[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by ijriims

Now I think about it, if Kyrie was indeed Battler's mother, then she must not know about it from EP1-4

She doesn't know, or rather she doesn't know at the start of October4. However it is possible she came to know the truth during the family meeting since Rudolf expressed his will to talk about it.

There are strong hints:

Episode1 Rudolf says he wants to talk to both of them. In Ep5 it was made clear enough that Rudolf wants to talk about Battler's birth situation.

In episode2 Kyrie while talking about Battler's fear of vehicles comments that Asumu was the same so Battler probably inherited Asumu's genes.
There was no need for her to say something like that. She could have said that Battler got influenced by Asumu (which is probably the truth), but why mentioning genes?
Also as soon as she say so, Rudolf abruptly cuts the conversation.

Then there is episode3, the fight between Kyrie and Leviathan. Kyrie there seems pretty sure Battler is Asumu's son. Of course that's a magic scene but I don't Kyrie's envy and the reason behind it were false.

[ijriims]

I think I need to say this again: the notion that Kyrie caring for Maria FOLLOWS Beatrice caring for Maria.

I think except Rosa having constant contact with Maria, anyone normally would only meet her once a year. So whoever X=Beatrice you propose, you also have to overcome this difficulty. Unless you could argue that Beatrice does not love Maria.

Your assumption that Beatrice and Maria only contact each other once in a year can be faulty, Maria was left alone at home many time, she could have met Beatrice without Rosa's knowing. Or they could contact through telephone, or letters. They need not communicate only during family meeting.

As someone has said before, Ange and Maria was kind of similar age, they probably play together during the family meeting. It was during these period Ange was invited to join the alliance (I have forgotten the name). Kyrie played along with her daughter and Maria was possible as long as she was not cold-blooded. Ange and Maria definitely contacted each other frequently. So Kyrie did have many opportunities to familiarize herself with Maria. She saw Maria as her second child was not impossible through this reasoning.

[Jan-Poo]

I think except Rosa having constant contact with Maria, anyone normally would only meet her once a year. So whoever X=Beatrice you propose, you also have to overcome this difficulty. Unless you could argue that Beatrice does not love Maria.

Personally I argue that Beatrice doesn't love Maria enough to make her want to kill everyone else. While Beatrice has been showing having sympathy and feeling of friendship towards Maria, I never had the impression that she would kill for her (just think about Ep3...), and neither I have noticed Beatrice particularly hating anyone.

She has mostly shown hate towards the love between George and Shannon and Kanon and Jessica but it was more directed to the relation itself not the people.

She's been ambivalent towards Kinzo, hating him, loving him, despising him, and feeling compassion.

She seems pretty fond of Battler in the good and evil, her mind seems to think about Battler on a constant basis, She seems involved with Battler a lot more than with Maria.

[Neofio3]

Originally Posted by ijriims

I think I need to say this again: the notion that Kyrie caring for Maria FOLLOWS Beatrice caring for Maria.

I think except Rosa having constant contact with Maria, anyone normally would only meet her once a year. So whoever X=Beatrice you propose, you also have to overcome this difficulty. Unless you could argue that Beatrice does not love Maria.

"Beatrice" (the witch) is the sum total of conditions that occur within Rokkenjima's two days (which means all circumstances, culprits, and cataclysmic accidents which lead to everyone dying are her. In that sense, she's the same as Lady Lambdadelta's role in Higurashi). She is "magical" and is the one in constant contact with meta-battler, and in league with MARIA over marriage sociere. Maria plays with her in her imagination, which is why she and Maria are friendly.

She is also not real (the same as meta-battler) and will disappear in a poof of logic if the tales comprising her become undone.

"Beatrice" (the culprit) is a separate entity in the island. She is a real person responsible for plotting and scheming to murder, and may or may not even look like Beatrice. This "Beatrice" could be Kyrie, or George, or Jessica, or whoever, as Beatrice's "proxy", her "arms and legs" in the form of a human killer. This person has completely separate motives than witch Beatrice, which means that while Witch Beatrice may care for Maria, it does not necessarily follow that Beatrice's proxy in the gameboard does.

Again, I direct you to Lambdadelta in Higurashi.

Lambdadelta cares for Bernkastel. Is absolutely fanatical about her, in fact. But 34's proxy, Takano Miyo, looks at Furude Rika as a tool, at best. It absolutely does not follow that Beatrice's motivations and her tools (which includes a living "Beatrice" running around killing people) have to follow the same thought patterns.

Your assumption that Beatrice and Maria only contact each other once in a year can be faulty, Maria was left alone at home many time, she could have met Beatrice without Rosa's knowing. Or they could contact through telephone, or letters. They need not communicate only during family meeting.

As someone has said before, Ange and Maria was kind of similar age, they probably play together during the family meeting. It was during these period Ange was invited to join the alliance (I have forgotten the name). Kyrie played along with her daughter and Maria was possible as long as she was not cold-blooded. Ange and Maria definitely contacted each other frequently. So Kyrie did have many opportunities to familiarize herself with Maria. She saw Maria as her second child was not impossible through this reasoning.

Which still doesn't make sense. It would be like Eva killing George and Hideyoshi because she felt pity for the family bullying Rosa.

Yes, she has reasons to love her, but not enough to murder people she cares even more about. If Kyrie is such a loving person, then she would simply love Rudolph more than she loves Maria (11 years can attest to that). Her killing not just Rudolph, but everyone, for such a pithy reason smacks of inconsistency. It must therefore stand to reason, if she is the murderer, that the motive is something else.

[Geekodot]

Actually, anyone of you who actually have an idea to how the 1998 stuff relates to the murders?
It seems to me that most theories ignore all the 1998 hints, which I think is pretty important to solving the mystery... after all, the truth of the future paints over the truth of the past?

btw, to everyone using "Without love, it cannot be seen" as an argument to reject theories, "With only love, it cannot be seen either". You need two eyes to see something in a three-dimensional view. Okonogi was blinded by love and Ange was blinded by hate, so none of them could see the truth.

[ijriims]

Where did I say caring for Maria was the ONLY motive for real Beatrice? (To say meta-Beatrice cares for Maria but not real Beatrice was not convincing. Real Beatrice has been teaching her about magic or writing in her notebook. I don't think the heading "To my beloved apprentice" was not genuine.)

Maria's long history of abuse was merely a trigger for killing everyone. Liberalizing Maria from this world was one motive. Real Beatrice's another major motive was to unite the family through against Beatrice and solving the epigraph together (which almost happened in EP3, until Eva decided to take all the gold and killed Rosa and Maria).

Yes, caring for Maria was not enough incentive to kill everyone. But Kyrie personally hold grudge to the family as well. Kyrie held a love-hate attitude towards Rudolf. The other siblings (Eva, Krauss) plotting against each other was disgusting. Rosa has been abusing Maria. Only the children were innocent (so they were left behind till the end in EP1, 4). Nanjo and other servants were "collateral damage" so Kyrie has sent money to their relatives as a form of redemption. Genji most likely did not mind dying as long as it could save the Ushiromiya family.

The whole killing was a gamble: family united or all dead under the veil of Beatrice. Personally, I thought it fitted Kinzo's personality perfectly.

Still, one thing bugs me. What about Beatrice? The real Beatrice has been portrayed as capricious, whimsical and even Bern and Lambda commented that Beatrice did not act on the most logical way, treating the means as an end at times. How did this fit into any of our character. In fact, no character has been shown this kind of wantonness, of course it don't fit Kyrie's personality, but nor Shannon's.

I am working on an alternative hypothesis without Rosa's involvement as initial mastermind and Kyrie has been working with Kinzo. Somehow it was very difficult (esp. for EP2).

Originally Posted by Geekodot

Actually, anyone of you who actually have an idea to how the 1998 stuff relates to the murders?
It seems to me that most theories ignore all the 1998 hints, which I think is pretty important to solving the mystery... after all, the truth of the future paints over the truth of the past?

The knowledge of the letters-in-the-bottle, information about 07151129, and actual Beatrice exists while being Maria's master were very important in identifying Beatrice. What Ange saw in captain's house pointed to a motive (combined with the magical scene of Ange breaking into the Golden land). My hypothesis that Kyrie being Beatrice is based on all these 1998 information and EP3.

Originally Posted by Geekodot

btw, to everyone using "Without love, it cannot be seen" as an argument to reject theories, "With only love, it cannot be seen either". You need two eyes to see something in a three-dimensional view. Okonogi was blinded by love and Ange was blinded by hate, so none of them could see the truth.

My response is that any motive of the mastermind (if existed) must not be money, or anything purely mundane.

[Neofio3]

Originally Posted by ijriims

Where did I say caring for Maria was the ONLY motive for real Beatrice? (To say meta-Beatrice cares for Maria but not real Beatrice was not convincing. Real Beatrice has been teaching her about magic or writing in her notebook. I don't think the heading "To my beloved apprentice" was not genuine.)

Who was Maria's apprentice?

Ange, that's who. Which is logical that said inscription was written by Maria addressed to Ange. Why would you posit perhaps the one most logical-minded, anti-magical adult to indulge herself in magic?

Maria's long history of abuse was merely a trigger for killing everyone. Liberalizing Maria from this world was one motive. Real Beatrice's another major motive was to unite the family through against Beatrice and solving the epigraph together (which almost happened in EP3, until Eva decided to take all the gold and killed Rosa and Maria).

Yes, caring for Maria was not enough incentive to kill everyone. But Kyrie personally hold grudge to the family as well. Kyrie held a love-hate attitude towards Rudolf. The other siblings (Eva, Krauss) plotting against each other was disgusting. Rosa has been abusing Maria. Only the children were innocent (so they were left behind till the end in EP1, 4). Nanjo and other servants were "collateral damage" so Kyrie has sent money to their relatives as a form of redemption. Genji most likely did not mind dying as long as it could save the Ushiromiya family.

You do realize said reasoning could be said for just about everybody and not just Kyrie?

The whole killing was a gamble: family united or all dead under the veil of Beatrice. Personally, I thought it fitted Kinzo's personality perfectly.

Which does not make sense. It would mean that Kyrie not only would wanted Rudolph, the love of her life whom she waited 11 years and left her family over, but also would leave Ange, her daughter whom she loves, fatherless (assuming she assumed to survive and not kill herself in the process). Or if she did plan to destroy all the Ushiromiyas, herself included, then leave Ange an orphan? It just does not make sense, even from a storytelling perspective.

Still, one thing bugs me. What about Beatrice? The real Beatrice has been portrayed as capricious, whimsical and even Bern and Lambda commented that Beatrice did not act on the most logical way, treating the means as an end at times. How did this fit into any of our character. In fact, no character has been shown this kind of wantonness, of course it don't fit Kyrie's personality, but nor Shannon's.

I am working on an alternative hypothesis without Rosa's involvement as initial mastermind and Kyrie has been working with Kinzo. Somehow it was very difficult (esp. for EP2).

Hence why my theory that Witch Beatrice isn't a "person" but rather a "confluence of events", which also, necessarily, involves chance. The Golden Witch may just as well be present in a capricious accident as she is in cold-blooded murder.

The knowledge of the letters-in-the-bottle, information about 07151129, and actual Beatrice exists while being Maria's master were very important in identifying Beatrice. What Ange saw in captain's house pointed to a motive (combined with the magical scene of Ange breaking into the Golden land). My hypothesis that Kyrie being Beatrice is based on all these 1998 information and EP3.

- All we know about 07151129 is that it may be Battler's birthday, and hence related to him, which is no more definitive than many other explanations of a murderer related to him (Shannon/Jessica's broken promise theory, for example).
- The presence of the letters and bank accounts could be the work of anyone, but the presence of magical elements work against Kyrie writing them. See below why.
- Kyrie being Maria's "master" just... does not work. If anything, Kyrie can be described as anti-magic, and is the origin of Battler's anti-magic. She's perhaps the adult with the greatest amount of anti-magic toxin in the entire island. And she's teaching Maria magic? She taught Battler logic, anti-magic. Its simply against her character.
- What Ange saw in the house could be... anything, really. We don't know what it is, so I'm interested in knowing what you're tie-in to Kyrie it may be.

My response is that any motive of the mastermind (if existed) must not be money, or anything purely mundane.

Love can be... complicated. To paraphrase another poster: Love is the cause of Kinzo's madness. Love is why Maria trusts Rosa unconditionally. Love is the impetus for the grisly murders. Love is the magic that can change the world. Love kills. Love can lift them up and transform them, but not until it's put them through hell.

"Mundane" things, like hate or greed, can indeed be motivated by love. Eva's greed in episode 3 was caused by love of George, for example (in securing his future). Lambdadelta loves Bernkastel, and hence would like to pluck out her eyes. Kinzo loved Beatrice, and hence held her prisoner against her will and (possibly) abused her. "Love" doesn't necessarily mean the nice, fluffy kind, and a motivation based on love doesn't necessarily mean a character is being benevolent.

[Geekodot]

Just a quick thought about the murders in general... it seems like the first twilight is more or less planned in advance, while the rest is pretty random murders.

Proof of this is that:
1. During the first night, 6 people are killed. No one could have accounted for the typhoon in their plans in advance and it would therefore be crazy to make a huge plan involving killing 13 people when the boat might come the next day to pick them up.

2. If they wasn't sure wether or not the boat would come, why didn't they hurry it up killing people faster? In Episode 1 the second twilight happens pretty late the 5th and the rest of the murders are pretty rushed.

The original plan in play here seems to be killing the siblings considering the fact that they die most of the first twilights (or what is believed to be the first twilight in episode 4).

In episode 1, it actually seems to me like the murderer who did the first twilight and the murderer who did the rest are not the same person.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Neofio3

Which does not make sense. It would mean that Kyrie not only would wanted Rudolph, the love of her life whom she waited 11 years and left her family over, but also would leave Ange, her daughter whom she loves, fatherless (assuming she assumed to survive and not kill herself in the process). Or if she did plan to destroy all the Ushiromiyas, herself included, then leave Ange an orphan? It just does not make sense, even from a storytelling perspective.

(IIRC, the signature under "To my beloved apprentice" was Beatrice. And the signature was done by the same person who wrote the letters-in-the-bottom. And the person who wrote the letters was not Maria. Ange being orphan was sad indeed. It was a cost which must incur if the gamble was to be done. So money has to be sent to Ange as well (again, great collateral damage). )

In short, your opposition is Kyrie were too anti-magic and too rational to be Beatrice. As stated in EP2, eveyone pretended in order not to break children's innocence and dreams. You can believe Kyrie unable to do such things. You can choose to reject that my view that Kyrie saw Maria as her past and second daughter. You can insist that Kyrie was so grown-up to play with children. Just like I can insist the otherwise.

This point, is almost a matter of personal judgment, as there are no hard proof of personality or motive. All motives are merely speculation until it is stated.



Tell me who Batter's mother was? Who wrote the 07151129 password on the door? Why Kyrie insisted Battler to believe in magic in EP4? What was the purpose of the scene in the Golden Land that Beatrice's magic could never resurrect Sakutarou? Why the letters-in-the-bottle never mentioned Ange?

We would soon know the answer. Soon. Beforw we know it, maybe you could tell me your hypothesis connecting all of these.

Originally Posted by Geekodot

Proof of this is that:
1. During the first night, 6 people are killed. No one could have accounted for the typhoon in their plans in advance and it would therefore be crazy to make a huge plan involving killing 13 people when the boat might come the next day to pick them up.

If there were no typhoon, then we should see captain's boat being blown away between 4-5th Oct. And the telephone line was still cut. Effectively forming a closed island in this case.

[Neofio3]

Originally Posted by ijriims

(IIRC, the signature under "To my beloved apprentice" was Beatrice. And the signature was done by the same person who wrote the letters-in-the-bottom. And the person who wrote the letters was not Maria.

And Maria has been shown especially skilled in copying. She's been doing extremely elaborate magical circles, and copying magical texts to an extent that the adults and cousins are amazed. So that is not proof that Maria cannot copy or create a signature and address it to her apprentice, Ange.

Ange being orphan was sad indeed. It was a cost which must incur if the gamble was to be done. So money has to be sent to Ange as well (again, great collateral damage). )

So, Kyrie loves Maria enough to sacrifice the love of her own daughter? This loving Kyrie believes that the life of a child growing up without both her parents (and eventually becoming screwed up enough to view jumping off skyscrapers for kicks) is commensurate with money?

In short, your opposition is Kyrie were too anti-magic and too rational to be Beatrice. As stated in EP2, eveyone pretended in order not to break children's innocence and dreams. You can believe Kyrie unable to do such things. You can choose to reject that my view that Kyrie saw Maria as her past and second daughter. You can insist that Kyrie was so grown-up to play with children. Just like I can insist the otherwise.

This point, is almost a matter of personal judgment, as there are no hard proof of personality or motive. All motives are merely speculation until it is stated.

The opposition is that in your scenario, you have Kyrie not acting like Kyrie. Its almost like imagining Eva undergoing a change of heart and donating all her material goods to charity, or Kinzo actually being nice to someone.

Tell me who Batter's mother was? Who wrote the 07151129 password on the door? Why Kyrie insisted Battler to believe in magic in EP4? What was the purpose of the scene in the Golden Land that Beatrice's magic could never resurrect Sakutarou? Why the letters-in-the-bottle never mentioned Ange?

We would soon know the answer. Soon. Beforw we know it, maybe you could tell me your hypothesis connecting all of these.

All of these things does not equal your hypothesis, that Kyrie is the mastermind while having the family and Maria's wellbeing at heart. All of these things, in fact, can be perfectly explained with Kyrie as the culprit, while not caring about the family or Maria at all.

To follow your hypothesis: Kyrie is perfectly poised to be the culprit, under the "Kyrie is the culprit" theory. However, your motivations to her, that of caring for a completely unrelated child she only meets once a year, over the lives of both her husband (of whom she's been proven to sacrifice 11 years of her life) and her own biological child, who she's perfectly willing to kill and/or abandon just does not work. Greed would work. Secretly hating everyone (including her husband and child) would work. But positing a Kyrie with enough empathy to love a mere acquaintance over her own family is just plain inconsistent, as far as motivations go.

[Geekodot]

Originally Posted by ijriims

If there were no typhoon, then we should see captain's boat being blown away between 4-5th Oct. And the telephone line was still cut. Effectively forming a closed island in this case.

I never said there were no typhoon, I just said that it is strange for someone to make murder plans ASSUMING a typhoon will hit. Normally, they would only be one night on the island, however because of the typhoon they have to stay two nights. No one could know about this beforehand.

And it is pretty clear that the murders was planned beforehand, just look at the amounts of stuff that were prepared to do this.

Episode 1 theory:
Everyone arrive at the island, and the siblings have planned in advance that someone were going to be killed. The ones that are originally planned to be killed might be the servants, because none of the siblings wants to kill their own children or themselves. The reason for killing might be forcing Kinzo to reveal the gold or something of that nature. Everyone has good reasons to why they need the gold so badly. However Krauss got his own plan, which involves killing all the other siblings, staking them and making it look like the witch did it, if not the witch then the magic obsessed old man that everyone else thinks is living in the house (Kinzo). He did not tell Natsuhi about this as Natsuhi's feelings are pure and she wants do defend Kinzo's honor. Seeing how he hid the gold bar from her, he might have hid the plan to kill the siblings too. However, something he didn't expect happens. Eva had also got a similiar plan and she was going to kill all the siblings and Shannon (for stealing George).
Rudolf reveales to Battler that he has a feeling that someone will kill him.

Krauss tries to kill the other siblings, but Eva and Hideyoshi prevails that night. Rudolf, Kyrie, Krauss and Rosa are now dead. Eva then finds Shannon and kills her and she goes to Natsuhi's room. However when she enters the room, Natsuhi is nowhere to be found, why?
1. Natsuhi got her own plan to fake Kinzo's death during the family conference and she is down in the boiler room preparing the body.
2. Natsuhi is upset because Krauss appearently doesn't trust her, so in order to show how determined she is to defend the Ushiromiya family's wealth and honor, she spends the night solving the epitaph and finding the gold. She now knows the gold is real because Krauss showed her the gold bar.

For one of those reasons, Natsuhi is not in her room. Eva is annoyed and like she later does at Kinzo's door when Natsuhi comes out after "being encouraged by Kinzo", she scratches at the door because she can't get the last one she intended to kill. Not thinking clearly, she finds and kills Gohda instead. Eva and Hideyoshi moves them into the shed together and prepares the scene. Natsuhi returns to her room dead tired and does not notice the bloody marks on her door.

The next day, Eva does the trick with the receipt in an attempt to frame Natsuhi, but it backfires thanks to Battler. She and Hideyoshi retires to their room.
1. Natsuhi tells the servants that Eva is the killer and orders them to kill Eva and Hideyoshi in order to make it look like a murder by the witch. She then explains how she found 7 stakes lying at the ready in Kinzo's study. Those were originally supposed to be used by Krauss in the first twilight, but now the servants use them as well as a gun to kill Eva and Hideyoshi and plant a stake in Kinzo's forehead as well as burn his body.
2. Natsuhi tells the servants to stake Kinzo's corpse and burn it and the servants conclude that Eva is the murderer so they kill her and Hideyoshi before they can kill anyone else.

The letter appears in the door in order to further pretend it was a magic murder.

After this, Kanon rushes down to the boiler with Kumasawa and pretends to be hurt with red paint. He does this to get Nanjo, Jessica and Kumasawa alone so that he can formulate a plan of some kind. Nanjo lets him run away with the rest of the stakes and everyone locks themselves up in the study. The letter on the table is discovered and 4 people are thrown out. Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa is then killed due to a misunderstanding of some kind by Kanon. If Natsuhi ordered the murders of Eva and Hideyoshi, Kanon can believe that Natsuhi was the culprit all along and lure her out of the parlor to kill her with a gun.

[Ithekro]

Consider that it is Kyrie that pushes Krauss and Natsuhi in EP4 about Kinzo to the point where she gets them into a logic trap that there should be no escape from (since Kinzo is dead). While in Ep1 she sits back with Rosa while Eva and Rudolf try to make a settlement with Krauss.

Different games...different methods. Rudolf messes up during Ep1 as Krauss manages to land counters on each of them in turn. In Ep4, with Kyrie leading the attack (seemingly over Eva's protest) they hit the mark on the head and corner Krauss and Natsuhi.

However...about Beatrice. Is "Beatrice"...the one on the board, actually the murderer? Or is she some other plot that happens to be in a nice place to be blamed for the murders? If she does murder someone...was it for a criminal reason, or was it self defense? Or was she forced to do it (such as when "Beatrice" finishes off Maria and Rosa in Ep3 to stop Eva-Beatrice's torture?)

Kyrie, in some ways, makes a good Beatrice. In others she does not. Her closeness with Maria only makes sense if one places Ange in the picture. Being Ange's mother and playing with the two youngest children makes some sense. If you add Battler to this and the off chance he introduced Maria to magic, then Maria continues this game with Ange, Kyrie could continue the practice. While Kyrie seems anti-magic, look at how Maria's idea of magic works...it is very logical...for magic. Everything has a meaning and a place. Things need to happen before other things happen. Also for Beatrice, she's fixated on Battler accepting her (as a witch). This may be a stretch, but one could assume that Kyrie might want Battler to accept her...as a mother.

Battler's sin though...if that is mainly related to his dropping of the family name, and this the title...and the sin isn't between Battler and Beatrice, or his immediate family...who's left? Shannon? Maria? Though if the sin is not between Beatrice or his immediate family, that could mean that Beatrice is part of his immediate family. Thus Kyrie can be Beatrice within Battler's sin.

Why would Kyrie care if he dropped his name? It would be easier to have trained Battler to be the next head if he was present the last six years. There might not have even needed to be any of this plotting and planning, since we don't know what Kinzo's plans were before Battler left and before Kinzo died. But then if Kyrie was the one that sent those letters out on October 3rd...how'd she do it? She wasn't there to send them. Have someone else send them for her? Logical. Also covers that she had help on the island to start with. But why plot to kill the whole family? Even calculating the odds that she would die herself, and thus sending money to Ange as well. The question is why? She could be a who, and there are plenty of possible hows...but where is the why...that ever important why?

She's also the closest they have, outside Gohda and Kanon, to an outsider. Even though she's been in a relationship with Rudolf for 18+ years, she's only been family for six.

[Geekodot]

The motive is always the biggest problem... my theories always end up being about the gold or the inheritance/headship or something else like that. I don't believe that Kyrie is behind the murders though, she is shown to be smart and calculating. I would expect her to survive to the end of at least one game if she planned all of it alone.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Geekodot

Actually, anyone of you who actually have an idea to how the 1998 stuff relates to the murders?
It seems to me that most theories ignore all the 1998 hints, which I think is pretty important to solving the mystery... after all, the truth of the future paints over the truth of the past?

the 1998 scenes say practically anything about the "incident" itself, and a proper explanation of what happened according to official sources was never shown, which is weird.

We can only assume that official sources never considered it a crime because of some hints here and there. However there are not enough elements to deduce why, there could be several reasons.

In the the only informations we get are about "Beatrice", but the incident itself is a big question mark.

- Beatrice wrote something in Maria's diary
- Beatrice sent letters with bank accounts info using, as senders, the names of the people that were on Rokkenjima in the last family conference. And she did it the day before the incident.
- Beatrice sent messages in bottles with detailed stories about how the family and the servants got killed by a witch and magic (BTW now that I think about this, shouldn't this make obvious that none of them narrated episode1's story?). In the end she asks people to find the truth.

other hints not involving Beatrice are:

-Nanjo's corpse disappeared (nothing is known about the others)
-Eva survived and was found in Kuwadorian
-Kumasawa was interested in the epitaph
-Kasumi hates Kyrie with a passion

Pretty weak hints, if you ask me.

We can get from this is that Beatrice's motivation has nothing to do with money. Which is confirmed even more by the fact that Beatrice knows where the gold his and it is already her property (written in red in Episode5).
Also Beatrice seems to know Ange wasn't going to attend the meeting since October3.
Too bad we don't know if Ange is included in the 18 persons named in the messages.

In conclusion since this whole thing only refers to Beatrice, and since we are not 100% sure the culprit and Beatrice are the same person, we don't get many info on the culprit.
Any culprit theory so far can work and can completely disregard these hints if Beatrice is not the culprit.

[Kaiba]

So, Kyrie loves Maria enough to sacrifice the love of her own daughter? This loving Kyrie believes that the life of a child growing up without both her parents (and eventually becoming screwed up enough to view jumping off skyscrapers for kicks) is commensurate with money?

I would also throw in another thing that makes this thing make even less sense - the fact that in the aftermath of Episodes 1, 2, and 4, it's probably Kasumi who would end up with custody of Ange as there's no Aunt Eva. So not only is Kyrie going to sacrifice the love of her own daughter for the sake of a girl she meets once a year, if that, she's willing to abandon said daughter to someone who hates her guts and would make her life absolutely miserable, if not outright killing her. To put it simply, that's insane and not in line with Kyrie's calculating line at all.

[Geekodot]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

I would also throw in another thing that makes this thing make even less sense - the fact that in the aftermath of Episodes 1, 2, and 4, it's probably Kasumi who would end up with custody of Ange as there's no Aunt Eva. So not only is Kyrie going to sacrifice the love of her own daughter for the sake of a girl she meets once a year, if that, she's willing to abandon said daughter to someone who hates her guts and would make her life absolutely miserable, if not outright killing her. To put it simply, that's insane and not in line with Kyrie's calculating line at all.

Not in line with any mother's thinking... heck it's almost as absurd as the small bombs...

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Geekodot

btw, to everyone using "Without love, it cannot be seen" as an argument to reject theories, "With only love, it cannot be seen either". You need two eyes to see something in a three-dimensional view. Okonogi was blinded by love and Ange was blinded by hate, so none of them could see the truth.

That isn't my point, unfortunately.

My point is that relying on an outside culprit is too easy. Gordian Knot, again.

Originally Posted by Neofio3

- What Ange saw in the house could be... anything, really.

A Sakutaro doll. That was how she revived him for MARIA.

I thought that was pretty obvious, actually.

[Ithekro]

Was it suggested that Ep1 is exactly what the letter in the bottle suggests happened? Or is what we are given in Ep1 what happened and Ep2 is what was in the bottle? Or was what was in the bottle something completely different?

If it was what happened in Ep1...than Ep1 is false...or what the original plan was. Thus it could be used to find out who the original culprit was..but the other Episodes show ways that it went wrong.

If what was in the bottle was Ep2, then that was the orignal plan, and what happened in Ep1 was what actually happened instead. If anything between the five games is actually related to one another.


Alternately: Are there multiple bottle with different stories?

[rogerpepitone]

Killing random people in an attempt to get Kinzo to talk doesn't make sense to me, especially if it's likely to involve the death of the conspirators.

Wouldn't such a suggestion be met with a counter suggestion of something like "Drug his food, overpower Genji for his key, tie down Kinzo, and interrogate him until he explains the riddle"?

[Geekodot]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

That isn't my point, unfortunately.

My point is that relying on an outside culprit is too easy. Gordian Knot, again.

I was also trying to say that if you make it too complicated, you will just end up going in circles... and it is really not an outside culprit, more an outside accomplice AT BEST.

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Killing random people in an attempt to get Kinzo to talk doesn't make sense to me, especially if it's likely to involve the death of the conspirators.

Wouldn't such a suggestion be met with a counter suggestion of something like "Drug his food, overpower Genji for his key, tie down Kinzo, and interrogate him until he explains the riddle"?

Ah, it doesn't have to be killing random people at all, it actually doesn't even have to be threatening Kinzo... the important part is that on the "outside" all the siblings got a massive plot, but really everyone are going to take each others down.