[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Disz

1.Why don't the authors know the culprit
2.How the culprit is alive.

Because:

• If they knew the culprit, (if any exists, mind you) one of the Ep1-4 stories would probably contain an "aha!" moment by a detective.
• If they knew the culprit and knew they are dead, the most reasonable motivation not to show themselves to reader-Battler - or, for that matter, Ange - would disappear.

Originally Posted by Disz

3.Why are they sending messages to this person without knowing who the culprit is,just to give them a riddle of who they are?

Personal reasons, multiple possible ones exist and I am not sure which to pick at the moment.

• They want Battler to know who Beatrice is and that she loved him. Renall even offered an idea that what Beatrice really wanted to tell him is that she forgives him.
• At the same time, they want to take the blame for the incident in it's entirety -- it's pretty obvious Beatrice is very probably scapegoating herself.

Originally Posted by Disz

4.I still don't get why the culprit wrote an EP7,or even put all he/she knows.

For example, because they still want everyone dead.

[Disz]

Ok,I understand.I can't say I'd be disappointed if this was the answer.Better yet,I'd rather go to youtube and see all the anime viewers just be confused shitless.I like it.

[Steampunk Librarian]

I won't lie, if this turns into a disaster fiction from mystery fiction (mystery must have a culprit), I will put Umineko into the pile of "well, so much for that."

The closed rooms, the hints/foreshadowing for certain characters set up to look like a murderer, just about everything is a redherring so that a girl can tell a guy how she feels? Yeah... I will pass.

[erneiz_hyde]

Whoaa, the multi-level fiction thing sure is complicated, but strangely it all make some sense o.o

going by that train of thought, the next game will either be that classic corner-of-the-cliff-finale or some last trick up the culprit's sleeve.

...and the culprit might be the perfect, elegant maid with fake boobs that is able to manipulate space and time to create closed rooms and is a skilled knife-thrower who throws stakes? <3

[Leafsnail]

Actually... something weird about the closed rooms.

Let's say you're trying to create a closed room to trick people. Why not... just cheat? Have another key made, find a way to do a chainlock from the outside. Sure, it's technically not as impressive, but noone on the gameboard would be able to tell the difference. The fact that the culprit goes out of their way to create a clever and intricate way of doing it... implies they are trying to prove to themselves that they're a witch.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Steampunk Librarian

I won't lie, if this turns into a disaster fiction from mystery fiction (mystery must have a culprit), I will put Umineko into the pile of "well, so much for that."

The closed rooms, the hints/foreshadowing for certain characters set up to look like a murderer, just about everything is a redherring so that a girl can tell a guy how she feels? Yeah... I will pass.

Beatrice's games would still be proper mystery fiction. If you want to play the detective according to all the Knox and van dine rules you have at least four stories to solve.

Ryuukishi never wanted to give us the assurance that umineko is a murder mystery novel, he never promised that to us. And it certainly can't be said that a story it's either a mystery or it sucks. Higurashi certainly broke a few mystery genre rules.


This is a game, a sort of puzzle game. Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together and deduce which are the missing pieces from the context is all that really matters for what concerns me. If then the final picture is something completely unexpected, well it doesn't seem a bad idea to me.
Frankly it's either that mousuka is right and Rudolf and Kyrie are the culprit, or there is no culprit. I think that after seeing all this stuff about psycho killers and such, even if you tell me hey the real culprit is George, that would feel uneventful. "Ah okay it's not Kyrie it's another of his relatives or friends, which Battler equally cares for, now that makes a whole lot of a difference!"
I just can't see any kind of whydunnit-whodunnit combo that would strike me as new. Everything has been speculated already, even inside the gameboard itself. And the hints for a motive... are lacking no matter what... you can only create superficial shallow reasons for any of the people involved using the hints at our disposal. Kyrie was probably the best shot you could use, followed maybe by George. But hell... I speculated George was the culprit from... Episode5! Can you picture it? "One year and a half later George actually happens to be the culprit, yay!" thrilling, outstanding, epic!

Either that, or you get a totally undeveloped culprit like Hideyoshi.


The way I see there is absolutely no way for this story to end in a satisfying way with the classic mystery murder novel ending. Ryuukishi needs to break into something different if he really wants to give us a great ending.


@Oliver
I do not really believe that the messages in the bottles were sent after the incident. I see the reasons behind this assumption, but if that was true they'd all say that Eva survived. Even if it's difficult to explain how this could happen it's still not completely impossible.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Steampunk Librarian

The closed rooms, the hints/foreshadowing for certain characters set up to look like a murderer, just about everything is a redherring so that a girl can tell a guy how she feels? Yeah... I will pass.

Everything we can tell about the first-order Rokkenjima Incident depends on Ange and how much of her experience is first order fiction -- or, if it's second order fiction, how much of it is true relating to the first order fiction.

Unfortunately it's hard to tell, and there are a few things odd about Ange in general, and in particular, Ange's experiences as described to us in Ep4 and Ep6. (So what really happened to her?)

Also, consider Ep7. Ep7 main narrative line concerns a world where Lion exists, confined within a location by plot forces, in which both Shannon and Kanon are somehow presented, (but never both at the same time) but Battler is conspicuously absent (why exactly?) and Ange is just as absent.

Ange is mentioned in Jessica's testimony and in Yasu's story. But Will deduces early on that Jessica's and Maria's testimony do not apply to Lion's world (that's why he asks about the seating order -- statements about the seating order from Maria and Jessica are impossible if Lion exists due to the Ushiromiya ranking) and apparently anything obtained through Spectator Authority does not. Actually pointing this out to Jessica confuses her utterly, but in a fashion that can't be used as clear evidence that Ange exists in Lion's world either.

Yet later in the tea party, Lion eventually remembers that Ange must exist.

So why isn't she present at the conference like everyone else? Her very abrupt illness is a constant if the point of divergence is the morning of the 4th, but why is she not there in Lion's world?

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Everything we can tell about the first-order Rokkenjima Incident depends on Ange and how much of her experience is first order fiction -- or, if it's second order fiction, how much of it is true relating to the first order fiction.

Unfortunately it's hard to tell, and there are a few things odd about Ange in general, and in particular, Ange's experiences as described to us in Ep4 and Ep6. (So what really happened to her?)

Also, consider Ep7. Ep7 main narrative line concerns a world where Lion exists, confined within a location by plot forces, in which both Shannon and Kanon are somehow presented, (but never both at the same time) but Battler is conspicuously absent (why exactly?) and Ange is just as absent.

Ange is mentioned in Jessica's testimony and in Yasu's story. But Will deduces early on that Jessica's and Maria's testimony do not apply to Lion's world (that's why he asks about the seating order -- statements about the seating order from Maria and Jessica are impossible if Lion exists due to the Ushiromiya ranking) and apparently anything obtained through Spectator Authority does not. Actually pointing this out to Jessica confuses her utterly, but in a fashion that can't be used as clear evidence that Ange exists in Lion's world either.

Yet later in the tea party, Lion eventually remembers that Ange must exist.

So why isn't she present at the conference like everyone else? Her very abrupt illness is a constant if the point of divergence is the morning of the 4th, but why is she not there in Lion's world?

Wait... Battler IS there in the chapel. In that alternate world it seems that everything went like usual in Rudolf's family.
Battler returned and Ange stayed home because of a sickness...

this is actually an interesting point if Ange's sickness is a lie...

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

@Oliver
I do not really believe that the messages in the bottles were sent after the incident. I see the reasons behind this assumption, but if that was true they'd all say that Eva survived. Even if it's difficult to explain how this could happen it's still not completely impossible.

Why should they say that Eva survived and purport to be a true account, if they're meant to be messages? Eva dying can be intentionally highlighting that they're fiction, or a significant part of the message itself. Until we can produce an interpretation of bottles-as-messages-post-factum that explains their true meaning, that argument is impossible to verify.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Wait... Battler IS there in the chapel. In that alternate world it seems that everything went like usual in Rudolf's family.
Battler returned and Ange stayed home because of a sickness...

this is actually an interesting point if Ange's sickness is a lie...

Is he? I have never seen his sprite, Will never questioned him, and while I may be mistaken in my reading, I don't think anyone said he is actually here.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Is he? I have never seen his sprite, Will never questioned him, and while I may be mistaken in my reading, I don't think anyone said he is actually here.

Uh... what the... you are right... he's not there... I could swear he was with the cousins...

So this is definitely strange... he should be there, at least the Battler from the normal world should...

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Actually... something weird about the closed rooms.

Let's say you're trying to create a closed room to trick people. Why not... just cheat? Have another key made, find a way to do a chainlock from the outside. Sure, it's technically not as impressive, but noone on the gameboard would be able to tell the difference. The fact that the culprit goes out of their way to create a clever and intricate way of doing it... implies they are trying to prove to themselves that they're a witch.

...Or else, that the culprit intends to reveal the trick later and wants to get praised for her cleverness instead of being booed off the stage. Which would fit the M.O. of a mystery writer perfectly.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

...and the culprit might be the perfect, elegant maid with fake boobs that is able to manipulate space and time to create closed rooms and is a skilled knife-thrower who throws stakes? <3

That's the beauty of it.

Nothing actually stops a writer living in a first-order fiction (written by Ryukishi) from presenting an ridiculous second-order fiction, (written by that writer-character) in which such a culprit exists.
That is, nothing forbids Ryukishi from having a heroine that is a hack writer without being a hack writer himself at the same time!

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Uh... what the... you are right... he's not there... I could swear he was with the cousins...

So this is definitely strange... he should be there, at least the Battler from the normal world should...

Precisely my point. Will's remarks to Claire about Battler not being here actually highlight that. If Ange was born and Rudolf remarried as in all other cases, Battler's motivation to leave exists and can be the same -- but then, why isn't he back, and where did the motivation for Rudolf to beg Battler to return go?

[Jan-Poo]

I didn't really believe it but...

I had this crackpot theory that Rudolf went that far to get Battler back because he needed him to have a chance to get Yasu in his family...

that is... this theory assumes that the fact that Yasu became the new heir is something known by the adults...
you'd have to write as lies a lot of stuff to accept this though...


But still that chapel was a catbox the fusion of two realities, Battler was supposed to be there!

[Steampunk Librarian]

My problem is that I feel duped if this story has no culprit, no murders etc. The story started as a mystery, and I enjoy reading mystery novels (though not as much as some of the other members here). Bending the genre is fine, exploring the genre is fine, but to completely change what I was reading from, who is Beatrice (and possibly who is she the scapegoat for) to who loves Battler and why are they writing fictitious stories about the slaughter of his entire family... I'm sorry, but that just isn't what I came here (to reading arcs 1-6) for.

I guess my issue is, putting aside that I've possibly wasted my money, if there is no culprit, then why is the person who is claiming to be Beatrice writing down closed room murders and such if this is just a roundabout way to claim Battler's love? I don't understand why someone would do such things.

Originally, I will admit, I toyed around with the idea that the cousins and the servants were playing a story game with each other (had this idea some time after I finished arc 5), but that idea is equally as unfulfilling as the idea that there was no real mystery. A bomb did it.

[Will Wright]

Well, considering how easy to solve the actual murders are(seriously, Battler is incompetent) it's expected that the Meta-Aspect of the series is the hardest puzzle. I think we will get a culprit, a solution, logic just like us mystery fans like. But Ryuukishi will turn that mystery we love so much into a metaphor about someone's love letter.

I mean I'm not sure about Battler, but I would fall for just about any girl who wrote so many murder mysteries as a way of telling me she liked me.

So I think we will get the best of both worlds. Well, we'll have to wait until episode 8 though. I think we are all on a roll though. Meta author, Double Shkanon, if we keep this up we can solve the entire thing before episode 8 is released.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Steampunk Librarian

then why is the person who is claiming to be Beatrice writing down closed room murders and such if this is just a roundabout way to claim Battler's love? I don't understand why someone would do such things.

How the idea that Beatrice actually performed a serial closed room murder as just a roundabout way to claim Battler's love makes more sense?

Beatrice: "Battler you did it! You solved every mystery now we can love each other! Ah and sorry for having killed your father, the mother of your little sister, and all of your cousins but that was necessary for obtaining the miracle of love!!! You're not angry right? You still love me right?"


It makes more sense if it was just an act. In which case Battler solves everything, no one is really dead, Battler gets a little pissed off because that was a very bad joke, but the guilt for having forgot the promise would make him think that he deserved that, so everyone is happy in the end.

At least this is a plan that actually makes sense.

[Judoh]

I mostly agree with Steampunk Librarian. If there is a detective in a novel there has to be a culprit in it. Or at least someone confessing to it even if they didn't really do it.

My only addition is that I beleive that anyone who thinks that because of the tea party we should think there isn't any satisfying murderer doesn't trust in Ryukishi's writing skills. He presented this from the start as a serial murder story with a killer and he probably prepared one at the start. Whether this killer is insane or not I would be very dissatisfied if he just left it to accident with no antagonist to blame it on. That's just my opinion.

[Will Wright]

It makes more sense if it was just an act. In which case Battler solves everything, no one is really dead, Battler gets a little pissed off because that was a very bad joke, but the guilt for having forgot the promise would make him think that he deserved that, so everyone is happy in the end.

Not everyone. I would be shouting DDDDIIIIINEEEEEEEEEE'S 777777TTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHH GOD FLIPPING DAMN IT and unsatisfied at how there was no bloody murder. I would probably shout a bit, then go drink a cup of tea and relax.

But still, THERE MUST BE A BODY.

[Jan-Poo]

From the world of 1998 there is no corpse, and that's the closest thing to a real world perspective we have.

so there they go your Van Dine rules.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Steampunk Librarian

Originally, I will admit, I toyed around with the idea that the cousins and the servants were playing a story game with each other (had this idea some time after I finished arc 5), but that idea is equally as unfulfilling as the idea that there was no real mystery. A bomb did it.

Oh, Beatriiiiiiiiiiice, just let me see your magnificent blast radius one more time!!!

Seriously though, I should say that:

• It is far from conclusive that if Sh(k)annontrice exists in the second order fiction, the same character is the one writing the second order fiction inside the first order fiction. Very likely, but not really conclusive. For example, it's very possible that Shkanontrice exists in the second order fiction, but it's just Shannontrice in the first order one... Or Jessitrice. Or Rosatrice. I can offer a few arguments for either.
• It is just as possible that the second order fiction Beatrice is the culprit, but the first order fiction Beatrice is not a culprit at all... but someone set off the bomb, and that was for a reason.
• Even if nobody killed anyone during the incident, there are a few corpses in the story that form a mystery of their own. Rosa's Beatrice-2 story is fishy like sushi. Kinzo's death is too.

While the thought of multiple levels of fiction is not new (That's the original Author Theory) we have basically never truly considered solving Umineko on multiple levels simultaneously using it's ideas.