[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[zorahk]

Van dine rule #11 kills shkannon theory?

[Leafsnail]

Van Dine 3 kills the entire story dead.

[Renall]

Dine's rules run pretty much counter to the entire storyline. That isn't to say you couldn't reach a solution of some sort if you did implement them, however.

Of course it would immediately rule out Kanon and Shannon as culprits. But then again, we weren't all that sure of that anyway.

[Disz]

Hey In EP1...was Nanjo in the dining room discussing the inheritance?I'm doing something so I can't check now or I'll lose track of something.

[imaginari]

Originally Posted by Disz

Hey In EP1...was Nanjo in the dining room discussing the inheritance?I'm doing something so I can't check now or I'll lose track of something.

If I'm deciphering my notes properly, Nanjo was in the first meeting in the parlor and left after a half an hour. I can't tell if he was in the dining room meetings but I doubt that he was.

Originally Posted by Oliver

Does George, ever, tell Shannon explicitly that he loves her, in no uncertain terms, no lines cut short? Does she ever do the same?

My current theory is that George loves Beatrice. Really.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by imaginari

My current theory is that George loves Beatrice. Really.

If you're any serious about it, care to elaborate? That sounds intriguing.

[Leafsnail]

Nanjo wouldn't have that much to contribute to the meeting, anyway... except the occasional "I'd just like to point out that the guy whose fortune we're arguing over is definately still alive".

[Linkin Battler]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

I hava a question for those who support the Shkannon theory.
In ep5 there a scene with everyone, including Erika in the same room. Since Battler is not the Detective, it is not strange that we can see 2 different people as Shannon and Kanon. Howerver Erika is already the detective, so she should know right away thanks to her "true sight" that there are no Kanon and Shannon but just one single person. Then how come that in ep6 she clearly doesn't know anything about it?
Also, even if Battler is not the detective, why is he lying now about them?
I'll explain myself better. Being the detective doesn't mean that you cannot be mistaken on something, it just mean that you can't decieve the reader about what you see. The only "bonus" of not being the detective (aside from the fact that you may be the culpirt) is that you can tell lies about what you see. So when Battler "saw" the 2 of them in that room, he was not deceived by their disguise, his perspective was just lying about them, i mean Shannon may be skilled with her disguises but i find hard to be able to appear as two different person. But why is that he lied this time? He should be the same Battler we know from ep1-4, unless he really is the baby from 19 years ago. Same thing goes for when he saw Kinzo's ghost. Why did he decide to lie?

Erika does not exists on the island, she is just a corpse as partially confirmed in EP6. Then the only objective PoV is a corpse's PoV and that mean that Lambda can do what she want in the gameboard and can show everything she would like. The most of EP5 scenes are fantasy scenes and the red are referred to the "fantasy GB", not to the real one. That's why she can also see invisible forces which push Battler away, she can use the red on the GB, etc. Imho this should be the dirty trick of EP5 and EP6 used by Ryu07.
Even EP6 GB imho is a GB built to fit Erika's piece, that's why Battler can change it as it want, until the red texts are not in contradiction, unlike EP1-4 GB.

[Jan-Poo]

I have my doubts on EP6 even "partially" confirming that Erika's corpse washed on the island.

From the 1998 perspective, there is absolutely no proof of this ever happening.
Even assuming the rumors are true. The rumors state that Erika washed there while still alive.
From the fictional story perspective Erika washed to Rokkenjima while still alive.

There is absolutely nothing in EP6 that would suggests that Erika washed to Rokkenjima as a dead corpse. The only things that are suggested are:

- Erika arrived to Rokkenjima alive.
- Erika never arrived to Rokkenjima.

Other interpretations can be considered reasonable theories, but they have no support from the story.

Again, I don't disagree with you here. We're not talking about changing what the detective has witnessed, we're talking about how the detective is even able to witness things in the first place. How does Erika know what was going on in Battler's mind?

Well if I were to judge it from ep 1-4 I'd simply say that everything that the meta-detective sees is filtered through the Game master. In this way the Game master can show to the meta-detective whatever he wants concerning the story, even the thoughts of the characters. And those do not necessarily need to be true.
However the Game Master would have to respect the mystery novel roles by never letting the meta-detective see a fake scene involving his piece counterpart. The piece should work as the meta-detective's proxy to have an objective perspective of what is happening in the story.

Considering EP5-6 however I need to slightly revise this vision. As it seems that the gameboard has its own autonomy and the meta-detective is able to make his piece roam it and interact with it without the GM's knowledge.

Of course that kind of interaction wouldn't be possible if there wasn't a sensory feedback between the piece-detective and the meta-detective.

This is completely at odd with the fact that Battler's perspective is fragmented. In other words he doesn't have a 100% feedback on everything that his piece has witnessed. Particularly in EP5 he doesn't get the whole solution of the epitaph he partake with. (However this might be because he wasn't the detective).

Even so denying that Meta-Erika has this 100% feedback would make EP5 and specifically EP6 extremely difficult to explain. But if Meta-Erika does have this 100% feedback, then she has a double perspective: one filtered through her own piece and another filtered through the GM.

[Renall]

Erika was wearing a life preserver, so in theory if her drift was the same regardless of whether she was alive (she's not going to have much luck swimming in a typhoon), she'd probably wind up in the same place. it's not like a corpse is more likely to sink.

But nobody even knows - in the "future" - what happened to her at all. They propose she could have drifted there, but just because she could have (living or dead) doesn't mean she did.

Maybe she didn't really have that jacket. Maybe she just sank. We probably shouldn't engage the fantasies of those wacky Witch Hunters.

[chronotrig]

Hey

But I agree. There's no evidence that Erika actually made it to the island. However, if there are multiple futures (and the portrait for EP7 seems to suggest as much), then even if the Witch Hunters had evidence that Erika had survived, it wouldn't necessarily apply to all games. It's sort of a cat box on top of a cat box.


Actually, I wonder about that... Whoever the people in the EP7 portrait are, it seems fairly likely that they're from the future. We have heard that Beatrice doesn't know what happens in the future, and the only reason we saw the 1998 scenes is because Bern brought Ange into the game. Maybe that's a result of Bern being the Game Master...

[Jan-Poo]

Personally I think the new ambiguous character is Featherinne's detective piece and the guy is Wizard-hunting Wright.

I expect a lot of changes in the story development as a consequence.

Bern: What do you say Wright? Love is not allowed? <evil laughter> NO PROBLEM!

[Judoh]

Well if even your saying they're from the future...

I have to agree that seems to be Bern's style. I can't see her taking interest in people's pasts. People seem to want to think the blonde character is flash back Beato just to avoid a future Jessica idea.

of course it could also be Philo Vance as Klyon99 suggested. Oh but wait... wouldn't there be copyright issues with that?

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by m0h

I'd like to point out something that integrates what my italian brother said. ( Ehila' fratello! )
We can now define Red Truth as "an action witnessed or verified by the user"

Look at what's been elevated at Red Truth status: Dlanor's seals ( made by hand by Erika ) and Erika's murders ( she personally sewered her victims' heads )
though, Red Truth is simple truth , not perfect truth, so Red truth can be sometimes surpassed by Gold Truth ( that's controlled by the Game Master ) and other times can surpass Gold Truth ( since Erika can effect the time flow of the game, her red EXPERIENCED truth can surpass any Gold Truth Battler would have thrown at her. IMHO. )

Oh allora c'è qualche altro italiano qui

Anyway leaving aside the Gold truth part (i'm still completing my theory about it) m0h pointed out what i was trying to say. If Erika witness something, or order her piece to do something that have a certain result, then it isn't a cat box anymore.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

My whole point for the section was that Erika can't just 'witness' everything her piece does. Remember, the whole point of EP6 was to show us that nothing is set in stone until the Game Master shows it. So, it's possible for the Game Master to have two different stories at the same time. If so, which one would piece-Erika see?

We have no proof of this. As i said ep6 is the first time without a detective so we really can't say what can or cannot happen on the gameboard. My guess is just that any Meta-Character can see anything from his piece perspective. If the piece is not a detective then the perspective can be faked, but there must be a reason for the piece to tell a lie.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I don't agree with that.

Since the detective has absolute objective perspective, the knox rules themselves can elevate anything that the detective sees into a red text.

So the option to change what a detective has witnessed does not exist. That would be automatically a logic error.

Wait a second, a detective perspective is not perfect. He can still be deceived, or he may perceive things in a different ways based on his state of mind. Just think of Keiichi in the first arc of Higurashi.
Still, when killing someone taking their head off there is really nothing you can misunderstand...

[Jan-Poo]

I wouldn't use Higurashi as comparison for what concern mystery novel rules. Ryuukishi even made fun of himself with the purupurupikopyo that causes "rokkenjima syndrome".

In the world of Umineko the detective's perception can't be deceived. For example Battler argued that the mere fact that he saw Kinzo was a proof of him not being detective, even though that could have been explained as some kind of optical illusion.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

We have no proof of this. As i said ep6 is the first time without a detective so we really can't say what can or cannot happen on the gameboard. My guess is just that any Meta-Character can see anything from his piece perspective. If the piece is not a detective then the perspective can be faked, but there must be a reason for the piece to tell a lie.

Of course, there is no proof, but I've shown my evidence from both EP3 and EP6. And it solves a few problems that I've already mentioned.

Simply put, I think you need someone who understands the game fully before you can observe things without the Game Master's permission. It's all well and good for Battler to say that he'll move his piece outside the scenes that the Game Master shows, but how exactly does he do that? In the games so far, all we've been shown is Battler watching the scenes Beato shows him and arguing with her in the meta-world. The only times he gets information without being shown a scene by the Game Master is when he asks Virgilia for details.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In the world of Umineko the detective's perception can't be deceived. For example Battler argued that the mere fact that he saw Kinzo was a proof of him not being detective, even though that could have been explained as some kind of optical illusion.

Actually, you've got this backwards. Battler said that even the detective could mistake a sheet in the wind for a person, but no one could mistake anything for Kinzo because of the red text preventing this. The entire point of that exchange was that the detective is allowed to be deceived.

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I wouldn't use Higurashi as comparison for what concern mystery novel rules. Ryuukishi even made fun of himself with the purupurupikopyo that causes "rokkenjima syndrome".

In the world of Umineko the detective's perception can't be deceived. For example Battler argued that the mere fact that he saw Kinzo was a proof of him not being detective, even though that could have been explained as some kind of optical illusion.

Actually is the opposite.

EDIT: Chrono explained it first

[Renall]

Deception is different from a mistake. A mistake is "the detective clearly saw an orange and remembered it was an apple instead." A deception is "someone painted an orange red, so the detective thought it was an apple." One is a clue. The other is just the detective screwing up for no good reason.

Oh and obviously I use "Witch Hunt" to refer to the translation group and "Witch Hunters" to refer to in-universe members of the Rokkenjima Witch Hunt. I didn't mean those wacky translators! ...This is kind of important with respect to the link in my signature, obviously.

[Jan-Poo]

Well then, if the detective can be deceived how can he reach the 99% certainty about his observations?