[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Raiza Sunozaki]

I've had my own two cents on Rules X Y Z, though mostly I agree with Judoh and Chrono. With the exception of Z, I think I'm pretty confident with my theory on them.
Rule X in Higurashi was the skeleton for the murder scenario, if I remember correctly. Tomitake and Takano died and disappeared respectively, someone became disillusioned and paranoid, and ended up murdering the others. If Rika was not included in the muder, she gets killed at a shortly later date, and the Disaster happens.
So the skeleton for Umineko is that six people pretend to kill themselves in an attempt to accomplish something (my best theory is that they're trying to force Kinzo to come out of the study), but the actual culprit, accompanied by a few assistants, kills them and begins the resemblance to the epitaph. At the end, regardless of whether the true culprit survives, some sort of explosion kills any survivors.
Rule Y seemed really easy to me. We know that Rule Y is the source of magic in Umineko. It's something Bern has never touched, but Beato is quite skilled in and Lambda has dabbled in. Now I'm going back to my favourite line from Virgillia in Episode 5: The line on what magic really is. She tells Battler bluntly, that magic is an embellishment, or as Battler says, a lie. So Rule Y is the creative embellishment on the story.
For more proof, remember back to Higurashi. If the link between Lambda and Takano is actual, think about Takano's actions. She manipulated the Oyashirosama's Curse to her advantage, making her actions seem like the act of a supernatural being. Bern says Lambda's dabbled in Rule Y, and this seems like a pretty good example of Umineko's Rule Y in Higurashi.
As I said before, Rule Z is a little shaky for me. It's something that leaves Bern hopeless, so it's something that can make the a chance of near-zero completely zero-percent. Bernkastel's ability, in magic terms, is to search tirelessly through kakera until she finds the one with the outcome she wants. In other words, whatever Rule Z is, it can create an infinite amount of kakera, so that she can't find the kakera with the outcome she wants.

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

I've had my own two cents on Rules X Y Z, though mostly I agree with Judoh and Chrono. With the exception of Z, I think I'm pretty confident with my theory on them.
Rule X in Higurashi was the skeleton for the murder scenario, if I remember correctly. Tomitake and Takano died and disappeared respectively, someone became disillusioned and paranoid, and ended up murdering the others. If Rika was not included in the muder, she gets killed at a shortly later date, and the Disaster happens.
So the skeleton for Umineko is that six people pretend to kill themselves in an attempt to accomplish something (my best theory is that they're trying to force Kinzo to come out of the study), but the actual culprit, accompanied by a few assistants, kills them and begins the resemblance to the epitaph. At the end, regardless of whether the true culprit survives, some sort of explosion kills any survivors.

But how does that work in EP3 with the first twilight consisting of the servants who know about Kinzo's death (with the exception of Gohda, who I doubt has much leverage over them), and in fact Kinzo himself?

[chronotrig]

@Raiza Sunozaki:

Spoiler for Higurashi spoilers, why not...:

I think it might be a mistake to try and tie each rule with the Higurashi rule of the same name. It seems to me that 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' are just there to show that this game is based on three basic rules. And they don't seem to match up exactly. In Higurashi, rule X was the effect of the Hinamizawa syndrome, which was the main random factor for the games, whereas Umineko's rule X is related to Lambda's statement "you certainly cannot win!" and being trapped within a single pair of days. That sounds much more like Higurashi's rule Y, which referred to things that were the same no matter which kakera you were in.

I guess to sum up my position, rule X explains the cat box around the game board, rule Y explains the pieces on the game board, and rule Z explains the falsehoods that appear on the game board.

[Vheissu]

thios is an interesting point so let me share my thoughts about this to you:

Rule x: just like the story that always starts from june 20... this story is bound to an unavoidable faith that is fueled by a strong will

Rule y: nowadays, the words magician and illusionist are just like synonnyms, the magic that we see are just ilusions created by a lie or a misunderstanding. the very existance of the witch is an ilusion

rule z: the culprit doesn't follow any pre-prepared plan, she may have some guidelines but most of it depends on how the pieces move and adapt to this kind of changes

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Vheissu

rule z: the culprit doesn't follow any pre-prepared plan, she may have some guidelines but most of it depends on how the pieces move and adapt to this kind of changes

Yes, that's what I thought this rule was for a long time, but if that is the case, then the culprit should respond in a more or less predictable way depending on how the pieces move. And even if the culprit chooses something completely at random, there are limits to what they would be physically capable of. So, all this means is that the maze Bern has to trek through is massively huge, but not actually changing all the time. If she plays enough games, she should eventually be able to figure out what the culprit is physically capable of, which should give enough clues to show who the culprit is.

[Vheissu]

that makes sense, but you know starting from the discovery of the first murder, the movement of the pieces is extremely predictible and it's easy to start planning several steps ahead, for example in episode 2 beatrice it's said to be a guest and after discovering the first twilight she will become the prime suspect so it's obvious that some reckless idiot will just separate from the rest and leave himself wide open or how in other episodes they all lock themselves in one room while holding some kind of weapon, this is the very start of the game, and the moves the culprit can do are almost endless

[Oliver]

Just to toss a stone into the thread to see the ripples.

There is a way to bypass the red text in the end of EP6 which states that Erika both is the 18th person on the island and that there are no more than 17 people even counting Erika, which I don't seem to have seen while throughly reading this thread. It does not involve assuming any variation of Shkanon or Erika Ball.

Nowhere it is said which number base is used when stating numbers in red! We were obviously assuming the numbers to be decimal, however, any base could concievably be used. So when saying "17", if number base 11 was employed, it converts to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-A-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17 => 18 decimal! This way both seemingly contradictory statements in red do not contradict at all!

Obviously it could not be that, as this destroys the usefullness of red text for any numbers longer than one digit, (incidentally, allowing one to place the 1967 Beatrice in XV or XXIII century if so desired) but this dirty trick amused me so much that I just had to share.

Two plus two is... ten... in base four I'M FINE!

[Marion]

Yeah I heard about this theory - starting with 0 rather than 1, etc.

But you're still going to get 18 people no matter what. If you start from 100 and go to 118 it's still 18 people you're counting. It's a rather lame trick to use I have to honestly say.

Besides, how can you have a 9.5th person?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Marion

Yeah I heard about this theory - starting with 0 rather than 1, etc.

But you're still going to get 18 people no matter what. If you start from 100 and go to 118 it's still 18 people you're counting. It's a rather lame trick to use I have to honestly say.

Besides, how can you have a 9.5th person?

His joke is a little different. He's saying you count in a different base.

For instance, in Hexadecimal numerals go from 0-9, then A-F (representing 10-16). So "17" in Hexadecimal is 23 in standard (Base 10) counting.

His joke is a bit more complex, which is that in Base 11, 17 = 18 (in Base 10). Of course as he said himself, he's not being serious. It is a correct answer, though... just probably not the one ryukishi meant.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

Of course as he said himself, he's not being serious. It is a correct answer, though... just probably not the one ryukishi meant.

Precisely. The problem with this assumption is that like many other theories based on "red does not say what we think it says" it completely destroys all numbers throughout the text which aren't expressed a single digit, (whether they're written with digits or not) i.e. anywhere in red, "17" or "18" or even "1967" can become an indeterminate number in a rather wide range, and we have no way of telling which base to use.

That creates problems very similar to Erika Ball or "Kinzo is a title", though smaller in magnitude and less critical -- assuming that names can be reassigned at all, we do not have information allowing us to determine when this actually happens, and therefore cannot determine which label is correct at any given point.

[Renall]

The obvious difference - and obvious problem - is that Beatrice already did this with "Ushiromiya Battler," so in all fairness it becomes not just fair game to speculate on, but outright assumed, because we know for a fact that Beatrice manipulated the red in that manner.

Which is really kind of a problem, now that I think about it.

[LyricalAura]

The way I see it, although name games are semantically possible, because of Knox 8, it shouldn't be allowed unless there was a clue to the specific case in question. Kanon = Kinzo is a possible theory because of various clues that point toward it, but you probably couldn't make a case for Hideyoshi = Kinzo, for instance.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

The obvious difference - and obvious problem - is that Beatrice already did this with "Ushiromiya Battler," so in all fairness it becomes not just fair game to speculate on, but outright assumed, because we know for a fact that Beatrice manipulated the red in that manner.

Which is really kind of a problem, now that I think about it.

I think that there should be some consistent way to reliably determine where the name relabelling happens and where it doesn't, from the structure or punctuation of the original Japanese text or, well, from something -- even if that something is just the accompanying sound effect.

Come to think of it, did anybody seriously analyse those yet? There's several of them.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

The way I see it, although name games are semantically possible, because of Knox 8, it shouldn't be allowed unless there was a clue to the specific case in question. Kanon = Kinzo is a possible theory because of various clues that point toward it, but you probably couldn't make a case for Hideyoshi = Kinzo, for instance.

I don't know, I suppose it is possible.

The case for someone counting as Kinzo definitely has been raised by Battler in the first four episodes, and it wasn't directly countered. However, seems a little fishy to me to "exclude" Kinzo from a count, declare "all other people" in a certain room, then admit one of those other people wasn't there. It's possible but pretty dirty.

Honestly, we only have any plausible evidence of four substitutions:

1) Someone is "Beatrice" of course (maybe multiple people). Lots of evidence for a "human" Beatrice.

2) There are or at one point were two "Ushiromiya Battlers," one was born from Asumu, and the one we know specifically was not that one. Nothing says the other Battler is alive, but this is a mystery.

3) Battler posited "Kinzo" was a title which was not itself directly countered, nor was it ever really addressed. This opens the possibility, but it does little else.

4) Someone could claim to be Natsuhi's baby from 19 years ago, assuming such a child really existed. The person claiming this need not actually be the child, but they can claim to be.

[LyricalAura]

Right, right. I was just using it as an example. My point was that just because name substitutions are fair game doesn't mean you're lost in the wilderness. Blue theories still have to be supported with evidence.

Regarding 3), Beato's red opened the door to pretty much any theory involving an extra "Kinzo", so you shouldn't limit yourself just to Battler's variation. For instance, if you meet Bob and his son Bob Junior, you don't conclude that "Bob" is title. Of course, it would still be a flimsy theory without additional support.

As for 4), I don't think we ever got a name for Natsuhi's baby, so I can't think of any name shenanigans that would work there.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

3) Battler posited "Kinzo" was a title which was not itself directly countered, nor was it ever really addressed. This opens the possibility, but it does little else.

This particular problem of Kinzo suddenly reappearing even though he was denied in red later is more easily solved by reinterpreting the word "recognized":

;　#ff0000親族会議に居合わせた全員が、金蔵の存在を認めた！#ffffff」¥
;＜ベアト
`#ff0000All of those who met at the family conference recognized the existence of Kinzo!#ffffff"`

I am not versed in Japanese by far, but in 'sonzai wo mitome ta' 'mitome' does not necessarily mean that Kinzo really was there, it just says that they acknowledged he was. So I would take this red to mean that "All those who met at the family conference agreed that Kinzo was in fact alive." -- which does not mean that it says he was in any way so, even if later, the red says that they would not mistake him by sight. In fact, it doesn't even say strictly that he came there in person.

Throughout the red text, 'sonzai' seems to be used to denote living people whenever applied to a name and not a "name's corpse", but if they were demonstrated an object that they believed could only come from a living Kinzo or heard his voice on the phone in some fashion, they need not even have been collectively lying.

[Renall]

Well, yes, but it would lead us to ask why this person was also named or entitled "Kinzo." Battler's theory was simple enough: If Kinzo passed his name down to someone by deliberate intent before he died, a person could then claim to be him somehow.

For someone to be "Kinzo" as well without that, they would either need some legitimate cause to believe they had the right to call themselves that, or it would have to actually be their name. Both of these things are possible, but I don't know how plausible they are.

Unless the baby Natsuhi was given was a boy named Kinzo. But then you start reaching.

Originally Posted by Oliver

This particular problem of Kinzo suddenly reappearing even though he was denied in red later is more easily solved by reinterpreting the word "recognized":

The issue is more relevant for ep6, where one alternate theory is that a person is named "Kinzo" and therefore excluded from a location check because Erika asked that "Kinzo" be so excluded.

EDIT: Now that I think about it though, if a person is actually named "Kinzo," aren't they a "living Kinzo?" How would that square with ep5? They would have been in Natsuhi's bed that night. Creepy!

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

The way I see it, although name games are semantically possible, because of Knox 8, it shouldn't be allowed unless there was a clue to the specific case in question.

...wait a moment.

What if the name games are allowed if the person in question is on the game board but dead before the game starts? This way, both "Kinzo as a movable label" and "Erika as a movable label" are possible.

Then again, that would legitimize certain versions of Shkanon, which I doubt is a good thing, and most importantly, it raises the question of multiple Battlers.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Well, yes, but it would lead us to ask why this person was also named or entitled "Kinzo." Battler's theory was simple enough: If Kinzo passed his name down to someone by deliberate intent before he died, a person could then claim to be him somehow.

For someone to be "Kinzo" as well without that, they would either need some legitimate cause to believe they had the right to call themselves that, or it would have to actually be their name. Both of these things are possible, but I don't know how plausible they are.

Unless the baby Natsuhi was given was a boy named Kinzo. But then you start reaching.The issue is more relevant for ep6, where one alternate theory is that a person is named "Kinzo" and therefore excluded from a location check because Erika asked that "Kinzo" be so excluded.

Sorry, I was drawing a distinction between "Kinzo" as a "title" and it being an inherited name. I think we're on the same page as far as possibilities.

Here's what I have as supporting evidence for Kanon and Shannon being Kinzo's adopted children:

• Kanon's real name being unknown
• The Kinzo title theory being undenied
• Various scenes indicating that Kinzo was very close to Kanon (for instance, the candy offering scene in EP1)
• Kinzo's heavy financial support of Fukuin House
• Shannon working on the island from an abnormally young age
• Kanon remaining on the island an abnormal amount of time despite not having a clear reason
• Kanon and Shannon considering each other like true siblings
• Their reference to a common "Father" in EP6
• Kanon's reluctance to get involved with Jessica
• Kanon's corpse being missing in EP4 -> his corpse is the one in the incinerator -> he has polydactyly

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

The case for someone counting as Kinzo definitely has been raised by Battler in the first four episodes, and it wasn't directly countered.

Actually, upon further reflection, the reason the claim wasn't countered was because Battler (being strangely un-incompetent in this particular instance) phrased his challenge in such a way that it was impossible to counter because of information he may or may not have known but we definitely did:

;　これでトドメだぜ。@クソジジイ、お前に復唱要求だ。@/
`This is the final blow.`@` Damn geezer, I demand that you repeat it. `@/
;“全人物の中で、異なる複数の名前を持つ人物は存在しない”！！」/
`'Among all of the people there, not one had multiple, different names'!!"`/

Since multiple sources in the story state by that point that the names "Sayo" and "Shannon" apply to the same body (leaving aside the issue of them possibly applying to different 'persons') repeating that in red shouldn't be possible.