[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by ijriims

What he was trying to do in 1985 or 1986? I think it was human cloning, which was already proposed as possible in 1960s. Now let's think about who Ange really saw as Eva on 1998's Rokkenjima...

Cloning does not work that way.

[Blazemaker]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

As I said, Kanon is a name that was given to a servant by Kinzo. If Kinzo gave the name Kanon to a servant X in the past and then he gave the name Kanon to Shannon in more recent times, by what logic you claim that the first one has more rights to be called Kanon than the second one?
The first Kanon doesn't need to be Shannon's little brother for this to work, you just need a random servant named Kanon in the past.




You go by a lot of questionable assumptions in my opinion. First off Battler might have an objective perspective but nothing says that he has superpowers that allow him to definitely know when a body is a dead body just by looking at them.

- It is by no mean necessary that at the time Beatrice talks to Battler they were all dead except 3 people.
- Jessica explained in detail how she would die and certainly she wasn't dead so you have this problem about someone knowing beforehand how people will die in any case. This can be solved with the theory that there is a big conspiracy against Battler leading him to believe a mass murder is occurring but they are all just faking it... and then a real killer kills them all taking advantage of the situation.

So you are saying that in the short time between Battler going to the capel and going back Shkanon killed 6 people, arranged their corpses exactly how Kyrie told they would be, died, another person killed Shkanon, killed more 5 people, arranged the bodies, and then proceeded to commit suicide and get ridden of the gun?

Also the detective authority says that upon inspection Battler wouldnt mistake a dead body for a real one, so for George its completely inadmissible that Battler wouldnt see that the corpse is dead, and for Kumasawa/Gohda, he clearly saw their corpses hanging and their dead faces.

Now about the Kanon thing, i think you are trying to hard.

The only one who can claim Kanon's name is the person himself!
A different person cannot claim his name!

It clearly states that in the game there is only one Kanon. Also for the logic problem with Kinzo: Red could refer to the game as a whole, and not just the game board of the serial murders, this include the flashbacks as well. So if Kinzo state os death is important and relevant for the story it can be confirmed and counted whenever its needed.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by tcaz2

Not possible. We saw when they broke in and found Shannon's corpse and the key next to her. That's the only one we DO see, but it's all that's needed to cast extreme doubt on the Shkanon theory.

Hmm, that's right. The theory that they were simply play-acting is busted.

I also agree that the extreme Shannon = Kanon version of the Shkanon theory doesn't work. However, a version of theory has to exist that explain why Battler never sees them together in the first four episodes. It should also explain why only one of them can attain love in their relationship while the other cannot.

I'll stick with my theory for now which provides a solution to all of those things.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Cloning does not work that way.

May I ask in what way then?

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Ssol

Hmm, that's right. The theory that they were simply play-acting is busted.

Nanjo could have had them drugged and covered with the Blood-Like Material X used to to draw the magic circles (or they could simply have used the material themselves.) He could then have, say, killed them later while he was supposed to be examining them.

Either way, Shannon could still have been alive when the adults found her.

Originally Posted by Blazemaker

So if Kinzo state os death is important and relevant for the story it can be confirmed and counted whenever its needed.

Actually, wasn't there a theory a while back that Kinzo had been murdered on October the 3rd, rather than died of a natural cause the way we had been shown in Ep5? It would explain many things, not just that odd Ep3 red...

Originally Posted by Ssol

The line where it said he went to visit Nanjo first was:
"I tried visiting Doctor Nanjo's room and asking whether he needed more coffee, but he said he didn't need any more either..."

Is it just be, or do George and Kyrie get more and more suspicious the more we examine their actions?

Originally Posted by Blazemaker

And i would find it strange for Ryuukishi to forgot a detail like that.

He's forgotten minor details before... In Ep2, Kyrie seems to have no idea that the relatives were planning to extort money from Krauss, while in Ep4 and Ep5 it's revealed that she planned the whole thing.

Originally Posted by ijriims

May I ask in what way then?

You cannot simply "grow" a clone to be a perfect replica of, say, Eva Ushiromiya.

Clones are born and develop in the same way that ordinary humans do... the only difference is that they are genetically identical to the original donor. They're not grown in a test tube, they need a surrogate mother.

Although you could, theoretically, get a sample of Eva's DNA in 1985 and clone her, there's no guarantee that the resulting individual would act or even look exactly like Eva, due to the influences of upbringing in the development of personality and physical characteristics. (She might not be as much of a bitch, or might be overweight, etc.) Furthermore, in 1998, she'd be 13 years old, even younger than Ange.

This doesn't even begin to account for the degenerative problems most clones inevitably have, especially before the technology was really understood, which it would not have been in 1985/6. So even if Kinzo had managed to make a clone of his daughter, not only is there no guarantee that she'd survive past the age of four, but there's also no reason for her to exist whatsoever, for the sake of the story or otherwise.

(Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist and as such much of this information may be somewhat inaccurate.)

[tcaz2]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Nanjo could have had them drugged and covered with the Blood-Like Material X used to to draw the magic circles (or they could simply have used the material themselves.) He could then have, say, killed them later while he was supposed to be examining them.

Either way, Shannon could still have been alive when the adults found her.

The keys were found next to the corpses. Therefore she was a corpse when the key was found. She was physically dead.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by tcaz2

The keys were found next to the corpses. Therefore she was a corpse when the key was found. She was physically dead.

Ronove's Ep5 Blue: Nothing prevents something that isn't a corpse from being called a corpse. Or something like that. There isn't a blue text wiki sue me. Furthermore, if the first twilight deaths are never faked, then what is the point of the core arcs? (Not that they haven't been primarily pointless to begin with...)

...You know, I've said this before, and I'm not saying this about you, but a lot of the Anti-Shkannon stuff has always struck me as being rather reactionary... not that I entirely support the theory myself anymore, but I think people need to actually think about the theory before rejecting it out of hand.

[Kaiba]

Well, you can disregard the cloning part if you want, but to give you some fact, some of the earliest recorded cloned animals were from 1952(frog), 1963(asian carp), 1986(mice), etc. It is not as futuristic as it sounded even in 1986. Though successful human cloning is definitely not known even in 2010, one needed to consider IF resource has been dedicated into research of human cloning, human cloning should have been accomplished a lot earlier.

So, by this logic, if we had men orbiting the earth in 1960, and men on the moon in 1969, than the whole Moon Base idea really wasn't that dumb.
Get real. Cloning a complete human being in 1986 is completely ridiculous. There is no evidence that Kinzo cloned anyone at all, and a claim as fantastic as "Kinzo had magic cloning machines need a ridiculous amount of proof. Saying "Shannon and Kanon look up to Genji" does not lead to cloning machines by only the most extreme stretches of the imagination.

1. Kanon could not be the baby from 19 years ago, nor could he be the son of Rudolf and Asumu. And now their background has been clear.

Okay, I guess it solves this supposed problem, not that I ever thought it was one.

2. It gave the reason why Shannon and Kanon would assist Genji and Kinzo even if it was about murdering, since Genji was their father and they owned everything to Genji and Kinzo, otherwise they would not exist from the beginning.

Assist Genji and Kinzo? Huh? I've never heard a theory where Genji is the mastermind, and while I think he is an accomplice, I can't accept him as a mastermind, as "the butler did it" is the single-most cliche answer in mysteries.

3. It just made sense of Shannon and Kanon's behaviour and beliefs, on why they thought so lowly of themselves before they met their loves.

What's there to make sense of? You spend your whole life being taught you're furniture for the master, you'll think that. That simple. Having loyalty as a servant towards the master does not mean that the servant came from the master or the head servant in the slightest.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Ronove's Ep5 Blue: Nothing prevents something that isn't a corpse from being called a corpse. Or something like that. There isn't a blue text wiki sue me. Furthermore, if the first twilight deaths are never faked, then what is the point of the core arcs? (Not that they haven't been primarily pointless to begin with...)

...You know, I've said this before, and I'm not saying this about you, but a lot of the Anti-Shkannon stuff has always struck me as being rather reactionary... not that I entirely support the theory myself anymore, but I think people need to actually think about the theory before rejecting it out of hand.

Chief Archivist Judoh has your back!

Spoiler for space:

This is only a theory though. It may be true in some games, but not all of them.

[Renall]

Regarding ep4, I want to stress that there is nothing that says everyone is already dead by the time "Beatrice" calls and/or meets with Battler. The only corpse Battler even sees before then is George; he sees Gohda and Kumasawa "hanging," but there's no indication they'd been shot yet. Let's be very generous and say all could be faking/not dead yet, so that's 0-3 corpses seen. Then there's "Beatrice" who is very clearly alive at that point, though she must die thereafter.

Battler then goes inside and sees seven people in the dining room, the "first twilight" victims + Maria. I'll assume he's not mistaken here so that's 7-10 corpses. Kanon's death cannot be temporally confirmed until such time as Battler finds a ninth body (Kanon died ninth, so once nine dead people turn up we know Kanon's dead sometime before then).

After that, Battler doesn't find anyone else until the next morning when he finds Jessica, Kyrie, Krauss, Shannon, Nanjo, Kumasawa, and Gohda. Though both Kyrie and Jessica's phone calls suggested their imminent deaths, they don't prove a thing. As far as we know, all of those people could have been alive until the morning of the 5th. Most likely they weren't, but it wouldn't altogether surprise me if more than three people were alive at the time of the meeting with "Beatrice."

[imaginari]

Originally Posted by Renall

After that, Battler doesn't find anyone else until the next morning when he finds Jessica, Kyrie, Krauss, Shannon, Nanjo, Kumasawa, and Gohda. Though both Kyrie and Jessica's phone calls suggested their imminent deaths, they don't prove a thing. As far as we know, all of those people could have been alive until the morning of the 5th. Most likely they weren't, but it wouldn't altogether surprise me if more than three people were alive at the time of the meeting with "Beatrice."

I don't remember the sequence of events perfectly, so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but nothing prevented him from finding the other bodies as soon as he got the mansion key. So they could have been alive, but I don't know how this could have been planned in advance. Gohda and Kumasawa, maybe, but probably not the other five.

[rogerpepitone]

Kyrie and Jessica were in the mansion. He could have found them at any time; it's only chance that he never entered their rooms. Krauss was found fairly close to the back door, and Nanjo & Shannon were a good distance away. Battler could probably be relied on to wait until day to look for the last two at least.

[Renall]

But the fact that he didn't find them is significant. He basically didn't see anybody at all between midnight and 6am. So not only do we not know if they were dead, we can't say much about the order. Really, about the only thing we can say is that Kyrie died 10th or later but cannot have been the last alive (not counting Battler I mean, the last alive before he was alone).

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Chief Archivist Judoh has your back!

Spoiler for space:

This is only a theory though. It may be true in some games, but not all of them.

Thank you, my good man. Yes, this is what I was getting at; that until the time either the detective sees the bodies and/or the deaths are declared in red, there is no reason to believe that the supposed victims are what they appear to be, even if they are referred to as 'corpses' in any color of text.

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Assist Genji and Kinzo? Huh? I've never heard a theory where Genji is the mastermind, and while I think he is an accomplice, I can't accept him as a mastermind, as "the butler did it" is the single-most cliche answer in mysteries.

But that's why actually doing it would be so brilliant. The device has become such a cliche that no writer worth his salt would ever use it anymore... and as such, Genji actually being the mastermind would be, in itself, a major twist.

"The butler did it" would have then transcended clichedom. It would become a reverse cliche.

[tcaz2]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Ronove's Ep5 Blue: Nothing prevents something that isn't a corpse from being called a corpse. Or something like that. There isn't a blue text wiki sue me. Furthermore, if the first twilight deaths are never faked, then what is the point of the core arcs? (Not that they haven't been primarily pointless to begin with...)

...You know, I've said this before, and I'm not saying this about you, but a lot of the Anti-Shkannon stuff has always struck me as being rather reactionary... not that I entirely support the theory myself anymore, but I think people need to actually think about the theory before rejecting it out of hand.

Ronove wasn't saying it about anything in red.

He was saying it about game pieces saying something is a corpse that isn't. There's a WORLD of difference, as Japanese is very explicit that 'corpse' means 'dead body', just like in English. I believe Klashikari already posted on this awhile back.

To change the definition of that in red, for one, completely defeats the purpose of the red (to give you clues), and two "who says a lock has to be a lock" "who says a door has to be a door" etc.

And I think about the theory. That's why I know it's absolutely asinine. As I said, the amount of inter-conspiracy among people on the island required to make it work is enormous. Either that, or they somehow fooled Natsuhi, Krauss, etc for almost three years when you have to consider work schedule conflicts, meetings, etc.

For instance, I REALLY don't think Natsuhi would trust a servant she never could get into a meeting while Shannon is there, one-winged eagle or not, with the "Kinzo-is-dead" secret.

The only reason Shkanon is so popular is because it's a theory that's incredibly hard to break due to the nature of it. For instance, even in the Ep6 theory, Shkanon has to be able to essentially switch personalities at-will for it to work. Of course all the closed rooms are meaningless if you do that. It's the same validity as 'everyone is in on it and is covering for everyone else so that they have alibis when they really don't'.

It's a cheap arguing gimmick that's impossible to refute but in the end just clouds everything over. Even if you wanted to bring up 'oh this trick is so useful!'... it's not, unless you know about red text... which people in the real world shouldn't. Real-world wise, all it could do is give Shannon/Kanon alibis with the other. Except they die separately almost every time, so even that doesn't work. So, I ask you, aside from getting around red text- what's the logic behind Shkanon?

Because I really can't think of any.

[Judoh]

I've really become interested in George culprit theories now. I have no idea why... and granted he dies in almost every episode, but it just seems to hold so much love. Plus I think George would make for an epic end. Ryukishi said he was going for a bitter sweet ending so I think it works. Especially when George talks about making his kingdom all the time, which makes him look like a king peice with maybe Shannon as the Queen. Plus most of George's back story seems to come from Shannon and not George himself so you don't know much about him in episode 1-4, which you can solve the mystery by.

Spoiler for george lines:

George EP4: I'll kill everyone for Shannon!!

George Ep 6: Their just pieces...

one reason I like this culprit theory is that in every episode so far a Mother of the Cousins is framed as the culprit. In episode 1 and 5 it's Natsuhi. In episode 2 it's Rosa. In episode 3 it's Eva and Kyrie. In episode 4 it's Kyrie. So I think a George end would be the opposite of the Higurashi end with Takano.

[Renall]

If George is anything I think he's either a mastermind or a "handler." His job is to keep the survivors under control. A wolf among sheep, so to speak. There's really no way he could be a murderer himself in an overwhelming majority of cases, but there's no reason a mastermind/handler really has to commit any.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Renall

If George is anything I think he's either a mastermind or a "handler." His job is to keep the survivors under control. A wolf among sheep, so to speak. There's really no way he could be a murderer himself in an overwhelming majority of cases, but there's no reason a mastermind/handler really has to commit any.

One theory I had was that if the culprit dies he can leave his intentions with his accomplices. So say the culprit knew he might die and he wrote a will for his accomplices in advance. (George once said that he was good at planning ahead even if he didn't look like it.) Those accomplices feeling sympathy for their master, after his death, would carry out his intentions. So it's like the Japanese Commander who even after he's dead has his intentions carry on with his generals. Granted it's different in that story because the enemy didn't know he was dead, but it's similar. I think Hideyoshi's stories are important.

Another theory is that since Kinzo is dead (assuming all the servants except Gohda know) That any of the relatives or cousins could act as the Master of any of the furniture. So say somehow Shannon or someone let it slip.... You get the idea.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Although you could, theoretically, get a sample of Eva's DNA in 1985 and clone her, there's no guarantee that the resulting individual would act or even look exactly like Eva, due to the influences of upbringing in the development of personality and physical characteristics. (She might not be as much of a bitch, or might be overweight, etc.) Furthermore, in 1998, she'd be 13 years old, even younger than Ange.

True. Even for a perfect clone like an identical twin, there is no guarantee that the clone would develop the same personality and definitely not having the same memory. To say Kinzo successfully develop a means to transfer memory is absolutely ridiculous even in today's world. EP6 just told us that even though sis-Beatrice having the same body as the original meta-Beatrice, even latter sis-Beatrice developed the same personality trait as the original one, they were not the same entity.

The whole point of cloning is just crazy, however, I think it explain better for what happened in the anime where the men-in-black were shot almost simultaneously. This really cast doubt on how on earth Amakusa could have done it. The scene showing Ange confronting Eva was also quite strange, and that was no indication of Ange's death at all but Ange gave a coup de grace upon Eva. Did Ange truly die in 1998? Who killed Kasumi and the men-in-black? What does it mean by Eva showing up in the end? People claimed that Ange was imagining things, Amakusa killing Ange in the end. Well, few of us could explain that scene satisfactorily.

BTW, I did not say Kinzo cloned Eva in 1986, I just meant that he left the equipment and the method in Kwadorian, then Eva got hold of it and clone herself sometimes latter. Obvious problems are how come Kinzo developed the means to speed up the growth of person, and the problem of giving the clone same memory and personality.

---------------

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

He's forgotten minor details before... In Ep2, Kyrie seems to have no idea that the relatives were planning to extort money from Krauss, while in Ep4 and Ep5 it's revealed that she planned the whole thing.

Ah, Kyrie seemed to not knowing Rudolf was planning with his siblings on extorting Krauss in EP1 and EP3, besides EP2. And IIRC, also in EP4

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

So, by this logic, if we had men orbiting the earth in 1960, and men on the moon in 1969, than the whole Moon Base idea really wasn't that dumb.
Get real. Cloning a complete human being in 1986 is completely ridiculous. There is no evidence that Kinzo cloned anyone at all, and a claim as fantastic as "Kinzo had magic cloning machines need a ridiculous amount of proof. Saying "Shannon and Kanon look up to Genji" does not lead to cloning machines by only the most extreme stretches of the imagination.


Okay, I guess it solves this supposed problem, not that I ever thought it was one.


Assist Genji and Kinzo? Huh? I've never heard a theory where Genji is the mastermind, and while I think he is an accomplice, I can't accept him as a mastermind, as "the butler did it" is the single-most cliche answer in mysteries.


What's there to make sense of? You spend your whole life being taught you're furniture for the master, you'll think that. That simple. Having loyalty as a servant towards the master does not mean that the servant came from the master or the head servant in the slightest.

Human cloning is ridiculous in the world of 1986, I totally agree. So if you don't buy it a bit, then you can just disregard it.

BTW, I said Shannon and Kanon assist Genji and Kinzo, but I did not say Genji was the mastermind. Genji himself was also an accomplice and he asked Shannon and Kanon to assist the mastermind, that's it what I was thinking.

I just wonder even though Sayo and Yoshiya were both orphans, that does not mean that they were furniture. Especially for Yoshiya, he became a servant for Ushiromiya family for only 2 years, and at the age of a rebellious teemager, I wonder what sort of education or indoctrination could turn him into thinking that he was less than human and was just a furniture.

Of course, you could argue that it was all the result of this screwed education of Kinzo and Genji. But basing on all these episodes, it seemed that only these two young servants knew about Kinzo's death (as they bore one-winged symbol) but not the other servants coming from the orphanage. Otherwise, all the other servants with the "on" as part of the codename should have also known about the death of Kinzo, then there was no reason why Natsuhi must schedule Shannon to be on duty on family meeting (considering it was said that Shannon was not as smart as some other "on" servants)