[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[goldendust]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I've a pet theory about the teaparty being a metaphor for what's going on in the real world.
Let's assume that Yasu wrote the messages in the bottles BEFORE the incident and really tossed them in the sea and then that Lion represents Ikuko/Yasu who actually survived the incident and that she would have liked to explain things to Ange (remember? Ikuko wanted Toya and Ange to meet).
However the tales had given life to the forgeries and the assorted theories turning the narrator/Clair into a puppet in the hands of Bern (who here represents just people wanting to throw dirt on the Ushiromiya family for their own fun).
The Ushiromiya family culprit theory has birth and is tossed in the face of Ange who's deeply hurt (and possibly committed suicide due to it as she's curretly vanished) before Lion/Yasu/Ikuko had the time to explain her something... or could get how the situation developed in such a terrible way (Lion didn't really explain much to Ange and hardly understood what was going on).

Certainly an interesting perspective.

Although Shannon might have wear a dress I think she did not.
Apparently, when Maria met Beatrice, she believed Beato was possessing Shannon or so Ep 7 implied so Shannon didn't really need to dress up.

Though she might have done it in Ep 2 (unless Kyrie was lying about seeing her) and she definitely did it in Ep 4... though it wasn't Beato's trademark dress but a more casual one.

A blonde wig would work just the same.
I don't really like to think that Shannon might have had to die her hair starting when she was a kid and no one noticed.
Though probably the sprites' hair colours aren't mean to be taken seriously. Kanon's hair is different in colour than Shannon's. Either he wear a wig or Yasu is costantly dying her hair to allow switching from Kanon to Shannon and back.

Well I am basing that on when Yasuda discovered the gold that Yasuda wore the dress and was compared to the Beatrice II. It would be odd if Genji also gave her a blond wig.

That is why I think she is suppose to look very similar to Beatrice. More so that it has been mentioned that Shannon could likely pull off tricking someone with a dress. So the facial appearance should be similar.

Also considering Yasuda's identity issues and dislike of mirrors(seeing his/her true form) that Yasuda would change their outwards appearance as much as possible.
More so that Shannon has fake breasts so it is possible that Yasuda has been artificially changing his/her appearance. It is not that implausible that Yasuda keep wearing different wigs.

I thought it was purposely misleading... There's a cool MAD around in which Jessica is the culprit so you weren't the only one in suspecting her.

Yeah I guess that was a red-herring. Indeed I saw the awesome MAD

Although I do think that Gouda was even a larger one. Considering he had no apparent connections to the Ushiromiya family meaning that could be potential for interesting back-story. You would think that he would have more important role than just a servant in the end. Maybe the cook is always too obvious of an accomplice or something since he can easily poison them.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Hmm. Well, I probably take that EP7 Tea Party as more legitimate than most people here. I think it's likely to be close to what was in Eva's diary, actually. I find the idea of there being an argument-turned-lethal over the gold, as well as Kyrie and Rudolf being willing killers in that scenario to be plausible.

But I certainly think that Kyrie's evil-to-the-core nature was exaggerated, especially the thing about her taking pleasure in killing all the innocents, and even more so in her not caring about Ange. And, like what Kealym said, certain things she did didn't make logical sense, even as a villain. It's definitely an anti-Kyrie take on things. The question is: How embellished is it?

Well in the constant phrase "without love it cannot be seen". The story that Bernkastel showed was pretty loveless and full of ill intent. It is possible that the core of the story is true but Bernkastel retelling of it was exaggerated and somewhat rushed.

Yeah. Ange sure as hell wasn't satisfied with just Eva coming back.

Well, there was some reconciliation in EP8... And I got all mushy inside when Ange called Eva "mom"

Indeed that is one of the reasons why I do not think that the only reason why Ange was that devastated to the point that she wanted to die. It is implied that her direct family is dead but I do think that the Ange's family was either the culprits or involved within the incident.

IIRC a goat reprimanded Ange about the truth. Confirmed with red that was true. The goats were described as people that wanted the incident to be tragedy.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Spoiler for meat:

Compared to most of the other people here, I do not think that Yasuda is trying to defend someone by taking the blame. I think that she is just feeling guilty. That only applies to Banquet and Alliance, because it is likely that Legend and Turn were made before the incident.

Well of course this only makes sense if "Ikukoshkanontrice" is true.

I think it is like that:
In prime Yasuda made a murder mystery game for Battler where no people died, so everyone hid in the guesthouse. There Eva and Battler solved the epitaph together and... well i am not sure how it went on, but maybe at some point after that Battler told Shannon that he did remember the promise and George could not accept it... He got a Winchester somehow and shot Battler (not a moral wound of course) or attacked him in hand to hand combat and beat him up pretty badly... which later led to his "brain damage".
Kyrie, who already was informed by Rudolph, that Battler is her real son, got angry and shot George...
then Eva came and thought "I knew it! Kyrie is a heartless bitch!" without knowing that George almost killed Battler... and so she shot Kyrie...
then Eva and Shannon took Battler and tried to get to Kuwadorian because they all thought that someone has become a real murderer and on their way there, the bomb exploded because Eva didn't trust "Beatrice's" explanation about the bomb and switched it to active unintentionally.... So all people involved in the murder mystery game died... and Shannon got paranoid that Eva may have been the murderer and ran away with Battler who was still injured and escaped by boat, while Eva was rescued from Kuwadorian later. Then Yasuda took her identity as Ikuko Hachijou that she prepared for 2 years and used her money to also give Battler a fake identity as Hachijou Tohya.

Then people found 2 message bottles that Yasuda threw into the sea before the incident for fun, because she was too shy to show her own literature work to anyone.

But the witch hunters misunderstood that and thought of it as a challenge from the murderer or something like that and published it...

Convinced that Eva was the culprit (while still thinking that she herself was responsible that the killings happened because of her murder mystery game, so she also showed herself as the culprit in it), Ikuko released Banquet o.t.g.W.
Then Eva died and Ikuko got her hands on the "book of one truth" and realized that Eva was not the culprit. Ikuko released Alliance o.t.g.W. to show that she still didn't know what really happened and as it was in the game itself, "all events were covered in the witches' darkness".

Then there was a very popular forgery by a witch hunter that showed Natsuhi as the murderer.
Ikuko and Tohya tried to somehow overthrow this story, but they couldn't do it (Visualized by the trial scene), and at the end people started losing interest over the 19^9 works. But then a miracle happened:
Tohya suddenly remembered his memories of the incident! And now that he had remembered it, Ikuko had all 3 fragments of the truth together: Her own, Eva's and Battler's. By combining them, she found the "one and only truth" and released an alternate version of the witch-hunter's forgery, where some scenes were changed, like the fact that the first 6 people only faked their death, and also had a different ending.
They released it under the name "End o.t.g.W."

Then Tohya said that he wants to create his own work too, so he created "Dawn o.t.g.W."

I think "Requiem o.t.g.W." is just the EP7TP forgery... i have no idea what EP7 itself could mean in prime...

And "Twilight o.t.g.W."? Probably the mystery of Bern... and EP8 itself probably was something that happened in Ange's mind.




Well that is my incomplete theory of Rokkenjima prime. And... to put it into Erika's words: "What do you think, everyone?"







As you can see above, i think that Battler in EP1-2 is only a fictional construct in Yasuda's mind. In EP3-4 it was already a bit different. Piece!Battler was not so naive to think that it was not someone from the "18" people. Instead he reached the conclusion that it was Eva. Which already shows that the Battler here is able to cope with the murders, while the one from EP1-2 was like "It was some 19th person" or "it was a witch".

And in EP5 it was the personality that a witch hunter found out by asking Battler's friends from his high school. EP6 confirms that... In these 2 episodes Battler is much more intelligent, than in the first 4.

All you have to do is comparing how he was trying to solve the epitaph in Legend and in End, then you will see that. Also i remember how he had the knowledge of a newborn baby in Legend... The others had to explain him so many things that almost all others knew about very well...

Please note that i am comparing the Piece!Battlers here and not the developing of Meta!Battler.


Oh and to throw in another theory of mine: The truth is hidden in the "cheerful" conversation of the cousins. I still didn't check if that is really true, but most of the important clues for the games (and possibly prime), can be found in these seemingly trival conversations.

Well that is my incomplete theory of Rokkenjima prime. And... to put it into Erika's words: "What do you think, everyone?"

Well, I talked about this before but I think it's impossible to know what happened on Rokkenjima-prime. However, it should be possible to construct a plausible theory when you have an idea of the character's motivations and information on the setting. There's 6 points I consider vital to fill in the story so I'll just check them against your theory and point out some weak points.

1. Who knows about bomb switch and who turns it on?
A: It happens exactly as in ep7 tea party, making Yasu a psychopath.

2. Who solves the epitaph, and do they stay quiet about it?
A: Battler and Eva, they go more or less public with the discovery. Well, that's fine.

3. Why do things get out of hand?
A: Shannon confesses to Battler, and George reacts by maiming him. It seems rather out of character for him.

4. Who is the first one to actually commit a murder and how?
A: Kyrie shoots George in a fit of rage. It's highly unlikely...Kyrie from what we know is the cold and calculating type, and doesn't care for Battler that much. Also shouldn't have access to guns unless you really think they're lying around in the gold room for no reason.

5. How is it that Battler and Eva end up escaping in seperate ways, and nobody else manages to escape?
A: Yasu loses control of the situation, what with all them adults shooting eachother. She runs away with Battler, using the secret boat. That's ok. Doesn't explain why the rest of the people can't escape like Eva did.

6. Why are Battler and Eva hiding information?
A: Battler has amnesia and they are way too ashamed and afraid to admit the truth. That's fine.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Jaden

1. Who knows about bomb switch and who turns it on?
A: It happens exactly as in ep7 tea party, making Yasu a psychopath.

Whoops, forgot to explain that part, sorry. I mean that Yasuda left the credit card and one of the typical one winged eagle letters, that informed about the gold and the clock and was signed with "Beatrice". I don't see how explaining this to someone makes someone psycho. Maybe she only wanted to avoid that someone accidently triggered the bomb because they didn't know about it? Like "PS: don't switch the lever on the clock, or something terrible will happen at 24:00"

Originally Posted by Jaden

2. Who solves the epitaph, and do they stay quiet about it?
A: Battler and Eva, they go more or less public with the discovery. Well, that's fine.

No, they stay quiet about this. While Battler wants to expose it to stop the "murders", Eva convinces him to stay quiet for now because some people may snap, if they heard of the gold at this moment... That's why the people that played dead all the time ended up dying in the explosion.

Originally Posted by Jaden

3. Why do things get out of hand?
A: Shannon confesses to Battler, and George reacts by maiming him. It seems rather out of character for him.

Well... i ment that Battler confessed to Shannon and not the other way around. Also we never saw a situation like that acually happen, right? We have no idea how George would react if someone made his love impossible. On the gameboards he claimed that he would kill everyone else just to be with Shannon, if necessary... but since it is the gameboard we cannot be sure.

Originally Posted by Jaden

4. Who is the first one to actually commit a murder and how?
A: Kyrie shoots George in a fit of rage. It's highly unlikely...Kyrie from what we know is the cold and calculating type, and doesn't care for Battler that much. Also shouldn't have access to guns unless you really think they're lying around in the gold room for no reason.

Kyrie is cold and calculating, but her reaction in EP8, when Rudolph confessed to her that Battler is her real son, showed that it really had an impact on her. On one hand she must have been angry because of Rudolph's action that took many years between mother and son away, and on the other hand she must have been happy, that Battler would not make her remember about Asumu anymore and she can see him as her own child... And now she sees that new child of her beaten up by his cousin so much, that he is bleeding everywhere and later has a braindamage because of it...

And about the guns: If i remember correctly there was at least one Winchester in Kinzo's study.

Originally Posted by Jaden

5. How is it that Battler and Eva end up escaping in seperate ways, and nobody else manages to escape?
A: Yasu loses control of the situation, what with all them adults shooting eachother. She runs away with Battler, using the secret boat. That's ok. Doesn't explain why the rest of the people can't escape like Eva did.

NO ONE knew that the bomb is switched ON. Eva had distrust against the letter and switched it to the other side, thinking that "Beatrice" was tricking her. If Hideyoshi was one of the first 6 people that played dead, then it would make sense. Also aside from Kyrie's and George's death, other people died because of paranoia killings. (Rosa would be a good candidate, if Maria was part of the mystery game.)

Because of that, Yasuda, Eva and (the heavily injured) Battler decided to go to Kuwadorian to escape from the other killers and then the bomb exploded and Yasuda, who was afraid that Eva switched it on intentionally, ran away with Battler to escape from her. No one else, even the accomplices to the mystery game (the ones playing dead and Genji/Kumasawa/Nanjo), knew that the bomb switch was on... they had no chance to survive.

(Later on all killings before the explosion could be confirmed by the information from all 3 survivors combined)

Originally Posted by Jaden

6. Why are Battler and Eva hiding information?
A: Battler has amnesia and they are way too ashamed and afraid to admit the truth. That's fine.

Yes thats right. There is also the fact that none's information alone was the whole truth. Only when the information of all 3 of them came together, it could be called the truth. (And even then there may be details missing)

[goldendust]

@GreyZone: One thing I disagree with is why Yasuda would bother to tell anyone about the explosives or the clock. The odds that someone would suspect that that is the trigger of the explosion is very very low as it seems that even the explosives were kept a secret. More so that the massive piles of gold are more than a large enough distraction that nobody would pay attention to the clock.

The easiest way to prevent someone from doing something is not to tell them how to do it.


Now I do think it is likely that Yasuda miscalculated somewhere hence the incident occurred. My theory is that Yasuda triggered the bomb on Rprime:

-For a miracle of a magic to occur, a risk is needed. That much has been hammered in during various EP of Umineko. Risk is important. When Yasuda set up the murder mystery game she put up the risk that if Battler failed everything would be lost.

-Kinzo did something similar hence the existence of the detonator and Battler commented that Beatrice was similar to Kinzo when wishing for miracle when he discovered the truth

-Beatrice's final riddle about "who she is" and Will's final answer is that "she is the reaper who pulls the curtain on the games(the one who triggers the bomb)".

Though about the rest of the events that happened. Really I have few ideas but basically the short version that a domino effect occurred, the whole incident happened becasue of the way a few people acted. That most of them were murdered by the culprits. Leaving Batter/Eva to escape while the murderers/culprits got caught in the explosion.

[Jaden]

Ok, the story is starting to take shape now. I agree with goldendust in that the most difficult thing to explain is who triggers the bomb, without making Yasu explicitly guilty.

Because of the murder game and the many conflicts between people on Rokkenjima, it's plausible they could start killing eachother, but you must figure out how Yasu with all of her accomplices lets things get out of hand. And with normal happenstance, it's plausible that only Battler and Eva (and if you believe, Yasu) manage to escape...but usually they'd want to save their family members too. Greyzone's theory goes a long way sidestepping these issues. It's suprisingly well thought out.

Creating r-prime theories is a bit weird because there's likely no right answer. You just have to make everything fit with as much consistency as possible...you could liken it to writing more forgeries.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

What if Eva/Battler triggered the bomb, in order to hide what happened?

[Wanderer]

About the motive of writing Legend and Turn before the incident. I can't accept it just being "fun", because there are things to consider that fall outside of the scope of fun.

Legend and Turn were written as part of something larger. Namely, Legend and Turn are not solvable by themselves; they require at least Banquet and Alliance to take a stab at. But even in just Legend and Turn the "The culprit is Yasu" solution is embedded within, complete with hints and foreshadowing. Why? Only people who know Yasu (like Battler) might understand the true undercurrent, but putting these stories to sea pre-incident doesn't serve as a message to these people, who really don't need it anyway, since they were to be participating in her actual murder game story and if they found these stories it would be after the fact.

Also, Legend and Turn are not even interesting without the explosion incident in the real world. The bottle-stories are clearly intended to parallel And Then There Were None. This means that either Yasu wrote them post-incident because she already knew that it happened, or that she wrote them pre-incident because she already knew it would happen, i.e. she's actually the culprit.

And since Yasu is not the culprit, Legend and Turn must have been written post-incident.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Witch of Uncertainty

What if Eva/Battler triggered the bomb, in order to hide what happened?

Only if they believe every other innocent person on the island to be dead. Which is plausible in the "fake murder game gone awry" scenario.

The problem is, of course, how they learned about the bomb in the first place. If one or both of them solved the epitaph, then Yasu could have conceivably revealed it in exposition, but in doing so Yasu would probably expose the rest of the murder game too.

[GreyZone]

THAT'S why i like to use the distrust Eva has towards Beatrice in EP7TP. It explains how almost everyone died in a "accident", without leaving Yasuda as a psychopath.

Anyone who triggers the bomb intentionally, to destroy the mansion and everything around it and is not 100% sure that EVERYONE is dead (beside the culprits, possibly), is a psychopath...

[Wanderer]

Thinking about it, it's kind of hard to imagine what Yasu's exposition would be if and when someone solved the epitaph. Would she be dressed up as Beatrice? Shannon? What would she say about Kanon? Heck, how much was Kanon ever really presented as real? Did Yasu fool everyone into thinking she was two different people for 2 years? Or did Natushi, for example, never even hear about this Kanon person as he only appears in the tales of the Golden Witch?

So I am wondering if it's reasonable to imagine Yasu could have only partially revealed the game to those who solved the epitaph. For example, she may have revealed the bomb switch, but not have revealed that the murders were fake, or even perhaps she was in a good costume and didn't even reveal her identity.

I dunno. What does everyone think?

[GreyZone]

I doubt that Kanon was just made up.

The witch hunters asked the other fukuin servants for sure, that were offduty that day... (i think this was even confirmed at some point) also Jessica's friends from school to confirm that one scene from EP2 were he went there as her boyfriend.

I cannot imagine that they all lied about Kanon...

[jjblue1]

Spoiler for Replies to Wanderer cut for lenght:

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Legend and Turn were written as part of something larger. Namely, Legend and Turn are not solvable by themselves; they require at least Banquet and Alliance to take a stab at.

Our Legend and Turn definitely need Banquet and Alliance, at least to get the motive behind the culprit's action and some red truths needed to solve them, but we don't know if the messages in the bottles found were exactly like them and it was implied Banquet and Alliance might not be as we read them so, as long as we don't know, we can't really say they required factor X to be solved or they didn't.

All is said about the messages is that they didn't pinpoint a culprit... which I guess imply they were judged unsolvable.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Also, Legend and Turn are not even interesting without the explosion incident in the real world. The bottle-stories are clearly intended to parallel And Then There Were None. This means that either Yasu wrote them post-incident because she already knew that it happened, or that she wrote them pre-incident because she already knew it would happen, i.e. she's actually the culprit.

And since Yasu is not the culprit, Legend and Turn must have been written post-incident.

Well, I know you're a strong supporter of the messages being written post-incident so I won't discuss with you how it can be fun to release a mystery through a message bottle as our opinion evidently differ.

However Yasu might have planned to commit a murder and then came back to her senses before doing it.
In middle school I had a classmate who wanted to cut the wheels of the teacher's car... he liked to plot how to do it... but of course he never did it...
Yasu might have been a little closer to do something than my classmate... and then she might have decided to stop to merely make a murder game with no real deaths involved.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

So I am wondering if it's reasonable to imagine Yasu could have only partially revealed the game to those who solved the epitaph. For example, she may have revealed the bomb switch, but not have revealed that the murders were fake, or even perhaps she was in a good costume and didn't even reveal her identity.

I dunno. What does everyone think?

I still think Natsuhi & Krauss were aware Kanon and Shannon were the same person and that they used this to let others believe there was always a servant with Kinzo, keeping alive the illusion that Kinzo was alive and there was a witness about this nearly always... be it Kanon or Shannon when Kanon had to show around to prove he existed.

Spoiler for Replies to Goldendust cut for lenght:

Originally Posted by goldendust

@GreyZone: One thing I disagree with is why Yasuda would bother to tell anyone about the explosives or the clock. The odds that someone would suspect that that is the trigger of the explosion is very very low as it seems that even the explosives were kept a secret. More so that the massive piles of gold are more than a large enough distraction that nobody would pay attention to the clock.

My pet theory is that if she said it to someone else, she either said it in a fit of anger (that Kinzo was a bastard! He raped my grandmother and my mother and even planned to make this place explode! Look, here there's the trigger!), in a moment of confession (I was angry at everyone, Battler-san, I've even planned to cause this place to explode... though I just couldn't make it) or she really believed that was part of the knowledge the successor needed to have (now you solved the epitaph and you're the new head. By the way the previous head had installed a self destruction mechanism on the island... you might want to remove it before it shortcircuited by accident and blast you to the next dimension).

Originally Posted by goldendust

The easiest way to prevent someone from doing something is not to tell them how to do it.

Yes, but this required you expecting someone might wish to do it. She was handing them lot of gold... why should they wish to blast it away?

Originally Posted by goldendust

-For a miracle of a magic to occur, a risk is needed. That much has been hammered in during various EP of Umineko. Risk is important. When Yasuda set up the murder mystery game she put up the risk that if Battler failed everything would be lost.

It can be but this imply a determination to murder people, if not during the murder game... well later. Unless she just turned in on for the thrill of it and planned to turn it off at the end of the game...

Originally Posted by goldendust

-Beatrice's final riddle about "who she is" and Will's final answer is that "she is the reaper who pulls the curtain on the games(the one who triggers the bomb)".

Lion's quote is actually:

`"Illusions...to illusions. ......The promised reaper lowers the curtains on the tale regardless of the witch's will."`\

... which might imply Yasuda didn't wish to have the island explode as the explosion apparently happened regardless of the witch's will.

Originally Posted by goldendust

Though about the rest of the events that happened. Really I have few ideas but basically the short version that a domino effect occurred, the whole incident happened becasue of the way a few people acted. That most of them were murdered by the culprits. Leaving Batter/Eva to escape while the murderers/culprits got caught in the explosion.

Recently I've read many saying that Battler and Eva escaped together... but actually that's not so sure. It is implied Battler might have been escaping with someone and it's said he was trying to reach Kuwadorian but it's not said that someone is Eva, it's just Ange who assumes it. Maybe she's right though I feel as if she was playing the Watson's role there, trying to lead us to assume something that's wrong. Oh well, it might be just me.

"On that day, ......I escaped through the underground passage."
"The one that goes to Kuwadorian?"
"I was told that an underground passage led to a hidden mansion on the opposite side of the island. ......However, the place we escaped to was a submarine base, not Kuwadorian."
I don't know under what circumstances my brother entered the underground passage on that day.
At any rate, he went into the underground passage, split up with Eva oba-san there, and escaped to the submarine base.
There, he escaped the explosion...and survived......
"From there, I got away on a motorboat. ......However, ......it must have capsized somewhere along the way."

Originally Posted by goldendust

Well I am basing that on when Yasuda discovered the gold that Yasuda wore the dress and was compared to the Beatrice II. It would be odd if Genji also gave her a blond wig.

That is why I think she is suppose to look very similar to Beatrice. More so that it has been mentioned that Shannon could likely pull off tricking someone with a dress. So the facial appearance should be similar.

Also considering Yasuda's identity issues and dislike of mirrors(seeing his/her true form) that Yasuda would change their outwards appearance as much as possible.
More so that Shannon has fake breasts so it is possible that Yasuda has been artificially changing his/her appearance. It is not that implausible that Yasuda keep wearing different wigs.

I think if Shannon wanted to change her look she would do it with something more subtle. It's unlikely she started dying her air at 6 (when she was hired by the Ushiromiya) so if she had blond hair everyone would have known.
Sort of like she likely slowly increased the padding in her bra and didn't show up one day with huge fake breasts all of sudden.

I'm not sure Yasuda had blonde hair when she was introduced to Kinzo wearing her mother's dress. The story implied in that moment she was Beato so she was 'wearing' the Beato's look and therefore was represented as blonde... but in truth it might be she went in just with the dress and her own hair colour and style.

Anyway, back to Yasuda shouwing up in front of Maria wearing a dress... well, it's possible of course but I think it was easier for her just to pretend to be possessed as usual... or at least in the casual outfit she wears in Ep 2 & 4.

Originally Posted by goldendust

Well in the constant phrase "without love it cannot be seen". The story that Bernkastel showed was pretty loveless and full of ill intent. It is possible that the core of the story is true but Bernkastel retelling of it was exaggerated and somewhat rushed.

After all Bern used a narrator to tell the story and we know this implies the narration is deceptive.
Though yes, likely EP 7 Teaparty gave us some truths as well.

Spoiler for Replies to GreyZone cut for lenght:

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Compared to most of the other people here, I do not think that Yasuda is trying to defend someone by taking the blame. I think that she is just feeling guilty. That only applies to Banquet and Alliance, because it is likely that Legend and Turn were made before the incident.

Well of course this only makes sense if "Ikukoshkanontrice" is true.

I don't even known if this can be called taking the blame.
The messages apparently didn't point to a clear culprit, we don't know if Hachijo Toya's Banquet and Alliance in the end offered a solution but even if they were solved and the solution wasn't that the culprit was Eva or Kinzo but Shannon, we have no info about a Shannon culprit theory existing. Ange doesn't even mention the possibility of it existing or says that Hachijo keeps trying to pin the crimes to Shannon.

I prefer to think that the messages were written in hope to 'play mystery murder' with someone like she used to do with Battler and that Banquet and Alliance were written by Hachijo because he developed an interest in the Rokkenjima incident due to his slowly recover of his memory.

Spoiler for Replies to Kealym cut for lenght:

Originally Posted by Kealym

Most people agree that the human's appearances aren't meant to be serious, as Beatrice's blonde hair and blue eyes are explicitly called out constantly for being foreign, and you'd think he'd at least mention Jessica's hair being dyed considering all the other absurd amount of details we get. Even by anime-hair logic, the Ushiromiya's don't make much sense, so... the only counter is Bern mentioning that Erika has blue hair like her, but we can chalk that up to them being kinda maybe aware that they're in the story that we ourselves are reading.

Well surely the colours were all messed up. I wish Ryukishi had kept a bit of consistency in them, at least giving parents and children the same hair colours.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Now, I know full well that most of the characters spent most of their lives with their "public face" on, as you say. And this argument doesn't work for certain notably isolated, private people (cough, Natsuhi), but these people still had LIVES. Jessica and Battler had friends and teachers and at least in Battler's case, an entire other half of his family that he was in contact with.

Well, that's why I assumed the cousins were the ones with the most accurate portray... though I don't know if Battler has a other half of the family as his maternal grandparents are dead and we're never said his mother had brothers or sisters.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Kumasawa and Nanjo had adult aged children.

Yes, they do but I'm not sure Kumasawa and Nanjo's families were interested in saying around how they were in details as they seemed to dislike the journalists bugging them. Though they might have had a decent portray as well.

Originally Posted by Kealym

I'm pretty sure everyone except Natsuhi, Shannon, and Kanon mentioned some kind of social sphere outside Rokkenjima.

Well, the point is how much reliable was that social sphere. The Ushiromiya might not have had that many real friends, just business associates and people working from them and said people might have disliked them.

Let's pick Eva. Okonogi seemed to like her but I guess many of the people working under her if asked would have said she was bossy and rude and a jerk who looked only at her interest and mistreated her grandaughter and yes, she could have very well killed everyone.

After all we're told that people started saying dirty things about Hideyoshi and George, things that hurt Eva so I wouldn't be surprised if the 'truth' about the Ushiromiya having good sides went completely hidden.

I'll say the only two who're likely safe enough were Jessica and Battler as it was implied they were well liked by their classmates so I've problems figuring someone would bad mounthing them but... it's possible. After all the Battler culprit theory started to spread and wasn't shot down immediately with a 'No, Battler was simply too kind to kill a soul'.

Originally Posted by Kealym

And I can't be the only one honestly surprised Maria's father didn't get a single line. Or at least some offhand mention of how the media had also been bothering him a little.

Maybe they never managed to track him down, or tracked him down but exchanged him for one of Rosa's lovers... maybe he was the one who suggested Rosa might have had more than one lover when instead each time she left Maria alone to meet with someone that someone was Maria's father.

I guess he might not have liked the idea of being involved in the Rokkenjima incident so he might have denied any association with Rosa and Maria.

Originally Posted by Kealym

True, but it's possible she actually did go the guesthouse / mansion and take a survey of things, just to be sure, and drew some very -reasonable- conclusions. After all, at that point both Kyrie and Rudolf were dead, she had a gun, and nearly a whole day before anything would explode.

I'm not saying Eva didn't check... though after her husband and son's death she might have been in shock... after all she surely didn't found Kanon around yet decided to blast everything even if Kanon might have been alive and hiding around... and it's not said she checked to see if Beato was really dead or she too got lucky and survived.

But even if she checked everything and her conclusion was the logical one we don't really know if it was the right one. Also I've the feeling Ep 7 Teaparty was a bit biased toward her so, right from the start, the situation might have been slightly different from what we saw.

Originally Posted by Kealym

You know ... I often wonder when Ange says that - would she really have been okay with absolutely anyone? Like, if it were Jessica, or Godha, or Natsuhi that came out of the woodworks in 1998, and she'd be all "What happened to you guys?" and they'd just shrug and say "I honestly don't even know. Woke up on a dock after dinner, and heard some shit blow up."

Well, honestly I think Ange didn't want anyone, she wanted either Battler, Kirye or Rudolf. I don't think she would have accepted someone else, not even Maria... though she might be in denial about it.

[goldendust]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Thinking about it, it's kind of hard to imagine what Yasu's exposition would be if and when someone solved the epitaph. Would she be dressed up as Beatrice? Shannon? What would she say about Kanon? Heck, how much was Kanon ever really presented as real? Did Yasu fool everyone into thinking she was two different people for 2 years? Or did Natushi, for example, never even hear about this Kanon person as he only appears in the tales of the Golden Witch?

So I am wondering if it's reasonable to imagine Yasu could have only partially revealed the game to those who solved the epitaph. For example, she may have revealed the bomb switch, but not have revealed that the murders were fake, or even perhaps she was in a good costume and didn't even reveal her identity.

I dunno. What does everyone think?

I imagine that Yasuda would dress up as Beatrice. The game was always Battler vs Beatrice from the start. I do not think that would change.

I would say that Kanon is about as real as Kinzo as far as the stories are concerned. I would say that like Kinzo that Genji and Kumasawa affirmed Kanon's existence into the servant service after Yasuda found the gold. Given that Genji seemed to have enough connections that he could turn the gold into money that he probably can pull a lot of strings. More so that Genji managed to convinced to orphanage to change Yasuda's age is another sign of that.

Or another idea that I entertained in the past before EP7 that Shannon told Jessica that she would dress up as a male at the school so Jessica would not be embarrassed about her lack of boyfriend hence how "Kanon" was born. That after the"date" that feelings developed. Although the story in EP7 put that into question.

Also when someone solves the epitaph. I got the impression that the game is over when that happened. Was that not how the game worked in the first two EP?

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by goldendust

Also when someone solves the epitaph. I got the impression that the game is over when that happened. Was that not how the game worked in the first two EP?

Yes, but only if the "game master" knows of this.

[goldendust]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

My pet theory is that if she said it to someone else, she either said it in a fit of anger (that Kinzo was a bastard! He raped my grandmother and my mother and even planned to make this place explode! Look, here there's the trigger!), in a moment of confession (I was angry at everyone, Battler-san, I've even planned to cause this place to explode... though I just couldn't make it) or she really believed that was part of the knowledge the successor needed to have (now you solved the epitaph and you're the new head. By the way the previous head had installed a self destruction mechanism on the island... you might want to remove it before it shortcircuited by accident and blast you to the next dimension).

Yes, but this required you expecting someone might wish to do it. She was handing them lot of gold... why should they wish to blast it away?

While the part with the head makes sense. However GreyZone said that she would not even use it, implying that she did intend for it to be used ever. Then in that case, it would have made sense to ask Genji to disconnect it or something of that sort.

It can be but this imply a determination to murder people, if not during the murder game... well later. Unless she just turned in on for the thrill of it and planned to turn it off at the end of the game...

Not necessarily. She did not wish to kill anyone, it is something that like Kinzo needed for his "magic" to rebuild the Ushiromiya family. Yasuda was willing to bet everything to reach her miracle.

Lion's quote is actually:

... which might imply Yasuda didn't wish to have the island explode as the explosion apparently happened regardless of the witch's will.

Yet that was Will's answer to "Who am I". More so that Beatrice in Ep4 told Battler that he would kill him through the explosion. Also Beatrice keeps her promises.

Yasuda made a promise to himself/himself that he/she would respect the result that the roulette would show her. That the time limit was one of the variables. She would simply accept it even if that is not her desired scenario.

BTW is there a site for umineko quotes? It would be easier than going back to the chapters.

Recently I've read many saying that Battler and Eva escaped together... but actually that's not so sure. It is implied Battler might have been escaping with someone and it's said he was trying to reach Kuwadorian but it's not said that someone is Eva, it's just Ange who assumes it. Maybe she's right though I feel as if she was playing the Watson's role there, trying to lead us to assume something that's wrong. Oh well, it might be just me.

I do not think they were together either but both escaped the explosion. I imagine that Battler took a boat while Eva stayed in Kuwadorian. Or perhaps that Eva tried to kill Battler(state of derangement) and Battler was forced to leave on a boat to escape her.

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Yes, but only if the "game master" knows of this.

I assume you refer to Yasuda here. I imagine that she would stay in the room with the gold most of the time waiting for someone to solved it to arrive. More so we seen with Genji that he knew when Yasuda solved the epitaph right away. I do not think it is that hard to keep track of people who solved it or not.

[Golden Witch Drugs]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I still think Natsuhi & Krauss were aware Kanon and Shannon were the same person and that they used this to let others believe there was always a servant with Kinzo, keeping alive the illusion that Kinzo was alive and there was a witness about this nearly always... be it Kanon or Shannon when Kanon had to show around to prove he existed.

If Krauss and Natsuhi understood that Kanon and Shannon were the same person, wouldn't it be natural for Jessica to see that as well? I mean, she spent alot of time with Shannon, and was in love with Kanon. If Krauss and Natsuhi could see the resemblance between the two, I think Jessica would have identified them even better since she spends more time with both of them really.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by goldendust

Then in that case, it would have made sense to ask Genji to disconnect it or something of that sort.

Well, personally I would remove such explosive from under my island if I were to become the owner of Rokkenjima... and as fast as I can. Just disconnecting it wouldn't make me feel safe enough and I'm not sure Genji would know how to disconnect/remove it.

Originally Posted by goldendust

Not necessarily. She did not wish to kill anyone, it is something that like Kinzo needed for his "magic" to rebuild the Ushiromiya family. Yasuda was willing to bet everything to reach her miracle.

Betting everything would mean to take into consideration the possibility the bomb wouldn't be turned off and therefore that would kill everyone.
While maybe it's not at the level of, 'I'll surely kill everyone regardless of what will happen' it becomes 'If this doesn't happen I'll surely kill everyone' which well... imply a certain determination to be willing to kill people.

If the bomb was turned on when there were living people around the only way to cut out the willingness to kill people is to think she planned to turn it off before it would explode.
Turning the bomb on would still be a stupid thing to do but at least there is no murder intent.

Originally Posted by goldendust

Yet that was Will's answer to "Who am I".

Ops, I typed Lion instead than Will. My bad.

Originally Posted by goldendust

More so that Beatrice in Ep4 told Battler that he would kill him through the explosion. Also Beatrice keeps her promises.

That Beatrice is the gamemaster. The bomb however exists on the game and was turned on by pieceBeato... and it should have exploded around the time Battler and Beato's eyes met.

So even if Beato had changed her mind there was no way for her to stop the bomb.

PieceShannon died leaving the bomb turned on and unless Battler were to solve the epitaph and discover the bomb, fromt eh moment Shannon died, there was no way for Beato to turn the bomb off.

So yes, Beato will kill him.

Plus the bomb is tied to Beato's existence. It's because the police can't investigate on how the people died that the catbox was created, allowing Beato to live in it.

Originally Posted by goldendust

Yasuda made a promise to himself/himself that he/she would respect the result that the roulette would show her. That the time limit was one of the variables. She would simply accept it even if that is not her desired scenario.

This would mean that she was willing to kill/let people be killed by the bomb.

The counter-theory is that pieceYasuda was willing to do so while PrimeYasuda had a different aim.

Originally Posted by goldendust

BTW is there a site for umineko quotes? It would be easier than going back to the chapters.

There was a web that had the scripts for EP 1-6 but it seems it has been closed.

Originally Posted by goldendust

I do not think they were together either but both escaped the explosion. I imagine that Battler took a boat while Eva stayed in Kuwadorian. Or perhaps that Eva tried to kill Battler(state of derangement) and Battler was forced to leave on a boat to escape her.

The problem would be why would Eva kill Battler. Either she though he was an accomplice (and here we've to wonder if she was right or she misunderstood something) or she did it out of darker reasons.

Originally Posted by Golden Witch Drugs

If Krauss and Natsuhi understood that Kanon and Shannon were the same person, wouldn't it be natural for Jessica to see that as well? I mean, she spent alot of time with Shannon, and was in love with Kanon. If Krauss and Natsuhi could see the resemblance between the two, I think Jessica would have identified them even better since she spends more time with both of them really.

No, the idea was that after Kinzo died in order to keep up the belief that he was alive in front of people who didn't know it, Shannon volunteered to 'play the role of a second servant'.
As Jessica do not know that Kinzo is dead she wouldn't be told about this and, even better, she would be introduced to Kanon by someone she wouldn't expect to lie about this so she wouldn't pay too much attention to his resemblance with Shannon.

The plus side of having Kanon for Krauss and Natsuhi:

- when the siblings come to visit and they, interesting enough, send the other servants away, they still would look with 5 people in the staff, so enough to serve them.
- someone could always 'be' with Kinzo. If Shannon is around Kanon of course can't be found and this would be 'proof' he's in the study with Kinzo. When he would show up he could confirm Kinzo was alive in the study and didn't want to be bothered.
- someone could always serve Kinzo without requiring to have Shannon, Kumasawa or Genji to stop their work. People would expect the head of the house to be served, his bed redone, his food carried to him, his table prepared and cleaned, his clothes washed and so on. Who would do all this? Kanon (or Shannon) his faithfull servants. Of course one of them would do this while the other is in full sight and working.
- they wouldn't have to pay someone to pretend to serve Kinzo.

In the past if I'm not wrong I listed other points but I can't find that old post.

Also, yes, Yasuda created Kanon prior to Kinzo's death but Kanon might have 'phisically manifested' only after Kinzo's death so no problem here.
As the other servants tend to quit working often they might not know Kanon isn't serving Kinzo by as long as he said and, since the siblings aren't always on Rokkenjima they might be tricked into thinking he was working there earlier and they just didn't met him.

The harder to trick would be Jessica but she too isn't always on the island and if Kanon, Genji, Kumasawa, Shannon, her mother and her father were to tell her Kanon was working there by earlier than she thought she would have no reason to think they were lying.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Eh, I agree that the stories WE read almost certainly are not the stories that exist in Prime, tit for tat. At the very least, the first alleged "forgery worth reading" was something like Banquet's, which CAN'T have kept the Maria Diary style because Maria was offed pretty early. OR all the forgeries were written from an omniscient, post-death zombie-Maria perspective.

Thinking about it some more, its quite possible that EP3 was written in a diary form with Maria as an author. It would end with her writing "Im going to go look for my flower with my mother" and then suddenly have no more updates to it. People would naturally assume that they became the victim of the 2nd twilight. They'd also assume that Beatrice wouldn't just kill Maria under normal circumstances. Everything after that is "reading into" what little was actually written. They knew Eva survived so they made her the culprit and gave her a motive.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by goldendust

Not necessarily. She did not wish to kill anyone, it is something that like Kinzo needed for his "magic" to rebuild the Ushiromiya family. Yasuda was willing to bet everything to reach her miracle.

That just makes her crazy, though. That's no better.

Consider the various reasons you, as Kinzo or Yasu or Genji or whoever knows about it, might not disable the bomb:

• You don't actually know about it or there isn't actually a switch. This would of course preclude that you have any intention of setting it off, because you can't if you aren't aware of it or there's no way to do so. This would mean ep7 is lying though.
• You don't want to. This suggests you might want to use it at some point. See below.
• You want to, but you can't, because the explosives are too volatile and the trigger mechanism too sensitive, and you lack the means to actually disable it. So you choose to leave it alone. However, in this case you would probably not tell anyone about it... unless you're worried they might activate it accidentally.
• You want to, and you can, but someone else has convinced, cajoled, ordered, or threatened you not to. Obviously this suggests the other person might want to use it. See below.

Now consider the reasons you might flip the switch:

• You intend that it fulfill its purpose, which means you at least want to kill yourself and destroy the mansion, and at most want to kill other people. You're either a psychopath or mentally unbalanced.
• You're deeply upset and not thinking clearly. This is like the above, but slightly more forgivable.
• You do it accidentally. That's a hell of a coincidence!
• You don't actually believe the person who has told you about the switch and call their bluff. You don't intend to kill anyone because you don't think the threat is real.
• You think it's already been activated and are trying to disable it.
• You believe everyone it could kill is already dead and wish to conceal the evidence for some unknown reason. If you're guilty, it's to get away with it. If you're not guilty, it's to kill the killer or hide somebody's shame.

I think most people don't want to believe that any of the people who actually knew or should have known about the switch would ever intend to use it, even in the way Kinzo is said to have, because to do so means they're either evil or deeply disturbed. There are other, more tragic but forgivable explanations, it's just impossible to know which one (if any one) is true.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Well, the point is how much reliable was that social sphere. The Ushiromiya might not have had that many real friends, just business associates and people working from them and said people might have disliked them.

Well, people are going to talk smack about the Ushiromiya's whether they had friends or not. Okonogi's opinion didn't hamper all the Eva-culprit theories, and people were willing to talk smack about Jessica and Battler as well, the two people who would probably have the MOST "No, she/he would never do that!" people. Still, I'm going to make the very basic assumption that most of the cast had friends, at lease one or two, who knew them well - I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption.

Yeah, we're never shown these people, but then, Ryukishi also never showed up Mrs.Kinzo, even during pieces of the story she almost CERTAINLY should have been there for, since he doesn't seem to care about anyone that wasn't on the island, or named Ange.

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Thinking about it some more, its quite possible that EP3 was written in a diary form with Maria as an author. It would end with her writing "Im going to go look for my flower with my mother" and then suddenly have no more updates to it. People would naturally assume that they became the victim of the 2nd twilight. They'd also assume that Beatrice wouldn't just kill Maria under normal circumstances. Everything after that is "reading into" what little was actually written. They knew Eva survived so they made her the culprit and gave her a motive.

Except ... we were told that the first forgery by Tohya had accounted for everything up to and including Eva's flight to the Kuwadorian. This gets even harder when you take End / Dawn into account, where Maria dies, like, immediately. Besides, despite the message bottles being the basis for people's conspiracy theories, I doubt anyone actually believed they were penned by Maria Ushiromiya.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I dunno. What does everyone think?

Well ... based on the glimpses of Eva's diary, and my general opinion that nothing Yasu did required a ballgown, I think Shannon would've just appeared, as Shannon, to whomever solved the epitaph, and explained ... whatever there was to explain. EP7 Tea Part Eva never questioned where Kanon was, after all, and I'm almost certain using Beato's sprite in the gold room was a visual stand in... she may have mentioned the explosives not in a "you are now their true owner" sort of way, but in a "No seriously, you should get that checked out by a proffesional" way...

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Except ... we were told that the first forgery by Tohya had accounted for everything up to and including Eva's flight to the Kuwadorian. This gets even harder when you take End / Dawn into account, where Maria dies, like, immediately. Besides, despite the message bottles being the basis for people's conspiracy theories, I doubt anyone actually believed they were penned by Maria Ushiromiya.

At the very least, the Professor doesn't seem to believe that in the slightest, and indeed is suspicious as to who actually did write them. If prominent academic Witch Hunters don't believe Maria is the author, then it's very likely nobody does. If the actual story structure reflects what we see to some extent (Battler is narrator, etc.), then there's no way anyone would believe that.

Though, as always, this continues to raise the question of why the writer signed Maria's name to the damn messages, something that's never been adequately explained.