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Old 2010-05-30, 12:34   Link #10741
DaBackpack
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Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
I think the "key" had to do with going back and solving all the closed rooms. He seems to think the murders are actually easy mysteries to solve. He had Battler say that in episode 5.
What do you mean? Do you mean that solving all the closed rooms will present us with the culprit, or hints as to the solution to the epitaph?
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Old 2010-05-30, 12:41   Link #10742
Judoh
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
What do you mean? Do you mean that solving all the closed rooms will present us with the culprit, or hints as to the solution to the epitaph?
No I mean he thinks the closed rooms are harder mysteries than the murders are.
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Old 2010-05-30, 18:11   Link #10743
Goat-Kun
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Sorry if this is a repost, but I noticed how in EP 3 and EP4 when Genji is killed in the first twilight the rest of the order and staking gets all out of order. But in EP 1 and EP2 when he is alive until the end it is following the Epitaph perfectly. Maybe he is the main coordinator/mastermind of the murders?
Spoiler for WHICH WOULD MEAN:
Just saying. :P
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Old 2010-05-30, 18:23   Link #10744
DaBackpack
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Originally Posted by Goat-Kun View Post
Sorry if this is a repost, but I noticed how in EP 3 and EP4 when Genji is killed in the first twilight the rest of the order and staking gets all out of order. But in EP 1 and EP2 when he is alive until the end it is following the Epitaph perfectly. Maybe he is the main coordinator/mastermind of the murders?
Spoiler for WHICH WOULD MEAN:
Just saying. :P
This is an interesting correlation. But, like all correlations, it could just be a coincidence.

There are only 4 Episodes which we know the conclusions to. Episode 5 ended prematurely, and I have no idea about Episode 6.

So for this small sample space, it does seem that THE BUTLER DID IT.
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Old 2010-05-30, 19:18   Link #10745
Marion
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I can't see that. Honestly to me, accusing Genji of the crime is the same of accusing Natsuhi of it. Both are completely devoted to the Ushiromiya family, so why would they ever kill them? You can say Natsuhi is in a better position than him, but at the same time it's not by a lot.
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Old 2010-05-30, 19:50   Link #10746
Ronove
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If indeed the Butler did do it, I guess Genji WOULD have a motive or some sort.

Here are my fun theories!

1) Because of his strong feelings for Kinzo, he blames the family for his death. Hence, being smart and all, he compromises with this 3-year-long scheme (which is quite believable, considering if we relate to Takano's hibernation of Higurashi).

2) In EP2, 'Kanon' attacks the servants. Maybe Genji knew that Kanon knew and this 'demonic' state of Kanon could be of Genji's smart reasoning with the scared servants.

P.S. - Come to think of it, wasn't Nanjo's and Kumasawa's corpse found outside, with no blood stains in the room? Unless the Ushiromiya has super-cleaning utensils.
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Old 2010-05-30, 20:24   Link #10747
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Originally Posted by Ronove View Post
If indeed the Butler did do it, I guess Genji WOULD have a motive or some sort.

Here are my fun theories!

1) Because of his strong feelings for Kinzo, he blames the family for his death. Hence, being smart and all, he compromises with this 3-year-long scheme (which is quite believable, considering if we relate to Takano's hibernation of Higurashi).

2) In EP2, 'Kanon' attacks the servants. Maybe Genji knew that Kanon knew and this 'demonic' state of Kanon could be of Genji's smart reasoning with the scared servants.

P.S. - Come to think of it, wasn't Nanjo's and Kumasawa's corpse found outside, with no blood stains in the room? Unless the Ushiromiya has super-cleaning utensils.
Of course the Ushiromiya have super-cleaning utensils, its not just becuase of space tourism that their broke Krauss is addicted to late night tele shopping

Overall Genji seems too much of a decoy culprit though he to be involved somehow, mainly through his connection with ronove. Idk maybe hes not particularly keen on the murders but is bound to assist the culprit in some way? etc a contract or blackmail?
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Old 2010-05-30, 21:06   Link #10748
KnightOfTwo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronove View Post
If indeed the Butler did do it, I guess Genji WOULD have a motive or some sort.

Here are my fun theories!

1) Because of his strong feelings for Kinzo, he blames the family for his death. Hence, being smart and all, he compromises with this 3-year-long scheme (which is quite believable, considering if we relate to Takano's hibernation of Higurashi).

2) In EP2, 'Kanon' attacks the servants. Maybe Genji knew that Kanon knew and this 'demonic' state of Kanon could be of Genji's smart reasoning with the scared servants.

P.S. - Come to think of it, wasn't Nanjo's and Kumasawa's corpse found outside, with no blood stains in the room? Unless the Ushiromiya has super-cleaning utensils.
Genji being the mastermind I see as highly unlikely, though him assisting the mastermind is likely. You can take that in multiple different ways, he's following Kinzo's will, he is working on the orders of a new "Kinzo", he is taking orders from the other master of the island "Beatrice", or he is not aware of his own involvement in the conspiracy. Loads of ways for him to be a conspirator, though him being the head behind everything I don't see working out. It doesn't suit him.

As for super-cleaning utensils, of course they have them, it's that mysterious liquor that Genji serves, it's actually an industrial solvent.
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Old 2010-05-30, 21:17   Link #10749
Oliver
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Originally Posted by NarkNarks View Post
Overall Genji seems too much of a decoy culprit though he to be involved somehow, mainly through his connection with ronove. Idk maybe hes not particularly keen on the murders but is bound to assist the culprit in some way? etc a contract or blackmail?
The problem with Genji being the culprit (or indeed, playing any active role at all) is that he is very much a non-character.

There is nothing that he says or does that doesn't express loyalty and consideration, but that's all that it ever expresses. He does a lot of suspicious things, some with rather bad excuses, but the motives for those are completely blank. The absolutely only unusual and interesting thing Genji does that gives any indication he's anything but a butler is throw knives in Ep2 in a clearly magic scene.

Even if we explicitly meld Genji and Ronove, that doesn't add all that much. Ronove is far more colorful, and obviously a more interesting personality, but while he talks radically differently, he still does exactly what Genji would if Beatrice was his primary master, with very few (if any, actually) exceptions. Neither Genji nor Ronove say much about their own past, nor about the past of other characters, nor about what they personally want which isn't the same as what their masters want...

So there's pretty much nothing to lean onto when theorising about blackmail, contracts, other duties and debts, and any theory requiring them stumbles on Knox rules about evidence, for there is pretty much none... If anyone is 'furniture' in the truest sense it's Genji, if there is anything seriously human in him, he hides it expertly.

Compare to Jeeves, who, while being a model butler in words and visible actions, runs circles around his master behind the scenes where lots of invisible actions come out.
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Old 2010-05-30, 21:23   Link #10750
DaBackpack
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Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
The problem with Genji being the culprit (or indeed, playing any active role at all) is that he is very much a non-character.

There is nothing that he says or does that doesn't express loyalty and consideration, but that's all that it ever expresses. He does a lot of suspicious things, some with rather bad excuses, but the motives for those are completely blank. The absolutely only unusual and interesting thing Genji does that gives any indication he's anything but a butler is throw knives in Ep2 in a clearly magic scene.

Even if we explicitly meld Genji and Ronove, that doesn't add all that much. Ronove is far more colorful, and obviously a more interesting personality, but while he talks radically differently, he still does exactly what Genji would if Beatrice was his primary master, with very few (if any, actually) exceptions. Neither Genji nor Ronove say much about their own past, nor about the past of other characters, nor about what they personally want which isn't the same as what their masters want...

So there's pretty much nothing to lean onto when theorising about blackmail, contracts, other duties and debts, and any theory requiring them stumbles on Knox rules about evidence, for there is pretty much none... If anyone is 'furniture' in the truest sense it's Genji, if there is anything seriously human in him, he hides it expertly.

Compare to Jeeves, who, while being a model butler in words and visible actions, runs circles around his master behind the scenes where lots of invisible actions come out.
Actually, if you think about it, he does have a motive.
As a good friend of Kinzo's, not to mention being a butler, he felt indebted to Kinzo.

It is common knowledge that Kinzo did not like his children -- he thought they only wanted his money. We also know that Kinzo wanted his children to solve the epitaph.

Perhaps Genji tried to replicate the epitaph murders, just so the family members would have a reason to solve the epitaph?

Maybe Kinzo's dying wish was to have them solve it. Honoring his last request, Genji is merely trying to goad the siblings into solving the epitaph.

Of course, it would require a LOT of respect for Kinzo to do this, but it is possible.
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Old 2010-05-30, 22:09   Link #10751
Oliver
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Originally Posted by DaBackpack View Post
Maybe Kinzo's dying wish was to have them solve it. Honoring his last request, Genji is merely trying to goad the siblings into solving the epitaph.

Of course, it would require a LOT of respect for Kinzo to do this, but it is possible.
Yes, it is. It's just that it's not Genji's motive really, but Kinzo's.
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Old 2010-05-30, 22:31   Link #10752
Judoh
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Yes, it is. It's just that it's not Genji's motive really, but Kinzo's.
My theory after episode 5's group of reds about Beatrice's motive is that the mastermind orders Beatrice to kill for him. Since the only other motive she has is to play cupid. It should work with Genji too since he's furniture and he has to follow the orders of anyone with the one winged eagle. Though the only thing I'm sure he might be doing is staking people and preparing the letters. There are as many cases where he can't be a murderer as there are where he can be.
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Old 2010-05-31, 02:22   Link #10753
chronotrig
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Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
My theory after episode 5's group of reds about Beatrice's motive is that the mastermind orders Beatrice to kill for him. Since the only other motive she has is to play cupid.
Hmm, that's an interesting take on things. Still, there needs to be a way to explain the line "the gold of the Golden Land belongs to this child". Why would Beatrice need to take orders from anyone if the gold was already hers in the first place? I'm not saying you aren't on to something here, just thinking about where specifically this might lead.
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Old 2010-05-31, 02:50   Link #10754
Judoh
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Hmm, that's an interesting take on things. Still, there needs to be a way to explain the line "the gold of the Golden Land belongs to this child". Why would Beatrice need to take orders from anyone if the gold was already hers in the first place? I'm not saying you aren't on to something here, just thinking about where specifically this might lead.
My first thought was that a servant or somebody of low rank found the gold before and they have a claim to it. For her to be ordered around somebody has to have a higher rank than her. Either that or she made a promise or owes something to the person ordering her. We could maybe use LambdaDelta as a meta world example of somebody with a higher authority than her.

Last edited by Judoh; 2010-05-31 at 03:04.
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Old 2010-05-31, 09:10   Link #10755
Raiza Sunozaki
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On Genji Culprit, I can't imagine him being the mastermind, if only because I trust Ryuukishi not to use one of the biggest cop-outs in mystery fiction. However, I do believe he has an important role in one of the schemes aside from the Phantom Kinzo scheme. He's either helping the mastermind culprit with the murders, or more likely to me, setting up Kinzo's last will's magic show to end all magic shows.
He goes around cutting phone lines, he's likely the one painting magic circles, and he can easily get help from the other servants in setting up scenarios/distracting the family, since he's well-respected. If he isn't killing/helping killing people, he's doing some strange.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Judoh View Post
My first thought was that a servant or somebody of low rank found the gold before and they have a claim to it. For her to be ordered around somebody has to have a higher rank than her. Either that or she made a promise or owes something to the person ordering her. We could maybe use LambdaDelta as a meta world example of somebody with a higher authority than her.
As I like to say, Shannon has found the gold, which is why the letter she gives to Maria, where she calls herself Beatrice, is true when she says the she is the new head. However, since she doesn't want the gold, she offers up Kinzo's Epitaph as a way to get the gold still.
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Old 2010-05-31, 09:52   Link #10756
Oliver
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Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki View Post
He goes around cutting phone lines, he's likely the one painting magic circles, and he can easily get help from the other servants in setting up scenarios/distracting the family, since he's well-respected. If he isn't killing/helping killing people, he's doing some strange.
Actually, some things about phone lines and radios.
  • There is no hard evidence ever about phones actually not working, at all. Detective perspective characters never try to call anyone. All actual attempts to call that I remember to be shown on screen occur outside of the detective's visibility range. In numerous cases, characters try to call and then stop themselves remembering that 'phones don't work' - or have someone else stop them. That the phones are actually working is only noticed when an incoming call rings.
  • The way the phone system is described in Umineko, it has to be handled by a PBX device. Whether it's a digital line or not is nearly impossible to tell, but in 1984, digital PBX systems and ISDN were already available. The mansion PBX is more likely to have been an earlier analog one, though it could have been replaced with a more modern digital system due to the guesthouse hotel requirements. Breaking them so that only you could fix them requires some significant technical knowledge -- but it is easy to simply turn them off and turn them back on later and then lie about requiring repairs, and anyone can do that if they have access to the actual box. Not that there is any evidence that this actually happened.
  • Emergency radio seems to never work. Nobody can tell what happened to it. I'm not actually sure anyone knows how to operate one or has any required licenses -- although Krauss should, if he has a license to captain his own conspicuously absent boat, and anyone else who has a boat license will too -- like Shannon, who needs one to reach the islet with the shrine. Irrevocably breaking a 1986-era radio, however, is absolutely trivial -- you just need to pull the antenna cable out, hold the PTT button and wait until you smell the smoke of the output amplifier cascade, which should take under a minute depending on manufacturing quality and elements used. Anyone can break a radio if they know that, and this is one of the first things a radio operator has to learn to avoid doing. More modern radios, particularly handhelds, have protection that will shut transmission out if it detects that there's no antenna or a cable short, but back in 1986 these were not common.

This makes Genji in particular less suspicious about breaking phones and the radio, as disabling those only requires knowing where they are, but very little else. But he is mighty suspicious for possibly lying about them being broken at all.
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Old 2010-05-31, 10:11   Link #10757
LyricalAura
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Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
So there's pretty much nothing to lean onto when theorising about blackmail, contracts, other duties and debts, and any theory requiring them stumbles on Knox rules about evidence, for there is pretty much none... If anyone is 'furniture' in the truest sense it's Genji, if there is anything seriously human in him, he hides it expertly.

Compare to Jeeves, who, while being a model butler in words and visible actions, runs circles around his master behind the scenes where lots of invisible actions come out.
Or Beato hid it expertly because she didn't want Battler focusing on what he was doing. Genji is what Jeeves would look like if we only saw Jeeves and Wooster from Wooster's perspective. If he actually were a robot, it would mean Battler was right about something in EP2, and we can't have that, can we?

I agree that theorizing in the dark about Genji's motives is a waste of time. This is probably a case where we're going to have to first figure out what he was actually doing when he was off-screen, by scrutinizing the incidents he was involved in and picking the lies out of his testimony. Only after we have the full picture will a motivation for his actions emerge.
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Old 2010-05-31, 12:27   Link #10758
Judoh
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Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki View Post
As I like to say, Shannon has found the gold, which is why the letter she gives to Maria, where she calls herself Beatrice, is true when she says the she is the new head. However, since she doesn't want the gold, she offers up Kinzo's Epitaph as a way to get the gold still.
Rosa as the youngest sibling still has a low enough rank to be ordered by the mastermind I think depending on who it is. If your still interested in her being the murderer you can use that and her story in episode 3 to your advantage.
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Old 2010-05-31, 12:50   Link #10759
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@Oliver:
Irrevocably breaking any radio is easy. All it takes is a hammer. Without a hammer, the technique of "throw it out a window" is traditionally effective. Breaking a radio so that it can be fixed without going off the island, now [i]that's[i] tricky.

As for the phones, while there isn't any direct evidence that they're broken, what's to be gained from lying about it? Why not just cut the line to the mainland?
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Old 2010-05-31, 13:12   Link #10760
SeagullCrazy
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Originally Posted by Oliver View Post
Actually, some things about phone lines and radios.
in 1986 these were not common.
I think it's easier just to assume these two things are true:
  • The external line (outside the island) doesn't work
  • The internal line (inside the island) does work
There's reason to believe this. When Krauss tries the phone in EP4, he can't contact the police, but can contact the guesthouse.
And every time a phone rang, it was from somewhere else on the island.
This also goes with the idea that nothing outside the island can interfere with anything inside the island, making it a true closed circle.
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