[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Ep. 4 Alliance of the golden witch

[Marion]

Spoiler for Response to Christen:

It's possible that Kanon simply didn't die there and then went into the forest and maybe got attacked by a wild animal possibly (I know accident was denied and so was trap, but were animals excluded as well?)

Also, if you want to talk about a group that wasn't ill-natured then I can really only think of two possibilities.

1) The group as in Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie and Rosa, who were trying to get the inheritance from Krauss. Five people were in it, but then again it might not be it because Kanon isn't part of said group.

2) A group that formed after the letter in fears of murder occurring. The fact that Kyrie told Battler about Beatrice and how she's probably an 18th person right after the letter seems a little weird in a sense of timing.

[chounokoe]

Spoiler for Towards Kanon Theory and 'On the island':

Originally Posted by Christen

- Obstacle. The only way I can try to explain it is There are two Kanons. Identical twins with the same name. Both might have different real names. This is the only obstacle of this theory.

I found a point regarding that quite interesting, namely that Shanon's existence was never doubtet. Considering several scenes that were witnessed it is quite impossible for them to be the SAME person, but they could be able to switch places.

Kanon's overprotectivity of her could have led him to switch places with Shanon in Episode 1, making him the one to be killed in the 1st Twilight and Shanon the one being killed in the Boiler Room.
Of course we don't know how far that is possible, because their description and character art is the only thing we get about them directly from Ryukishi. Maybe they are that different that you can rule that out from the beginning.

At first I really didn't like the identical twin theory, because it seemed to be to similar to the Shion/Mion case of Higurashi, BUT after thinking about the fact that Kanon is not a NAME but more a definition of a FURNITURE, there could be several 'Kanon' on the island and still Beatrice's claim of noone being able to carry the name Kanon except Kanon would be valid and statable in red.

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

On the topic of 'there is no 18th/19th person on the island'.
We still need a perfect definition of what 'the island' is.
In Episode 4 Beatrice could state in red, that nobody except her could use magic in her world, even though it wasn't true. But it was the (temporary) truth, because nobody was able to deny this absolute truth and nobody knew of something that could counter that.
It is always a matter of interpretation and knowledge what is 'truth'.

Assuming there was a secret area below the island, some secret cavern which we know from many horror games, which is vastly different from the upper Rokkenjima and which also has it's own definition.
Would that place be the island Rokkenjima? Or would it be somewhere else?

Assuming there is something 絵の裏, so behind the picture of Beatrice. Some hidden staircase/elevator, which leads to an underground lair that nobody regards as 'Rokkenjima', because it clearly couldn't exist, as many of the siblings claimed about Beatrice's hidden treasure chamber.
If people don't think it exists and the only people knowing about it claim 'it is not Rokkenjima', they could vanish from Rokkenjima, without having to actually leave the island via boat.

[k//eternal]

Originally Posted by Marion

It's possible that Kanon simply didn't die there and then went into the forest and maybe got attacked by a wild animal possibly (I know accident was denied and so was trap, but were animals excluded as well?)

They were excluded by red text in EP3, but you could take it to mean that animals were excluded only for EP3 itself.

[Valentine]

Originally Posted by Marion

It's possible that Kanon simply didn't die there and then went into the forest and maybe got attacked by a wild animal possibly (I know accident was denied and so was trap, but were animals excluded as well?)

I don't think traps were actually denied for episode 1 Kanon either, though Lambda made fun of Battler trying to explain practically everything else with traps. While it's possible though, I kind of don't like the trap idea for a different reason - the culprit seems to be going to an awful lot of trouble to make it look like the work of a witch, and a stake-launching trap would surely look like the work of a human if there had been a second person in the room to see it, or even if Kanon had been conscious long enough to tell anyone what happened.

[Jan-Poo]

I found a point regarding that quite interesting, namely that Shanon's existence was never doubtet. Considering several scenes that were witnessed it is quite impossible for them to be the SAME person, but they could be able to switch places.

There is not a single scene in four episodes where Battler sees both Shannon and Kanon at the same time. You can't trust anyone else since there's also a list of people that witnessed Kinzo.
I'm not saying that this prove anything, I'm just saying that you can't use this argument to deny the Shannon=Kanon theory, because that very argument has been destroyed in Ep4.
However Ep4 also introduced a red truth that denies the theory and the only way to get around it is to make far-fetched theories about possible interpretations of the red truths. Yet when we see the word "magic" used in a red truth, or statements like "names are not exclusive", the certainty on the red truths becomes fuzzy.

I mean, you can explain that Beatrice could use "magic" in a red truth because "magic" is a metaphorical term for something else. But if such use is allowed, why Battler couldn't say that he's Asumu's son, although the term "son" is not necessarily bound to genetic?

[Valentine]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I mean, you can explain that Beatrice could use "magic" in a red truth because "magic" is a metaphorical term for something else. But if such use is allowed, why Battler couldn't say that he's Asumu's son, although the term "son" is not necessarily bound to genetic?

The thing he tried and failed to say was "I was born from Ushiromiya Asumu" though, which can't really be interpreted metaphorically. He was never specifically unable to say "I am Ushiromiya Asumu's son", though Beatrice did specifically say "You are not Ushiromiya Asumu's son".

[TheForsaken]

He didn't say "I am Ushiromiya Asumu's son", he said "Ushiromiya Battler is Ushiromiya Asumu's son".

[hodil]

Pertinent to Kanon's death in the first episode. It seemed pretty obvious that the culprit was present in the boiler room right? Battler saw the back door of the boiler room open. The culprit "Most Probably" escaped from the back door right?

Im asking alot of "rights"... because knowing Ryukishi... "An opened door" most probably = The culprit did not leave from there.

[MeoTwister5]

O... k....

Now that Meta Battler got himself erased, the game stops and we get thrown back to Ange on the present day, my mind is once again fried.

[Marion]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

O... k....

Now that Meta Battler got himself erased, the game stops and we get thrown back to Ange on the present day, my mind is once again fried.

Have fun with the next chapter. It's going to take forever and it's really depressing until near the ending |D;

[Renall]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Spoiler for Towards Kanon Theory and 'On the island':

I found a point regarding that quite interesting, namely that Shanon's existence was never doubtet. Considering several scenes that were witnessed it is quite impossible for them to be the SAME person, but they could be able to switch places.

Kanon's overprotectivity of her could have led him to switch places with Shanon in Episode 1, making him the one to be killed in the 1st Twilight and Shanon the one being killed in the Boiler Room.
Of course we don't know how far that is possible, because their description and character art is the only thing we get about them directly from Ryukishi. Maybe they are that different that you can rule that out from the beginning.

At first I really didn't like the identical twin theory, because it seemed to be to similar to the Shion/Mion case of Higurashi, BUT after thinking about the fact that Kanon is not a NAME but more a definition of a FURNITURE, there could be several 'Kanon' on the island and still Beatrice's claim of noone being able to carry the name Kanon except Kanon would be valid and statable in red.

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

On the topic of 'there is no 18th/19th person on the island'.
We still need a perfect definition of what 'the island' is.
In Episode 4 Beatrice could state in red, that nobody except her could use magic in her world, even though it wasn't true. But it was the (temporary) truth, because nobody was able to deny this absolute truth and nobody knew of something that could counter that.
It is always a matter of interpretation and knowledge what is 'truth'.

Assuming there was a secret area below the island, some secret cavern which we know from many horror games, which is vastly different from the upper Rokkenjima and which also has it's own definition.
Would that place be the island Rokkenjima? Or would it be somewhere else?

Assuming there is something 絵の裏, so behind the picture of Beatrice. Some hidden staircase/elevator, which leads to an underground lair that nobody regards as 'Rokkenjima', because it clearly couldn't exist, as many of the siblings claimed about Beatrice's hidden treasure chamber.
If people don't think it exists and the only people knowing about it claim 'it is not Rokkenjima', they could vanish from Rokkenjima, without having to actually leave the island via boat.

The plain meaning of "Rokkenjima" would surely include the island, its immediate environs, any structures on it (the mansion, guesthouse, chapel, Kuwadorian, and any others known or unknown), any underground structures (such as the tunnels), and probably even the airspace immediately above it. To argue otherwise is such a lame semantic trick that it completely defeats the purpose. You might as well make the argument that there's a Person X on the island who never heard that Rokkenjima's name was changed from the name it previously had, and so to that person he isn't on "Rokkenjima." If you're able to do that, then you can prove anything. That clearly isn't the intent (or if it is, it's terrible writing).

Here's a thought on ep3's First Twilight: Who is capable of doing it?

The victims presumably are not. Even if some of them participated in the murders of others, somebody had to finish them all off. Whoever did that can be said to be "the killer" in this case, even if he or she didn't do it all (and we know they didn't kill Kinzo directly in the same manner anyway). So that rules out Kinzo and all the servants as "the killer." We're down to 12 people.

The cousins presumably are not. Battler was with them. Admittedly they're asleep, but it still seems like quite a stretch. That's Battler, George, Maria and Jessica (or actually where does Jessica sleep?), leaving us with 8.

The family conference continued until dawn. If one of the siblings or their spouses had left the conference for an extended period of time, one of them would have commented on that absence the next morning when the bodies were discovered. No one said any such thing, which suggests each is capable of confirming the roughly continuous presence of the others. That's Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, Hideyoshi, Kyrie, Rudolf, and Rosa. Seven people.

If you eliminate 17 out of 18 suspects, and no one else is present on the island, there is only one person left. Dr. Nanjo is unaccounted for and could easily have engaged in the killings and arrangement of the closed room chain. Indeed, barring some unusual evidence he's basically the only one who could have done it. But here's where it gets odd:

The killings with clean shots seem to come from the Winchester rifles or similar weapons. While we can't disprove (devil's proof) the existence of weapons which can do similar damage, we do know that the Winchesters do exist, and the damage they are seemingly able to cause. Yet when the siblings retrieved the guns the next morning, they didn't seem to react as though any of them were missing! So either Dr. Nanjo (or the FT killer) has a gun which is not one of the Winchesters in Kinzo's collection, or a Winchester from the collection was used and then PUT BACK where it belonged!

Why is that relevant? It suggests motive: Someone intended to "kill" Kinzo and his servants, but no one else.

[Nih]

An interesting observation. Well, assuming that noone else is present on the island, that could still imply that Nanjo is in league with one of the adults. But then you'd have to ask why were all of the servants in different locations? I have a feeling at least some of them were carried to their rooms. Could Nanjo do it alone?

P.S. Then again, I suppose it's also possible for him to just ask them to follow him wherever. Wonder what he could have told them heh.

[Jan-Poo]

The cousins presumably are not. Battler was with them. Admittedly they're asleep, but it still seems like quite a stretch. That's Battler, George, Maria and Jessica (or actually where does Jessica sleep?), leaving us with 8.

In Episode1 it is said that four rooms in the Guesthouse were prepared:

one for Hideyoshi and Eva
one for Rudolf and Kyrie
one for George and Battler
one for Rosa and Maria

However George and Battler's room is bigger than the others and 4 beds are prepared. In Episode2 the servants are shown discussing the preparations and they talk about Jessica asking to prepare a room for all the cousins, Genji says that "there's no need to tell Madam". So it was Jessica's idea.

From what we are shown in the various Episodes it appears that the four cousins always end up sleeping together in the "cousins's room".

[Nih]

Thinking more about it, there's also this interesting red bit.

Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo are not murderers.

Wonder if that applies to all games

[Marion]

Nanjo also has his own room in the guest house as well, but I'm sure it's more of a personal room. He's been coming on the island for the last 30+ years I believe so he probably got his own room in the guest house since he comes over so much.

[Jan-Poo]

Genji still seem to be strong enough, but I really can't see Kumasawa and Nanjo being able to move corpses. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, however it looks like Ryukishi decided to remove suspicion on the people who are less likely to be involved in the murders because of their age.

[Nih]

Guess I'll turn myself into a hypocrite for fun and suggest that Gohda or Genji were helping Nanjo with the killings at which point he got rid of the last servant himself

[k//eternal]

How does he do that if he's not a murderer?

[Nih]

That's part of hypocricy

[Jan-Poo]

The interesting part is that Beatrice said

-Kinzo, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, and Kumasawa, 6 people in total are dead!
-Six people were killed instantly

Does that mean Kinzo was murdered? If not, who is this sixth person that got killed?

Anyway going back to Renall's analisy it is really difficult to imagine who could have performed the first twilight. The adults are innocent unless they are all accomplices, it's nearly impossible that one or two of them performed that intricate murder without causing suspicion.
The servants are innocent unless they were all plotting together this charade and they killed each other (they must be fanatics...) that would still leave the last one that must have been killed by another person.
As for the cousins Battler is not the killer nor an accomplice (stated in red), Maria can't possibly kill anyone (logically speaking... but we know Higurashi has a few loli killers... and venom could still work for her... what wouldn't work is moving the corpses and causing those wounds), that would leave George and Jessica.
There is then Nanjo, but it's very unlikely he is a murderer for many reasons.
Last: the killer is an X person (a very circonvoluted theory is needed to explain this)

animals, robots, aliens and such are denied for this game.