[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[GuestSpeaker]

Though what we see in the book is certainly up to interpretation, in that Eva is allowed to present her opinions on things as red truth, Ryu has been pretty consistent on the basics for a long time.

Gold alone is not sufficient motivation for murder, but certainly can create huge conflict. Things got tense in the gold room, the siblings had some big argument, things got out of hand. (Guns were fired, people died, communications broke down).

It is interesting that he confirmed the death of the cousins, when it would have been so much easier had there just been a big scuffle with some deaths in the gold room, and then most everyone else dying when the bomb went off. Killing Jessica and George is an odd move for any culprit and for each other (I don't really buy into it) but they definitely seemed to have died somehow. Yet it is too early for Yasu to even have gone all suicide pact on them (unless she snapped after what happened and went around trying to arrange a perfect magic ending by bringing about the golden land, but then couldn't bring herself to kill Battler). I can't believe that Ryu would have set it up to occur without motivation, when motivation was his whole schtick, so we should really ask why it occurred. We know that Jessica at least can attack people when angry, but shooting an angry teenage girl seems a little much.

Wouldn't it be interesting if Kyrie had the blanks gun? Unless Yasu never loaded one this time (though she seems to have usually loaded the main sibling accomplice's gun with them for her own safety), it would be interesting if she was completely incapable of killing DESPITE pulling the trigger. Maybe she tried to shoot Yasu, and then Yasu went around mopping up the survivors to create a catbox, creating more confusion, making the surviving adults suspect each-other and all the rest. Kyrie was goading Eva because she had a non-functional gun and WAS guilty (she is likely to have killed the servants in the guest house for being co-conspirators) and that is where we ended up.


Also, for all of the Yasu sympathisers out there, no completely innocent murder mystery game involves the use of at least 3 loaded rifles...

[GuestSpeaker]

If Battler's return was enough to make her plan a murder mystery epitaph game that included REAL WINCHESTER RIFLES, it is possible she was able to kill Jessica and George when things went pair shaped.

Remembering that the incident wouldn't have occurred in the same manner had Battler not returned, Rudolph family culprit can't have occurred exactly as how the public thought, with premeditated crazy killing spree, since they surely would have done that whether Battler was there or not. If you argue that Battler returning simply made Yasu plan a murder mystery night that involved revealing the bomb and things got out of hand, I guess just LolWinchesters?

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Also, for all of the Yasu sympathisers out there, no completely innocent murder mystery game involves the use of at least 3 loaded rifles...

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

If Battler's return was enough to make her plan a murder mystery epitaph game that included REAL WINCHESTER RIFLES, it is possible she was able to kill Jessica and George when things went pair shaped.

...

If you argue that Battler returning simply made Yasu plan a murder mystery night that involved revealing the bomb and things got out of hand, I guess just LolWinchesters?

If those images are reliable and yep, Yasu got a bunch of loaded rifles ready for the murder game and nobody would have died had Battler not returned just because Yasu wouldn't have got them ready if he hadn't come back, then yes, it does look rather bad for her. Maybe Ryukishi kept quiet about Rokkenjima Prime on the grounds that the reality was suckily written and would detract substantially from the Beatrice's heart mystery that he really wanted to tell?

That said, even if we trust that content from Eva and it's the real truth, there's still a lot we could be told later in the manga which could make the story look better.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

But we don't know if Krauss was doing something... Kinzo was alive and probably in full control of his finances and it's possible if the siblings had asked him help the past year they weren't even that much in troubles...

It's possible, yeah, since the version of Kinzo that Lion knows went considerably less bonkers, since his magic baby survived. I just generally make the assumption, since Krauss was embezzling while Kinzo was alive in all the other games as well, and Kinzo is pretty much at the end of his lifespan either way, so it's understandable if he had retired from really doing much actual business-y stuff, personally.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I prefer to think Lion being there as symbolic of Sayo being forced to watch what had happened back then. To see what she had caused after having maybe hoped that since the outcome wasn't so bad she could meet a happy ending too.

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Yes but the narration also say Krauss was having a scuffle with Eva while... he was also holding a gun? What were they doing, waving them against each others as if they were swords? Honestly I was hoping that part only wanted to imply they would get the gun, not that they already have them because again, if they all grabbed them, they all should have pointed them against Krauss and corner him. One gun against 3 doesn't really stand much chances... and why if Rosa is holding a gun no one is paying her attention and she's doing nothing?

1. Despite having grabbed them, nobody seemed serious about firing the first shot, as far as we know. It's possible to have a scuffle while holding something, and the guns themselves are not particularly large or unwieldy or anything.

2. As I said, yeah three guns put the younger siblings at a huge advantage, but their argument clearly shows that they weren't willing to try to use physical force. Or at least hadn't thought to do so.

3. Eh, what's Rosa really gonna do. Evayoshi and Kyrolf are her allies, and she herself is really opposed to the risks of murder (at least if EP3 is anything to go by). Even if Kratsuhi was worried about the guns, the two of them are outnumbered, and, frankly, Rosa's siblings barely give a crap about her since she's usually the "weakest" in their discussions. Afterwards, after the initial shock of Kratsuhi dying, she (my opinion, here) seemed to know full well that it was an accident, probably didn't feel threatened, and tried to convince Eva of her own plan (which was probably the easiest left, at that point)

Originally Posted by jjblue1

And shouldn't Rudolf worry about his wife who's facing Rudolf and Kyrie while Kyrie have a gun and she doesn't? And why would Natsuhi focus on Eva when she's under gun threath by Kyrie?

I'm assuming Natsuhi tried to intervene when she saw Krauss was in an actual, physical scuffle with Eva. I believe that was the intention, OR (considering the way the scene is written in general), we had skipped forward to a time when Natsuhi had moved back to arguing with Eva, and she started a second scuffle, herself. That's what I get from it, anyhow. I agree that the whole shebang could've been better written.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

No, really, it makes even less sense if they already has the guns (and the manga didn't seem to show them as having them when Krauss is shoot so I hope it'll fix this...)

The images in the manga are so small and obscure, it's hard to tell. Maybe they have the rifle at their sides in one hand, which is how I assume they hold it when their sprite doesn't explicitly show them "holding rifle in both hands" or "pointing rifle at eye level".

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Maybe Ryukishi kept quiet about Rokkenjima Prime on the grounds that the reality was suckily written and would detract substantially from the Beatrice's heart mystery that he really wanted to tell?

This is probably true. Featherine was all "The truth is uninteresting.", and she's pretty much Ryukishi's self-insert. Umineko as a whole is obviously much more concerned with YaShKanon's tale, so...

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Originally Posted by Haguruma

Due to your sin a great number of the people on this island dies, nobody can evade it.
All will die.

This Red Truth doesn't deny my theory,
I was afraid of the way I worded the original post and this truth is why.

Allow me to rephrase it.

Ushiromiya Battler's sin is one of,
but not THE main causes of what
happened on Rokkenjima.

If Rudolf doesn't commit his sin against Asumu and Kyrie, Battler's Sin doesn't exist. Saying Battler's Sin is responsible for Rokkenjima is like eliminating half of the equation IMO.

It's not: Battler Leaves> Shannon's heart breaks> Battler Returns.

It's: Rudolf cheats on Asumu> Battler Leaves> Shannon's heart breaks> Battler Returns.

If Rudolf doesn't cheat, Battler doesn't leave. If Battler doesn't leave, Shannon's heart never breaks.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Though what we see in the book is certainly up to interpretation, in that Eva is allowed to present her opinions on things as red truth, Ryu has been pretty consistent on the basics for a long time.

Gold alone is not sufficient motivation for murder, but certainly can create huge conflict. Things got tense in the gold room, the siblings had some big argument, things got out of hand. (Guns were fired, people died, communications broke down).

Well, I could buy they shoot each other in the gold room. Possibly in a better way than what presented as, as I said, the one presented is a bit shaky on the action level but hey, it can be that it actually went better but Eva had confused memories of what happened so she wrote it down messily. Only the narration at this point would have worked better if we had Eva has narrator saying sentences like:

'I was arguing with Krauss, can't remember what the others were doing, can't remember anything well, I think I've heard Natsuhi arguing with Kyrie and Rudolf but it could be just me because then Natsuhi was jumping in front of me and... and... and there was a hole where her eye was and then Krauss was jumping on me and my husband tried to stop him and there was a shoot and Krauss... Krauss must have been holding a gun and my husband said the shoot was fired by mistake... and Rosa and Rudolf refused to admit we did it in self defence and I tried, I tried hard to think at a solution, to cover everything up, ah it had to be only a bad dream, but Rosa insisted I had to go to the police, she insisted the greedy thing she is , she even pointed a gun at me and then... then Kyrie shoot her, she said she did it because Rosa too was holding a gun and could have fired it, and it's horrible but I felt relief at Kyrie shutting her up, I thiught she deserved it for having been so mean to me and that's insane, maybe we were all insane back then, but...

and so on.

Ange can built from here a scene that's confusing and not accurate but that more or less follow Eva's description.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

It is interesting that he confirmed the death of the cousins, when it would have been so much easier had there just been a big scuffle with some deaths in the gold room, and then most everyone else dying when the bomb went off.

Well, it wouldn't have still made much sense why Eva didn't try to save the cousins if they were alive, expecially George. George had to be dead... although we don't see Kyrie or Rudolf killing them, actually we don't even see who shoot Eva, Hideyoshi and Rosa. And interesting enough when Krauss fell it didn't seem like Kyrie had a gun. But probably either in the diary there's room enough to think Rudolf and Kyrie had done it or it's just that the manga author forgot to draw the guns. If the diary were to say there's a remote change Rudolf and Kyrie didn't do it Ange would have jumped at it so, even if they're not shown doing the killing, at least for what regards the gold room, they must have done it.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

Killing Jessica and George is an odd move for any culprit and for each other (I don't really buy into it) but they definitely seemed to have died somehow. Yet it is too early for Yasu to even have gone all suicide pact on them (unless she snapped after what happened and went around trying to arrange a perfect magic ending by bringing about the golden land, but then couldn't bring herself to kill Battler).

Well, it'll be hard for Yasu to go and kill him unless Kyrie were to let her escape after she had seen Kyrie kill the others in the golden room.

The most logical thing is that either Kyrie tried to kill her and failed or that she let her alive in the hope she could convert the gold and in this case she would keep a close watch on her.
So unless we're missing something (like George going to search for her, out of pure luck not crossing Kyrie's path, meeting Yasu who survived to being shooted and being shoot by her) I've hard time picturing Yasu as going around murdering George and Jessica.

Though as the story implied a love duel between them more than once they could have killed each other.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

I can't believe that Ryu would have set it up to occur without motivation, when motivation was his whole schtick, so we should really ask why it occurred. We know that Jessica at least can attack people when angry, but shooting an angry teenage girl seems a little much.

Wouldn't it be interesting if Kyrie had the blanks gun? Unless Yasu never loaded one this time (though she seems to have usually loaded the main sibling accomplice's gun with them for her own safety), it would be interesting if she was completely incapable of killing DESPITE pulling the trigger. Maybe she tried to shoot Yasu, and then Yasu went around mopping up the survivors to create a catbox, creating more confusion, making the surviving adults suspect each-other and all the rest. Kyrie was goading Eva because she had a non-functional gun and WAS guilty (she is likely to have killed the servants in the guest house for being co-conspirators) and that is where we ended up.


Also, for all of the Yasu sympathisers out there, no completely innocent murder mystery game involves the use of at least 3 loaded rifles...

Well, Yasu says she wanted to do the killing.
My general point isn't that she didn't have the intention, more that she didn't have the will, the gut, the ability to do it.
One thing is to write fictions in which you go around and kill everyone. Another is to look at someone in the eyes and shoot him in the face.
Everyone can write fiction but as for the shooting... even if you hate that person is not so easy to pull the trigger. Eva, who hated Krauss and was furious with him, didn't shoot at him even if she was holding a gun. And when he and Natsuhi died she was very much in shock. And likely killing Rudolf and Kyrie out of self defence still haunted her. And Sayo should have killed multiple times in various ways. Unless she was completly broken I've hard time thinking she would manage to do it.

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

If Battler's return was enough to make her plan a murder mystery epitaph game that included REAL WINCHESTER RIFLES, it is possible she was able to kill Jessica and George when things went pair shaped.

Remembering that the incident wouldn't have occurred in the same manner had Battler not returned, Rudolph family culprit can't have occurred exactly as how the public thought, with premeditated crazy killing spree, since they surely would have done that whether Battler was there or not. If you argue that Battler returning simply made Yasu plan a murder mystery night that involved revealing the bomb and things got out of hand, I guess just LolWinchesters?

I think that the idea that Battler not returning would have changed things is all in Yasu's head and didn't match reality. When she voices it she thought she was in control of the options but in truth the adults could have very well found the gold and the rifles and killed each other even without her challenging to find the gold and showing them the riffles.

I think that's the point of the Teaparty. As long as the epitaph exist and is known the adults can always use it to find the gold. As long as there are rifles they can be used to kill. That's what Lion watching that scene while chained to a chair symbolizes for me. Yasu wasn't in control, far from her. Things would have gone that way even if Yasu hadn't existed and Battler hadn't returned, and that's why we can see Bern showing us Lion would end up being shoot.

I guess it's Bern's way to give Yasu a reality check. She wasn't in control so she could drop her stance as master of Rokkenjima and realize she was just a silly girl that hoped adults would accept her as such (accept Lion as the head).

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

If those images are reliable and yep, Yasu got a bunch of loaded rifles ready for the murder game and nobody would have died had Battler not returned just because Yasu wouldn't have got them ready if he hadn't come back, then yes, it does look rather bad for her. Maybe Ryukishi kept quiet about Rokkenjima Prime on the grounds that the reality was suckily written and would detract substantially from the Beatrice's heart mystery that he really wanted to tell?

That said, even if we trust that content from Eva and it's the real truth, there's still a lot we could be told later in the manga which could make the story look better.

Well, honestly I'm really hoping so.

Originally Posted by Kealym

It's possible, yeah, since the version of Kinzo that Lion knows went considerably less bonkers, since his magic baby survived. I just generally make the assumption, since Krauss was embezzling while Kinzo was alive in all the other games as well, and Kinzo is pretty much at the end of his lifespan either way, so it's understandable if he had retired from really doing much actual business-y stuff, personally.

Even if Kinzo has retired the siblings always insisted in dealing with Kinzo so he would have at least had the power to help them. Ergo they wouldn't be in such financial problems they could face disaster...
Unless he acted like a jerk with them as Kinzo-gentle granpa is somehow a thing I doubt.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

It's a theory I'm working at.
I though having Ange and Lion as viewers at the Teaparty is a symbolism that represent the way in which 2 real people learnt the truth in a helpless way.

In Ange's case she read the truth from the diary, which means she couldn't do a thing to change what happened and then the truth was so painful for her she denied it in her mind so hard she 'self-destroyed' and reverted to her child self where she asked Battler for help. But the Battler that's in her mind can only try to counterbalance the weight of the traumatic info she had received by attempting to make her remember of the nice sides of her family, countering Eva's truth with a fantasy in which everything is perfect, a fantasy that's Ange's creation but that Ange denies because she knows that's not the truth. If she denies the fantasy though she has to embrace the truth and this brings her back to Eva's diary which she had previousliy denied and temporally removed by her mind.
If she goes back to the memory of what she had read, she'll have the truth but she's still unable to face the truth so she ends up breaking down again.
She can't accept the truth, she can't accept the fantasy, where does that leave her? On top of a building trying to scream at the world her pain and to end it by throwing herself off of it.

In Lion's case she represents Yasu as she viewed the events of that day. Once the family solves the epitaph Yasu discharges her role as Beatrice and I think she had previously killed Shannon and Kanon inside herself as well, which is what's supposed to mean the fact that Beatrice is acting like a corpse.

However Yasu isn't death and maybe she arboured the hope that now they would accept her true self, Lion, who's technically Kinzo's baby and heir, as part of the family.

But then it became pretty clear they weren't going to accept her as a family member, maybe they not even recognized her as Shannon or Kanon or as the baby from 19 years ago, she didn't exist to them and she's powerless to stop the drama as it unfolds in front of her. She's not Beatrice, the master of Rokkenjima, she's a powerless creature with a dream of being accepted and they kill that dream that night. Lion, as her being accepted into the family, will never came to be. He too got killed that night when the adults refused to recognize her as a family member, worried about the gold only and then started to kill each other... which is more or less what happened in Bern's vision of Lion's world.
The adults argued over the ineritance, all united in refusing to accept Lion and Lion got killed.

That's my theory at the moment.

Originally Posted by Kealym

1. Despite having grabbed them, nobody seemed serious about firing the first shot, as far as we know. It's possible to have a scuffle while holding something, and the guns themselves are not particularly large or unwieldy or anything.

Yes but it sort of become ridicule that Krauss and Eva were having a scuffle while each of them is holding a gun/rifle and makes you wonder why they took them in the first place as well as it makes the scuffle uncomfortable as both of them have at least one hand busy... and what do they do with the other which should be the right one by the way? They let it limp, holding the gun or use the guns as if they were swords or something?

They can technically have done it but... it's ridicule and too complicate.

Originally Posted by Kealym

2. As I said, yeah three guns put the younger siblings at a huge advantage, but their argument clearly shows that they weren't willing to try to use physical force. Or at least hadn't thought to do so.

I don't know, somehow the situation is presented in such a weird manner I can't quite follow the action that's supposed to get going on. I'll accept it if the narrative made clear the narrator is confuse and don't really know well what's happening but that's not what the narrative does so... I'm confused.

Originally Posted by Kealym

3. Eh, what's Rosa really gonna do. Evayoshi and Kyrolf are her allies, and she herself is really opposed to the risks of murder (at least if EP3 is anything to go by). Even if Kratsuhi was worried about the guns, the two of them are outnumbered, and, frankly, Rosa's siblings barely give a crap about her since she's usually the "weakest" in their discussions. Afterwards, after the initial shock of Kratsuhi dying, she (my opinion, here) seemed to know full well that it was an accident, probably didn't feel threatened, and tried to convince Eva of her own plan (which was probably the easiest left, at that point)

Honestly Rosa didn't really need a gun. She wasn't going to use it to shoot or to threaten anyway. She could have said whose words out of spite because Eva had always been abusive toward her and during the teaparty she's very much a jerk toward her so I get Rosa was more angry at her than Krauss and maybe she'll be happy she ends in a jail.
Also Kyrie was going to kill everyone anyway so... why give Rosa a gun? Decoration?

Originally Posted by Kealym

I'm assuming Natsuhi tried to intervene when she saw Krauss was in an actual, physical scuffle with Eva. I believe that was the intention, OR (considering the way the scene is written in general), we had skipped forward to a time when Natsuhi had moved back to arguing with Eva, and she started a second scuffle, herself. That's what I get from it, anyhow. I agree that the whole shebang could've been better written.

It could be that was the intention but the description is so poor the scene comes out as weak.

Originally Posted by Kealym

The images in the manga are so small and obscure, it's hard to tell. Maybe they have the rifle at their sides in one hand, which is how I assume they hold it when their sprite doesn't explicitly show them "holding rifle in both hands" or "pointing rifle at eye level".

It can be, I'm waiting for better scans or for the Teaparty in Ep 7

Originally Posted by Kealym

This is probably true. Featherine was all "The truth is uninteresting.", and she's pretty much Ryukishi's self-insert. Umineko as a whole is obviously much more concerned with YaShKanon's tale, so...

Yes, I agree. Although it can be that Featherine is just... let's say on Yasu's and Battler's side. The messages in the bottles were supposed to be a key to Yasu's heart, not to the truth in Rokkenjima for which there's no ways for it to be found out, apart from Eva's diary (and as there's no red truth in the world we don't know if she wrote the truth) and Featherine is interested in them, not in the truth.

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Kealym

I like to think that probably Bern was just being a dick.

I'm sure Bernkastel was just being a dick. At the same time, I think it's pretty clear that what she showed them was true.

Willard called it a "heartless truth". If Bernkastel was just making it up then he could've instead said "this is just straight-up false".

[jjblue1]

Haguruma, if it's not a problem I've been wondering if we can ask you to type down the new red truths and blue truths in Ep 8 that came up in the battle between Will, Dlanor and the goats and the one that came up in the battle between Battler and Erika so we can reason better on them.

I'm not asking for the ones that came up during Bern's game because I think they're relevant only to it and/or are more or less the same of the VN.

Of course if it's not a problem and you've free time. I know you've translated some already but a more ordered collective post would probably help.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I'm sure Bernkastel was just being a dick. At the same time, I think it's pretty clear that what she showed them was true.

Willard called it a "heartless truth". If Bernkastel was just making it up then he could've instead said "this is just straight-up false".

In context, I think the phrase 'Truth' means 'any reasonable theory that can not be disproved from the available evidence'. Remember the talk about the Von Braun tube and such in Ep 3. Saying 'This is just straight up false' requires a lot more evidence than anyone has for Prime. So, it's not something he can prove is wrong, but being mister 'Don't forget the heart', he doesn't exactly find it likely.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Golden Bug-Hunter

In context, I think the phrase 'Truth' means 'any reasonable theory that can not be disproved from the available evidence'. Remember the talk about the Von Braun tube and such in Ep 3. Saying 'This is just straight up false' requires a lot more evidence than anyone has for Prime. So, it's not something he can prove is wrong, but being mister 'Don't forget the heart', he doesn't exactly find it likely.

Well, as it had been confirmed by Eva's diary, the core of Bern's story is true. It probably speculated on some things like Jessica's death for example and might have been biased toward Eva but... I think overall a good part of what Bern showed has good chances of being true and probably Will figured it out as well. In fact his only countering is that Bern can't prove it, which can be the same countering one can use against Eva's diary. Eva might have lied while writing it, we can decide not to believe in it... but it's not likely she completely made up a story in order to seal it.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Eva might have lied while writing it, we can decide not to believe in it... but it's not likely she completely made up a story in order to seal it.

Then the question would also come up, why would Eva have lied in her diary? In a book that was not supposed to be seen by anybody. A book that starts with the words, "I write this to forget, or maybe to never forget. But if I do not write it down, I will go insane."

It would be a completely different thing if it was a statement she released, but this is something completely different. It won't be lies, but it's likely that it is told from a certain perspective with a not completely objective perception.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Then the question would also come up, why would Eva have lied in her diary? In a book that was not supposed to be seen by anybody. A book that starts with the words, "I write this to forget, or maybe to never forget. But if I do not write it down, I will go insane."

It would be a completely different thing if it was a statement she released, but this is something completely different. It won't be lies, but it's likely that it is told from a certain perspective with a not completely objective perception.

Well, my idea is that she didn't lie although she could have done it. LOL, a loveless diary? Like Ep 5 game? ^_-

Anyway personally I don't think she lied in the true sense of the word, more likely she reported things from her perspective so for example Rosa could have sounded more of a jerk than what she actually was. Same for Krauss.

Theoretically it would be possible for her to alter the truth were she... believe in her lies. Sort of like Maria who wrote she had a teaparty with the witches. As Ryukishi had said we can still stretch the Eva culprit theory. If Eva went themporally insane and then fabricated a truth to cover up the fact she killed everyone and believed in that truth because her mind couldn't face reality... that was the truth for Eva.

Put this possibility aside I BELIEVE EVA HAD TOLD IN HER DIARY THE FACTUAL TRUTH AS FAR AS SHE KNEW IT AND MAYBE A LITTLE BIASED TOWARD HER AND NOT A CONSTRUCT OF HER FANTASY THAT SHE USED TO COVER UP THE REAL TRUTH OR A DELIBERATE LIE.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Theoretically it would be possible for her to alter the truth were she... believe in her lies. Sort of like Maria who wrote she had a teaparty with the witches. As Ryukishi had said we can still stretch the Eva culprit theory. If Eva went themporally insane and then fabricated a truth to cover up the fact she killed everyone and believed in that truth because her mind couldn't face reality... that was the truth for Eva.

I'd agree it's a little far-fetched but possible that Eva went insane and made something up.

But even with that possibility aside, there are several things that could have made her account not 100% factual. Bias, yes, but also things like gaps in her memory that she could have filled in without realising she had done so. Any time a person accesses a memory, the memory changes, and in the end a memory can be something totally different from the original, especially if it's a memory that's recalled many times. Eva probably couldn't get the incident out of her mind during the time before when she wrote her diary. I'd say her account is probably broadly true, but a lot of the details could be wrong.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I'd agree it's a little far-fetched but possible that Eva went insane and made something up.

But even with that possibility aside, there are several things that could have made her account not 100% factual. Bias, yes, but also things like gaps in her memory that she could have filled in without realising she had done so. Any time a person accesses a memory, the memory changes, and in the end a memory can be something totally different from the original, especially if it's a memory that's recalled many times. Eva probably couldn't get the incident out of her mind during the time before when she wrote her diary. I'd say her account is probably broadly true, but a lot of the details could be wrong.

Yes, but I guess the core is what really matter, at least for Ange, and the core is likely that Eva (or Eva and Hideyoshi) killed Natsuhi and Krauss while arguing (Natsuhi by mistake, Krauss in self defence) and Rosa refused to help them covered it up. Then Rosa and Hideyoshi were shot to death while Eva was shoot but only ended up unconscious.
The shooting wasn't done by Beatrice and the only other people Eva could see in the room that could have done the shooting were Kyrie and Rudolf.
Later, when Eva woke up, she found the bodies of Jessica and George while Rudolf and Kyrie were wandering for the place still alive.

Let's assume Eva didn't see Kyrie and/or Rudolf killing anyone and the dialogues in Ep 7 were purely a fantasy. It's still hard to picture that, at least in the room of the gold, someone else had slid inside unseen and had managed to grab a gun or had a 5th gun with himself and shoot at Rosa, Hideyoshi and Eva.

Out of the room of the gold everything could have happened, maybe Rudolf and Kyrie didn't mean to kill George and Jessica but they saw something and attacked them and they reacted in self defence. Or they had already killed each other in a 'love duel' and Eva assumed they were killed by Rudolf and Kyrie.

Whatever it is, I still think the fact her parents killed 2 people, tried to kill Eva and were assumed to be the culprits of the death of everyone else is enough to break Ange.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Yes, but I guess the core is what really matter, at least for Ange, and the core is likely that Eva (or Eva and Hideyoshi) killed Natsuhi and Krauss while arguing (Natsuhi by mistake, Krauss in self defence) and Rosa refused to help them covered it up. Then Rosa and Hideyoshi were shot to death while Eva was shoot but only ended up unconscious.

Btw. concerning your confusion about the process of getting guns, I read the scene again and I find it pretty clear.
There are 4 guns. One basically goes to each party, Krauss gets a gun, Eva gets a gun, Rosa gets a gun, and Kyrie gets a gun (which is weird enough in itself, because Rudolph is the only sibling not handling a gun himself).
Eva and Krauss argue, Natsuhi goes in between them, ending in her getting shot and Eva dropping her gun in shock. Krauss charges at Eva and is stopped by Hideyoshi, he ends up being shot by his own gun and the gun is dropped as well. Now Rosa and Kyrie are the only ones holding guns. Rosa is shot by Kyrie, since she holds the only gun that hasn't been fired yet.
When Kyrie threatens Eva and Hideyoshi, they try to recharge Eva's and Krauss' gun but fail. It is likely that the gun Kyrie is holding is "Chiester556", since that is likely the one where the aim is off.

And then, if we look at the scenes that Eva actually observed, I find they paint an interesting picture:
When Eva wakes up she apparently only sees Rosa, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi and Krauss lying dead, there is no mention of Beatrice. Then she sees the bullets and that a larger number of them had been removed, which immediately makes her think that Kyrie and Rudolph must have gone to kill everybody. "They might have gone to kill everybody who's left. Yes...that must be it...there's no doubt!"

Then, when she meets with Rudolph and accuses him of murdering her husband in cold blood, he responds with saying, "Calm down, big sis...lower the gun down...It wasn't like I wanted that to happen. It all happened suddenly. I couldn't do anything either." Also, his description of George includes him saying it "regretfully had to be done (もうやっちまったぜ)"...which seems a weird thing to say if he actually was the heartless murderer that the plot of the play tries to paint him.
We also have the words that Kyrie tries to say in response to Eva promising that she'll etch the story of Kyrie as a caring mother into the lid of the cat-box, which don't come out because of the blood...which basically makes Kyrie into a cat-box of her own.
Yes, what she said was heartless and horrible, but she also argued very controlled with examples Eva would definitely react to...especially calling out to Rosa's relationship to Maria.

I really think that there is still something hidden behind that which Eva witnessed...I just question we will ever learn what it is, because there is no way, unless manga Tohya remembers everything.

[Leafsnail]

I think Tohya probably does remember everything. He was able to write Alliance, afterall, which is similar to Prime in quite a few ways. In the VN he tries to preserve the catbox. However, in the manga he could realize Ange already read Eva's diary - meaning he needs to step in to explain Kyrie's heart and lessen the pain.

And it's fair to say that Rudolf's lines don't fit the story Eva constructed at all, yeah.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Btw. concerning your confusion about the process of getting guns, I read the scene again and I find it pretty clear.
There are 4 guns. One basically goes to each party, Krauss gets a gun, Eva gets a gun, Rosa gets a gun, and Kyrie gets a gun (which is weird enough in itself, because Rudolph is the only sibling not handling a gun himself).
Eva and Krauss argue, Natsuhi goes in between them, ending in her getting shot and Eva dropping her gun in shock. Krauss charges at Eva and is stopped by Hideyoshi, he ends up being shot by his own gun and the gun is dropped as well.

Well, maybe it's a translation's problem as I read it translated from Japanese to English then I've to translate English to Italian but we've Krauss complaining Eva got a gun and this is scaring them.
Sure, he doesn't say Eva's name so it can be all the 3 siblings got one at the same time but then when he got his? And if he also got his, his sentence seems a little out of place as he also has a gun. Not mentioning the weirdness of each of them being close enough to the guns to take one at the same time.

But it's still possible they did it, that they all had the same idea at the same time and Krauss, instead than trying to stop them to get the gun also got one as well (or vice versa as from this perspective it's hard to say who got the gun first).

So... uhm, Eva got a gun and face Krauss who also got a gun, Kyrie got a gun and face Natsuhi, rosa got a gun and face... the wall, apparently as she's not dealing with it with either Krauss or Natsuhi. Still possible but somehow shaky.

But then the English text mention a scuffle between Krauss and Eva and this, according to the translation I get, implies physical contact.

If it was a verbal sparring I'll be fine but with physical contact they've to be close and... the guns get in the way. If you grab a gun your first reaction should be point it to the other person and this goes in the way of physically fighting with him (unless you wave it like some sort of saber since they're similar to rifles but that's silly).

And since they're fighting it gets weird that Natsuhi gets in between them.

But let's assume a scuffle is verbal sparring and my dictionary is failing me.

It's still weird that Natsuhi would tosse herself at Eva, with Kyrie and Rosa also holding a gun and capable to shoot at Krauss when she was arguing with Kyrie moments ago. It'll make more sense if she tossed herself in front of Krauss to shield him, than in front of Eva.

But let's assume even if Kyrie and Rosa have a gun Natsuhi believed they wouldn't use it for more than just... scratching their chin?

So, see my problem? The text didn't describe things the way you did, but in a way that make me think the actions of the characters are odd and, if I want to make sense of them, I've to make excuses for them or pretend to not notice details. Which isn't a good thing in an 'action scene' narrated in third person so supposedly narrated in a way that should have coerency.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Now Rosa and Kyrie are the only ones holding guns. Rosa is shot by Kyrie, since she holds the only gun that hasn't been fired yet.

Nope. Eva will pick up her gun again and point it at Rosa (after she made it fall when she shoot Natsuhi). But somehow after Rosa dies evidently she drops it again... which is stupid because really (also the shoot should have caused her to contract the muscles in sudden shock and hold the gun but let's assume she dropped it after she saw Rosa fall), after killing Rosa Kyrie becomes rather suspicious.

Originally Posted by haguruma

When Kyrie threatens Eva and Hideyoshi, they try to recharge Eva's and Krauss' gun but fail. It is likely that the gun Kyrie is holding is "Chiester556", since that is likely the one where the aim is off.

Hideyoshi tries but fails as he doesn't Eva time enough. Eva has all the time to do it right as she had the time Hideyoshi had plus all the time Kyrie spent talking before recharging and shooting her, time in which in fact Eva attempts to recharge and would have also managed to shoot Kyrie had she known how to recharge or had she had better luck. In fact she'll manage to learn pretty fast because the next time she'll try she'll do it just fine.
Kyrie recharged her gun after Eva tried and failed. Had Eva succeeded Eva would have also have all the time to shoot at Kyrie who hadn't recharged her gun yet.

Of course probably Kyrie didn't read the rules of the perfect Evil Overlord but still all her waiting and giving Eva chances (without even keeping her under her aim) sort of ruined the thing for me.

Originally Posted by haguruma

And then, if we look at the scenes that Eva actually observed, I find they paint an interesting picture:
When Eva wakes up she apparently only sees Rosa, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi and Krauss lying dead, there is no mention of Beatrice. Then she sees the bullets and that a larger number of them had been removed, which immediately makes her think that Kyrie and Rudolph must have gone to kill everybody. "They might have gone to kill everybody who's left. Yes...that must be it...there's no doubt!"

Then, when she meets with Rudolph and accuses him of murdering her husband in cold blood, he responds with saying, "Calm down, big sis...lower the gun down...It wasn't like I wanted that to happen. It all happened suddenly. I couldn't do anything either." Also, his description of George includes him saying it "regretfully had to be done (もうやっちまったぜ)"...which seems a weird thing to say if he actually was the heartless murderer that the plot of the play tries to paint him.

Yes, in fact Eva doesn't really know what had happened after and it can be all her speculation. George might have had figured up something so he tried to kill Rudolf so Rudolf had to kill him... or George became dangerous for some other reasons. It's also possible the cousins had solved the epitaph, short after than the adults and had come there on their own. Maybe they had found Kyrie and Rudolf dragging out Beatrice as they really thought they could use her to get access to the gold and then things had gone... messy.

Originally Posted by haguruma

We also have the words that Kyrie tries to say in response to Eva promising that she'll etch the story of Kyrie as a caring mother into the lid of the cat-box, which don't come out because of the blood...which basically makes Kyrie into a cat-box of her own.
Yes, what she said was heartless and horrible, but she also argued very controlled with examples Eva would definitely react to...especially calling out to Rosa's relationship to Maria.

I really think that there is still something hidden behind that which Eva witnessed...I just question we will ever learn what it is, because there is no way, unless manga Tohya remembers everything.

I would love to learn more details about what had happened (or at least what Kyrie had said and how Battler found the passage and if she learnt it from Beatrice) but as of now we can only hope in the manga. It can be Beatrice tried to explain if we've to trust in how Lion tried to escape his own death (which can be a 'reflection' of what happened to Beatrice).

[GuestSpeaker]

I'd assume with the scuffle it was a physical thing. It is known that the guns can be held comfortably in one hand, and as Krauss and Eva were fighting before things got really serious it was probably more of a shoulder pushing, arm grabbing sort of thing. I imagine guns weren't pointed till Natsuhi got in the way

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

I'd assume with the scuffle it was a physical thing. It is known that the guns can be held comfortably in one hand, and as Krauss and Eva were fighting before things got really serious it was probably more of a shoulder pushing, arm grabbing sort of thing. I imagine guns weren't pointed till Natsuhi got in the way

I'm not saying it is... just that's not what someone who grabbed a gun would do. If you've a gun you point it at your target. Otherwise, if you want to have a scuffle, holding the gun in your dominant hand (because generally that's where you would hold it) becomes an indrance in your scuffle, as if you were to tie your hand behind your back.

And with the scuffle being physical is still weird Natsuhi would try to get in between. Krauss has much more chances to stop his sister than her and he's not in life threatening danger if they're just pushing each other or something.

Really, that scene needed to be streamlined better so that it would come out more natual, instead than weird because people seem to choose the oddest path to get a result at which they can arrive in a way simpler way.

Why couldn't we have a simple: Eva grabs the gun and tries to aim at Krauss, Natsuhi gets scared and jumps on her trying to stop her and gets shoot. In rage Krauss tries to kill her and gets killed by her in self defence.
Rosa, Kyrie and Rudolf have grabbed a gun, Rosa claiming Eva shoot them on purpose and they'll have to go to the police or she'll shoot them and Kyrie shoots her apparently to save Eva but then turns her gun on Hideyoshi and Eva without so much chatting. Who cares about the guns being difficult to recharge for an amateur, Eva not only will learn with no problems short after, she'll also be good enough to shoot Rudolf and Kyrie.

Let her be a woman who knows how a gun work... which is much better than a woman who suddently get lucky and not only is not shoot but also learn to recharge and to use the gun to kill the two experts in guns with no problems and not even a serious scratch.

(which also makes me wonder... wasn't she examinated by the police and the doctors when she was found? Didn't anyone noticed the head injury the bullet grazing at her should have made?)

[Leafsnail]

Eva could just scratch her face or something to hide that.

I've been thinking about it, and I think that actually being the sole survivor of the Rokkenjima incident, even with your family also surviving, really wouldn't get you into much legal trouble. It's not just that you couldn't get a guilty verdict due to lack of evidence. It's that you probably wouldn't even be able to form a coherent case due to lack of information.

Challenge: imagine Kyrie, Rudolf and Battler are the sole survivors of the incident. Can you form a remotely plausible case against them using only the information that an R-Prime prosecutor would have? As far as I can tell it would have to be something along the lines of "So Kinzo had this big stack of explosives, which he rigged to blow on demand for some reason. Kyrie somehow learnt about this stack of explosives at some point and set them off. Here are some message bottles we found, they appear to the the confessions of someone else."