[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by Oliver

...which makes me wonder if anything else interesting could have happened in summer 1986.

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but in the opening movie of EP4 there is a picture of Battler and his family, apparently at the rose garden.

The date on the photo appears to be "86-6-17" (June 17th, 1986?)

Spoiler for picture:

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/739/photoj.png

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Cool! Now we just have to find a connection with "magic toxin" and Kinzo's death and we have ourselves a winner here.

Kinzo's death definitely marks a significant change for anyone involved in the Kinzo Phantom Conspiracy, at least, Shannon and Kanon in particular. They now have a certain level of immunity because Natsuhi and Krauss may withhold food and rest from them but they cannot possibly stop them from ratting the conspiracy out to any of the siblings. While we don't know if they're capable of it, furniture complex and all, Natsuhi and Krauss don't either, and if they're any rational, they have to be careful not to cross the line.

Mind you, Beatrice refers to the mirror as "incompatibility" rather than anti-magic toxin, and produces a page worth of food-based metaphors comparing her own magic to Western food and the mirror to Eastern plates and vice versa. She even repeats the spoon sequence Bernkastel addresses to the reader in the end of Ep1's ???? word for word.

Originally Posted by Judoh

Interesting that the shrine being destroyed and the mirror breaking happen at different times though. I was under the impression that they were the same event.

So was I until I started calculating. I have no idea whatsoever so far, but if my reading is correct, they have to be 7-9 months apart.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by SeagullCrazy

The date on the photo appears to be "86-6-17" (June 17th, 1986?)

Japanese writes dates as YY-MM-DD, so I guess there's no other date this could mean.

But the text constantly refers to October 4 as Battler's first visit in six years, which would make it impossible unless the picture is not taken in the rose garden, even though the background is obviously it.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Japanese writes dates as YY-MM-DD, so I guess there's no other date this could mean.

But the text constantly refers to October 4 as Battler's first visit in six years, which would make it impossible unless the picture is not taken in the rose garden, even though the background is obviously it.

...Isn't that 1998 Ange standing there in the front?

[chronotrig]

Wait, weren't some of the dates for the EP2 opening scenes shown in the anime? Anyone remember what those were?

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

...Isn't that 1998 Ange standing there in the front?

It's the only sprite of her Ryukishi has and they have the light covering her face. Give Ryu a break....

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

...Isn't that 1998 Ange standing there in the front?

It is, but there's no separate sprites for the 1984 sequences for anyone else either.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Wait, weren't some of the dates for the EP2 opening scenes shown in the anime? Anyone remember what those were?

They're shown in the anime episode 6.

According to that, the date for the mirror breaking incident is in December 1985.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Wait, weren't some of the dates for the EP2 opening scenes shown in the anime? Anyone remember what those were?

Let's see...

October, 1984: George visits Rokkenjima; Eva talks about arranging a marriage for George; Shannon meets Beatrice
December, 1985: Shannon breaks the mirror
August, 1986: Shannon tells Jessica about her trip to Okinawa with George; Shannon gives Kanon the brooch; Kanon poses as Jessica's boyfriend

Huh, that's a pretty long time between Shannon meeting Beatrice and breaking the mirror. I wonder what that means?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Let's see...

October, 1984: George visits Rokkenjima; Eva talks about arranging a marriage for George; Shannon meets Beatrice
December, 1985: Shannon breaks the mirror
August, 1986: Shannon tells Jessica about her trip to Okinawa with George; Shannon gives Kanon the brooch; Kanon poses as Jessica's boyfriend

Nope.

George's visit to Rokkenjima was a non-conference visit, so it can't be October.

Jessica's cultural festival is explicitly stated to be in the Fall before October, so got to be September.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Nope.

George's visit to Rokkenjima was a non-conference visit, so it can't be October.

Jessica's cultural festival is explicitly stated to be in the Fall before October, so got to be September.

Well, October 1984 is what the anime said. It's at 4:25 in the episode if you want to check.

The August 1986 date definitely applies to Shannon's Okinawa visit, but there's no problem if the other events occurred later.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Nope.

George's visit to Rokkenjima was a non-conference visit, so it can't be October.

Jessica's cultural festival is explicitly stated to be in the Fall before October, so got to be September.

Actually they talked about the family conference while they were having tea so that's actually an october event. Incidentally though that means that Rudolf's and Rosa's families don't come to every family conference. After that they talked about the marriage meeting

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Actually they mentioned the family conference while they were having tea.

Nope, it's a non-conference visit.

`The Ushiromiya family family conference was a customary event held every October, `@`but relatives sometimes visited at other times.`@
`...Of course, they didn't come just to drink tea.`¥
`On this day, Eva's family had visited the head family on Rokkenjima.`@
`The three people from Krauss's family and the three people from Eva's family had gathered in the parlor,`@` and were having a friendly chat as they reported the news.`¥

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Nope, it's a non-conference visit.

`The Ushiromiya family family conference was a customary event held every October, `@`but relatives sometimes visited at other times.`@
`...Of course, they didn't come just to drink tea.`¥
`On this day, Eva's family had visited the head family on Rokkenjima.`@
`The three people from Krauss's family and the three people from Eva's family had gathered in the parlor,`@` and were having a friendly chat as they reported the news.`¥

It could be late October, after the conference.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

It could be late October, after the conference.

Could be, but we still have a whole year between mirror breaking and Beatrice conversation. Has Shannon been deliberating on that for an entire year?...

Come to think of it, if that was the 1984 October, Kanon has just started working at the time, which doesn't sit that well with the text if you ask me.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Could be, but we still have a whole year between mirror breaking and Beatrice conversation. Has Shannon been deliberating on that for an entire year?...

Come to think of it, if that was the 1984 October, Kanon has just started working at the time, which doesn't sit that well with the text if you ask me.

Kanon had worked there for three years as of the 1986 conference, so shouldn't he have been there for about a year at that point?

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Could be, but we still have a whole year between mirror breaking and Beatrice conversation. Has Shannon been deliberating on that for an entire year?...

That seems perfectly reasonable to me. After all, we see that Shannon refused Beatrice's offer at first. It's no surprise that it took some time and convincing for her to do a 180 and decide to "free the evil witch".

Originally Posted by Oliver

Come to think of it, if that was the 1984 October, Kanon has just started working at the time, which doesn't sit that well with the text if you ask me.

How so?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

How so?

Kanon seems to make conclusions that require many months of observation which he may or may not have had in this case. This does not work well whether you assume Shkanon or not, because if you assume Shkanon you need at least a certain level of memory separation between personalities.

[Jan-Poo]

I don't really get what you mean, but in any case as Lyricalaura also pointed out one year should be enough.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Kanon seems to make conclusions that require many months of observation which he may or may not have had in this case. This does not work well whether you assume Shkanon or not, because if you assume Shkanon you need at least a certain level of memory separation between personalities.

Not with Shkanontrice. In that theory, Shannon and Kanon are just an act being played by "Sayo" (or whatever her name is). Yes, she does get very involved in the act, but it's nothing like a multiple personality disorder.
Still, it would make a bit more sense if Kanon was there for a while, which it looks like he was. Shannon seemed used to Kanon being there.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

That seems perfectly reasonable to me. After all, we see that Shannon refused Beatrice's offer at first. It's no surprise that it took some time and convincing for her to do a 180 and decide to "free the evil witch".

Upon further reflection... There's the real problem with anime dating:

The earliest possible date for Shannon meeting Beatrice is April 1984, because before then the portrait does not exist and Shannon cannot be cleaning it. The last possible date is October 3, 1985, when the last moment for Kinzo to die happens, because after that, Natsuhi punishing Shannon with no food until the cleaning is complete becomes extremely silly. This event also has to happen after the non-conference visit of George+Eva+Hideyoshi.

But the said non-conference visit involves a discussion which involves a living Kinzo, about George's marriage meeting. Whatever negotiations are necessary to proceed with the meeting itself, they can take a month, maybe two, but hardly an entire year -- it's not a marriage, it's a meeting, it can fail and is often expected to, no sense to brood on it for an entire year.

And then Beatrice says, "I know who he will be having the marriage meeting with. That girl is the most suitable for Ushiromiya George in the entire world. She came from a good school, achieved good grades, and has composure and prudence. She is more beautiful than you, wiser than you, more suitable than you."

If the meeting did happen within reasonable time span since this conversation occurred, either Beatrice was wrong and the girl was not suitable (and then there's not that much sense in listening to Beatrice in the first place) or George somehow wiggled his way out of the meeting completely (at that point in his life there's no strong motivation for him to do so and that also makes Beatrice wrong and therefore less compelling) or the meeting happened and while George may think otherwise, for his parents his marriage to the lady in question is already on the books, of which we have no visible indication anywhere.

Assuming the anime dates are correct, though, creates new information which may end up useful:

The only wiggle room that remains for anime dates is that the meeting did happen, and the friendship with the girl in question did start, though did not proceed to an official engagement yet. Then, in October 1985 during the regularly scheduled conference, when Kinzo was already dead and Shannon found herself with a certain immunity from employer control, George showed up, and extoiled the virtues of the said girl in public -- and Shannon, being reminded of Beatrice's offer again, decided it was time to go wreck the mirror after at most a couple of months beating her head on the wall for not listening to Beatrice earlier.

Having accidentally met Shannon at an aquarium afterwards during some sort of auspicious circumstance -- Christmas would be very cute -- George does a complete 180 turn. Since the only way he has any hope of standing up to Eva is when Hideyoshi supports him (otherwise, George loses his job and is thoroughly screwed) he has to enlist his support soon after if only to smoothly break up the potential engagement so that he can pursue Shannon.

The poor girl who didn't get to marry George as a result should be very annoyed.

P.S.: I wonder if it could have been one Furudo Erika...