[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 6 Dawn of the golden witch

[Renall]

The golden thread line with Kyrie is an interesting and viable point. The only real flaw, as you noted, is why Battler wouldn't find a gun, and how Kyrie managed to stake herself. Of course, both could be resolved by a still-living individual, who could remove the weapon and stake Kyrie's wound. Granted, then you have to decide how that person killed themselves.

It's also possible Kyrie meant that as a hint for the death of someone else, though how she would know that and who killed her thereafter would be beyond me.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Renall

The golden thread line with Kyrie is an interesting and viable point. The only real flaw, as you noted, is why Battler wouldn't find a gun, and how Kyrie managed to stake herself. Of course, both could be resolved by a still-living individual, who could remove the weapon and stake Kyrie's wound. Granted, then you have to decide how that person killed themselves..

For the sake of argument

Spoiler for And then there were none:

With the way the elastic trick works in that book the weapon is supposed to recoil and hit the door after you pull the trigger, detach from the elastic on the doorknob, and fall to the ground. In Kyrie's case after that recoil the weapon may have then hidden itself behind the door upon Battler's entry so he didn't find it. The only discrepancy with this trick is that the trick in the book used the murderer's glasses to hold the elastic along with the door knob and the cord is supposed to be "hanging innocently" from those glasses. So we need to figure out what the other thing holding the elastic cord is with Kyrie and why Battler never found that.

[Bluemail]

Yeah, I didn't make note that if there was no gun how was the suicide possible in the first place. I read the scene again and got a little more encouraged about it being a possible suicide, probably the most possible of all people of "Kyrie's group". Kyrie said on the phone she got attacked several times before ultimately dying. And guess what? Battler actually found four places around Kyrie's corpse that could have been caused by some kind of attacks.

My theory is that Kyrie managed to construct some kind of string/thread contraption to drive the stake into her head when she wanted, which could exist due to Devil's Proof. The attack-marks around Kyrie's corpse were caused by Kyrie's testing with the contraption to get the stake right into her forehead. Kyrie also said on the phone that the aim was getting more accurate with each attack. Then, when she wanted to stop talking, she set off the contraption and died.

Actually Battler reasoned that the stake wasn't the actual cause of death, but as he is incompetent, he got it wrong and the stake was the cause of death this time. This explains there being no gun. But if Kyrie was indeed the last to die, and killed everyone else, who was the Beatrice Battler saw on the balcony? Of course she could have tricked the timing because Battler couldn't get in anyway before she wanted. Just that I'm not sure of any other "last suicide". Everyone but Kyrie, George, Maria, Kumasawa and Gohda's head was half-smashed.

About "Kyrie's group", I thought if it could be the culprit and accomplices? It might not contain Nanjo, Krauss and Shannon, but has at least Kyrie and Kanon, with Kanon the first to die in EP4.

[Renall]

Battler has a large gap in corpse location if you note the time at which he finds the corpses. He finds only George and sees Kumasawa/Gohda hanging (though they may not yet be dead) before he meets Beatrice around midnight. Thereafter he has to divert to the chapel to find keys, and enters the mansion to find the seven dead individuals in the dining room.

He then does not describe finding any new bodies until he locates Jessica, Kyrie, Krauss, Nanjo, and Shannon all around or after 7 AM. In theory, any one of those people could have still been alive after midnight, in spite of Jessica and Kyrie's phone calls suggesting their imminent deaths (though of course it's also possible they were all dead from around that time).

The point is, there's still time to kill "Beatrice" before that. The reason she might still have been alive is because she was inside the study, which the killer couldn't access; after talking to Battler, she may have lost hope and left, allowing herself to be killed. Alternately she left and committed suicide. Or fell down the stairs hilariously and into a closet where she broke her neck. Either way.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Renall

Battler has a large gap in corpse location if you note the time at which he finds the corpses. He finds only George and sees Kumasawa/Gohda hanging (though they may not yet be dead) before he meets Beatrice around midnight. Thereafter he has to divert to the chapel to find keys, and enters the mansion to find the seven dead individuals in the dining room.

He then does not describe finding any new bodies until he locates Jessica, Kyrie, Krauss, Nanjo, and Shannon all around or after 7 AM. In theory, any one of those people could have still been alive after midnight, in spite of Jessica and Kyrie's phone calls suggesting their imminent deaths (though of course it's also possible they were all dead from around that time).

I don't know if this has been asked before but Battler left to the chapel soon after Beatrice left the Balcony IIRC. So were those keys already there and those victims in the mansion were already dead? Or was there someone alive to place the keys there for "Beatrice" during the test? Because I think there is a gap between finding the the corpses and going to the chapel, but I'm not sure there is a significant gap for placing the keys there before he finds them at the chapel if your locked up in the mansion's study. Thanks in advance.

Another thing is that if Shannon or were to hole herself up in the mansion it's the perfect place for her and not just because of the study lock, but also because we learn in this episode about the bell that rings in the servants room when someone enters the front door. So there is security system sort of too. You might be able to rig that to ring in the study too without much difficulty. Actually with that in mind I can sort of see why some people thought Natsuhi might be Beatrice since she had access to a key to the study.

[Jaden]

Episode 4 is explainable if the culprit dies in the end...and it's difficult to suspect Kyrie because it would've been difficult for her to commit suicide in that position and in that manner. But it's possible.

I said before the murders in these games don't have to make sense as long as they are possible. (motives are hidden) If I had to name a culprit for ep 4 it'd be Shannon, who is a master of disguise that also plays the parts of Kanon and Beatrice. She traps some of the family members and threatens them into making fake phone calls. She is proficient with firearms (EP6 hint: Kinzo let Kanon shoot with various guns) and is that way able to take on lots of people at once. She has master keys naturally and could easily know all the hidden passages, dungeons and Kuwadorian. She's also able to control Maria as Beatrice, make her drink poison or whatever.

The phone calls have so much nonsense in them it's likely the callers were being manipulated into saying things, maybe at gunpoint or people close to them were being threatened. Firstly people say Kinzo is alive, which surely can't be. Everyone in the phone tries to convince Battler of magic, and nonsensical golden thread. Jessica is able to describe George's death even though she couldn't see there from her room. Kyrie finds time in her final moments to convey how Kanon died and fell down a well, which is convenient for a Shannon culprit. Also as Battler discovers, it's nearly impossible that anyone came out of the well to begin with.

There are also no closed rooms in this episode, anyone with a key could go in and out of them. If Kyrie really committed suicide with device X, then in the theme of Umineko she should have applied the chain lock too. XD

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Judoh

I don't know if this has been asked before but Battler left to the chapel soon after Beatrice left the Balcony IIRC. So were those keys already there and those victims in the mansion were already dead? Or was there someone alive to place the keys there for "Beatrice" during the test? Because I think there is a gap between finding the the corpses and going to the chapel, but I'm not sure there is a significant gap for placing the keys there before he finds them at the chapel if your locked up in the mansion's study. Thanks in advance.

I don't think it's logistically possible for the keys to have been placed there by Beatrice after talking to Battler; however, it's clear someone placed them there with the intent that he eventually find them, because only he knows that Maria's test was supposed to be at the chapel. Thus, only Battler would think to go there.

If Beatrice placed the keys, she would have done it some time earlier, or someone placed them there when leaving with Maria, or Maria placed them, or Maria never went to the chapel and someone else did, etc.

The keys can't be placed contemporaneously by Beatrice. Of course, an accomplice or unrelated person can do it just fine.

[Rei-Tenshi]

Originally Posted by Jaden

There are also no closed rooms in this episode, anyone with a key could go in and out of them. If Kyrie really committed suicide with device X, then in the theme of Umineko she should have applied the chain lock too. XD

Wasn't the storehouse a closed room in EP4? I think Battler tried to explain that one with a duplicate key, but that would be really lame.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Rei-Tenshi

Wasn't the storehouse a closed room in EP4? I think Battler tried to explain that one with a duplicate key, but that would be really lame.

It's not actually closed, either by the Umineko definition or the standard definition. Gohda and Kumasawa cannot actually leave unassisted, and objects can be passed between the window, even if people may not be able to enter and leave through it.

The only thing that creates the appearance of being closed is that Battler believes two things he can't/doesn't verify:

• That the key Gohda was given was the key to the shed in the first place.
• That the key he later finds in Gohda's pocket is the same key.

Hence the suggestion of a duplicate key (which may be off, but not far off, if the trick was key-related). Gohda could've just been handed a random key. Is there theoretically a non-key solution? Possibly, but it's a tight squeeze...

[DaBackpack]

I was playing a certain part of EP6 again and had a funny thought.

The part where Erika Furudo talks about her boyfriend troubles, couldn't this also be attributed to Rosa or Kyrie?

If you assume Erika is just a name for another character, that is. I don't know if this is actually significant or not. Maybe just a coincidence.

Ryukishi put it in there for a reason, though...

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

It's not actually closed, either by the Umineko definition or the standard definition. Gohda and Kumasawa cannot actually leave unassisted, and objects can be passed between the window, even if people may not be able to enter and leave through it.

The only thing that creates the appearance of being closed is that Battler believes two things he can't/doesn't verify:

• That the key Gohda was given was the key to the shed in the first place.
• That the key he later finds in Gohda's pocket is the same key.

Hence the suggestion of a duplicate key (which may be off, but not far off, if the trick was key-related). Gohda could've just been handed a random key. Is there theoretically a non-key solution? Possibly, but it's a tight squeeze...

Depending on the actual structure of the door, there's a possibility that the lock itself was hocussed. It wasn't really clear to me whether the shed has both a built-in lock and a hinge for a padlock, or if the shed key is for a padlock that can be replaced. In the latter case, Battler didn't check the key he found, so the padlock could have been hacked off and replaced with a new one.

By the way, while I was looking through my summaries I found a note that in between the first twilight and the locking of the shed, Gohda brought a folding ladder and some carpentry tools to the guesthouse. Can anyone think of a clever way those could have been misused?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Depending on the actual structure of the door, there's a possibility that the lock itself was hocussed. It wasn't really clear to me whether the shed has both a built-in lock and a hinge for a padlock, or if the shed key is for a padlock that can be replaced. In the latter case, Battler didn't check the key he found, so the padlock could have been hacked off and replaced with a new one.

The text in Ep1 is pretty clear on the shed shutter having both a built-in lock and a hinge for a padlock.

Mind you, in Ep4 Battler still hacked the built-in lock out, and did not check if the shed key found inside the shed matched that lock. There are several such instances where it is easy to mislead people about which key has actually been found, for example, in Ep2 Jessica murder scene, which Rosa tests while being on the other side of the door - that is, nobody can tell which key is she inserting into the lock to test it.

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Renall

It's not actually closed, either by the Umineko definition or the standard definition. Gohda and Kumasawa cannot actually leave unassisted, and objects can be passed between the window, even if people may not be able to enter and leave through it.

The only thing that creates the appearance of being closed is that Battler believes two things he can't/doesn't verify:

• That the key Gohda was given was the key to the shed in the first place.
• That the key he later finds in Gohda's pocket is the same key.

Hence the suggestion of a duplicate key (which may be off, but not far off, if the trick was key-related). Gohda could've just been handed a random key. Is there theoretically a non-key solution? Possibly, but it's a tight squeeze...

IMO, it's just like the TIPS say - they put the ropes around their own necks. The key never moved from Gohda's pocket. Kumasawa and Gohda both pretended to hang themselves for their part in the fake murder ceremony... then the murderer shot them through the window.

I don't really see any reason to move away from this theory, considering the huge body of evidence for a fake murder ceremony.

[rogerpepitone]

Weren't they described as facing the door, and having bullet wounds in their foreheads?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Weren't they described as facing the door, and having bullet wounds in their foreheads?

"Psst. Hey, Gohda?" <boom>

[Leafsnail]

Not really that sure how the shed is laid out, but if Battler can clearly see their bullet wounds through the window, it's probably possible to shoot them from there. He doesn't make much of a check which angle the bullet came from or if there were exit wounds or anything.

Besides, if someone were pointing a gun at you and you had no way to move away, you'd probably be facing them.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

"Psst. Hey, Gohda?" <boom>

However, if Gohda and Kumasawa had moved toward the window, they would have collapsed in an awkward position. Also, I think Gohda would have been blocking the shot at Kumasawa.

[Leafsnail]

They were meant to hanging so their feet just about touched the floor, though. You'd probably end up in about the same position.

And he can't have been blocking the shot if Battler saw 'em both.

[rogerpepitone]

Battler doesn't see the bullet wounds until he manages to get the door open.

[Leafsnail]

Hmm... could it be that they were actually shot after the first time Battler saw them? Trying to work out the logistics of this is confusing otherwise (especially since their bulletwounds are clearly visible in the anime).