[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Renall]

Well that or Rosa. I mean I could understand that if Rosa were alive but there's no evidence at all for that.

Assuming she were to survive and reunite with her father, why would her father keep that a secret? Hell, Maria's worth a lot of money; she's older than Ange, remember. And her father wouldn't know anything about the whole situation, presumably. Unless you want to go with "Yasu/Ikuko tracked down Maria's father and bribed him to take his daughter back but keep it a secret (meaning he couldn't acknowledge her as his actual daughter anyway) and then never saw fit to mention this to Touya or Ange or, apparently, anyone ever."

[Jan-Poo]

I'm thinking more of a scenario where the authorities or some parastatal organization are trying to cover up the incident.

This is a plausible assumption if you consider that
a) It looks like the world believes it was an "unfortunate incident", which isn't very compatible with 900 tons of explosive that the military "whops" forgot and left in the hand of a madman.
b) as far as we know the bomb is just a speculation, due to the fact witch hunters had to rely on not very reliable second hands informations about Kinzo and the suspicious timing for the explosion. Both would be moot if the explosion was confirmed publicly.

Now suppose the authorities found two survivors: Eva and Maria. Eva is an adult, she can be reasoned with, and she has no interests on telling the world what happened. Maria... not so much. The first thing any authority would think about when facing with the problem of what to do with a child who just lost her mother is: where's the father?
Not hard to find out. Rosa and Maria's father cosigned a loan, so there's a written document with both their names on it. Unless this man totally vanished (which is unlikley) they'd find him. And unless he was living in some kind of strange country he'd have the legal obligation to take custody of his child.
Now since this man lives far away in a distant country for the authorities this would be a win win situation. They find a guardian for a lone child and they send a problematic element away from the country.
It is quite possible that Maria's father would get an adequate compensation for his silence.
Now if they announced to the world Maria was still alive, reporters from all the world would try to find her and get her to talk. The Japanese authorities might even rationalize the lie with a need to protect a minor (and they are very sensitive about it). But in a far away country with a new identity and the common knowledge that Maria Ushiromiya is dead. Nobody would pay attention to what a child with an apparent wild imagination says.

[Renall]

Still, that'd require Touya and Ikuko (whether Yasu or not Yasu) never know this, as otherwise it's a real dick move to Ange.

"Hey, remember how guilty you felt about never getting to tell Maria you were sorry for insulting her and as you've grown up you appreciate the lessons her life taught you and wish you could thank her for it? LOL she's in France or some shit but I don't give a damn."

Then again, Everybody Hates Ange anyway.

But on the other other hand, as of 1998 Maria is, what, 21? And older still thereafter. She's an adult by that point if she's still alive. What stops her from revealing the truth? Or at the very least, going back to visit her bedridden aunt in Japan. She wouldn't even have to do that one publicly. But if she did do that, she'd probably have visited Ange, which she apparently didn't do.

Not that it wouldn't be a totally heartwarming story, it's just pretty much completely left hanging in Ryukishi's original text.

[Cao Ni Ma]

It would be right? Too bad a straight jacket and a padded cell stop her from her fated encounter with Ange. I mean, who would actually believe the ramblings about a mass murder in rokkenjima ending with an explosion that wiped all evidence regarding it? Surely the police would have found SOME form of evidence. Whats that? You calling yourself Maria Ushiromiya? Miss, they found her jaw in the island, she's as good as dead! Im sorry, my child is not well...ever since she lost her mother...her mind snapped. Started thinking she's that girl from the rokkenjima accident. Poor girl.

And now the happy ending is corrected! Enjoy~!

[Renall]

I think it would be kind of easy to prove you're Maria if they happen to have accurate enough dental records of you that they were able to match a jawbone to you.

Since, you know, you also would have teeth.

Plus... DNA? Man, I don't even want to know what an Ushiromiya DNA test is like.

Alternately: Metal. Jaw. Maria.

EDIT: I actually think Maria would be quite good at keeping a secret like that, if "Beatrice" and Eva told her she might have to do it as part of a game or a spell. She's very intelligent, so as she matures she'd understand why they told her that. And she'd probably have fun pretending to be some new person.

[Wanderer]

Ooorrrrrrrrrrr Maria has amnesia. Would explain everything.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Ooorrrrrrrrrrr Maria has amnesia. Would explain everything.

Sure. Screw it. Everybody's got amnesia.

Every single person. They all survived. With amnesia. Kinzo had an Amnesia Bomb. Because fuck you, that's why!

[AuraTwilight]

"Hey, remember how guilty you felt about never getting to tell Maria you were sorry for insulting her and as you've grown up you appreciate the lessons her life taught you and wish you could thank her for it? LOL she's in France or some shit but I don't give a damn."

Can I put this in my signature?

[Thanatos of Crows]

Making sure Ushiromiya Maria stays dead would also prevent people from claiming to be her, which I wouldn't put past Yasu. Especially if we go by the sacrificial take the blame theory.

[Jan-Poo]

How do you know that there aren't already a lot of rumors about Maria being still alive?

I mean if there are rumors about a completely unrelated party (Erika) that supposedly drifted to Rokkenjima and died in the explosion without any kind of remote basis for that claim who knows what elese they are saying.

In the end there is very little that Ryuukishi told us about what the world knows and thinks and he kept a lot of info secret that would be common knowledge for anyone in Rokkenjima Prime.

There might be rumors about anyone that supposedly died on Rokkenjima being still alive, including one about them being still alive all together.

In a similar setting even if one where to say "I saw Maria, she's still alive" it wouldn't cause more reactions than the occasional spotting of Elvis Presley. The common people would dismiss it as the usual garbage, becase the authorities said she's dead therefore she's dead period, only wackos believe in conspiracy theories. And then there would be the usual group of believers (witch hunters) that would claim it's true, but those might as well believe it was aliens.

It is certainly true that Maria could potentially create some problem if she were to get serious about exposing the truth. But maybe growing up she also grows some common sense and decide not to. And about Ange. Last time they met Maria was told that "Santa doesn't exist" by an Ange much younger than her, and she retaliated by expelling her from her exclusive clique of magical girls. It wouldn't be surprising if she didn't give a damn about her.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Now suppose the authorities found two survivors: Eva and Maria. Eva is an adult, she can be reasoned with, and she has no interests on telling the world what happened. Maria... not so much. The first thing any authority would think about when facing with the problem of what to do with a child who just lost her mother is: where's the father?
Not hard to find out. Rosa and Maria's father cosigned a loan, so there's a written document with both their names on it. Unless this man totally vanished (which is unlikley) they'd find him. And unless he was living in some kind of strange country he'd have the legal obligation to take custody of his child.

Judging from Rosa's comments in Episode 6, he did pull such an act. He can't be too easy to find, or Rosa would've been able to do it. Even if they could find him, it would take many months for them to do so.

[battle22]

um how can kanon and shannon appair in EP7? When will and lion are walking together they see kanon

[AuraTwilight]

Because the church is two universes crammed together. Shannon/Kanon are the same person switching roles, but Lion and Shkanon are from different universes. And as you'll see, everyone else seems to have memories of both worlds mixed up in their head.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Renall

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Renall the arguments you bring up against this are the same kind you and I used against Shkanontrice theories back around arc 6's release.
Where did that get us?
I'll put it that way.

Every time a character refers to have been reading the "forgeries" or "bottle messages", they are either completely silent about it or they talk about them referring to fantasy scenes, meta-scenes, and tea party scenes.

So even if you are right and "prime" characters don't have access to the same thing as us, it's irrelevant as far as the story is concerned because it's information (that we don't have access to) that plays no role in our understanding of the story. We simply cannot know information that was 100% "removed" and that Ryuukishi might not have even bothered to create (do you really think he wrote the rest of arc 5 and 6 and just scrapped them midway?).

Also try to think about it that way.
What you are saying is that Ryuukishi wrote a story in which a character wrote a bunch of other stories and then Ryuukishi altered said stories by adding fantasy scenes and then meta-scenes.
I'm saying slightly a different thing by saying that "Ryuukishi wrote a story in which a character wrote other stories with includes meta-scenes and fantasy scenes to begin with".

Lastly I have a sort of challenge to your interpretation: Arc 5.

How do you explain Erika's ridiculous actions without relying on meta-knowledge? You'd have to have a character who genuinely believe they are in a mystery story. I mean you can reason it however you want, Erika's actions make less sense then anything anyone ever "wouldn't put past Kinzo".

How do you explain that Battler's participation in setting up Natsuhi as the murderer by lying to later change side and try to protect her without the meta-narrative that explains just why? Like what's the gameboard reason for you?

Also just to know, but according to your interpretation, what's arc 8's real form? I don't see how it could exist in any form without meta-information.

[Renall]

What evidence do we have that ep7 and ep8 had a real form? Everything up through Dawn is mentioned as being a real work within ep6. For all we know, ep7 was Bern digging through fan fiction (which is, at least, textually-supportable if you squint hard enough).

[AuraTwilight]

How do you explain Erika's ridiculous actions without relying on meta-knowledge?

She's a Mary Sue. Erika is pretty much the embodiment of the "Man, I would be way more competent than Battler if I was on the island" sentiment that a lot of fans have.

Also Genre Savviness.

How do you explain that Battler's participation in setting up Natsuhi as the murderer by lying to later change side and try to protect her without the meta-narrative that explains just why? Like what's the gameboard reason for you?

The same reason the First Twilight is faked on every other gameboard.

Also just to know, but according to your interpretation, what's arc 8's real form? I don't see how it could exist in any form without meta-information.

Ange's imagination.

[Renall]

Also we don't know Battler's specific reason for saying what he does at the end because we don't see him say it. It's possible the goal was never to frame Natsuhi specifically (most people were not as anal-retentive about gathering facts as Erika was), but that it turned that way, or that Battler was never told that's how it worked, or that he just got sick of the plan once Erika twisted it around to start emotionally battering Natsuhi.

I would think his reasoning did appear, but we didn't see it (perhaps because it was too revealing, or because it wasn't important to the thing Meta-Battler came to realize, which is likely since that part wasn't a focus of the ep5 narrative). If the story contains Meta-Narrative it ending there is still pretty weird. Why have Piece-Battler begin an apparent counterattack he never actually makes?

[rogerpepitone]

Isn't it obvious that everybody's goal in Episode 5 was to force Natsuhi to admit Kinzo was dead? (Reread that last section. Erika keeps leaving Natsuhi the escape hatch of "Kinzo is dead.".)

[AuraTwilight]

It's obvious that this was ERIKA'S goal, but she doesn't speak for absolutely everyone.

[rogerpepitone]

Why would Erika care whether Natsuhi admitted Kinzo was dead? But most of the family has good reason to want Natsuhi to admit to the fraud.