[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I'd say it was placed by Maria. She says herself she is the "witch's messenger", so it would be reasonable for her to give out the letters that the witch cannot place herself.

Or it was Rosa and she wanted an excuse to force Battler out, but her reactions make more sense if she is actually confused by the events from a certain point onwards...unless of course she actually still believes that it is all a game.

I don't think Maria is capable of deliberate deception though. Her honesty is strongly stressed in episode one, and her testimony is generally 'true' from her perspective.

e: it would also be a lot easier for an adult to trick a young child.

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I don't think Maria is capable of deliberate deception though. Her honesty is strongly stressed in episode one, and her testimony is generally 'true' from her perspective.

e: it would also be a lot easier for an adult to trick a young child.

All the more reason why it's possible. Don't you think if an adult handed her a letter saying it was from Beatrice, that she'd listen and follow directions?

Maria's childlike honesty is what makes it easy to make her an Unwilling Accomplice

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by ALPHA-Beatrice

Maria's childlike honesty is what makes it easy to make her an Unwilling Accomplice

But EP4 makes it pretty clear on the other hand that this is rather naivety, not really honesty. She is very capable of lying, see her "But Kyrie did tell you that it's witches, didn't she?", as well as playacting when she is handling the phone conversations.

I also suppose that the scene where she asks Beatrice for the magic to punish and kill Rosa, is supposed to be the point where she becomes Beatrice's official accomplice in the plot that is being planned.
Maria also mentions in EP4 that only the bad mama, the witch, would die and then only the good mama would revive in the Golden Land. It all seems like Maria is very much aware of what is going on and just learned how to appear innocent and sweet.

Prime Battler only recognized the truth, at best midway through the events in Prime. And if he helped Yasu with anything, it would be to the "clean up" she confessed to, as well as leaving Rokkenjima.

But Prime Battler IMO wasn't an accomplice to the crimes Yasu committed.

We don't know when Battler exactly realized things, but I would agree that it was likely at a point where it was already too late. If we see the end of EP5 not only as a mirror of Tohya's state, but also as an insight into what happened between them on the island, then Battler didn't realize anything while Beato/Yasu was still alive.

But I don't know if you payed attention to the last few pages, but yes, Prime Battler was likely no accomplice in crime to Yasu...because Yasu is apparently not the one doing the killings.

[Leafsnail]

She'll certainly follow instructions from Beatrice, but her speech is consistently truthful from her perspective. She believes in Beatrice's resurrection ceremony, so of course she thinks Kyrie told Battler about witches.

[jjblue1]

I think the problem with Maria is she willingly deceives herself to the point she believes in her own deception.
She's like a child who's at the brink of the age in which they stop believing in Santa Claus because other children tell him it's not true but hadn't quite gotten there yet.
She knows Sakutarou is just a puppet and she uses tricks to make him talk but she refuses to believe it and suffers if someone make her face a relity she's technically aware of (otherwise she wouldn't speak for him, she would hear him speaking in her mind) but that she denies.

In a way when Ange tosses herself down of a building she's the ultimate form of that denial.
She wants to rewrite the truth with an Eva-culprit theory she knows being false because she can't accept the truth.

So Maria is not really naive or innocent... she's more... self-guillible?
She embraces wholeheartedly whatever theory might work to make her life better.
She believes because she wants to, not because she can't realize it's false... but at the same time she doesn't do it with the intentional purpose to deceive others.
She's naive as she seems to think that just by believing in something it'll become true.

So if she insists it's Beatrice that gave her the letter than somehow the person who gave her the letter will become Beatrice and she hadn't lied.

She's also similar to children who close their eyes and believe that, since they can't see, the others can't see them as well.

Also I think that in Ep 3, when Rosa was killed, the scene was constructed to represent the fact she realized 'Beatrice' had killed her mother for real and that there will not be a magical resurrection or something. That's probably why Beatrice had to kill her even if to part the two who're close it would have been enough to just kill Rosa; because Maria was going to have a moment in which she would face the truth and not be swayed by what she wished to be the truth. She would tell that Shannon or Kanon, claiming to be possessed by Beatrice, killed Mama.

It's similar to the ending of Ep 2 in which she faces the fact there's no a good mama and a bad witch but just Rosa. Personally I think it's a pity that after Ep 3 her growth wasn't explored and she returned being the child who believes blindly in Beatrice and is unable to face the truth.

Even Ep 6 sort of bypassed this. Although she proves some inner strenght in facing Erika she insisted on her witch version. True, she pranked Erika but this doesn't mean to deny that Beatrice tricked her, only to search for another way to get even with Erika.


As for Battler I'll say in Ep 5 Battler is an accomplice only for something 'minor' like tricking Natsuhi. He doesn't know people are being killed for real. Probably if Ep 5 were to continue he'll confess he and his parents pranked her then they'll realize people is really dead and chaos would ensue, giving Yasu the chance to kill 5 more people.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I'd say it was placed by Maria. She says herself she is the "witch's messenger", so it would be reasonable for her to give out the letters that the witch cannot place herself.

Or it was Rosa and she wanted an excuse to force Battler out, but her reactions make more sense if she is actually confused by the events from a certain point onwards...unless of course she actually still believes that it is all a game.

I'd say I think she does, considering how forceful she was when pulling Battler away from Shannon's corpse. I think she was afraid he would find out if he actually touched her.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

As for Battler I'll say in Ep 5 Battler is an accomplice only for something 'minor' like tricking Natsuhi. He doesn't know people are being killed for real. Probably if Ep 5 were to continue he'll confess he and his parents pranked her then they'll realize people is really dead and chaos would ensue, giving Yasu the chance to kill 5 more people.

I don't remember ep 5 very well, so feel free to fill me in, but why does Battler have to be an accomplice? Couldn't Yasu have made those calls? I know they're using his voice in the PS3 version, but I thought it was just to confused.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Witch of Uncertainty

I don't remember ep 5 very well, so feel free to fill me in, but why does Battler have to be an accomplice? Couldn't Yasu have made those calls? I know they're using his voice in the PS3 version, but I thought it was just to confused.

Ignoring Battler's participation in the first twilight, at least one of the calls couldn't have been made by Yasu because Natsuhi heard Kanon on the other side of her door while she was on the phone. Another call happened while Yasu and Battler were demonstrably in the same room, so there's no way Battler didn't at least know about it.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Witch of Uncertainty

I don't remember ep 5 very well, so feel free to fill me in, but why does Battler have to be an accomplice? Couldn't Yasu have made those calls? I know they're using his voice in the PS3 version, but I thought it was just to confused.

The manga confirmed Yasu did make some of the calls if not all of them.
Battler is an accomplice because:
- he was probably told how to find the gold and didn't solve the epitaph (although this is only vaguely implied)
- he pretended the ring of the head was delivered magically when actually either Kanon or Shannon handed it to the adults
- he pretended George and Co were dead when he knows they're alive from when he screamed to when they left the room and, especially, when Erika entered in the room
- he pretended Hideyoshi too died when they set up his death so as to trick Natsuhi.
- he likely know Krauss had been 'kidnapped' and held somewhere

At the same time though Battler doesn't know people, after faking their own death were killed. He also likely doesn't know it's Shannon/Kanon who's doing the killing and who's the mastermind of the plan but most probably think they're just accomplices in the same way as he is.

So although with his actions he actually helps Yasu in her plans, he had no idea of what he's exactly helping her to do.
He also isn't very good at thinking at the consequences of his actions, although he's usually doesn't mean bad. I think he honestly starts feeling guilty about what Natsuhi is going thought and he wasn't acting out of greed.

More likely he was told that Natsuhi was hiding Kinzo's death and this was wrong and since he agreed on this he wanted her to confess about it thinking that if pressured Natsuhi would have admitted she'd done wrong.
He probably had no idea things would turn so ugly, let alone that people would die for real.

[GoldenLand]

I've been spending a bit of time on trying to make a floor plan of the mansion. At this point, the plan is still very much a work in progress, but I'd like to post the rough version of the ground floor plan to see if people think it looks right before I go on to make a final version. Any glaring errors there, or comments or suggestions about things that ought to be done with the plan?

Spoiler for Rough ground floor plan:

Spoiler for notes about the layout, cut for space:

Areas we know are on the ground floor from the VN:
Entrance hall
Parlour
Dining hall
Kitchen
Courtyard (with two doors into the mansion and stairs up from the boiler room)
Waiting room
Servants' room
Stairs to boiler room in the basement
Guest room (1)
Guest room (2)

There have to be at least two guest rooms on the ground floor, because Natsuhi was instructed by phone to go into the foremost guest room on that floor.

Rooms I've included that are not specifically listed but which might exist:
Guest room (3)
Guest room (4)

These might be unnecessary. I may end up replacing or removing one or two of the ground floor guest room placements with other things. The reason they're in there for the time being is because the next floor up is seen as Krauss' family home, where people can't wander freely, and Battler mentions remembering having got in trouble once for trying to go up there. So for preference they would have wanted to have a number of guest rooms on the ground floor during the time there was no guest house. The mansion probably needs to have a reasonable amount of guest rooms spread throughout in order to account for how many people might have stayed there at pre-guest house conferences. (I'd say at least five of them, maybe more.) Still, we know that the ones upstairs are used sometimes. There are probably two on the next floor up, aside from the Honoured Guest Room.

Rooms which are present in the manga:
Womens' toilet (ep 8)
Mens' toilet (ep 8)

Those are depicted in the manga on opposite sides of a short hall, with a window at the end of that hall.


The reason I've put in a wall between the two halls with guest rooms in them there is because of the order that Kanon enters the mansion to save Battler from the logic error. If there had been a shorter route, he would have taken it.

He was heading for Battler's guest room.

He ran past the servant room, through the entrance hall, and past the door to the parlor. Then, the doors to the kitchen and the dining hall came into sight...

And also because of a line about Genji.

The distance from the kitchen to the parlor wasn't that big, so Genji had gone and come back by himself, but the guest room was a little farther away.

I'm a bit conflicted about the positions of the kitchen and the dining hall. On the one hand we have the Kanon segment above, where he's said to see the doors to the kitchen and dining room (rooms listed in that order), but he might potentially have seen either of them first.

The door to the boiler room has to be before the kitchen, as

Before they even reached the kitchen, Kanon and Kumasawa, who had gone ahead, realized that the smell wasn't coming from there.

That was because, on their way to the kitchen, they realized that an even thicker wave of stench was rising up from the stairs leading to the basement.

The smell was first noticed when people were about at the parlour, I think, so that's one reason for placing the kitchen after the dining hall, to give enough of a gap that they might not realise instantly where the smell originated.

Also, the kitchen has to be far away from the entrance hall, because of what Battler thought on entering the building once.

I could sense a delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen, which should have been far away, and my empty stomach was encouraged even more.

I've found this floor quite tricky on account of the different look of the mansion between the different versions of the series. I know that Ryukishi based the mansion on a real house, but I can't find great pictures of that house and there's really no guarantee that its rooms and layout thereof would correspond exactly with the rooms listed in Umineko.

[Uberzaki]

Hi guys,

Time for that occasional lurker post from me.

I was wondering what your interpretations of the "red guts scene" was? Specifically the bit where Beatrice was asking why 'Father' was making her wear the dress (If I recall correctly).

I once thought it may have been the part where Kinzo would have the epitaph painting made using her as a model, assuming this Beatrice is Yasu. On the other hand, the red guts scene portrays its recipients in a slightly less sympathetic light (some might dispute even this), which would make that scene inconsistent.

P.S. I look forward to Renall's bolded-bullet-pointed paragraphs; If he would be so kind, they are always a great read.

[Leafsnail]

I thought it was Beatrice II in that scene - Yasu doesn't think of Kinzo as her father, and she would probably understand the meaning of the dress since she knows about the painting.

It's less sympathetic because it's directly confronting the fact that Kinzo forced Beatrice-II to play the part of his lost lover. It's a part of the story that the narrative seems to carefully avoid otherwise, other than the vague scene in Banquet.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Uberzaki

Hi guys,

Time for that occasional lurker post from me.

I was wondering what your interpretations of the "red guts scene" was? Specifically the bit where Beatrice was asking why 'Father' was making her wear the dress (If I recall correctly).

I once thought it may have been the part where Kinzo would have the epitaph painting made using her as a model, assuming this Beatrice is Yasu. On the other hand, the red guts scene portrays its recipients in a slightly less sympathetic light (some might dispute even this), which would make that scene inconsistent.

P.S. I look forward to Renall's bolded-bullet-pointed paragraphs; If he would be so kind, they are always a great read.

Hum... no.
The bits in the red guts scene were

"S, steal the Italians' gold, you say? You coward, Ushiromiya! And you call yourself a soldier of the Empire?!!"

"......F, Father......? I, I do love and respect you, Father...... B, but, ...your feelings are something I, ummm......"

"Why...?!! Why did you save me?! Why didn't you let me die?! Because of that terrible injury, ......I've been forced to live in a body like this!! I never wanted to live in a body like this!! This body that isn't even capable of love......!! What's...what's the point in living like that?! This isn't a human's life...!! It's like being furniture!!"
"That's right, I'm...furniture...!! Furniture...!! Why......why didn't you let me die back then?!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh......!!!"

The first refers to Kinzo being the one who thought about stealing the gold and not Yamamoto and possibly being the mastermind behind the tragedy.

The second refers to Kuwadorian Beatrice trying to tell Kinzo she loves him like a father and not like a man, implying that by making her pregnant Kinzo might have forced himself on her

The third refers to Yasu likely after Kinzo died, when she learnt the truth about what had happened to her.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I've been spending a bit of time on trying to make a floor plan of the mansion. At this point, the plan is still very much a work in progress, but I'd like to post the rough version of the ground floor plan to see if people think it looks right before I go on to make a final version. Any glaring errors there, or comments or suggestions about things that ought to be done with the plan?

Spoiler for Rough ground floor plan:

Spoiler for notes about the layout, cut for space:

Areas we know are on the ground floor from the VN:
Entrance hall
Parlour
Dining hall
Kitchen
Courtyard (with two doors into the mansion and stairs up from the boiler room)
Waiting room
Servants' room
Stairs to boiler room in the basement
Guest room (1)
Guest room (2)

There have to be at least two guest rooms on the ground floor, because Natsuhi was instructed by phone to go into the foremost guest room on that floor.

Rooms I've included that are not specifically listed but which might exist:
Guest room (3)
Guest room (4)

These might be unnecessary. I may end up replacing or removing one or two of the ground floor guest room placements with other things. The reason they're in there for the time being is because the next floor up is seen as Krauss' family home, where people can't wander freely, and Battler mentions remembering having got in trouble once for trying to go up there. So for preference they would have wanted to have a number of guest rooms on the ground floor during the time there was no guest house. The mansion probably needs to have a reasonable amount of guest rooms spread throughout in order to account for how many people might have stayed there at pre-guest house conferences. (I'd say at least five of them, maybe more.) Still, we know that the ones upstairs are used sometimes. There are probably two on the next floor up, aside from the Honoured Guest Room.

Rooms which are present in the manga:
Womens' toilet (ep 8)
Mens' toilet (ep 8)

Those are depicted in the manga on opposite sides of a short hall, with a window at the end of that hall.


The reason I've put in a wall between the two halls with guest rooms in them there is because of the order that Kanon enters the mansion to save Battler from the logic error. If there had been a shorter route, he would have taken it.



And also because of a line about Genji.



I'm a bit conflicted about the positions of the kitchen and the dining hall. On the one hand we have the Kanon segment above, where he's said to see the doors to the kitchen and dining room (rooms listed in that order), but he might potentially have seen either of them first.

The door to the boiler room has to be before the kitchen, as


The smell was first noticed when people were about at the parlour, I think, so that's one reason for placing the kitchen after the dining hall, to give enough of a gap that they might not realise instantly where the smell originated.

Also, the kitchen has to be far away from the entrance hall, because of what Battler thought on entering the building once.



I've found this floor quite tricky on account of the different look of the mansion between the different versions of the series. I know that Ryukishi based the mansion on a real house, but I can't find great pictures of that house and there's really no guarantee that its rooms and layout thereof would correspond exactly with the rooms listed in Umineko.

I love your idea to make a map for the house. I would have loved if the game had one.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Uberzaki

Hi guys,

Time for that occasional lurker post from me.

I was wondering what your interpretations of the "red guts scene" was? Specifically the bit where Beatrice was asking why 'Father' was making her wear the dress (If I recall correctly).

Yasu probably heard the same stories about Kinzo's meeting with Beatrice I and treatment of Beatrice II that Will got during the episode, but she had no way of knowing whether those stories were true or not. What we got in the "red guts scene" are probably her most negative interpretation of what really happened. I think that her outburst about being furniture is kind of the same thing; she says that her deformity means she can't be loved, but that's actually because she doesn't trust other people not to reject her when they find out what's wrong with her.

So ultimately, I think the guts were telling us, "this is the part of Yasu's heart that was at the root of everything." She has a habit of assuming the worst of people in the absence of evidence. Dlanor even says as much in Our Confession when she's talking to Beatrice about whether to publish the story.

[GreyZone]

That brings up an interesting point, escpacially for EP1-2. While Beatrice usually assumes the worst of people, Battler assumes the best of people. That is why Battler did not "understand" the game and Beatrice failed to deliver her message to him in EP1-4. She only started to make the game easier from EP3 on, which we know are not message bottles originally.

[Uberzaki]

Oops, looks like I messed up then. I should have checked that chapter. I felt very smart for figuring that out, but I totally botched it.

[Leafsnail]

I've come up with a new interpretation after finally reading Our Confession.

Yasu spent ages meticulously planning her murders. She convinced herself on a conscious level that the Ushiromiya family deserved it, that it was the only way she could truly express her feelings. She wrote her stories and set up everything so she'd be ready for the big day.

Only the thing is, Yasu wasn't a murderer. She was an author and a fantasist. Her stories contain numerous instances of "and then they could find out and stop me", but instead of trying to think up countermeasures she simply kept on writing assuming that she got away with it. That's because, deep down, she didn't want to kill anyone. I'd go further, in fact - even if no-one had stopped her, she probably would have bailed on her plan the moment it called for her to murder someone. This is why we're meant to feel sympathy for her even though she plotted the killings.

On the day of the incident, Yasu called Kyrie and Rudolf into the gold room. Much like in Our Confession, she intended to use them as accomplices. Only it didn't work - Kyrie saw straight through her and realized they could beat her simply by solving the epitaph and charging the gold room. This is why Kyrie was so sure the bomb would work, incidentally - Yasu and Genji told her about it earlier, and pointed to the shrine as evidence. Yasu also talked about the exit in Our Confession, so Kyrie would have known how to escape.

Incidentally, it's interesting that Genji wasn't down there. It's possible that he said "fuck off you're crazy" to Yasu when she explained that she planned to actually kill people for real, thus ruining Yasu's plan before she even started it. When the parents burst into the gold room she therefore simply gave up.

From then on it's basically the standard ep7 Tea Party theory. It's not entirely clear why Kyrie would let Yasu live, but it might have been because she wanted to keep her son's girlfriend alive. She couldn't let Battler get away with abandoning her, afterall.

[Jaden]

That's viable and all, but it ends up putting the responsibility on Yasu still. To get accomplices, she can simply throw money and gold at them. The adults fall in line easily. Even if they solve the epitaph and find the gold room...why would Yasu tell them about the bomb? She isn't stupid. She must know that it can easily end up killing everyone, including the people she loves.

The question that led myself and others to theorize is: If Yasu didn't mean to really kill anyone, why did she not carry out her game in a more safe manner, without using the bomb? It seems like an unnecessary huge risk.

[Leafsnail]

Because, on a conscious level, she was fully intending to kill everyone. She'd made all the preparations required to do it. But the fact was that her heart wasn't in it and her plan would never have worked anyway because the key accomplice wasn't prepared to murder his best friend's family.

I guess she had to tell everyone about the bomb so that it could be deactivated, but I think she'd realized by that point that she'd doomed everyone anyway.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

That brings up an interesting point, escpacially for EP1-2. While Beatrice usually assumes the worst of people, Battler assumes the best of people. That is why Battler did not "understand" the game and Beatrice failed to deliver her message to him in EP1-4. She only started to make the game easier from EP3 on, which we know are not message bottles originally.

Yes, even when Battler made the right theory then he would deny it on the point that 'that person' wouldn't have done something so horrible. For Battler they're all nice guys... and when he has to accuse someone he ends up accusing himself (or Eva but because they placed her under a giant arrow that said "culprit").

It's also interesting how Beatrice sees why Battler left his home. To her it's because he wanted his father all for himself and didn't want to share him with an unknown woman but for Battler it's all because his father had betrayed his mother... and admits he's still having troubles forgiving him even if probably his mother would have done it already.

On a sidenote... I was re-reading EP 4. I remembered people said a hint that Amakusa was involved was the fact that Eva said 'cool' in English before dying... but actually Amakusa didn't use English through all Ep 4 although in the translation he says 'cool' but I assume he said in in Japanese though, since it isn't noted as English.

The only ones that use English are Battler, Erika, Ange and Beatrice... and considering Ange might not have shoot to Battler, Erika or Beatrice... can it be she killed the bad witch that lived in her mind and therefore herself?

Also...

am I the only one who find these lines disturbing?

"Nothing wrong with that, ri~ght?! That guy's so much like a younger you that it makes my heart race. Don't worry, I won't cheat on yooooou. This will be the only time I'll be alone with him. ......I'm always alone with you in bed, riiight...? But no more tying me to the bed with a collar, alright? Kuhhyahhahhahahahahaha...!!!"
"Well then, Battleer! I, the Golden Witch Beatrice, will be running your test myself! As for the place...yes. At the front entrance to this mansion! Battleer, make sure you try seriously hard for the test to become the next head, okaay? ......I mean, Kinzo's practically dead on his feet. If you become the next head, you'll be the new owner of everything on this island. ......If it's you, ......I wouldn't mind becoming all yours, see......? Just like Kinzo did, ......control me, okay......? Kuhhihihihihihihihi, uhhyahhahhahahahahahaha!"

"Scary, scaary... But it's not like I mind being controlled by violence, you see? Grab onto my head! Make my face twist in pain, tear me apart like a hawk does with its talons to its prey, scratch at me and violate me...!!
Aaah, remind me of Kinzo in his younger days once more...!! That single time in my thousand year life! Remind me of that day I was taught the joy of being controlled, surrendering and being reduced to furniture!! Uhyaaahhyahhyahhyahhya!!"

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I've come up with a new interpretation after finally reading Our Confession.

Yasu spent ages meticulously planning her murders. She convinced herself on a conscious level that the Ushiromiya family deserved it, that it was the only way she could truly express her feelings. She wrote her stories and set up everything so she'd be ready for the big day.

Only the thing is, Yasu wasn't a murderer. She was an author and a fantasist. Her stories contain numerous instances of "and then they could find out and stop me", but instead of trying to think up countermeasures she simply kept on writing assuming that she got away with it. That's because, deep down, she didn't want to kill anyone. I'd go further, in fact - even if no-one had stopped her, she probably would have bailed on her plan the moment it called for her to murder someone. This is why we're meant to feel sympathy for her even though she plotted the killings.

On the day of the incident, Yasu called Kyrie and Rudolf into the gold room. Much like in Our Confession, she intended to use them as accomplices. Only it didn't work - Kyrie saw straight through her and realized they could beat her simply by solving the epitaph and charging the gold room. This is why Kyrie was so sure the bomb would work, incidentally - Yasu and Genji told her about it earlier, and pointed to the shrine as evidence. Yasu also talked about the exit in Our Confession, so Kyrie would have known how to escape.

Incidentally, it's interesting that Genji wasn't down there. It's possible that he said "fuck off you're crazy" to Yasu when she explained that she planned to actually kill people for real, thus ruining Yasu's plan before she even started it. When the parents burst into the gold room she therefore simply gave up.

From then on it's basically the standard ep7 Tea Party theory. It's not entirely clear why Kyrie would let Yasu live, but it might have been because she wanted to keep her son's girlfriend alive. She couldn't let Battler get away with abandoning her, afterall.

Well, I fear for the part on how the murders started that Eva's diary in the manga version already answered that.

But yes, I also think Yasu wanted to kill everyone, planned to kill everyone but likely wouldn't have the guts to kill everyone, nor her plan would work as smoothly as in her books unless she's blessed with incredible good luck.

In her books basically, to make things work she also need the blind loyalty of Genji and Nanjo. Nanjo can be bribed (he has a sick grandchild) but Genji... I don't know... did she bribed it using his guilt?

[Leafsnail]

Nanjo can be bribed and threatened fairly easily - his sick grandchild is strong leverage since he feels he has to get back alive to save her. In the course of the episodes he does generally realize the murders are real, but is too scared to tell anyone about his role in the plot (think back to his conversation with Genji after the ep1 first twilight, for instance).

As far as I can tell Yasu basically assumed Genji was a robot: that he would follow any instructions from the Ushiromiya head. That's why he was called furniture in the stories. Only we know this isn't true - Genji went behind Kinzo's back on the whole Yasu thing. On some level Yasu may have realized this too, and that since Genji was loyal to the family he would actually be almost impossible to convince.