterwards? Afterall, she somehow knew that Ange wasn't coming due to illness, and that's way weirder than knowing Battler was coming, which could've been announced even a month in advance.

If we need a reason for the bomb going off in Prime, most people seem to say something like this:
"At least one person ended up solving the epitaph and...
1. thought they were turning the switch off
2. wanted to use the bomb to cover up whatever had already happened
3. simply wanted to use it to kill everyone without any significant risk"

Of those, only #2 would tie in with the murder mystery game theory. And even with that, it's easy to use #2 without the game. After all, throughout the story, it's made very clear that tensions were very high among the adults, regardless of what Beatrice did or did not do.

What about "Someone started killing people and Yasu set off the bomb so they wouldn't get away with it"?

Though, there's also the matter of the stories she sent out in message bottles. I'm not sure what her motive for sending those out could have possibly been... Even if we assume that she was following her fantasies of And Then There Were None (which I plan to read soon but haven't yet), that would imply that she plans for the bomb to go off and create a cat box.

People died. Yasu set off the bomb. Maybe she even thinks Battler was dead because of his presence, or maybe she had him escape on a motorboat. Who knows? Regardless, Yasu is alone in a safe place after the bomb's explosion, writes some message bottles, throws them out in hopes that someone understands what happened, and then kills herself (or becomes Ikuko but I honestly can't work out how the hell that could possibly happen).

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Toku

I know you guys already know this, but it seems like some of you forgot:
Red Truths have no bearing on what happened on Rokkenjima Prime. That is, the real world. They only apply to the worlds of the game boards. The game boards are just stories that either Yasu or the Hachijos wrote.

True but unless you go and say that 1998 is fictional we've an universe where Ange is sure her brother went on Rokkenjima with her relatives and where the witch hunters suspect Ange's parents to be the culprits because Ange remained home, not Ange and Battler remained home.

Originally Posted by Toku

There's also no reason for Yasu to have needed to know about Battler's coming in 1986, in order to write the first two message bottles. Her purpose in writing those message bottles is vague, but this much about it should be certain: She wrote these stories to convey a message to Battler.

Yes, she might have written them merely hoping he would be back... but I think in the end she was told Battler would have come back and she changed her plans for him.

Originally Posted by Toku

Prime!Yasu probably never committed murder or anything like that. She just wrote stories, and hoped for Battler's return. I doubt the murder mystery game even happened in Prime, it was probably just the subject of the stories she wrote for him.

I was hoping/thinking that too but it seems Our confession imply she had the intention to carry out that plan... and Toya said he remember being involved in a mystery game.
My theory is that in the end either Battler solved the game before Yasu could kill someone and the incident happened anyway for other reasons or that Yasu, thought planning to commit murder, when faced with the real thing, didn't feel up to it (or her plan failed) but again, the incident happened anyway.

Originally Posted by Toku

I doubt Prime!Yasu was even in a romantic relationship with either Jessica or George.

I've my doubts about a relation with Jessica (Kanon always lose and proof of his relation with Jessica is merely he showed up at Jessica's school festival) but EP 8 says there are letter Shannon wrote to George.
True, she's talking to the goats, but they represent the witch hunters who theorize that George never had a relation with Shannon so I think this is something that can be proved in Prime.
It's also likely in Prime it could be proved if they went at the aquarium together since they slept in a hotel.
Though I think Yasu had no plans of marrying George, regardless fo the fact that George were to come back or not.

Originally Posted by Toku

Furthermore, I doubt that there really are 900 tons of explosives on Prime.

That's something I've troubles accepting as well... which is why I like the idea the explosive/a bomb/something was on the Italian submarine, the submarine sunk and no one noticed/knew it was there. Due to an incident the explosive exploded and Eva and Battler were out of the explosion range due to a coincidence (maybe they were supposed to reach Kuwadorian dor some other reasons?)

Originally Posted by Wanderer

So it's just a coincidence that Yasu's murder mystery fictions took place on the same dates that the explosion did?

It's a theory I've been toying with. Battler tossed in the idea that sometimes coincidences can be misleading in EP 5 when he talks about serial murders.
Okonogi also offered a theory which would explain how it was an incident how Eva was in Kuwadorian when half of the island blew up.

Also, if Yasu effectively planned to commit murder and have the island destroyed as Our confession seems to imply and then changed her mind and this happened anyway, it can be viewed as 'coincidential'... sort of... (as it's likely her actions set in motion what lead to the incident but she hadn't planned for it to happen that way).

Umineko is also filled with coincidential things that are harder to believe, like how a baby fell from a cliff but didn't die or how Kinzo and Beatrice were the only survivors in the military base, how Kinzo dies the same night Yasu solves the epitaph, how an Italian submarine decides to carry gold in Japan and how the Japanese government conveniently forgot the explosive (or couldn't care less that Kinzo had it).
Witch hunters even found suspicious how Ange remained at home...

So... it's possible it's coincidental. Many of the settings for Yasu's story could be guessed as Ange was often sick, weather was often bad when the conference took place and the conference always took place around that time.

The only thing that's really hard to guess was that Battler was coming back... but that could have been Yasu's wishful thinking... maybe she had tales with Battler coming back even for year 1985... and they went destroyed in the explosion...

Originally Posted by Wanderer

The government probably wasn't aware of them. I don't find it implausible that in the chaos of WWII and its aftermath that the Japanese bureaucracy lost track of those explosives, or perhaps Kinzo bribed someone. There was a lot of corruption in Japan during the years following the war.

Random explosive maybe but Rokkenjima was a military base. Where people died. Where an Italian submarine arrived. There should be more than 1 report about the military base existence.
I think before handing it to Kinzo they should have at least checked it for residual weapons and explosive.

[Pocuma]

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I'm confused about why a lot of people seem to dislike George and like to make him the bad guy. I've read a lot of "lol-arguments" or very week arguments about him being the culprit but I remember that there was some among you who had some good argument for a George-culprit theory (something about him being manipulative and having knowledge about magic-stuff). Anyone who could be kind and fill me in on the more serious arguments?

[AuraTwilight]

Well, for starters, he's EXTREMELY creepy. He was jealous of a 12 year old Battler having the attentions of a 10-year-old Shannon when HE was 17.

That, and he's straight up admitted he can totally kill his whole family if that's what it takes to be with Shannon.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Pocuma

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I'm confused about why a lot of people seem to dislike George and like to make him the bad guy. I've read a lot of "lol-arguments" or very week arguments about him being the culprit but I remember that there was some among you who had some good argument for a George-culprit theory (something about him being manipulative and having knowledge about magic-stuff). Anyone who could be kind and fill me in on the more serious arguments?

Ah well, OC seems to have turned that to dust completely, and I was never very fond of the idea myself, however this much at least was based on comparison rather then spite. The idea is that beside being antagonistic about it, Erika's role in arc 6 is very similar to the role George probably has with Shannon/Yasu most of the time.

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Yeah that's also what I think.
Erika traps Battler with a ring./George traps Shannon with a ring.
And if you want speculation...
Battler fakes the first twilight./Beatrice fakes the fight twilight.
Erika really murders them./George really murders them.
Battler is stuck in a closed room and Erika is dangerously coming for him./Beatrice is stuck on Rokkenjima and George is dangerously coming for her.
The Shkanon trick is used to save Battler from Erika./The Shkanon trick is used to save Shannon from George.
Erika was trying to get the Gamemaster title and ring from Battler./George was trying to get the Ushiromiya heir title and ring from Shannon.
Battler kills Erika./Beatrice kills George.

Edit: As for a why dunnit, I can say at that time I was jugling with the idea that Battler is everything George is not, basically, he steals the entire show from him.
Yasu really loves Battler. The adults tend to treat Battler as an equal ("you two are like siblings more then father and son") while they treat George as still a kid ("He still has much to learn"). George is constantly said to be really good with kids, but even that much, Battler steals the show with Maria again, instantly becoming close friend with her. Battler is a fun person, he wants to drink for the heck of it, George is a boring person who'd only ever do it for work (again from arc 1). Again, Battler is a fun person, that he's back makes all the cousins says it's the most fun year (since Battler left) and that in between all they ever talked about was serious stuff like studies (George is again a boring person).

There would have been more things too. If we follow the idea of "ideal passed down" like how Beatrice 1 was forced on Beatrice 2 and then on Beatrice 3, EVA or Eva Beatrice if you want could very well have been the incarnation of the expectations of Eva that got passed down to her child. At the time George was born, they were allowed to remain Ushiromiya family because Natsuhi couldn't get pregnant and as thus for the five first years of his life George was raised to be the heir. That position was "stolen" away from him by Jessica's birth, yet Eva seemingly continued to push all her life for the idea that if George was "better then Jessica enough" he'd be the heir.

Now to talk about the love story. Six years ago, Yasu was 13, but Shannon was legally 10. So you had a 17 years old George who was jealous of a 12 years old Battler for getting all the attention from a 10 years old Yasu (yeah the whole thing sounds stupid to me... what kind of 12 years old have in depth discussions about mystery novels). According to arc 2, Shannon didn't notice George until soon before she solved the epitaph (the day she noticed him Kinzo was still alive as Eva went to see him with George, thus epitaph wasn't yet solved). That's around 2 years ago, but again it seems like they have barely ever seen each other outside of Rokkenjima. Atop of that it seems pretty clear that they never slept together, nor even did something much simpler like kissing. That relationship is now one where George is proposing to make her his bride. It seems a bit too fast to me. It looks more like "most 16 years old girls" who aren't too serious about love but simply enjoy a relationship, to end up with an older guy who's taking it more seriously then she is and is already thinking about how many children they will have and stuff like that. That sort of relationship, at least imo, is a total failure. It doesn't mean that Shannon doesn't like George at all btw, but there's a difference between a teen trying to date another guy to forget her previous love and planning to marry each other.

So the general theory that was being raised by me is that George was a person who no one saw seriously while he was dead serious about a lot of things. I still think in many ways it's a relatively weak "why dunnit" but it was better IMO then any why dunnit ascribed to Yasu so far (outside of the "why did she write stories"). Nonetheless all this comes to basically no avail thanks to OC.

[SonozakiUshiromiya]

Read Judoh's George culprit analysis. http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...ostcount=14814

And I've been kinda ninja'ed by AT...

[Toku]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

This relies on the assumption that Rokkenjima Prime even exists. It might not.

Admittedly this is true. On the other hand, if Prime does not exist, then the large part of the story Ryukishi has spent giving various hints and insights on it would be for nothing.

The purpose of the game is to resolve Yasu's love complications. In the stories atleast, she loves three people, and as beaten like a dead horse in EP6 and EP7, if Battler never came to the island, or came the year before or the year later, there would've been no tragedy. But he came at pretty much the worst possible time when the dam was at it's breaking point.

For that reason alone, I don't really see the value in speculating that Battler wasn't here. It largely invalidates almost everything about Yasu's big confession in EP7.

I had just wanted to point it out, but I don't really believe in the "Battler didn't come" theory. And I do agree with you.

But unfortunately, if I want to keep from invalidating that confession, I guess it's necessary to have Yasu do something in Prime due to his coming that would cause her a great deal of regret. Which means that my "Yasu didn't commit crimes in Prime" theory has yet another potential hole... And I have no idea how to resolve it.

You are assuming that Yasu wrote the message bottles before the incident; what if she wrote them afterwards? Afterall, she somehow knew that Ange wasn't coming due to illness, and that's way weirder than knowing Battler was coming, which could've been announced even a month in advance.

I don't think the theory that she wrote them afterwards makes sense. And the reason is because, from what I recall, the amount of paper stuffed into those bottles was described as being pretty large. Due to the sheer size of the stories, I don't think it could have been written that quickly. After all, I'm pretty sure the first message bottle was found a mere 2-4 days after the incident, or something like that.

But you're right, the fact that Ange wasn't there in EP1 or 2 really makes things weird. I hadn't even thought of that until now.

It's possible for us to say that Ange, being a 6-year old girl, had no significant role in Yasu's mystery. And there's already many theories that the first two episodes of the sound novel are edited versions of the first two message bottles, so perhaps Ange was edited out after the fact.

What about "Someone started killing people and Yasu set off the bomb so they wouldn't get away with it"?

That too. Unfortunately though, even with that, it will still be a coincidence unless the stories were written afterward.

People died. Yasu set off the bomb. Maybe she even thinks Battler was dead because of his presence, or maybe she had him escape on a motorboat. Who knows? Regardless, Yasu is alone in a safe place after the bomb's explosion, writes some message bottles, throws them out in hopes that someone understands what happened, and then kills herself (or becomes Ikuko but I honestly can't work out how the hell that could possibly happen).

Hmm. Another good argument for the "letters were written afterward" theory. But that's only if they were written in hopes that someone would figure out what happened.

And to be honest, since they contained things that made a bunch of people believe "a witch did it" I don't really think that's the case...

As for Yasu=Ikuko, there was a gap of about 1.5 years in Yasu's story after she solved the epitaph, and at that point she was very rich. It's possible that she could have used that time to setup a new identity. Maybe she just wanted to get away from Rokkenjima and try to start a new life for herself, but she still had hopes that she would be able to reach Battler, so she didn't actually choose to live there until after the 1986 conference.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

True but unless you go and say that 1998 is fictional we've an universe where Ange is sure her brother went on Rokkenjima with her relatives and where the witch hunters suspect Ange's parents to be the culprits because Ange remained home, not Ange and Battler remained home.

You're right.

Even if I tried to say something like "the 1998 we see is just the story Ange told us" which is actually probable given all the fantasy scenes, I wouldn't be able to come up with a reason for her to lie and say that Battler went to the conference... And if I say that she didn't know he stayed home, that's stretching it too far.

I can't really argue against this.

I was hoping/thinking that too but it seems Our confession imply she had the intention to carry out that plan... and Toya said he remember being involved in a mystery game.

Did Tohya say he remembered being involved in a mystery game? I can't remember...

And, as far as I remember, Our Confession only implied that Piece!Yasu had the intention to carry out the plan...

I've my doubts about a relation with Jessica (Kanon always lose and proof of his relation with Jessica is merely he showed up at Jessica's school festival) but EP 8 says there are letter Shannon wrote to George.
True, she's talking to the goats, but they represent the witch hunters who theorize that George never had a relation with Shannon so I think this is something that can be proved in Prime.
It's also likely in Prime it could be proved if they went at the aquarium together since they slept in a hotel.
Though I think Yasu had no plans of marrying George, regardless fo the fact that George were to come back or not.

The Pieces that BATTLER commands in EP8 are really weird. For example, we get things like Kinzo being a nice old man who loves his whole family so much he can't stand it, even though this goes completely contrary to everything else we've seen throughout the rest of the series.

That's why I feel that I have reason to doubt what George and Shannon said there. But in the end, those letters are a devil's proof.

Well, I'm not saying that Yasu wasn't friends with George in Prime. I think that she probably was. I just don't think they had a romantic, reciprocated relationship.

That's something I've troubles accepting as well... which is why I like the idea the explosive/a bomb/something was on the Italian submarine, the submarine sunk and no one noticed/knew it was there. Due to an incident the explosive exploded and Eva and Battler were out of the explosion range due to a coincidence (maybe they were supposed to reach Kuwadorian dor some other reasons?)

But the submarine is another weird thing that looks completely improbable. Especially since, in this article, it implies that he might have obtained gold from the US army instead:
http://umineko.wikia.com/wiki/TIPS/A...Interview_Tape

Well, either way, it's all just really weird. But I think it's still possible, so I'm alright with it.


@George Culprit Theories: I haven't thought much about this, so I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said.