[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Geekodot]

Originally Posted by the_rogue

I don't see how there's a complete difference, because the "it" in "nor did she influence it" refers to "the world up to this point", right?

She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them.
Furudo Erika did not exist in the world up to this point, nor did she influence it.

She did not exist in THE world up to this point, making me doubt her very existence, however if she didn't exist in the worlds before this one, it isn't questionable at all xD

Or to say it better:
She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them. doesn't make me question her existence.

She did not exist in the world up to this point, nor did she influence it. does.

[June 1983]

I wasn't sure where to ask this, but someone posted on rokkenjima@LJ that EP6's title has been announced to be Dawn of the Golden Witch? Where did that come from? Can anyone confirm this? They didn't give a source.

[ameskitty]

Yeah, but especially if it can be translated that other way, "the world" means the gameboard (Rokkenjima), and "up to this point" refers to "in the games played before this one".

I guess if you wanted to you could say something like that but if we're getting tricked on anything I highly doubt it's this.

Originally Posted by June 1983

I wasn't sure where to ask this, but someone posted on rokkenjima@LJ that EP6's title has been announced to be Dawn of the Golden Witch? Where did that come from? Can anyone confirm this? They didn't give a source.

Found in the comments: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/auc-papermoon/d-umi06/

Probably reliable but you never know. Ooh, I like that title .

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

By the way, here's how I see all this. Despite using several lines to confirm Erika's position, Lambda never says "There are now more people on the island at the start time" or whatever. My guess is that this is because Erika isn't on the island at the start time, but arrives shortly after. It (the number of people on the island) only increased by one person, Furudo Erika. Besides her, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games. Neither of the two red texts about the number of people say "at the start time..." in them.

At the starting time of the game more than half of the cast isn't on the island.

I don't think that's the issue here. Erika could have been on the island at any given time.

[June 1983]

*dance* Oh man, I hope it's true. I want to know more about this game! And that sounds like such a good title!

[Raneh]

If you read it Furudo Erika did not exist in the world up to this point, nor did she influence it. then it basically means she was never there.
However if you read it She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them. in the present tense it could be possible she just died in all other worlds before the game started, I don't think a dead person 'exists' that way. Albert Einstein surely existed but he's long gone so he doesn't exist in today's world.
I can't read the exact sentence in japanese so I'm just using those two others have translated.

(...Or maybe Bern just timetraveled again and worked as a pimp.)

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Raneh

If you read it Furudo Erika did not exist in the world up to this point, nor did she influence it. then it basically means she was never there.
However if you read it She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them. in the present tense it could be possible she just died in all other worlds before the game started, I don't think a dead person 'exists' that way. Albert Einstein surely existed but he's long gone so he doesn't exist in today's world.
I can't read the exact sentence in japanese so I'm just using those two others have translated.

(...Or maybe Bern just timetraveled again and worked as a pimp.)

Actually, that interpretation is supported by red. Kinzo is a real person, and his corpse is definitely on the island, but it was possible for Battler to state that Kinzo does not exist.

[Jan-Poo]

これまでの世界には存在しないし、影響も与えないわ

Imho it can be translated either way. It is ambiguous since "world" could mean the world of the games(i.e. the closed off Rokkenjima between 4 and 5 October) or the real world. There is no way to determine for sure what's the real meaning.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

At the starting time of the game more than half of the cast isn't on the island.

I don't think that's the issue here. Erika could have been on the island at any given time.

No, the starting time of the game is when the typhoon closes over the island, but you still have a point. The red text about the number of people on the island doesn't actually say "at the starting time", so there's no need for Erika to arrive after the game starts. Forget what I said earlier The "no 18th person" rule doesn't apply to future games, so it didn't apply to EP5 anyways.

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

これまでの世界には存在しないし、影響も与えないわ

Imho it can be translated either way. It is ambiguous since "world" could mean the world of the games(i.e. the closed off Rokkenjima between 4 and 5 October) or the real world. There is no way to determine for sure what's the real meaning.

Well, even with that, I think it's still quite a stretch from the context to say that "she didn't exist in THE world" :/.

[Jan-Poo]

-In other words, no 18th person X exists!! This applies to all games!!!

As far as I can tell this doesn't say anything about the starting of the game, so if it worked for future games Erika couldn't exist in any way ^^; short of a shkannon theory or similar.


Btw I always assumed that the game goes from "October 4 - 0.00 Am" to "October 5 - 24:00"
why are you so sure it only starts after the island gets closed off?

Well, even with that, I think it's still quite a stretch from the context to say that "she didn't exist in THE world" :/.

it says exactly that, this is the more direct interpretation. The context explained by a trolling Bern is hardly reliable to me. Especially after I know how can she use reds for her evil schemes.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Btw I always assumed that the game goes from "October 4 - 0.00 Am" to "October 5 - 24:00"
why are you so sure it only starts after the island gets closed off?

No proof, but Beato always says so. It'd be weird to try and trick Battler on something like that, so I think it's likely that that time does mark the start of the game. Also, it's the time that the cat box closes over Rokkenjima, so it makes more sense for the game to start then.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

*gameboard hypothesis*

So, as usual, Ep1 is the only "real" game, correct?

...Yeah, that really doesn't seem to preclude a happy ending...

[Jan-Poo]

Actually I don't know, it was defined as a "game" as well. It might look more real because it is the one with the fewer magic scenes, but that isn't a guarantee.

[Renall]

Two things:

The "Nasty Trick": You guys are now looking for a trick because ryukishi said there was a trick. But wait a second. Who's to say we haven't already found the trick? Maybe we're among those people really close to the "answer." It would not surprise me if a 90% or so correct explanation for one or more episodes has already come up here. And it wouldn't surprise me if, in the ep5 discussion, the trick has already been discovered. Battler's unreliable perspective, the study, the faked death (or deaths!), the frame job, the time trick with the letter... there are lots of things that could be "tricks" to someone who hasn't given the story as much thought as people here have. Why are you so uncertain that you haven't already spotted the trick? Maybe he wants you going looking for some crack in your assumptions, make you doubt yourself. Doesn't mean you aren't right...

Fictional Reconstruction vs. Time Loop: Morally, there is no difference. It would be equally despicable for Battler to kill fictional entities who look, talk, act, breathe, and suffer like his family as it would to kill the real thing and resurrect them later. In either case the act is extremely difficult and I assume Battler has no intention of just picking some culprits and killing people with a ritual murder to satisfy the witches he just declared war on. While Battler may have to kill characters on the board (something that is evil, but that he clearly does not want to do), whatever the board may be, I have to think he's planning something. Would he have accepted the position of game master if he didn't have a plan for what to do with his new position? I wonder if he won't be using his control over the board as much to work out the kinks in the truth himself as to vex Erika's ability to solve things.

[Archer]

Originally Posted by Renall

Two things:

The "Nasty Trick": You guys are now looking for a trick because ryukishi said there was a trick. But wait a second. Who's to say we haven't already found the trick? Maybe we're among those people really close to the "answer." It would not surprise me if a 90% or so correct explanation for one or more episodes has already come up here. And it wouldn't surprise me if, in the ep5 discussion, the trick has already been discovered. Battler's unreliable perspective, the study, the faked death (or deaths!), the frame job, the time trick with the letter... there are lots of things that could be "tricks" to someone who hasn't given the story as much thought as people here have. Why are you so uncertain that you haven't already spotted the trick? Maybe he wants you going looking for some crack in your assumptions, make you doubt yourself. Doesn't mean you aren't right...

Fictional Reconstruction vs. Time Loop: Morally, there is no difference. It would be equally despicable for Battler to kill fictional entities who look, talk, act, breathe, and suffer like his family as it would to kill the real thing and resurrect them later. In either case the act is extremely difficult and I assume Battler has no intention of just picking some culprits and killing people with a ritual murder to satisfy the witches he just declared war on. While Battler may have to kill characters on the board (something that is evil, but that he clearly does not want to do), whatever the board may be, I have to think he's planning something. Would he have accepted the position of game master if he didn't have a plan for what to do with his new position? I wonder if he won't be using his control over the board as much to work out the kinks in the truth himself as to vex Erika's ability to solve things.

On the subject of this trick, I think there might be some things that we've taken for granted when constructing theories. Since it was never brought up in a discussion with Bern/Erika/Battler, it might have been passed over in favor of topics that the characters themselves emphasized more. If Ryukishi wants to believe that there weren't any players that noticed this trick, then it's probably something that we all may have overlooked or considered insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

I believe in most of the points you made, and there might be theories that have already arrived close to the truth. It doesn't hurt to double-check things, though.

[ijriims]

On the nasty trick:

Ryukishi said it was never brought up in a discussion with Bern/Erika/Battler.

Can it be Lambda's trick? Why Battler could become the golden-sorcerer? Why would Lambda allow Bern to (almost) succeed in framing Natsuhi? Why the game was suddenly cut at that point?


All the pieces except Erika were controlled by Lambda in Ep5, why did Lamda allow Erika to frame Natushi at all? What was her own agenda? And would it affect the whole game?

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


On whether the gameboards happened in the real world:

All episodes and games happened in the real world. The strongest evidence was that in Ep4 Ange's world was outside Beatrice's game already but continued what happened in EP3.

If all the games were just purely fictional, then Eva could not have survived in EP4 (assuming the real world was that all people died on the Rokkenjima).

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

On the coming EP6:

Ryukishi07 said that meta-Battler would be forced into following the epigraph. My understanding was that he comprehend the motive behind the real-Beatrice by now and was sympathetic towards it. So he now shall succeed meta-Beatrice's will to use the murders to coerce the people on Rokkenjima to solve the epitaph first, before he would kill people. Obviously, in EP6, Battler would be controlling piece-Beatrice (aka real Beatrice) and all other family members. Though it is not certain whether Erika would (miraculously) come to Rokkenjima again on the gameboard.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Two things:

The "Nasty Trick": You guys are now looking for a trick because ryukishi said there was a trick. But wait a second. Who's to say we haven't already found the trick? Maybe we're among those people really close to the "answer." It would not surprise me if a 90% or so correct explanation for one or more episodes has already come up here. And it wouldn't surprise me if, in the ep5 discussion, the trick has already been discovered. Battler's unreliable perspective, the study, the faked death (or deaths!), the frame job, the time trick with the letter... there are lots of things that could be "tricks" to someone who hasn't given the story as much thought as people here have. Why are you so uncertain that you haven't already spotted the trick? Maybe he wants you going looking for some crack in your assumptions, make you doubt yourself. Doesn't mean you aren't right...

Fictional Reconstruction vs. Time Loop: Morally, there is no difference. It would be equally despicable for Battler to kill fictional entities who look, talk, act, breathe, and suffer like his family as it would to kill the real thing and resurrect them later. In either case the act is extremely difficult and I assume Battler has no intention of just picking some culprits and killing people with a ritual murder to satisfy the witches he just declared war on. While Battler may have to kill characters on the board (something that is evil, but that he clearly does not want to do), whatever the board may be, I have to think he's planning something. Would he have accepted the position of game master if he didn't have a plan for what to do with his new position? I wonder if he won't be using his control over the board as much to work out the kinks in the truth himself as to vex Erika's ability to solve things.

Battler killing the game pieces wouldn't be different from Ange killing the stakes. It might be still a bad thing under a certain perspective, but not closely as bad as killing a real person, I don't think it is "morally" the same thing.

As for the trick you need to realize it must have the following properties:

1) If you know the "answer" you are likely to realize the trick, but it isn't certain
2) If you don't see through it is unlikely that you'll solve the crime completely

that content was never really necessary in the first place, so you can reach the truth of the crime with it or without it. Still, it's just so venomous that there's a chance you'll be totally confused. Depending on the situation, it's likely to cause a certain misunderstanding.

The "tricks" you mentioned do not really match with such a description.

Now I am most certainly biased, but just follow my reasoning for a while:

If the "trick" in question is that the games aren't real but are fictional stories. It is certainly something you would consider a nasty trick. Powerful? Yeah it completely changes your view of the whole story. Venomous? Why not. Necessary to solve the crime? Not really. But would there be points that still made you confused if you don't understand it? Most certainly.
Has it been discussed by Bern, Erika and Battler? Nope.

I don't want to claim that this is definitely it, but if there is someone that has found the trick already between us, what matches Ryukishi's definition better than mine?

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

If the "trick" in question is that the games aren't real but are fictional stories. It is certainly something you would consider a nasty trick. Powerful? Yeah it completely changes your view of the whole story. Venomous? Why not. Necessary to solve the crime? Not really. But would there be points that still made you confused if you don't understand it? Most certainly.
Has it been discussed by Bern, Erika and Battler? Nope.

I don't want to claim that this is definitely it, but if there is someone that has found the trick already between us, what matches Ryukishi's definition better than mine?

That can't work. Ryuukishi said that the "trick" was something from the original EP3 and was included in EP5...which means it cannot be something that affects the other games directly, though it may be a rule that just doesn't come up in the other games.

I think the meta battle in the study has already been mentioned as a possibility. Whatever it is, Ryuukishi seems to be having a lot of fun with it

[ijriims]

Spoiler for Quote for the dreaded "Land of the Golden Witch:

People also wonder whether content from "Land of the golden witch", which was removed from EP3, was included in EP5.

Ryuukishi: I definitely can't tell you that! It's true that the most vital part of "Land of the golden witch" is in there, but it's such a terrifying bit. Furthermore, it's something that neither Battler nor Erika nor Bernkastel has ever brought up in discussion. Maybe they didn't even realize that it was a riddle. Well, you'll probably find out soon. In EP6, a huge bit of red text info will appear regarding this point......according to the current plan.

How many players have noticed what this content is so far?

Ryuukishi: Zero. ...Well, I'd like to say that, but I can't. This content is extremely venomous. Very powerful.

Is this content deeply related to solving the crimes?

Ryuukishi: I think people who have found the "answer" probably won't have any problems. I wonder if they've realized it's a trick...... It's a very dirty trick.

To put it another way, is it possible to reach the truth of the crime if you haven't noticed this trick?

Ryuukishi: That's hard to say. If you don't see through the part from "Land of the golden witch", you definitely won't be able to reach several vital answers.
However, that content was never really necessary in the first place, so you can reach the truth of the crime with it or without it. Still, it's just so venomous that there's a chance you'll be totally confused. Depending on the situation, it's likely to cause a certain misunderstanding.

Certain key things from this dialogue with regard to the content from "the land of the golden witch"

1.it's something that neither Battler nor Erika nor Bernkastel has ever brought up in discussion.

2.EP5 contained most vital part of it.

3.It was a riddle, a trick, a very dirty one.

4.Several vital answers were related to that content, but one does not need that content to solve the crime scenes.

5. Few people should have realized it, but in EP6 some red texts would directly address to this content according to the plan.