[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 5 End of the golden witch

[Marion]

Originally Posted by Used Can

He's wearing a suit, how do you know he doesn't have one? From Natsuhi's reactions, it seems that the one-winged eagle mark is an important deal for the Ushiromiya family. Eva has one; so, I think it is fair to assume Krauss, Rudolph and Rosa have them somewhere in their bodies too. However, unlike Eva, they don't have those parts of their bodies exposed. Their children quite likely have the mark as well. The same can be said about the servants Kinzo has granted that mark. If Shannon has it, chances are good Genji and Kanon have them somewhere too - who knows, maybe other servants may have it as well; although, they'd have to be important to Kinzo.

Why is it that because Eva has it all the other siblings do as well? It's not like the tattoo is a right of passage or anything Honestly I think you're obsessing over a choice to tattoo or not, at least as far as the humans go. Eva just decided to tattoo it on her body because she obviously has a lot of pride in the family name (remember how in EP 3 everyone said they would be willing to sell off their spot on the Ushiromiya hierarchy, but Eva said that she would never do such a thing).

[Renall]

I didn't count anyone as a "Beatrice" who does not identify themselves as such. However, I forgot "Beatrice the Golden" from the dinner letter, and you're right that this could be an entirely different person (although I suspect it's the one who sent the letters/wrote in Maria's diary/etc., there's no proof as Ange never compared the dinner letter to those writings).

The staker and magic circle person are not, in my mind, a "Beatrice." There is no proof whatsoever that these acts are Beatrice-related. That said, it could be one of the aforementioned "Beatrices" doing it, but the existence of "the staker" is as far as I'm willing to go. I'm not even convinced the staker is killing anyone.

[desirebluesky]

Originally Posted by Used Can

He's wearing a suit, how do you know he doesn't have one?

if we assume that anime is canon, there's no way he has one, unless he has it on top of his head or something. remember we not only see him naked, but also long enough and from different angles, you can examine almost his whole body in this scene. no sign of any tattoos.

[Used Can]

Ahh... I wasn't counting the anime pictures. I guess I'll have to leave this argument as it is.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

I didn't count anyone as a "Beatrice" who does not identify themselves as such. However, I forgot "Beatrice the Golden" from the dinner letter, and you're right that this could be an entirely different person (although I suspect it's the one who sent the letters/wrote in Maria's diary/etc., there's no proof as Ange never compared the dinner letter to those writings).

There's also the "Golden Witch Beatrice" who signed the letter found in Episode 3. Between the different signature and the different tone of the letter (the author explicitly threatened to kill everyone if they didn't solve the epitaph), I think it's reasonable to suggest that it was written by a different person.

Originally Posted by Renall

The staker and magic circle person are not, in my mind, a "Beatrice." There is no proof whatsoever that these acts are Beatrice-related. That said, it could be one of the aforementioned "Beatrices" doing it, but the existence of "the staker" is as far as I'm willing to go. I'm not even convinced the staker is killing anyone.

I just listed them and the magic circle person as Beatrice because their actions are being attributed to Beatrice by the other characters. At least in the staker's case they appear to be deliberately creating that impression by following the epitaph. I do agree with you that the staker may not be killing anyone (at least not deliberately -- see Hideyoshi's death in Episode 3).

[Leinne]

Originally Posted by Marion

Why is it that because Eva has it all the other siblings do as well? It's not like the tattoo is a right of passage or anything Honestly I think you're obsessing over a choice to tattoo or not, at least as far as the humans go. Eva just decided to tattoo it on her body because she obviously has a lot of pride in the family name (remember how in EP 3 everyone said they would be willing to sell off their spot on the Ushiromiya hierarchy, but Eva said that she would never do such a thing).

Is everyone sure that's a tatoo?? I've always thought it was part of her outfit which connected it to the glove. Something like stockings (don't know how to say it well but that material) with the symbol impressed, which could be the same as Shannon, wearing stocking with the Ushiromiya crest.

[Kite22]

Originally Posted by Leinne

Is everyone sure that's a tatoo?? I've always thought it was part of her outfit which connected it to the glove. Something like stockings (don't know how to say it well but that material) with the symbol impressed, which could be the same as Shannon, wearing stocking with the Ushiromiya crest.

I'm pretty sure that both Shannon and Eva have tattoos on their bodies, I've never heard (or seen any sort of evidence) to suggest they are simply part of their outfits.

[rogerpepitone]

Has there been any official art of Shannon or Eva in swimwear? (I'm fairly sure I've seen Shannon in swimwear, but I'm not sure whether it was official or fanart.) That would clear up the tattoo question.

[Marion]

Originally Posted by Leinne

Is everyone sure that's a tatoo?? I've always thought it was part of her outfit which connected it to the glove. Something like stockings (don't know how to say it well but that material) with the symbol impressed, which could be the same as Shannon, wearing stocking with the Ushiromiya crest.

Again considering there are two promo pics of Shannon being bare-legged on the beach I doubt it's stockings XD Same goes for Eva.

And yes the promo pics of Shannon are the beach are official and from DEEN. Of course I trust Trollkastel more than I trust them so 9w9

[Kitsu]

I don't know about the tatoo thing (It might be possible that the furniture or some of the family members ahve one)... I kinda realized...I mean it doesn't have to be important and stuff. But did you guys notice that on Erika's cloth which of course were Jessica's is no eagle? Means that Jessica didn't wear the eagle in her junior highschool time. Isn't that a little strange? Especially with Natsuhi as her mother?

[Jan-Poo]

Imho they only wear the winged eagle on the family conference. It's been said that they are special clothes they don't wear everyday, so that's probably it. As for why you still see them with the same clothes even in the flashbacks where they are at their own places... well.. I guess that's because Ryukishi didn't want to make new graphics just for that XD

The real problem is Ange since she has no reason to wear that armband.

[Kitsu]

As for why you still see them with the same clothes even in the flashbacks where they are at their own places... well.. I guess that's because Ryukishi didn't want to make new graphics just for that XD

i agree on that one, I meant that would have been a lot of work^^

Imho they only wear the winged eagle on the family conference

But didn't flashback Eva and Krauss in the anime have the crest? I'm unsure on that one. Also with Natsuhi as her mother I think she would let her daughter show off the crest in every possible occasion

[Workworkwork]

Originally Posted by Kitsu

i agree on that one, I meant that would have been a lot of work^^




But didn't flashback Eva and Krauss in the anime have the crest? I'm unsure on that one. Also with Natsuhi as her mother I think she would let her daughter show off the crest in every possible occasion

Well, Kinzo was alive and around back then, so he was probably much stricter with them showing it off.

In other news...

Spoiler for My mind is in the gutter,seriously:

I'm really hoping there's at least an implication in the beginning of EP6 that Battler gave his own "Torture" to the Stakes in return for what they did to him in EP3's prologue.

[Kitsu]

In jessica's middle school time Kinzo was also around. But oh well maybe I'm just to dep into it

[Jan-Poo]

Maybe Kumasawa removed the one-winged eagle on the spot just for the unexpected guest XD

[Marion]

You also see in the manga and elsewhere they didn't always wear the eagle (EP 2 George wasn't wearing it and at the school festival Jessica didn't show it off either, along with Kanon. Plus EP 4 Ange doesn't wear the eagle around school).

And yeah I think it is with the family. In the anime Eva (she was wearing a necklace I think) and Krauss wore it because of Kinzo. Maybe one needs to wear the crest, if they can, only on Rokkenjima. But other times they don't have to (EP 4 manga Ange wasn't wearing it as a child after all and I remember in the EP 2 manga Rudolf wasn't wearing one on his business suit during his dream about his company).

[Jan-Poo]

In the past days I've been trying my best to solve the epitaph and make sense out of all the info in our possession. I have tried many different paths, most of them led to a dead end, some of them led to a frustrating something close but not close enough. I have tried grounded simple reasonings and far-fetched reasonings.

In the end I can't say I reached any completely satisfactory solution, however I have reached what it seems a possible one, even so it has weak points here and there. I don't think this is 100% correct, but I might have got some good hunches and maybe showing you the result of my work can help other people with their theory.

What I am going to explain is the result of all my hard work so far, with the help of chronotrig. This is the best I could come up with. The most interesting part is, if this reasoning is correct, I solved the riddle up to the very point you find the gold. I don't think anyone ever got that far before.

Unfortunately there are some ep5 spoilers, but it was unavoidable to explain my theory.

Spoiler for Epitaph temporary possible solution:

Eva's reasoning started with the river, from the river she understood everything else. I think Rosa had a completely different approach, but in both cases they found out the solution.
Rosa said she wasted too much time thinking about the river, while Eva got everything from that. The sweetfish part seemed to have helped Eva, but didn't help Rosa at all.

Eva's reasoning focused on the river and the first portion of the riddle

Rosa's reasoning (as seen more in detail in ep5) focuses on the central portion of the riddle and concerns the ten step journey to the golden land

Both reasonings can lead to "railway". Or rather if you mix them up, railway comes easily to mind. It could be that Rosa and Eva reached the solution right because they shared their own interpretations (well to be precise Rosa received the other info from the adult discussion).

In ep5 it seems that Battler also needed Rosa's viewpoint to reach the solution. It appears that Erika came up with something similar to Rosa's theory, or maybe she just followed Eva's reasoning about the river=railway.

At any rate we have two different perspective. One is the "word play" theory, the other is the "ten step journey" theory. It is hard to explain what use can have Rosa's viewpoint if the riddle is only based on a wordplay. And yet we know that Rosa's reasonings were vital to the solution of the epitaph, as Rosa in ep3 said: "if I didn't tell you about that 黄金の郷 you would have never solved the riddle.

Sorry for this long premise. Let's go back to the river.

Honestly I have no clue what kind of thought led Eva to chose the right "river" or why she was so sure it had to be a railway. Anyway I can tell you what kind of reasoning I did.

I excluded the Kanto region and all the regions near it. That because in ep1 Shannon says that Kinzo talked about the great Kanto eartquake as if it was something that didn't concern him.
Then I concentrated my efforts on Hokkaido because maybe that's what "to the sea" made Eva think about. Hokkaido: the way to the northern sea.

Anyway I imagine that Eva at this point didn't know yet what was the "hometown" and neither she knew what was the "village". She just had this idea of the railway, and maybe a general idea of its location.

Then she looks at the map and she wonders what could this village be.

"丁　里　村" there are many of those. I don't think Eva is stupid. If the problem is that there are many of those, it means there really are many of those on this "river". Eva just can't get head and tails of what this "village" should be, how to locate it in the middle of all the many possibilities.

Therefore you need to find something that makes ring a bell. During my researches, I have found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogane_...(Hokkaid%C5%8D)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muroran_Main_Line

If you want to see it on google maps

go to Hokkaido, insert "muroran" in the search, then look for the railway at NE from that directly on the coastline. You will find the "Kogane Station".

Kogane is written exactly like Ougon. Now ep5 describes the discovery of the "village" as something that makes every piece go into place.
My theory is that this is where Rosa's reasoning and Eva's reasonings collide. Because the first part of the riddle and the second part of the riddle describe the same thing.

the river runs through the hometown and the village. the journey starts from the hometwon to the village, ten step journey at the tenth twilight the journey will end and you should reach "kogane no sato" (the village of Kogane).

That's how 黄金の郷 must be read: "kogane no sato".

A weak point of this theory is there is another Kogane station near Nagoya. However this one isn't by the coast and it is very close to the start of the line.

Another weak point of this theory is the "shore" isn't immediately recognizable. I have two theories at the moment, one is a dead end, the other is promising but a little farfetched.

Shore hypothesis 1:
It's the actual shore near Kogane: "Uchiura Bay". Well it's not like you can only find it at Kogane, but is there a shore that is only limited to a single village in the first place? If this is reasoning is correct, the two are the two big volcanos that you can find at each end of the bay. they are quite visible from google maps. Also this bay was named "volcano bay" by english explorers right because of the volcano visible from the coast. Volcano however is 7 letters and doesn't lead anywhere. Uchiura isn't 6 letters either and it is impossible to translate it in something with 6 letters. It means "internal inlet". It could be that you need to "read" it using different yomi. in that case there are 3 options: "daiura", "naiura" and "uchiho". If this is the right path I can't progress any further

Shore hypothesis 2:
The full station name is 黄金駅　"Kogane station", but you could read it as "golden station". The two are the "two kanji" of "kogane", the shore symbolizes the external portion of the sentence. In other words "駅" is the key. It is pronounced "Eki". However it isn't 6 characters at all, even if you translate it in english.
So maybe you need to "read" it in another way. There are many different things with the same pronounce of "eki" but there is one that is very interesting for my purpose. I know it is quite convenient to do this, but "eki" can also means "liquid" and "liquid" is just "paafekuto"! You will see later why. For now let us just say we take "liquid" as our key.

Before that it should be noted that having we found the village, we can get to the hometown simply by going up ten stations. What we find is Rebun "礼文".

There are two very interesting facts about "Rebun". The first is that Rebun was mentioned many times in a row in ep4. I quote:

".........
Hokkaido,
Rebun Island,
Rebun County,
Rebun City,
1-2-34-567. .................."

This is Nanjo's letter adress. This is of course a completely different "rebun" but it is written exactly the same way: "礼文" (thanx chronotrig from noticing this).
Could it be that Ryukishi was teasing us, by showing us the "homeland"'s name?

The second interesting fact is that Rebun can answer one of things I couldn't answer so far.

We know that once you find the key you need to go to a certain place. Eva says "it can only be that place". Battler and Erika are also found somewhere outside.
I always thought the first checkpoint must be the chapel. It fits with the "what offers sacrifices" said by Eva and it would connect with the inscription on the chapel. So what is that makes you go there by solving the riddle? There must be an hint of some sort.

Rebun can explain this. Rebun is formed by two Kanji.
礼 salute, thanx, ceremony. It is the same kanji whom chapel "礼拝堂" starts with.
文 sentence, style, literature, etc. It has many meanings, but "sentece" is the most interesting for my purpose. this is the same kanji included in epitaph "碑文"

If this is correct, then "Rebun" as the first twilight means you need to go to the chapel and read the inscription.

The first twilight is the inscription on the chapel. there are two long sentences but the most relevant part is without doubt: "quadrillion".

In ep5 Battler says that the starting sentence must be either 11 or 13 letters long, and guess what? Quadrillion is 11 letters.
Battler also said that when you remove the six letters of the key, you are left with only a pair of letters that remain close and all the rest are isolated. Well let's try remove "liquid" from it, shall we?

QUADRILLION
__A_R_L_ON

5 letters remain, two are left close.

At the second twilight the remaining shall separate the two who are close
_A_R_L_O_N
or maybe you need to place the first 3 inside so they physically separate them
O_A_R_L_N

At the third twilight the remaining will praise my honorable name on high.

This is where I'm at loss. I can get two possible names from these five letters:
LORNA and RONAL. Both of them are rare and more importantly, who the hell are these people? But it is a fact that the only persons with 5 letters names are Maria, Kinzo and Kyrie. Alternatively you could try the surnames: "Nanjo" or try hiragana surnames: うしろみや or Kanji full namea 左代宮金蔵 and practically every Ushiromiya with a two kanji name. However I don't think the kanji and hiragana possibility is high. Not after ep5 repeatedly said the word play must be in english.
Also I don't think Maria and Kyrie are viable options.

In the end if it is a name we already know then "Quadrillion" is wrong. But if quadrillion is right then it can only be an unknown name.

Anyway after this as Erika and Battler postulated, you need to "kill" these remaining 5 letters until none remains. Not sure what Head, Chest and so on means, but maybe they just tell you to remove them in order after you have rearranged them to form a name.

And here comes the big question: What's the purpose of all this? You get a key a starting sentence, you remove letters and you are left with nothing. And what do you obtain?

Well episode5 gives a clue. These are the instructions to operate a mechanism. Without any doubt Erika is operating one, and she says something about "this is what gouge means" which makes think about buttons that need to be pressed.
It's not like I have never thought about this before, but I didn't want to think it as a real possibility because if that's a mechanism then how the hell are we supposed to solve the riddle?! But the mechanism is real, no doubt about it.
Also it looks like by operating the mechanism the right way, a signpost will move, indicating the path to the golden land.

That's what the word play game is all about, operating a mechanism to make a signpost move.

But it can't be all that there is to know. This is a ten step journey, the chapel is just the first. Where do you get the info to progress further?
Until it wasn't clear what the word play entailed you could think the wordplay itself would give you hints for that. But now we know it is a very short sentence and in the end you are left without any. So where could there be any reasonable hint to reach the golden land?

The Enoura theory sort of addressed this problem by telling that "behind the picture" there are those fabled instructions. However, if that's the case, there's no way we can progress any further. I have a different opinion: the instructions are found inside the atlas.

This is where my theory gets more interesting. Are you ready? I will paste and copy the ten stations from Rebun to Kogane:

礼文
大岸
豊浦
洞爺
有珠
長和
伊達紋別
北舟岡
稀府
黄金

And now a rough translation:

ceremony sentence
big shore
bountiful inlet
cave of the old man
exist/possess jewel
long peace
arrive family crest fork
northern boat hill
rare storehouse
gold

Now let me tell you how I interpret this:

First twilight: Go to the chapel, read the sentence and use the wordplay to operate the mechanism. That will make the signpost change direction pointing to next checkpoint

Second Twilight: Following the direction of the signpost you reach a "big shore"

Third Twilight: continuing on the same path you reach a "bountiful inlet"

Fourth Twilight: In the inlet you will find a cave. That's the cave of the old man (Kinzo)

Fifth Twilight: Look for a jewel that marks the path, or push the jewel to open a path.

Sixth Twilight: walk down a very long corridor without turning

Seven Twilight: You'll reach a fork, go where the crest tell you of

Eight Twilight: not sure about this one, maybe go north or something, or you need to take an actual boat?

Nine Twilight: You reach a secret facility, storehouse or something on those lines

Tenth Twilight: congratulations you have found the gold!

TL;DR Version

Spoiler for Episode5 epitaph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muroran_Main_Line

Homeland: Rebun 礼文
River: Muroran Line
Village: Kogane 黄金
The two: "黄" and "金"
the shore: "駅" as it is the last portion of "黄金駅": Kogane station

EKI can also mean LIQUID, that's the key to the golden land

The first Twilight (Rebun 礼文) Hints you need to go to the chapel and read the inscription. There you find "Quadrillion".

You remove LIQUID from QUADRILLION and you get _A_R_L_ON

The two who are close are the letters "ON" you seprate them: "A_R_L_O_N"

You rearrange the letters to form a name, it could be LORNA or RONAL or who knows what.

Now that you have rearranged the letters you "kill" them in order from the "head" to the "feet".

All of these are instructions to operate a mechanism (the same mechanims Erika is operating in ep5). The mechanism makes a signpost change its direction and it indicates the path that must be followed.

Now what's relevant are the hints of the other stations:


礼文 ceremony sentence
大岸 big shore
豊浦 bountiful inlet
洞爺 cave of the old man
有珠 exist/possess jewel
長和 long peace
伊達紋別 arrive family crest fork
北舟岡 northern boat hill
稀府 rare storehouse
黄金 gold

First twilight: Go to the chapel, read the sentence and use the wordplay to operate the mechanism. That will make the signpost change direction pointing to next checkpoint

Second Twilight: Following the direction of the signpost you reach a "big shore"

Third Twilight: continuing on the same path you reach a "bountiful inlet"

Fourth Twilight: In the inlet you will find a cave. That's the cave of the old man (Kinzo)

Fifth Twilight: Look for a jewel that marks the path, or push the jewel to open a path.

Sixth Twilight: walk down a very long corridor without turning

Seven Twilight: You'll reach a fork, go where the crest tell you of

Eight Twilight: not sure about this one, maybe go north or something, or you need to take an actual boat?

Nine Twilight: You reach a secret facility, storehouse or something on those lines

Tenth Twilight: congratulations you have found the gold!

[Serpit]

Is it wrong that this totally convinces me? >_>

Even if it shouldn't be correct, I applaud you nonetheless, sir =D


As for the one part you aren't sure of...

Spoiler for Eva's thoughts:

Honestly I have no clue what kind of thought led Eva to chose the right "river" or why she was so sure it had to be a railway. Anyway I can tell you what kind of reasoning I did.

I don't remember what exactly Eva said in Episode 3, but wasn't the hint that gave her the biggest realization the part about sweetfish going to the sea and back again? A railway fits that description, as the "fish" traverse in both directions. As for the question of how Eva found the specific railway, it might be because it runs along the Hokkaido coastline, and according to Wikipedia, that's precisely where sweetfish in Japan live.

[Renall]

What about the supposed notion that "the two" in the epitaph are supposed to be two people? Also, "northern boat hill" could mean the secret dock that services Kuwadorian, or a place near it (it's not unimaginable that an underground tunnel would connect to a dock facility). Which side of the island specifically was that ever said to be on, if it was at all?

[Jan-Poo]

The reason the boat thing doesn't convince me that much is Rosa's encounter with Eva near the treasure. There should be two boats then, but why? Also in ep5 there are many people that go there.

As for "the two", I wonder... in japanese is "二人" and "the six" is　"六人" we know that in at least one case the "people" part is irrelevant. Also since Eva is looking inside an atlas if the two are people then she must have found a connection between places and people names.

This is one of the things I have tried to examine since the kind of shock Eva receives once she find out what the village is make me think she understood something more than just a riddle. For example what if she has found station names which are similar to Kinzo's children and grandchildren names? That would be quite a shock to learn those strange names were part of such a scheme. However I was unable to find anything of the sort.