2010-01-07, 18:54 | Link #2041 | |
The Great Dine
Join Date: Feb 2009
|
Quote:
|
|
2010-01-08, 05:08 | Link #2042 |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
I was thinking about that PIN number and the cases of money, and I think I figured them out. That led me to who I think may be the culprit in Episode 3. And to take a page from Higurashi, I think I've figured out the 'rules' that are in play for this game. I'll start with the PIN number. Coincidentally, this also covers the first 'rule':
The money in those cases are Kinzo's inheritance. Realistically speaking, there were somewhere in the area of 20 cases, and we can only assume they all had the same amount of money in them. Even if they were in good financial shape, I doubt that any of Kinzo's children could afford to blow 4 billion yen in a crazy plan to take or buy control of the family. Only Kinzo had the means to put that amount of money in a safety deposit box and let it sit for years. So why put all that money there? It's the carrot. And the epitaph is the stick. Lets back up a bit. Kinzo's fortune is huge and his ability to predict future trends is well known. People say he could see decades into the future. Now consider this- do you really think Kinzo didn't predict what would happen after he died? Krauss was already up to his eyeballs in debt when Kinzo died. The rest of his children were probably already in the process of getting themselves into their own situations, even if they were still a ways off. For someone like Kinzo, it would probably be no problem to deduce that Krauss would hide his death, and that within a few years the rest of his children would be near ruin as well. He devises a test for his family, and then attaches appropriate rewards and punishments for it- The portrait is made, and the epitaph is hung. Cases of money are prepared. And a trap is built, to ensure that if noone can pass his test, that the Ushiromiya family is brought to an end instead of the headship passing to an unworthy heir. As for the trap, it might be a large bomb, demolition charges set to collapse the entire mansion area, or maybe there is a pocket of trapped volcanic gasses with a mechanism to release them (this would be pretty ironic... but it would also fit with what happens to Rosa and Maria in Episode 2). He calls Beatrice to him, and leaves her with a last will to carry out after his death: When the time is right, Beatrice will mail out the keys to the safety deposit boxes using the gimmick shown in Episode 4. She will then arm the trap, and deliver a letter to the family telling them that this is their last chance to solve the epitaph. If they solve it- great. The headship is passed on by Beatrice and the gold is given to this new head. As for everyone else- the keys to their own 'Golden Land' will be arriving at their houses shortly... cases containing 200 million yen apiece- one for every family member and servant. This lets his children settle their problems, his servants retire, and his grandchildren a head start on whatever they want to do with their lives. If they fail- boom. Or Whoosh. Or whatever. Rule 1: The epitaph, money cases, and the day 2 disaster are all part of Kinzo's plan to test if anyone of the Ushirimiya family is worthy to carry on his legacy, or if they should just be buried. Beatrice is the executor of his will. I should point out though that even Kinzo couldn't have predicted the storm. The exact details were left to Beatrice, and she had her own spin to put on things... but that's the second rule. I'll go through Episode 3 next since it's on my mind... later. Now, sleep. Wouldn't it be BattlerXBomb now? |
2010-01-08, 08:22 | Link #2043 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: HK, China
|
Quote:
Kyrie's departure caused Kasumi to bear the name of family head, but you realized that Kasumi was just under the order of her mom (in my theory a different person and not Kyrie's mother) In case anyone still does not understand what I say: Kyrie's father + initial wife, 1952 Beatrice (who ran away to Kinzo) --> Kyrie + Rudolf --> Battler & Ange Kyrie's father + latter wife, Kasumi's mother --> Kasumi
__________________
Last edited by ijriims; 2010-01-08 at 16:02. |
|
2010-01-08, 12:10 | Link #2044 | |
The Great Dine
Join Date: Feb 2009
|
Quote:
|
|
2010-01-08, 12:20 | Link #2045 | |
I know we have bread!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Chicago
Age: 40
|
Quote:
For one thing, how does it tie into the red truth that Battler's sin caused the murders to be able to take place? We can review the exact wording. Ushiromiya Battler has a sin. Because of your sin, people die. Due to your sin, a great many humans on this island die. No one escapes, all die. (And yet, Eva escapes. Hmm.) Then let's assume that the sin was against the person who eventually became "Beatrice". Does she offer her own degree of variability? And to what extent? If we assume Shannon is "Beatrice", and she kills the servants and herself after realizing that Battler doesn't remember something from six years ago, was she trying to bring an end to the Epitaph single-handedly? Or was she trying to hand off the task to someone else? Such as Nanjo? Since Kinzo doesn't trust his own family, we can guess that he trusts the following people the most (not necessarily in the correct order): 1) Nanjo 2) Shannon 3) Kanon 4) Genji My guess is that they were all likely candidates to receive the PIN code. If we assume that Nanjo also knows what his will is, he probably explained it to George and gave him the PIN, shortly before George climbed out Nanjo's window to run to the mansion. Maybe George explained that Eva discovered the gold. Hmm. In any case, I'm about halfway through my analysis. I have lots of notes, but for the sake of organized thought, I will present it all at once. |
|
2010-01-08, 12:42 | Link #2046 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: HK, China
|
Quote:
And there was no rigid rules governing choosing the next family head in Umineko or in the real world. I just don't see any strong or apparent reason that just because Kyrie's mother ran away from Sumadera family so they would not choose her as the next head of family despite her brilliance and intelligence shown throughout the games. By the way, if you try to discredit my theory, give another account why a traditional family like Sumadera would name one of their children as Kyrie (well, Kasumi was not named Katherine...). Of course they were not Kinzo... You can insist it was just a coincidence (a red herring), or Kyrie changed her name after entering Ushiromiya family though. But consider Ryukishi07 particularly made all the Ushiromiya family bearing with westernized names, Kyrie was just quite strange, especially it was revealed that Kyrie's family was a very traditional one, wasn't it? "Rokkenjima syndrome", "Tengu special force", "hallucinatory dust from butterfly", "village being family tree", "Battler as culprit",etc, had been mocked and foreshadowed by Ryukishi07 already. I found it strange that Kyrie having such a outstanding westernized name had not been discussed in the game if it was wrong...
__________________
Last edited by ijriims; 2010-01-08 at 14:22. |
|
2010-01-08, 16:30 | Link #2047 | |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
Quote:
Brace yourself. It's a big one. Spoiler for The first twilight:
So later that morning, the family discovers the crime, and if need be, Nanjo slips the key back into Shannon's pocket as he examines her. The siblings take Kinzo's gun collection for protection, and make their way to the guest house to hole up until the police come. A few hours later, Eva and Rosa solve the epitaph. Eva solved it first, so Rosa agrees to hand over the rights to the gold as long as she gets her fair share. Eva decides to keep the matter of finding the gold between them until she can plan out how and when to announce it. The two of them return to the guest house. Spoiler for The second twilight:
Now, it might seem unbelievable that he could get in and out this many time without anyone noticing, but really- Eva and Rosa both got out twice without anyone other than them noticing. George got out without anyone besides the killer noticing. Krauss and Natsuhi got out without Eva noticing. For supposedly being on guard, I'm pretty sure the people holding down the fort were pretty much half asleep the entire time. One more person slipping in and out a few times doesn't really bring up any problems to me. Spoiler for The fourth through sixth twilights:
Spoiler for Seventh, eighth, and ninth:
... This is the stickiest spot in my explanation of Episode 3. But it's still the best scenario I could think of- a few alternatives would be that Kyrie was the survivor and she killed George. Or that George killed himself. But which of them wrote the PIN on the door, and why did they know it? Why would either of them write it? I don't want to believe that Hideyoshi killed his son and wrote those numbers there. And, for Kyrie or Hideyoshi to kill George, they'd have to wake up, kill him, write the number, and then go back to playing dead until everyone passed by and found George. Again, all that leaves are Eva and Nanjo, and I can't think of a good reason for Eva to know that number. So somehow, Nanjo pulled it off. Maybe under that flabby exterior, he's actually pretty hulked out. As for why Nanjo would write the PIN up like that... it might be that he was told the number by Shannon but she didn't tell him what it meant. It's purpose might have simply been to make finding George easy. Or maybe it was just to confuse things again. He did suggest that those numbers could be an alternate form of magic circle after Eva and the rest found it written there. Spoiler for Endgame:
At this point, everyone aside from Eva is dead. She might have killed Jessica as well, or just left her to die. Maybe she fled to Kuwadorian to escape from the reality of the situation. Maybe she knew about the 'bomb' (but I doubt it). Holy cow that got huge. Now I'll admit, this theory is probably not 'perfect'. There are a few fuzzy spots. It's the only good single culprit theory I could come up with though. Aside from Eva, but Battler played that one out for us already. I'll talk about the second 'rule' I thought of a little later. Oh, and TeeHee- I'm not trying to steal your thunder here. I still want to see your theory... seeing your line of thought might help me see where I went wrong with mine. Last edited by Knicknevin; 2010-01-08 at 17:56. |
|
2010-01-08, 17:36 | Link #2048 | |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
Quote:
As to this particular point though, I'd argue against such a theory simply because noone has ever discussed the oddity of her name. Knox's 8th (as it appears in the game): The mystery cant be solved with unknown clues. To turn it on it's head, you could then say that if Kyrie's name was considered odd, or that she had some kind of connection to Kinzo/Beatrice, clues must have been presented that show this. I don't remember any. Was it even said that Kyrie and Kasumi were half sisters? I don't recall. I'll admit, I've got my own theories about Kyrie. Episode 5 made it clear that she's the mastermind behind the plan to extort Krauss. And she was the one to confront Krauss about Kinzo in Episode 4 and cage him in with the agreement about the caretaker's 'duties'. I just don't think there's any meat to the theory that she's Beatrice, or has some connection or relation to Beatrice. |
|
2010-01-08, 17:56 | Link #2049 | |
I know we have bread!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Chicago
Age: 40
|
Quote:
And yet... someone (else?) decided to kill six people and make some shoddy magic circles anyways? That's a little strange. I'm not sure that Kyrie would do anything with magic circles... but I haven't done a full-fledged investigation yet on Ep5 yet. Edit:Don't worry about it. I'm struggling to put my piece together. Actually, your post helped me to notice some mistakes I made. It goes both ways. Last edited by TeeHee; 2010-01-09 at 01:21. Reason: New reply? Nah... |
|
2010-01-08, 21:48 | Link #2050 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Houston
|
Quote:
|
|
2010-01-08, 22:42 | Link #2051 | |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
Quote:
|
|
2010-01-09, 03:39 | Link #2052 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: HK, China
|
Quote:
It was natural that Ryukishi07 was putting something in it, but if you don't believe Kyrie to play any major roles from EP1-3, then you could just ignore and say it was just a red herring. And Ryukishi07 made particularly clear that the EP1-4 may not completely follow the Knox rules, and usually they were reserved for mystery murder parts. Usually in detective novels, the motive was confessed by the culprit and sometimes the clues of whydunit could not be found at all. However, Umineko should have given us idea why the culprit could do this and it was central to solving some of the mysteries since the culprit do not necessarily adopt the "best" strategies sometimes. Kyrie could just be named Kirie, Kazue, Kameko, etc. I suppose the whydunit would be revealed in EP7, until then, my hypothesis is no different from you that it was just an opinion. Propose also your complete theory and see whether which one got closer to Ryukishi07, will you? Though I have to say in advance that I got some problem with Shannon or Jessica=Beatrice as well. Basically there were no clues to Jessica or Shannon secretly loving Battler at all, rather we have a pile of counter-evidence that Jessica and Shannon truly loved Kanon and George respectively. So any theorys saying that Battler's sin was to cause a heartbreak to Jessica and Shannon six years already failed in my eyes.
__________________
|
|
2010-01-09, 04:46 | Link #2053 | ||
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
Quote:
Quote:
Now a few items of indirect support- Spoiler for Image:
Beato sounds like she's a few bricks short of a pile here. But she repeats it so many times during this scene, I have to wonder if she didn't suffer some sort of 'abuse' at Kinzo's hands... I wouldn't put it past him, right? Granted, this doesn't actually grant any clarity as to who Beatrice is, but it does fit with the same theme we saw in Episode 2 about 'don't trust men, love is a lie, wait till George gets you in the sack, I can't wait to see you and George break up' etc. And then Spoiler for One more:
... Well, I'm out of arguments. I suppose if you don't follow the Shannon=Beatrice line of thought by now, you must be pretty solid on your own theory. I'll keep thinking about things and see where that takes me... |
||
2010-01-09, 08:45 | Link #2055 | |
Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
|
Quote:
Of course, I might just have forgotten where in the second game they mention her ring, but unless they did it seems entirely possible that she did not return George's affections. In fact, if someone were so inclined I imagine they could construct a fairly solid theory wherein a jilted George is the killer. |
|
2010-01-09, 10:54 | Link #2056 | |
I know we have bread!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Chicago
Age: 40
|
Quote:
(I didn't know we had that smily.) |
|
2010-01-09, 11:03 | Link #2057 | |
The Great Dine
Join Date: Feb 2009
|
Quote:
|
|
2010-01-09, 13:26 | Link #2058 | |
Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
|
Quote:
It's not that big a deal, though. I was using only the anime as a reference because it's easy to skip around in episodes and look for something like that. The true test would be to go through to the visual novels again to see if Battler ever sees Shannon wearing the ring while she's alive, but I've been having difficulty finding the time for a second play-through. |
|
2010-01-09, 20:31 | Link #2059 |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
|
Rule 2: The epitaph murders, magic circles, and letters were all Beatrice's plan to make Battler remember his sin. Most of the servants might be assisting her in various episodes.
Spoiler for Size:
I tried to construct this rule and the previous one in such a way that it could fit with almost any of the possible 'Beatrice' theories. Though some suspects, like Kumasawa, don't fit it too well. Alright, that's done with. Next up, I think I'l go over my theory about Episode 5, which also covers my third and final rule: Kyrie's plan. Last edited by Knicknevin; 2010-01-09 at 21:03. Reason: Three sir |
2010-01-09, 21:50 | Link #2060 |
I know we have bread!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Chicago
Age: 40
|
Episode 3 Map, version 5.0
(5.0 means that I watched EP 5, and this is my first iteration. The next iteration would be 5.1, if I apply it.) My original intent was to explore various complete applications of theories, but it became something a bit different. In a word, a map. My objective isn't to be complete (we all know what a "closed room" is, for example), but to gather all of the necessary context and clues for the murders. After all, this episode in particular is the most difficult Wolf and Sheep puzzle I have ever seen. Spoiler for First Twilight:
Spoiler for Second Twilight:
Spoiler for Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Twilights:
Spoiler for Seventh & Eighth Twilights:
Spoiler for Post-Twilight (Part 1):
Spoiler for Post-Twilight (Part 2):
Spoiler for Post-Twilight (Part 3):
I also added my own general questions: Spoiler for Questions:
I have some scenarios that I will need to test and see if I can get them to work. I need to try them out with various assumptions; mix and match to see if I can get them to work out in a way that makes sense. Feel free to add your own. Even better, try to put some assumptions together to make a masterpiece Ep3 theory. My test lab will be a mess, unless I can get some more definitive constraints. Spoiler for Assumptions to Test:
Last edited by TeeHee; 2010-01-10 at 02:38. Reason: Miniscule tweaks. Perfectionism is a witch. |
|
|