[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Kylon99]

Maybe he hasn't shown it to us because it's ultimately not important, both the mechanics and the riddle. Like solving the epitaph ultimately turned out only to have some minor influence on the murders. It may have changed the way it turned out but did not stop it.

Sorta like how we all thought the conspiracy to hide Kinzo's death was central to the murders... until EP5 showed us those involved in it were not, at least because of that particular reason.

I'm guessing he may not even really show us anything about it in the end. I think we can come up with enough assumptions to complete the story if he just shows us a few more things. (Like the location of the tunnel entrance or the gold.)



Er... sorry to add in something else but I was just thinking about 'what conspiracies are left.' Because of the remaining conspiracies (assuming we can even list all of them), one must be central to reason why the murders are being committed.

So I was thinking, look at Kyrie's behavior in EP6. She's told to choose a room to fake being dead in so she goes, "Ok... I get too choose any room, huh? Let's see what I can dig up in Krauss' study." At least that's why I think she chose that room. So in her spare moments she's still acting for the Blackmail Krauss faction, it seems. If that's the case, I doubt she's actually in on any of the other conspiraces... right?

She's a pretty tough character. I think now it's fitting that they chose Major Kusanagi's voice actress for her. I expect her to start jumping off walls now...

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Maybe he hasn't shown it to us because it's ultimately not important, both the mechanics and the riddle. Like solving the epitaph ultimately turned out only to have some minor influence on the murders. It may have changed the way it turned out but did not stop it.

Ryuskishi said you need to be on the island to solve the final small percentage of the riddle right? This sounds like something you have to be on the island for. We can speculate what it is, but ultimately you have to be on the island to know what it is and he's not just going to tell us.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Maybe he hasn't shown it to us because it's ultimately not important, both the mechanics and the riddle. Like solving the epitaph ultimately turned out only to have some minor influence on the murders. It may have changed the way it turned out but did not stop it.

Maybe. But if the chapel door lock is actually the trigger component in the epitaph riddle, and the door does not really lock like everyone thinks it does -- and like the red wants us to think but does not actually say, letting us imply that -- that busts open the use of the chapel as a closed room and suggests that the one involved in those particular murders knows the real function of the chapel door lock.

And that would be useful.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

So I was thinking, look at Kyrie's behavior in EP6. She's told to choose a room to fake being dead in so she goes, "Ok... I get too choose any room, huh? Let's see what I can dig up in Krauss' study." At least that's why I think she chose that room. So in her spare moments she's still acting for the Blackmail Krauss faction, it seems. If that's the case, I doubt she's actually in on any of the other conspiraces... right?

Some could still be compatible. We need a list of all the suspected conspiracies with goals, I think.

[Renall]

Hide Kinzo's Death and Blackmail Krauss are the two factions we can be absolutely certain exist. We can also be somewhat confident that the two groups' memberships do not overlap, as their objectives are directly at odds with each other. Or at least, so it appears.

It's the murder factions and/or epitaph and/or Beatrice factions that are the tricky ones.

[Kylon99]

Ok... digging out my EP4 faction list here and updating it a little...

1. Blackmail Krauss
- Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie

2. Hide Kinzo's Death
- Natsuhi, Krauss, Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo, Shannon, Kanon, Gouda

3. Beatrice faction
- Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo, Shannon, Kanon, Maria, Rosa. -- Maybe Kyrie, Jessica, George, Kinzo?

4. Betrayer Faction
- Unknown members. (George? Shannon?)

5. 10th Twilight Bomber Faction
- Beatrice? Kinzo?

6. Unknown Faction
- Rudolf, Kyrie (appear to have their own agenda)

7. Unknown Faction
- Hideyoshi, George (appear to have their own agenda)

8. Unknown Faction
- George, Shannon. Jessica? Kanon?


There may be more factions.

Ok, so if you start with that, adding factions as necessary, you can assign events to them, some of which is obvious now. This is a list of events which MAY have happened in all episodes or was intended to happen, at least. Some of these events may have been done by the same faction or person, even right after another, but that will become apparent even if we think of them separately.

- Writing of the Epitaph
- Delivering the gold to Kinzo
- Hiding existence of Beatrice-'67
- Creating Beatrice of Legend through pranks and tricks
- Creating Battler's Beatrice
- Teaching Maria magic
- Writing in Maria's diary
- Showing Maria magic tricks to convince her it's real
- Writing the Episode letters
- Casting Episode letters into the sea in bottles
- Gathering money to pay off the 07151129 people
- Depositing money for the 07151129 people
- Sending letters for the 07151129 people
- Circle painting
- Creating Kinzo's Live status through lies (so this one is obvious)
- First Twilight Fakery
- First Twilight Murders
- First Twilight Body Movers
- Body Mutilators
- Body Stakers
- Second Twilight Murders
- Kanon goes rogue (fakes death)
- Kanon dies/disappears/killed
- Holding Kinzo's ring
- Delivering Kinzo's ring
- Sealing Beatrice's letters with ring and wax
- Writing Beatrice's letters
- Delivering Beatrice's letters
- Writing Kinzo's will
- Executing Kinzo's will
- Rigging the explosion to occur at Oct 6 00:00 hrs.
- Re-rigging the explosion so that it can't be shut down. (Possible)
- Retrieving Kinzo's body
- Burning Kinzo's body


Can anyone think of anything else?

[Judoh]

The letters. You forgot about who made Beatrice's letters. That's the only thing I see missing from your list. We should note though that the family members think it's a prank from Kinzo I'm not sure if that was the intention or not, but...

EDIT: Oh and the message bottles too I suppose.

[Oliver]

Abrupt. I just made one more logical conclusion from what I just said.

Assuming that I am correct about chapel door lock not actually being a lock that extends a locking bolt, but a mechanism to trigger the further progress down the epitaph, and the door is holding closed mostly by the power of friction and Kinzo's strict orders, there is a really good reason for the Ep2 first twilight to actually give the key to Maria and want her to use it.

Let us remember that finding the gold would solve everyone's problems at once as Renall explained previously. But what happens if the adults find it? Ep3 happens. They try to keep the gold secret and to themselves, then they kill each other over it. There is actually no guarantee that George or Jessica won't do it either. Battler is an unknown at this point, who just came back and his character is not something a crafty plotter would rely on outright.

But what if Maria finds the gold? She is brutally honest and pure enough to just share it equally amongst everyone, which would, actually, solve everything, and who cares who gets to be the head after that, maybe they can all be happy with each other for a while. Maria being the boss would certainly be poetic justice.

So our crafty plotter X notifies the family that Maria actually knows the answer to the riddle, and will come to the chapel to lead everyone to the gold. Make a surprise party for her, the plotter X says, so she doesn't throw a tantrum and refuse to share it with you. Give the kid a break. The plotter X plans to give Maria the key words at a more opportune moment, and either let her figure out the rest by herself -- she's clearly smart enough to do the letter permutations and knows enough English even if figuring everything before that point would be beyond her -- or simply tell her to wiggle the key just so when they don't have to use their fingers to explain.

The adults happily go along, and then something goes wrong -- they succumb to sedatives in the tea they drank previously. Plotter X is either one of the unfortunates or just sits there dumbfounded not sure what to do now, and the key remains in Maria's bag.

Then someone else comes by and kills the adults at the party table, film at 11, everything goes downhill from there.

[Judoh]

Assuming that's the case why was the letter on the party table sealed if they knew Maria was going to find the gold for them? And what's stopping them from laughing it off as some kind of joke?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Assuming that's the case why was the letter on the party table sealed if they knew Maria was going to find the gold for them? And what's stopping them from laughing it off as some kind of joke?

In that setup, the letter on the table was left by whoever actually killed them for yet another reason.

And three gold bars would go a long way towards preventing the adults from laughing it off, I expect.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Oliver

In that setup, the letter on the table was left by whoever actually killed them for yet another reason.

And three gold bars would go a long way towards preventing the adults from laughing it off, I expect.

It would make more sense if Maria already knew the answer from the beginning. When they found them dead Maria laughs at everyone saying that "they would never be able to solve it" . This either implies she knows where the gold is already and she's in on a scheme to challenge them OR that she has some reason to think they wouldn't be able to solve it (Beatrice thinks they can't). But I always thought she was just mocking them and didn't know herself.

The chapel as the location though doesn't make sense to me simply because nobody is allowed there. Everybody would think of it as a suspicious place if that was the case. I can't see why nobody would be curious until now. It also makes the quadrillion hint rather useless as the key if it's just pointing back to the place you started at.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

It would make more sense if Maria already knew the answer from the beginning.

Well, that is also a feasible variant, it's not required for this scenario to work that Maria doesn't know the answer to the riddle on the 4th. The First Letter is priming the adults for this scenario with a suitable mystique to protect Maria by directing their hostility at someone who doesn't actually exist.

Surely, between Maria finding the gold and an unknown Beatrice finding the gold, the adults will prefer Maria.

There remains a problem of who writes the sealed letters after the first twilight though. But it is automatically solved if the Plotter X is actually among the dead in it, and the murderer takes it from their body, or, more complicated but less plausible explanations could exist.

[Judoh]

Well Kaisos Erranon has noticed that the letters usually don't appear anymore after Genji dies, but I've also noticed they stop appearing after George dies too. George is always the first person to notice them anyway. He literally points out the letters detailing Beatrice's contract/epitaph challenge first every time without fail. Not just at dinner, but at the chapel too.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

The chapel as the location though doesn't make sense to me simply because nobody is allowed there. Everybody would think of it as a suspicious place if that was the case. I can't see why nobody would be curious until now. It also makes the quadrillion hint rather useless as the key if it's just pointing back to the place you started at.

Strangely, none of the adults ever mention or go to the chapel unless someone finds a body there or is AWOL and being searched for - and then, they are probably that body. Otherwise, they prefer to forget it exists. So does Jessica.

But I suspect that if you get whacked upon the head from childhood to adulthood for going there, blocking out the memories together with the chapel is not that much of a stretch.

The quadrillion hint is not useless in that case, though. Battler actually observes the hints in the wrong order, you're supposed to start at the epitaph, find the key, then think of what to apply it to - which would be the quadrillion - and the location where you find it would make it easy to tell what to do after that.

[Kylon99]

Unless part of solving the epitaph is to obtain the key to the church in the other episodes. Which means during cleaning, Genji or Kumasawa or someone else takes the key out from *hidden spot.*

It could be as simple as Rosa solving the epitaph way in advance (or having gained information from the servants) and then presenting Maria with the key. It's not like until the next morning did anyone know the key to the church was in Maria's hand. Then Rosa and Maria takes a small trip to the golden land, takes out 3 bars.

Can we track Maria's movements in EP2? This is the most simple explanation for the church to be opened... if Maria used the key herself. We just lacked a motive before... (I kept think it was Rosa who found the gold...)

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

We just lacked a motive before... (I kept think it was Rosa who found the gold...)

I actually keep coming back the the idea that Rosa has to be a subspecies of Beatrice - while at least one other exists. She's the only one who has an unquestioned opportunity to teach Maria enough about hermetic magic, she is seen solving the epitaph on at least one occasion, she can even write in Maria's diary when she's asleep and make the words magically appear there if she wanted to.

And yet there's enough characterisation pieces that make it very unlikely.

[Judoh]

Actually if Maria found the gold Rosa murdering the parents at the party suddenly makes more sense. While Maria would willingly share it Rosa might be in shock and might decide not to share it. It also explains her over protectiveness or her indifference toward Maria in episode 2.

I'm actually starting to wonder if Rosa knows more about who Beatrice is in Episode 2 than she lets on.

of course I don't think she's a mastermind or a culprit in every episode or anything, but she suddenly has more of a motive to do crazy things now.

[Kylon99]

Well, the top Beatrice candidates are Shannon, Jessica and Rosa anyways. The top '67 look alike that is. People suspect Kumasawa of being the former Beatrice as well.

We have evidence of multiple Beatrice's anyways...
- Long dress Beatrice
- Suit Beatrice
- Beatrice of Legend
- Moetrice

Couldn't we actually assign people to different Beatrices? (Or is that Beatrici -- seeing as it's an Italian name.... )

Suit Beatrice - Jessica?
Long dress Beatrice - Shannon? Rosa? combined?
Beatrice of Legend - Jessica?
Moetrice - Shannon?


By the way, Suit Beatrice was the one who wanted Battler to remember his sin. But maybe that particular sin didn't have to do with Long dress or Moetrice's love for Battler. For example if it was Battler running away from taking headship, it could've been a sin against Kinzo... or something.

EDIT: actually, Long Dress Beatrice was never really shown on the gameboard as someone people were interacting with (at least not in obviously illusory scenes like Natsuhi's delusions). So that leaves 3 people for 3 Beatrices... it seems.

Suit Beatrice - Jessica?
Long dress Beatrice - All combined into the Meta world
Beatrice of Legend - Rosa?
Moetrice - Shannon?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Suit Beatrice - Jessica?
Long dress Beatrice - Shannon? Rosa? combined?
Beatrice of Legend - Jessica?
Moetrice - Shannon?

I am currently leaning towards Dress-Beatrice being Rosa. Mind you, the distribution of labour that goes on around here has to be rather complicated, and they are probably unaware of actually competing for the title.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

By the way, Suit Beatrice was the one who wanted Battler to remember his sin. But maybe that particular sin didn't have to do with Long dress or Moetrice's love for Battler. For example if it was Battler running away from taking headship, it could've been a sin against Kinzo... or something.

That is a possibility, it could have been a promise made to Kinzo. It could actually be several conflicting promises made to different characters.

One interesting, if too subtle, thing I noticed is that when in Ep2 Nanjo talks to Kinzo and mentions Battler, Kinzo is not too thrilled he's coming back, and the way Nanjo's phrase is worded, it implies that Kinzo completely immersed himself in research around the time Battler left. It could be a translation artifact, but I'm not sure.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

By the way, Suit Beatrice was the one who wanted Battler to remember his sin. But maybe that particular sin didn't have to do with Long dress or Moetrice's love for Battler. For example if it was Battler running away from taking headship, it could've been a sin against Kinzo... or something.

Well actually it was Dress Beatrice who threw a tantrum and burned Kinzo when Battler didn't remember his sin not Suit, but the change is kind of out of Battler's sight.

Spoiler for Jessica:

People think Jessica is the burner because of her FISTS OF FIRE in episode 6. It's kind of contrived.

Also I don't see Kanon in that list.

EDIT: If Jessica is dress Beato that probably means she has a "Nobody sees me like a girl! I can be girly..!" complex...

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Judoh

It would make more sense if Maria already knew the answer from the beginning. When they found them dead Maria laughs at everyone saying that "they would never be able to solve it" . This either implies she knows where the gold is already and she's in on a scheme to challenge them OR that she has some reason to think they wouldn't be able to solve it (Beatrice thinks they can't). But I always thought she was just mocking them and didn't know herself.

In Episode 2, when Battler, Rosa, and Maria are holed up in the parlor, Battler and Maria work on the epitaph, and she doesn't claim to have the solution.