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Old 2012-10-20, 04:29   Link #30921
qno2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1
Not quite. The interesting part of Ep 6 is that Battler is organizing a murder game agaisnt Beato as well. And in Ep 5 both Battler and Beato were compared to 2 shy kids who can't find the gut to declare to each other. So what if Battler came back to Shannon but found out she was engaged to George before he could tell her 'hey, I came back for you?'
I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to with "not quite". Sorry if I misunderstand you in the following.

It's not quite the "happy end" overall, for Yasu. It is for Beatrice, or "her lingering feelings for Battler", as this "part" of her personality feared that he might've all but forgotten about her (EP4). Of course, "Shannon", her current life, the one that loves George, might've felt fear instead and wouldn't know how to react. Emotional conflict, add "Kanon" as the wish for staying on Rokkenjima and nurturing her friendship (and possibly more) with Jessica, that caused her to write down her heart, her confused emotions, down in form of a mystery - the genre that both she and Battler loved so much (whether we know those stories as EP1 and 2 or not at all doesn't matter for this). Possibly hoping romantically that someday someone will find them and "uncover her heart", "understand her" - and maybe that person might be Battler himself.
On that note, had Battler returned a year earlier she wouldn't have been so invested in George that he's about to propose to her and not as confused on how she should react (and she'd probably not write anything). A year later and ... if Lion's world is to be believed... Battler wouldn't have anything to return back to anyway.

(yes, I wrote "she" for convenience sake, add "he" every time if you want to)

Regarding EP6, didn't Battler join the duel, implying that he might've remembered, and hijacked the game to "show that obnoxious guest" (since Shkanontrice participated in Meta and didn't produce her own 1st Twilight I don't see how he organized a game AGAINST/without her)? Meta-world speaking, he clearly remembered, while chick-Beatrice had forgotten all about mystery, games, and such; she just knew that she's supposed to love him (btw. I love how you can find a lot of similarities between BATTLER-Chicktrice and Kinzo-Kuwadoriantrice in the first half of EP6).

If you just meant that "Prime-Battler remembered" in light of his absence in Lion's world could still be connected with "Nervous Wreck Prime-Battler" via two murder games at the same time, then sure - thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jiblue1
Also, the game in which Battler didn't come back and Yasu didn't play her game and yet everyone died, although might seem cruel, is, in a way, nice, as it clearly states that the murders weren't their responsibility but that they would happen regardless of what they were to do.

It's still horrible as it destroy the hope of a happy ending but, in the real world, there's no chance for it so, at least knowing they weren't to blame and that they merely, at best, provided a setting but weren't the reason behind it, can offer some sort of comfort.
Went there before. And you answered
Quote:
Originally Posted by jiblue1
I'm not sure how reliable is Bern's implication that a mess would happen regardless as she finds only 1 world with Lion when theoretically there should be countless.
Change of mind or am I missing something?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer
Ohhhh no. He's all about the red. Alllll about it. To him it's red, then detective's perspective, then whatever makes the most sense to him after that (which is... quite silly at times).
I don't see how this kind of snoddy narrative with meta-reasons makes it a 'superior' theory then, at best it'd be an alternative (edit: before misunderstandings arise - of course you didn't say that, KnowNoMore and his followers claim this). Oh well, since I'm probably never going to watch it all I won't judge his version of Rosatrice any further.

Wasn't there someone who wanted to propose a Rosatrice-theory as well, a few pages back? Still waiting for the pikablu-theory.

Last edited by qno2; 2012-10-20 at 05:03.
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Old 2012-10-20, 07:28   Link #30922
Kiltias
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chronotrig View Post
It makes sense to me, if we go with the whole chessboard thinking thing. Nearly all really good detective novels have at least one fake culprit or fact that gets taken for granted for most of the story, only to get shattered in the big reveal. More fun for the writer, and more fun for the reader, who's forced to rethink everything they took for granted rather than just saying "oh, I guess that's what it was".

While it's certainly true that most of us didn't suspect that Shannon was the culprit or the heir until very late on, the servants as a whole have been obviously suspicious the whole time. In fact, they're so suspicious, you don't even have to think up explanations for most of the closed rooms, since they depend entirely on testimony from those people.

Even more suspicious than this is the character of Beatrice. We've been outright told that she's the culprit constantly, and the old witch pranks tie her pretty clearly to someone living/working on the island.

This is the biggest problem with Shkanon. It has plenty of details that we might find interesting and/or unexpected, but in the end, "crazy person who was Maria's friend, lives on the island, and has a love of the occult killed everyone for an insane ceremony" is the most obvious answer early on in EP1, and remains the most obvious answer throughout the whole series.


Remember the EP3 Ryuukishi, who gave us a half-dozen plot twists in the last few chapters of each game? I find it hard to believe that game's biggest twist is supposed to be which one of the servants was actually the ringleader.
Until Yasu was revealed to be part of the family thus not an actual servant one could say Ryukishi actually followed a stereotypical result.
Ever heard of "The Butler did it?"
Quote:
The stereotypical example is that a bunch of people are invited to a dinner in a wealthy man's house, and the wealthy man is poisoned while they are all eating dinner. All the guests debate who among them is the killer, only to discover at the end of the story that the killer is the butler, whom nobody bothered to think twice about; he's just part of the furniture, as if the table was the culprit.

The butler is the avatar of the most unlikely suspect that, of course, turns out to be guilty because the author wasn't creative enough to come up with a better way to surprise the reader. It's the mystery writer equivalent of the Ass Pull, except that you can see it coming a mile away, making it, for modern readers, The Untwist. Ironically because this trope is so well known, when an 'actual' butler is involved he rarely 'did it' or when he did it is down as a parody and Played for Laughs.

The expression "The butler did it" was probably coined by novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart, although it's likely to be a real-world example of Beam Me Up, Scotty!. The earliest verified explicit statement of disapproval dates to S.S. Van Dine's 1928 essay "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" (it might be noted that these rules would disqualify the authors who defined the genre, including Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle). This article explores in detail the origin of this strange semi-existent trope.

It is okay, however, for a butler to be a suspect, primarily to mislead the reader.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...TheButlerDidIt

Hence how Umineko is even mentioned.

I'm thinking Yasu is true, just that there is something else.Though I'm awaiting a pm to answer a question regarding Van Dine.

Last edited by Kiltias; 2012-10-20 at 08:16.
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Old 2012-10-20, 11:08   Link #30923
jjblue1
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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
But we're not just talking about predicting that a typhoon would come during or around the family conference, we're talking about predicting that a typhoon would arrive on the afternoon of the first day of the conference between ~3:30PM and ~5PM. Is that a regular occurrence?
I hate to quote myself but:

Quote:
It's also possible that the tales were a lot more vague on the details than what the story we read was, for example making impossible to know when it started raining exactly.
The message in the bottle might simply say that 'due to the bad weather the boat could not came' and focus on other details.

Anyway I find rather pointless to discuss about this sort of details when we haven't read the original message in the bottle and we can't even be sure if it at least matches the plot of EP 1 and I seem to remember we already had this discussion and agree to disagree, didn't we?

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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
Preposterous. People do not, all on a whim, write stories about the murder of all their friends and family on a certain day, bottle them, and throw them into the ocean... only to have those people to happen to die on that very day for completely unrelated reasons. If it was pre-incident, which the police thought it was (at least as the story goes), then it's an obvious confession by the killer. There's no way that they would think it was anything but eminently relevant, even if they don't understand it well.
We know Yasu didn't write all of a whim but because she liked mysteries and wanted someone to solve the ones she wrote.
Also if I write a mystery tale in which my family get mysteriously slaughtered because I like to write mysteries and in writing 101 is written that for amateur is best start writing what they know best, this won't insure me my family will never be slaughtered, not even in the real world.

It would make it a very odd coincidence, a suspicious coincidence even, but let's face it, coincidences happens, even way more unbelievable ones. Personally I find much more absurd the tale we get for Kinzo gaining the gold than Yasu dropping a bunch of tales prior to the incident.

Add to this that this sort of coincidence happened in more than 1 mystery tale so, even if in real life it's, to use Kinzo's words, more similar to a miracle than anything else, in the mystery books world, it has a lot more chances of happening.

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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
And I don't know why you assume the police didn't investigate the writing. If they did, they would do it discretely in the first place. And if we go by your interpretation, since Ootsuki didn't mention it, the Witch Hunters themselves also did not check for other peoples' signatures.
If they investigated it, it never came up it belonged to Shannon/Kanon. We're told that more or less all the siblings got suspected but there's no servant culprit theory.
And it's possible the witch hunters didn't check/didn't manage to check it properly as it could be more troublesome for them to have samples of Yasu's writing, especially because the witch hunter movement didn't start immediately but later and, by then, surviving scraps of Yasu's writings that the public could reach might have been destroyed or archivied and being unreachable.

It's the message in the bottles and Eva selling Kinzo's library that 'gave life' to the witch hunter, not just the incident per se so they started late compared to the police and they might not have all the resources and experts the police could use.

How many of them were allowed to go to Rokkenjima? To see the original messages? To see samples of all the people involved's writing?

Ootsuki was capable to recognize Yasu's handwriting on the diary as the one of the messages in the bottle and was surprised by it even if he, apparently, was knowledgeable about the messages.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise if the writer had been identified as Shannon because Ange, as a person involved, could have owned without problems someone that had been written by Shannon.

Also

Quote:
the Rokkenjima Witch Hunt is the name of group of enthusiasts who try to explain the truth of that crime from an occult perspective. Discussion of the mysteries that surround Rokkenjima, from the Ushiromiya Library to the mysterious two day period to the legend of the Golden Witch, is flourishing even today among enthusiasts.
so they have all the interest into assuming it was written by 'Beatrice' without trying to prove it was written by 'person X'.

But really, we already have this discussion and neither of us managed to persuade the other and I doubt one of us will do it now as the argumentations you proposed and that I can propose are exactly the same so let's re-agree to disagree?

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to with "not quite".
The idea is: even if Battler came back for Shannon things could have gone the wrong way because he didn't immediately came out and plainly admitted it.

So he might have done something that caused him to perceive himself as guilty of the whole mess.

So just Battler coming back for Shannon didn't automatically destroy any "Nervous Wreck Battler"-theory or any possibility that Battler did something that caused someone else to snap and kill people.

Think if something that was a mix of Ep 5 & 6 happened. Yasu bribes one of the adults into taking part to a mystery game for Battler with the promise his son/daughter will be spared. Battler persuades the cousins to take part to a mystery game for Shannon just for the fun of it. Incidentally cousin X, who agrees to play the role of the victim, is also the son/daughter of the adult bribed who think the blackmailer broke his promise and snap.

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
It's not quite the "happy end" overall, for Yasu. It is for Beatrice, or "her lingering feelings for Battler", as this "part" of her personality feared that he might've all but forgotten about her (EP4). Of course, "Shannon", her current life, the one that loves George, might've felt fear instead and wouldn't know how to react.
Ep 6 implied that Yasu had already come to a solution between Shannon and Kanon and that, despite this, the lingering feelings for Battler, were so strong that Beatrice still prevailed, even if she should have been destroyed along with Kanon.

Quote:
Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
On that note, had Battler returned a year earlier she wouldn't have been so invested in George that he's about to propose to her and not as confused on how she should react (and she'd probably not write anything). A year later and ... if Lion's world is to be believed... Battler wouldn't have anything to return back to anyway.

(yes, I wrote "she" for convenience sake, add "he" every time if you want to)
I prefer to consider Yasu a 'she' as well, though not everyone agrees so sometimes I give her double pronouns.

I guess the real problem in Prime wasn't Yasu but the adults' business troubles. Ryukishi implied in the interview that we can guess that it was the adults who did something. By this is possible to assume that, even if Yasu had challenged Battler to her game a year earlier the result would have been tamer than the one we had in that year when they were in really BIG financial troubles (actually we'll never know, there's plenty of things that could have gone wrong anyway).

Of course it could be that Clair merely meant what you said and didn't care about Prime at all. After all EP 7 deals with the culprit on the gameboards not on the one in Prime and on the gameboards the adults' will is meaningless. There's only Yasu/Beato's will.

Quote:
Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
Regarding EP6, didn't Battler join the duel, implying that he might've remembered, and hijacked the game to "show that obnoxious guest" (since Shkanontrice participated in Meta and didn't produce her own 1st Twilight I don't see how he organized a game AGAINST/without her)?
A theory is that Battler played the game with Erika aiming for her to create a logic error that Beato would have to solve, pushing her to remember.
So, while pretending to play with Erika, he was actually 'playing' with Beato the way Beato played with him, using the game to make him remember.
Only he went at it in a different way, using himself as a bait while Beato used the lives of his family (Battler was sure solving the game he would save his family).

Quote:
Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
If you just meant that "Prime-Battler remembered" in light of his absence in Lion's world could still be connected with "Nervous Wreck Prime-Battler" via two murder games at the same time, then sure - thanks.
Yup, that was it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
Change of mind or am I missing something?
The idea is that theoretically there should have been dozens of Lion as you can vary dosens of things producing bilions of different worlds in which Lion existed, from Natsuhi accepted the baby to Natsuhi didn't accept the baby but slipped and she was the one who fell from the cliff to the baby fell but survived and Genji returned it to Kinzo instead than hiding it and many, many more.

Plus the many variations in Lion's world like Battler's mom didn't die so he didn't leave the family.

There should really be endless fragments with Lion, not just 1.

That's why it's weird Bern found just 1 and in this one coincidentally everything ended badly. If she had told, I found millions of worlds with Lion but I couldn't find 1 with a happy ending for him I would have believed her but if she says there's just 1 Lion... I end up thinking she hadn't searched hard enough... or that she had purposely searched a world that could fit in the Rokkenjima box, in short a world that had to end in a mysterious tragedy.

Which ironically would means that Lion has only 1 chance in a million to end up in a tragedy... only no one considers them because they are unrelated to the mystery at hand making them 'nonexistant'.
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Old 2012-10-20, 14:10   Link #30924
qno2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiltias
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...TheButlerDidIt

Hence how Umineko is even mentioned.
Reminds me of that quote that someone dug up from before Umineko was first released. That it's a parody, a mystery that veterans would laugh at and immediately solve.

... 10 minutes after starting to look for the quote I still haven't found it. *sigh*

Quote:
Originally Posted by jiblue1
A theory is that Battler played the game with Erika aiming for her to create a logic error that Beato would have to solve, pushing her to remember.
So, while pretending to play with Erika, he was actually 'playing' with Beato the way Beato played with him, using the game to make him remember.
Only he went at it in a different way, using himself as a bait while Beato used the lives of his family (Battler was sure solving the game he would save his family).
Alright, then it was just a semantic issue between us. Yes, sure, he 'challenged' her, but I didn't view them as 'opponents'. To me it seemed more like an adult trying to help a child understand something, giving it a 'challenging' problem to solve so to speak. But the jump between 'challenging someone' and 'opposing' isn't too big I suppose.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jiblue1
Ep 6 implied that Yasu had already come to a solution between Shannon and Kanon and that, despite this, the lingering feelings for Battler, were so strong that Beatrice still prevailed, even if she should have been destroyed along with Kanon.
We could actually assume that this "duel" happens every time. Shannon was the first to go in EP1 after all, in EP3 both lose at the start, ...

Very interesting read for latter: EP2, Meta-Scene in Natsuhi's Room - you can read this scene as Beatrice accusing Shannon that she just wanted to fulfill her sexual desires instead of prevailing and waiting for her "true love" to come back. And the result... Will: "Nobody would argue that a coffin is a closed room."

Quote:
Originally Posted by jiblue1
The idea is that theoretically there should have been dozens of Lion as you can vary dosens of things producing bilions of different worlds in which Lion existed,
Heck, maybe there is a world where the whole backstory about the gold makes sense. What would the odds for that one be?

That approach bears the very question of who the author of Reqiuem is. For Lion's world to say anything relevant to prime Tohya would need to be the one. Considering the end of that story however that seems unlikely (ah well, I'll still believe in the possible implications even though I basically denied them myself in this very moment, talk about seeing it with love and all). Unless someone else writes more stories about Lion it simply won't be possible to find a written account on them, even if a search engine like Bernoogle looks for it. However, since goats are only interested in the mystery anyway, you'd be correct of course.

edit: Maybe I can still save my beliefs. Yes. Everyone, take your hands and chant. Of course it's possible Tohya wrote EP7 but not the TP (+ Lion's bad ending), since "there is no game-master". Heck yeah, arguing without any basis, disregard this please.


edit2: Can't ever edit enough but I forgot this one last time already - "Meta-Battler's retroactive red killing" works for most episodes... except for 4. He confirms their deaths without demanding red or forcing their death in meta. So consider this idea failed.


If I had more faith in my writing abilities (in english to boot) I'd actually try my hand at a "Battler remembers" + "Nervous Wreck Battler" forgery in accordance to the known results of Prime (2 survivors: Eva, Battler). Don't think I'll get around to it very soon (if at all) though. Having two murder games actually solves the biggest issue I had before when trying to think up a "Nervous Wreck Battler" story - how to cause the actual chaos after Battler snaps.

Last edited by qno2; 2012-10-20 at 15:19.
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Old 2012-10-20, 14:16   Link #30925
Kiltias
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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
Reminds me of that quote that someone dug up from before Umineko was first released. That it's a parody, a mystery that veterans would laugh at and immediately solve.

... 10 minutes after starting to look for the quote I still haven't found it. *sigh*
Seriously!?XDDDD
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Old 2012-10-20, 14:41   Link #30926
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Found it, though my memory had been incorrect in many forms and curves - apparently it's from "Our Confessions", so AFTER the official series was done (haven't read it yet so I hope my blunder may be excused):

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kealym
Also, this bit :
What a simple and cheap mystery.
Probably, for those people who love to read the mystery novels that I have boundless respect for, they'll see right through it with a big laugh.
To witness demons, even with a brazen display of fantasy as "proof", is to mystery the height of satire; it will no doubt get laughs.


I dunno why, but it feels like my respect for the whole series just got a boost
Of course, it's referring to the "magic" (again, my mistake), even though you could bend the parody-aspect to 'the butler did it' as well. If you want to...

*sigh*... pretend I didn't say anything about this, okay?
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Old 2012-10-20, 15:23   Link #30927
Kiltias
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Wow, I don't know that much about mystery novels but I can't even imagine how one is supposed to be more complicated and challenging than Umineko.

I remember this:
Spoiler for Layered Worlds.:
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Old 2012-10-20, 16:04   Link #30928
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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
Nono, I was thinking you were joking about KnownNoMore's theory for the first twilight of EP5, which I find more... um... silly than his EP1 first twilight.
Whoops, sorry, my bad then, I thought you were being sarcastic.

Hmm... I don't remember his EP5 first twilight (I love myself too much to put it through all NINE FREAKIN' HOURS of that guy), care to give me the brief version?
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Old 2012-10-20, 17:10   Link #30929
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Heh, well, as even the TV Tropes article states, the "Butler did it" solution is a pretty ironic example of something that was never a real cliche to begin with, since apparently relatively few mysteries were solved with servant culprits.

Anyways, Umineko certainly is complicated ... mostly owing to it's very, um, post-modern nature. The mysteries themselves aren't very difficult at all, though. Assuming we're talking about the gameboards, anyway. Acknowledging that this sounds terribly arrogant but, I'm not at all a veteran of the genre, but my theories for EP1 and 2 were pretty much spot on. I was only missing a reasonable motive, which wasn't even hinted until EP3, and arguably doesn't exist at all.

In other news, reeeally wish Knownomore would invest the time in a truncated transcript. He doesn't even really have to solve EP5, does he? There isn't much of a mystery to account for, and he probably uses those parlor scenes as a stake against Shkanon, wham bam.
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Old 2012-10-20, 17:16   Link #30930
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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
Alright, then it was just a semantic issue between us. Yes, sure, he 'challenged' her, but I didn't view them as 'opponents'. To me it seemed more like an adult trying to help a child understand something, giving it a 'challenging' problem to solve so to speak. But the jump between 'challenging someone' and 'opposing' isn't too big I suppose.
Yes, in the end Battler had a gentler approach even if in the beginning he wasn't exactly kind to Beato.

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
We could actually assume that this "duel" happens every time. Shannon was the first to go in EP1 after all, in EP3 both lose at the start, ...
Yes, but, apart from EP 6 Kanon is always more unsure and reluctant than Shannon even if he technically has the advantage of being with Jessica much more than Shannon so I think, unless they were given much more time or something were to change, if Battler doesn't do something, is Shannon the one that wins.

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
Very interesting read for latter: EP2, Meta-Scene in Natsuhi's Room - you can read this scene as Beatrice accusing Shannon that she just wanted to fulfill her sexual desires instead of prevailing and waiting for her "true love" to come back. And the result... Will: "Nobody would argue that a coffin is a closed room."
It's a very interesting interpretation and this make interesting Shannon's answer about wanting to have the fulfillment of at least hearing she was loved. In the same way Beato also played on Yasu's fears, telling Shannon that men are interested only in a woman's body.

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
That approach bears the very question of who the author of Reqiuem is. For Lion's world to say anything relevant to prime Tohya would need to be the one. Considering the end of that story however that seems unlikely (ah well, I'll still believe in the possible implications even though I basically denied them myself in this very moment, talk about seeing it with love and all). Unless someone else writes more stories about Lion it simply won't be possible to find a written account on them, even if a search engine like Bernoogle looks for it. However, since goats are only interested in the mystery anyway, you'd be correct of course.
A favourite theory of mine is that Ep 7 represents Battler who solved the game and learnt the truth from Yasu (there are facts that it would be difficult to guess without Yasu confessing them).

As I'm among the Ikuko=Yasu believers I like for it to also represent the fact that it was Toya to be more exact who solved again the game which is why in the whole Umineko we have Battler who remembered and solved it and then Will, an outsider, who solved it (Toya doesn't think to himself as Battler anymore).

Of course it's possible that both Toya and Battler solved it but the Yasu part doesn't come from Ikuko but by Battler's memories of what Yasu told him.

The Tea Party though represent the new theory who's taking shape among the witch hunters, in short the Rudolf&Kyrie culprit theory, which is what is tearing apart Ange (which in fact get destroyed after the 'play').
Clair doll-like state might represent how people are 'using her' to tell this culprit theory. In short it wasn't her will that made her tell that story but someone else's.

Lion's 'death' is both nice and not nice as I said before. It 'proves' it wasn't Battler or Beato's fault if people die but, at teh same time, support the Kyrie&Rudolf culprit theory.

Will's attempt to resque Lion might represent Toya refusing to abandon himself to the idea that the tragedy was unavoidable due to the grown up malice (in short he denies that, if Lion's fate is to die, it wouldn't be due to the grown up killing him).

In a way his attempt to save Lion mirrors Battler's attempt to escape with Beato, only it's more dramatic. Either way no couple will reach the real world.

It's all very metaphoric though and mine is only one of the many possible interpretations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
edit: Maybe I can still save my beliefs. Yes. Everyone, take your hands and chant. Of course it's possible Tohya wrote EP7 but not the TP (+ Lion's bad ending), since "there is no game-master". Heck yeah, arguing without any basis, disregard this please.
Well, it's more or less what I also think as you could read (I really should read the whole message before start replying to it... ^_^;;

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Originally Posted by qno2 View Post
If I had more faith in my writing abilities (in english to boot) I'd actually try my hand at a "Battler remembers" + "Nervous Wreck Battler" forgery in accordance to the known results of Prime (2 survivors: Eva, Battler). Don't think I'll get around to it very soon (if at all) though. Having two murder games actually solves the biggest issue I had before when trying to think up a "Nervous Wreck Battler" story - how to cause the actual chaos after Battler snaps.
On a general line I tend to think it was the adults who snapped and not Battler, though he too is a possibility.
However Prime is well closed in Ryukishi's catbox so all the speculations over it are fair game.
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Old 2012-10-20, 18:37   Link #30931
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Originally Posted by Kiltias View Post
I'm thinking Yasu is true, just that there is something else.Though I'm awaiting a pm to answer a question regarding Van Dine.
The problem is combining EP7 with any theory without Yasu as the sole culprit.

One thing seems pretty solid though. If anyone killed on that day outside of Yasu's orders, then that person must have hoped to make Yasu take the blame for their crimes. Whether they were planning any murders before Maria got that first letter or not, it's hard to imagine that they would miss this chance to blame these crimes on Yasu, especially after the FTs that always leave "Maria's Beatrice" as the most suspicious person.
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Old 2012-10-20, 19:19   Link #30932
Kiltias
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The problem is combining EP7 with any theory without Yasu as the sole culprit.

Because IMO we are supposed to see it that way.

I have no doubts Yasu is true but the Cheese Riddle is THE perfect indication that something is wrong with the this answer.

"Kihihihihihi, I know the answer.It's written right here, kihihihihihi."
"You didn't know the answer until you looked, right Battler-kun?*get it?Battler-kun?"

"It's impossible to cut the cheese with anything except the knife, right?
The knife can only cut in a straight line, right?
There aren't any other rules right?"
"uu- not really"

"Puzzles without specified rules-in other words, all things not covered by the red truth, are left to the observers interpretation.It's the most basic of methods for constructing gaps in the witch's closed room."


Jessica mentions there can only be 1 answer and it being impossible to reach something else than 3.
Battler got 1.

The others ridicule battler for thinking of an answer apart for the obvious one which I point to my first sentence of the answer being written in the book by the ones who made it.

Battler came up with his conclusion because he thought the obvious answer was too easy to be a puzzle.
Theres even the quote that:
"These are usually set up so that a number smaller than you expect is the answer."

In the book the answer is said to be 3.
"Battlers answer is smaller than in the book is he correct?"
"Yes he is.....battler-san is correct the answer is 1.

"A mistake by the ones who made the book.I imagine there's a picture of a flat cylinder there in Marias book"
"uuu- there is.Right here."
The flat cylinder is the proof that the answer in the book was wrong thus the ones who made it placed a mistake not being the actual answer yet still an answer but not THE one.
Erika even points out that Battler is correct in both brains and cheese.
And Kyrie:
"It never mentioned how flexible it was"

Interestingly, George knew the actual result cause he said:
"I know this one.So I'll stay quite."

Battler got the actual result by thinking its too easy and overthinking while Erika knew BOTH answers and simply thought of the mistake made by the ones who made it.


As in:
Don't rely on the answer in the book, use your own interpretation to think of the actual answer.The only rule is the red truth.

Like said:
I believe Yasu is true, but there is another force at play except her, one that is the actual truth.
Might refer to Kyrie and Rudolf.
Perhaps Yasu planned to do carry out the killings but the two took matters into their own hands in order to grab the gold.
Battler might have been their accomplice but Yasu converted him which is how he escaped from the Island.

Didn't Battler disappear when he was supposed to meet with Rudolf at the chapel?
Perhaps thats when he escaped.

Last edited by Kiltias; 2012-10-20 at 19:34.
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Old 2012-10-20, 20:01   Link #30933
AuraTwilight
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Originally Posted by chronotrig View Post
The problem is combining EP7 with any theory without Yasu as the sole culprit.

One thing seems pretty solid though. If anyone killed on that day outside of Yasu's orders, then that person must have hoped to make Yasu take the blame for their crimes. Whether they were planning any murders before Maria got that first letter or not, it's hard to imagine that they would miss this chance to blame these crimes on Yasu, especially after the FTs that always leave "Maria's Beatrice" as the most suspicious person.
All Episode 7 really means is that Yasu is the culprit of the Gameboards. Even EP7 itself posits that she's not the culprit of the real world.
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Old 2012-10-20, 21:30   Link #30934
jjblue1
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Originally Posted by Kiltias View Post
Jessica mentions there can only be 1 answer and it being impossible to reach something else than 3.
Battler got 1.

The others ridicule battler for thinking of an answer apart for the obvious one which I point to my first sentence of the answer being written in the book by the ones who made it.

Battler came up with his conclusion because he thought the obvious answer was too easy to be a puzzle.
Theres even the quote that:
"These are usually set up so that a number smaller than you expect is the answer."

In the book the answer is said to be 3.
"Battlers answer is smaller than in the book is he correct?"
"Yes he is.....battler-san is correct the answer is 1.

"A mistake by the ones who made the book.I imagine there's a picture of a flat cylinder there in Marias book"
"uuu- there is.Right here."
The flat cylinder is the proof that the answer in the book was wrong thus the ones who made it placed a mistake not being the actual answer yet still an answer but not THE one.
Erika even points out that Battler is correct in both brains and cheese.
And Kyrie:
"It never mentioned how flexible it was"

Interestingly, George knew the actual result cause he said:
"I know this one.So I'll stay quite."

Battler got the actual result by thinking its too easy and overthinking while Erika knew BOTH answers and simply thought of the mistake made by the ones who made it.


As in:
Don't rely on the answer in the book, use your own interpretation to think of the actual answer.The only rule is the red truth.
Actually the problem isn't that Battler got the right answer, the problem is the author of the book made a mistake.
The number he wanted the readers to reach was 3. That was the correct answer to his puzzle but he explained his puzzle poorly giving space to an alternative solution.

If we want it's a warning to what will happen later when Erika will trap Battler in the room sealing even the chain because the duck tape's lenght wasn't strickly fixed but vaguely stated as 'enough to seal 3 rooms' and she stretched the interpretation so that she had enough to seal 3 rooms not just by sealing the doors but also by using it to repair the chain.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiltias View Post
Like said:
I believe Yasu is true, but there is another force at play except her, one that is the actual truth.
Might refer to Kyrie and Rudolf.
Perhaps Yasu planned to do carry out the killings but the two took matters into their own hands in order to grab the gold.
Battler might have been their accomplice but Yasu converted him which is how he escaped from the Island.

Didn't Battler disappear when he was supposed to meet with Rudolf at the chapel?
Perhaps thats when he escaped.
Well, it's clearly implied in Prime it wasn't Yasu who did the killing so the incident is surely someone else's job.

The problem is that on the gameboard for Ep 1-5 is clearly Yasu.
Ep 6 points at Erika so unless someone will manage to make a theory that say that Erika is another Yasu's persona, I'll say she was the murderer and that, at best, Yasu got anticipated by her.

But, even though I think it would be interesting if Yasu and Erika were the same person, I doubt someone can find a way for it to work...
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Old 2012-10-20, 22:27   Link #30935
chronotrig
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Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
Actually the problem isn't that Battler got the right answer, the problem is the author of the book made a mistake.
The number he wanted the readers to reach was 3. That was the correct answer to his puzzle but he explained his puzzle poorly giving space to an alternative solution.
I think I see this one a bit differently. The author did put a picture of his cheese (?) in the book, and though it didn't explicitly say the cheese had to look like the picture, you could probably argue either way.

Maybe we can look at it this way though: the circumstances in which the puzzle is told dictate what the puzzle is, and what the answer actually is. Of course, this fits perfectly with Beatrice, since all her puzzles/pranks are "told" in real life, and have to be changed to match whatever things are beyond her control. If something gets in the way of her original answer, she has to plan out a new one or give up.

If we want to find out whether Battler's answer was "better" or not, then we should try looking at the author ourselves. In this particular example, the author's "heart" is probably "I want to entertain some kids and make them think, to help them grow", which means that finding a more detailed and original answer than the author intended should be mission accomplished, assuming the author isn't an asshole. Both Erika and Battler also found the first answer, so they're doing nothing except getting more use out of the book than was originally intended.

It's the same thing in Beatrice's game. If you could find a better answer than the one she thought of, that would basically mean that you've spent a lot of time studying her world and understanding it on a fundamental level. The whole point of Beatrice writing these message bottles was to share her world with other people, so you think she'd be thrilled about something like this. Though of course, not as thrilled as she'd be if Battler solved it.

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Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
The problem is that on the gameboard for Ep 1-5 is clearly Yasu.
Can we say that EP5 was obviously Yasu?

So far, her MO has always been to do something that looks impossible, to make it look like she can win without even trying, but to prevent suspicion from falling on any innocent person. Yet unless Natsuhi is hallucinating or telling an extremely self-destructive lie, that phone person is trying to frame her for the crime in EP5. Of course, it's possible that some other person was trying to frame Yasu framing Natsuhi, but the only confirmed death in that episode (before the game end time) is Krauss, and he's killed immediately after one of those threatening phone calls to Natsuhi. So it looks as though the killer isn't Yasu.
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Old 2012-10-20, 23:01   Link #30936
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The message in the bottle might simply say that 'due to the bad weather the boat could not came' and focus on other details.
That's a big "might". Ange explicitly inner-narrated that the bottle stories had them "pinned down by a typhoon" and "provided a complete account of those two days". Also, the entire narrative of the first day is built around events affected by the timing of the typhoon. I mean, I'm hardly opposed to the notion that the bottle stories and the stories we read are different in some ways, but seriously, how bare-boned do you think the bottle-story actually was? Was it not even mentioned when it was that Maria revealed Beatrice's letter (during dinner) and how it was she supposedly got it (from a mysterious "Beatrice" who had come to give her an umbrella). It's the single most important plot point of the first day.

Furthermore, even if I granted that all it said was something like "there was a typhoon that kept Kuwabata from picking them up" (which I don't, at all), it's still hard to swallow. Like, if we supposed an average of 3 typhoons hitting per month during that time of year (I'm actually giving a very generous estimate here), then the chance of a typhoon hitting on a given day is still only about 10%. By the way, this is reasoning just based off the top of my head.

So, I did some basic research:

Average number that hit somewhere in the Japanese mainland per year? A little less than 3. Most, but not all, happen in September and October.

And just a fun fact: The number of typhoons that hit Japan in 1986 in real life is zero.

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Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
We know Yasu didn't write all of a whim but because she liked mysteries and wanted someone to solve the ones she wrote.
Also if I write a mystery tale in which my family get mysteriously slaughtered because I like to write mysteries and in writing 101 is written that for amateur is best start writing what they know best, this won't insure me my family will never be slaughtered, not even in the real world.
That's pretty creepy in of itself, but you did way more than that. You also wrote the day they'd die (and if you actually believe in the bomb device, you even wrote the minute they'd die). You also predicted who would be present that day and who wouldn't. And you also predicted the weather on that day. Then you, for some reason, wrote a second very similar story about that same day. And then you put them into message bottles which you threw into the sea within days before it actually happened.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
It would make it a very odd coincidence, a suspicious coincidence even, but let's face it, coincidences happens, even way more unbelievable ones.
Not that I think such a dumb coincidence happened in the first place, but even if it did, why would the police just go and assume it was a coincidence? You even call it a "suspicious" coincidence yourself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
Personally I find much more absurd the tale we get for Kinzo gaining the gold
Why? I mean, sure it's pretty extraordinary, but I don't see how it's entirely implausible.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
Add to this that this sort of coincidence happened in more than 1 mystery tale so, even if in real life it's, to use Kinzo's words, more similar to a miracle than anything else, in the mystery books world, it has a lot more chances of happening.
Right, but we're not talking about the mystery books world. We're talking about Prime.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
If they investigated it, it never came up it belonged to Shannon/Kanon. We're told that more or less all the siblings got suspected but there's no servant culprit theory.
The whole point I'm trying to make is that it's weird to think the police wouldn't investigate it. So either the police did, and came up with nothing, or it's a complete hoax from the start. But you seem to be suggesting that it's not a hoax (and, from what we're told, the police thought it wasn't), yet the police still didn't investigate it for some inexplicable reason, simply based on the fact that it was not explicitly stated that they did investigate it.

Am I correct in my assessment of what you're saying?

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Originally Posted by Captain Bluebeard View Post
Whoops, sorry, my bad then, I thought you were being sarcastic.

Hmm... I don't remember his EP5 first twilight (I love myself too much to put it through all NINE FREAKIN' HOURS of that guy), care to give me the brief version?
Second video, at 1:48:00. It's 7 minutes long.

He tries to explain the 5th game as an actual murder mystery using his usual three, even minus Rosa since the epitaph was solved. So with just George and Nanjo.

Basically, George knocks out everyone in the cousins' room and fakes their death, as well as his own, with makeup and fake death drugs (including the wounds on their necks). And it fools everyone: Battler, Rudolf, Kyrie, Eva, and Hideyoshi. Then he wakes up (before the others, I guess) and takes everyone somewhere else and confines or kills them. Then he goes to get Genji, who he had also knocked out eariler and made-up, and does the same with him.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kealym View Post
In other news, reeeally wish Knownomore would invest the time in a truncated transcript. He doesn't even really have to solve EP5, does he? There isn't much of a mystery to account for, and he probably uses those parlor scenes as a stake against Shkanon, wham bam.
No, but he thinks he does. He even tries to explain EP6. It's quite a train-wreck. I criticize him a lot, but at least he seems to play by his own rules... even if they're weird.

And yes, he loves those parlor scenes for anti-ShKanon.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjblue1 View Post
A favourite theory of mine is that Ep 7 represents Battler who solved the game and learnt the truth from Yasu (there are facts that it would be difficult to guess without Yasu confessing them).

As I'm among the Ikuko=Yasu believers I like for it to also represent the fact that it was Toya to be more exact who solved again the game which is why in the whole Umineko we have Battler who remembered and solved it and then Will, an outsider, who solved it (Toya doesn't think to himself as Battler anymore).
Yes, I feel this way too. It explains why this random "Will" person is reluctantly associated with the Ushiromiyas, but also knows them so well; it explains the concept of him being confined by Rokkenjima but also being an outsider to it.

And, of course, it explains how he has access to Theatergoing Authority: It's because his "vessel" literally lives with The Witch of Theatergoing. Honestly, I think it's otherwise quite difficult to suppose Will to represent an actual person in any other circumstance, because that represented person would apparently have access to information he otherwise shouldn't have (everything gained through Theatergoing Authority). But if Ikuko is Yasu and Will is Touya, it pretty much explains itself.
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Old 2012-10-20, 23:30   Link #30937
LyricalAura
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Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
That's pretty creepy in of itself, but you did way more than that. You also wrote the day they'd die (and if you actually believe in the bomb device, you even wrote the minute they'd die). You also predicted who would be present that day and who wouldn't. And you also predicted the weather on that day. Then you, for some reason, wrote a second very similar story about that same day. And then you put them into message bottles which you threw into the sea within days before it actually happened.
Well, did either of the original stories actually contain a line like "and then at exactly midnight, the rest of the survivors died"? The fantasy narratives say something happens at midnight, but those are arguably added post-incident by Ikuko.

For that matter, do the stories even agree on when the typhoon started?
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Old 2012-10-21, 01:56   Link #30938
Kealym
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Huh, that's an interesting interpretation of the cheese riddle ...

Actually, I assume the correct and intended answer is still "3". The rules didn't specify the shape of the cheese, and an assumption is made when it's read aloud, but I'd say that the shape was very strongly implied by the illustration.

The "mistake" Erika points out isn't that the shape isn't specified, but that it isn't specified VERY explicitly by the text as well, which I wouldn't really call a mistake at all ... though as chronotrig says, it's certainly a matter of interpretation, and the shape of the riddle DOES change depending on how it's presented. It's truly interesting - Erika and Battler gave the right answer to the riddle they were given, which is NOT the same riddle Maria was holding in her hands...

Anyway, I'd say, if I were Beato, and this answer of "three slices" was very important to me like Shkanon is to her, I'd be ... well, I wouldn't be very pleased with such a twisted answer, but you WOULD appreciate the effort spent. "Well, you tried, and that IS kind of interesting, since I didn't give you enough restrictions to deny that sort of thinking."

My real opposition to Kiltias' sentiment of "I believe in Yasu, but I also think there's more" is that I, and everyone here, has presumably been thinking about it, at least a bit, for some years now, and there doesn't seem to be enough, in the text of the story itself, to land on a fully satisfying "something else". It also implies a level of cleverness on Ryukishi's part that, well ... i don't think is there.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
And just a fun fact: The number of typhoons that hit Japan in 1986 in real life is zero.
Wow, that's wonderful. XD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wanderer View Post
Right, but we're not talking about the mystery books world. We're talking about Prime.
Mmm, yeah, but ... for us, even Prime still exists in the world of mystery books. For us, it's on the same level as more typical mystery works, and you know how THOSE tend to roll...
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Old 2012-10-21, 02:07   Link #30939
qno2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LyricalAura
For that matter, do the stories even agree on when the typhoon started?
No.

EP1 - a bit after 5 pm
EP2 - around 1pm

Quote:
Originally Posted by chronotrig
So far, her MO has always been to do something that looks impossible, to make it look like she can win without even trying, but to prevent suspicion from falling on any innocent person. Yet unless Natsuhi is hallucinating or telling an extremely self-destructive lie, that phone person is trying to frame her for the crime in EP5. Of course, it's possible that some other person was trying to frame Yasu framing Natsuhi, but the only confirmed death in that episode (before the game end time) is Krauss, and he's killed immediately after one of those threatening phone calls to Natsuhi. So it looks as though the killer isn't Yasu.
Didn't Virgilia say something along the lines of "this is a game without love"? If we assume that Yasu still had some "compassion" for the Ushiromiya in the other stories, she'd abide by her own rules (for example she'd stop when the gold is found) and probably not frame anyone, not even the person she blames for the way her life turned out.

If Yasu however doesn't have that love (not necessary hate)... she might just want to see Natsuhi's world crumble.

Last edited by qno2; 2012-10-21 at 03:13.
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Old 2012-10-21, 02:55   Link #30940
Drifloon
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That cheese scene can be interpreted in many different ways, honestly. I personally see it as referring to the 'number of people' count. Depending on what you classify as a person, you could say in red that there are both 16 and 17 people on the island, and neither answer would necessarily be wrong. So basically it's a hint to working out the conflicting reds at the end of that episode, as well as hinting that 'people' doesn't always mean the same thing in the reds (though KNM doesn't seem to have got the hint...).
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