[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Stated by... whom? Will? So just because he thinks something, he can't be wrong?

Back in the day, when Ep5 was fresh, I actually saw the stairs story used to support the Natsuhi story. You just said they are not related.

There is Word of God that the mystery is solvable with the first four episodes. Please produce evidence from episodes 1-4 allowing us to infer the existence of Baby-19 at all. As the stairs story is not connected, you can't use it as a hint.

Yeah the two maid stories got mixed up, but I don't think I ever agreed with that. The maid that fell from the stairs was quite obviously victim of one of Beatrice's pranks (a prank gone wrong), and "Beatrice" didn't exist in 1967. I could tell you this even at the time of EP5, and EP7 supports it entirely.

That of course means it isn't a hint. I don't think this incident was ever hinted in the core arcs. Unless Shannon herself mixed the two stories up, but that's quite preposterous if you ask me. If that was done on purpose I'd frown on ryuukishi more than in case it was a simple mistake.

Originally Posted by Oliver

Does Rosa ever express the desire to be the heir? Is her need for money anywhere that extreme as that of the other siblings?...
...ah, well, whatever, if saying 'investigating' somehow missed your ears, I guess I'll go back to thinking on my own.

She never particularly say she wants to be the heir but she's been depicted as greedy and she's been depicted as a woman that worries about her debts a lot.
Even supposing that she doesn't want to be the heir as you say, then she would have acted exactly as Beatrice did, she would have told the servants to keep quiet about that, get all she could get from the gold and then making someone else solve the epitaph leaving them whatever she couldn't convert.
And then the whole scene of Beatrice solving the epitaph wouldn't make any sense. No I'd say the whole story wouldn't make any sense, because clearly Beatrice must be in a position of power to do all that she did, even Will said it. Unless you claim that Rosa is Beatrice, then it's absolutely impossible that Rosa solved the epitaph before everyone else.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Kyrie advanced a theory at one point (EP4?) that the letter writer didn't have enough leverage to just come forward and claim the money themselves, so they were trying to use its location as a bargaining chip. Rosa doesn't have much authority among the siblings, and if she announced she'd found the gold, there's a good chance it would just be taken away from her. It's actually in her best interests to make sure someone else finds it with her help so they can support her claim. That lines up with her behavior in EP3, where she dropped a critical hint to Eva and then showed up at the gold right behind her.

That theory has been debunked in EP7. Kinzo couldn't be that shortsighted and EP2 hints that Kinzo wrote a testament. That testament specifies that the one who solves the epitaph is the new heir, so whoever can solve the epitaph can have legal grounds to claim th heirship.
Even assuming legal actions were forwarded, proving that the epitaph was solved could be easy to prove. Apart from the servants witnessing the facts, you can show how the epitpah is solved in front of a judge and the jury.

As for rosa giving a hint. Please... that was the most useless hint ever, and if there is someone that really helped Eva, that's Kyrie not Rosa. She basically did 70% of the job.

Originally Posted by Used Can

If I can make a quick assumption then Yasu/Lion doesn't want to be seen as Shannon and/or Kanon, but as who (s)he really is. This is where the whole "without love it cannot be seen plays out" (well, one of the many instances in which it does), because if Battler can see this whole story through a love bias, then perhaps he can piece together several things - beginning from what an "Endless Witch" is, and how Beatrice the Endless was born and why. Now, why Battler? Why not present himself/herself as (s)he really is to George, Jessica or someone else, I don't know. Perhaps, after going through all of his/her internal conflict, all Yasu/Lion had was his/her promise with Battler. So, those feelings remained.

That must be it. "Beatrice" wants to be killed, she probably can't stand anymore to be a witch, to be someone else. She wants someone to break all the illusions and release her.
But I don't think her challenge was meant for Battler alone. Of course like Kinzo, she created a riddle that everyone could solve, while wishing that one specific person would solve it, but while ready to accept whoever would solve it as the one chosen by fate.
In other words George and Jessica should also be viable options. The love trial is probably meant for them too. Can they still love he/r after they get to know the harsh truth?

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by 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.

The world of 1998 is the one that found Maria's mandible, isn't it? That counts as a corpse.

Originally Posted by Helmet-kun

Just so you know, if it turns out that Lion really is dead and doesn't show up for episode 8, I'm so torching you first. Followed by the Yasu and Double Shakanon theories. Then that damn Dine's 3.

I have faith in all these characters, I really do. But that's not what I paid for. What I paid for is a satisfying story, whether it be a mystery-satisfying good end (In which someone dies horribly), or a character good end (In which there is no culprit and then there was cake).

What I think he will give us is Beatrice's 'truth'. Which will have a lot of character love and hate, an answer who really created Beato, and will basically exploit Beato's heart, etc., etc. It'll answer the riddle 'Who am I?', but would not go back and actually explain the murders and who committed them.

In short, a billion character lecture on why understanding the heart of the culprit is important, too.

I hope Lion and Will aren't dead. They are both in my top 5 best characters of the series, it would be a pity if they didn't appear in the last episode. Especially considering that it would waste a perfectly good plot. Battler doesn't have anything left to solve. He knows everything. A game must have a detective.
Will has motivation(saving Lion) and doesn't know the truth. It would be a perfect setup.

But I have a terrible feeling we won't see either of them again.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by TehChron

"I am here, won't you acknowledge that I am?" or something to that effect, I'd think. If Amakusa is future-Battler or something similar, it'd be pretty interesting to see how his life wound up to cause him to take that attitude on.

If Battler survived, has he acknowledged himself? Or does he not, due to the fact he survived?

And a new aspect about Amakusa that bothers me popped up again. Again it depends on wether we accept what Ryukishi said about the Manga giving additional information...because if it really does there is a very strange scene in the Episode 4 manga.
It's in chapter 5 of the Episode 4 manga. Ange is in the hotel room and thinks about the message bottles. She leans against the window and says that she will definitely destroy the illusion of the witch. Suddenly Beatrice reflects in the window. Ange takes a step back and Beatrice grabs her from behind, screaming at Ange that she shall try. When Ange snaps out of it, there is Amakusa standing directly behind her...
It's strange especially because Ange is confused and Amakusa said that he tried calling out to her but she did not respond....
Very strange, especially considering that Amakusa's true goal is still an unknown factor...

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

That theory has been debunked in EP7. Kinzo couldn't be that shortsighted and EP2 hints that Kinzo wrote a testament. That testament specifies that the one who solves the epitaph is the new heir, so whoever can solve the epitaph can have legal grounds to claim th heirship.
Even assuming legal actions were forwarded, proving that the epitaph was solved could be easy to prove. Apart from the servants witnessing the facts, you can show how the epitpah is solved in front of a judge and the jury.

That's all very nice, except that Rosa didn't know about it. The siblings were never sure about what kind of legal force existed behind the epitaph. According to EP5, the headship transfer was just a rumor, which is why the letter from Beatrice supporting Battler was necessary. The argument that sprung up over whether Battler was the new head could be exactly what Rosa was afraid of. She didn't know Kinzo was dead either, so the contents of his will are irrelevant in the first place.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by cmos

Relatives frequently speculate about it. Especially in ep2, when the mysterious guest had appeared, they theorized that she may be an illegitimate child of Kinzo from his mistress.
Jessica in prologue about the portrait: "It's Beatrice-sama. ......Nobody knows her background. Could she be Grandfather's mistress from long ago? ......Maybe her descendants will unexpectedly appear and tell us to return the gold we were granted or something, right?"

Relatives:
"That kind of thing doesn't matter. ...The problem is what happens if that woman starts calling herself Beatrice, if she starts calling herself the manager of Father's assets."
"Or, ...maybe she plans to call herself his mistress's daughter, and demand that the inheritance be distributed to her. ...Either way, an outrageous joker has been slipped into the deck. .........Did Nii-san call her? ...Or did Father...?"

"I told you to be silent! I've been in this mansion with Father the whole time, and I haven't heard about this once. .........At best, all we can guess is that Father's hidden mistress of several decades ago had a hidden child, ......and Father searched her out and called her today. ...Is that what you want to say?"

Yeah except not one of those things uses a 19 year figure. Why must there be such a person, other than "parts of Chiru advance that idea?" Without that figure we can come up with many concepts, like Beatrice-2 or a person of a similar age being alive (and thus much older than 19), or a very recent child, or anything in between.

There's a conflation of information here that does not necessarily hold as related. "Evidence for a secret child" definitely exists as early as ep1-4. "Evidence of a secret child exactly 19 years of age born from Beatrice-2" does not. People had considered Beatrice-2 as a potential mother long before ep5, but that still rather forces us to assume Incest Rapist Kinzo, and I maintain that it's a gross injustice to ascribe such speculation to a character who never has the ability to defend himself in-story by virtue of always being a filtered character.

I could even explain that evidence with no child. That is to say, speculation that such a child could have existed would lead people to attempt to make that child exist. Yasu or a person like her could believe themselves to be Lion, when in fact Lion either died or simply never existed in the first place. The evidence from ep1-4 basically supports either conclusion equally well, and if we're leaning strictly on Chiru, I'm not quite so comfortable calling that stuff a done deal.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And a new aspect about Amakusa that bothers me popped up again. Again it depends on wether we accept what Ryukishi said about the Manga giving additional information...because if it really does there is a very strange scene in the Episode 4 manga.
It's in chapter 5 of the Episode 4 manga. Ange is in the hotel room and thinks about the message bottles. She leans against the window and says that she will definitely destroy the illusion of the witch. Suddenly Beatrice reflects in the window. Ange takes a step back and Beatrice grabs her from behind, screaming at Ange that she shall try. When Ange snaps out of it, there is Amakusa standing directly behind her...
It's strange especially because Ange is confused and Amakusa said that he tried calling out to her but she did not respond....
Very strange, especially considering that Amakusa's true goal is still an unknown factor...

That is... really weird. Taken one way it's just a "cat scare," but taken another with all the speculation surrounding Amakusa and it really starts looking weird. He's obviously important, or they wouldn't bother giving him so much of a mysterious air, but just what's going on there is something that will have to be answered in ep8 if it's answered at all. Amakusa was an ep4 character though, and if ep8 is the ep4 parallel, he will appear again in a hopefully majorish role.

But perhaps he won't.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

The world of 1998 is the one that found Maria's mandible, isn't it? That counts as a corpse.

I'm not so sure about that, you know. DNA testing didn't exist at the time, they knew it was Maria due to dental imprints, that means the only thing they actually checked are the few teeth that remained intact for whatever reason.

Now suppose for a second that someone wanted to create that "evidence", using a piece of mandible from another source and attaching someone's teeth on it. Who would you choose as the subject of this forgery assuming you didn't want to harm anyone?
Personally I'd go with the nine year old girl who just changed her teeth recently.

Isn't it suspicious, that among all the people the only one whom we have evidence of being dead is Maria?

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

That's all very nice, except that Rosa didn't know about it. The siblings were never sure about what kind of legal force existed behind the epitaph. According to EP5, the headship transfer was just a rumor, according to EP5, which is why the letter from Beatrice supporting Battler was necessary. The argument that sprung up over whether Battler was the new head could be exactly what Rosa was afraid of. She didn't know Kinzo was dead either, so the contents of his will are irrelevant in the first place.

Then you need to assume that no one noticed Rosa solving the epitaph.
Beatrice was found right away! But Rosa, who could only go there in a few occasions, managed to ninja all her way to the golden room without Genji even suspecting it.

Then Rosa had the wonderful idea to just forget about that, never telling anyone that she went there, and she waited 2 years to formulate a brilliant plan to make someone else find the gold, and all of this without ever worrying that maybe some servant could claim the prize in the meantime.
Good job Rosa.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Isn't it suspicious, that among all the people the only one whom we have evidence of being dead is Maria?

Yes, actually. And even stranger that of all the people Ange wants to speak to about the incident, a police officer who investigated the "incident" is not one of them. Wouldn't she want to know what they found?

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I'm not so sure about that, you know. DNA testing didn't exist at the time, they knew it was Maria due to dental imprints, that means the only thing they actually checked are the few teeth that remained intact for whatever reason.

Now suppose for a second that someone wanted to create that "evidence", using a piece of mandible from another source and attaching someone's teeth on it. Who would you choose as the subject of this forgery assuming you didn't want to harm anyone?
Personally I'd go with the nine year old girl who just changed her teeth recently.

Isn't it suspicious, that among all the people the only one whom we have evidence of being dead is Maria?

For all that we know maybe nobody died. They just killed Maria for the hell of it.

I mean damn she is annoying.

But seriously though, DNA profiling has been commercially available since 1987. Though it was only used in high profile cases until recently, I'd say that the incident qualifies as high profile enough.

[cmos]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yeah except not one of those things uses a 19 year figure. Why must there be such a person, other than "parts of Chiru advance that idea?" Without that figure we can come up with many concepts, like Beatrice-2 or a person of a similar age being alive (and thus much older than 19), or a very recent child, or anything in between.

There doesn't have to be, but you can assume that there could be and build your theory on this, and then receive a confirmation in Chiru episodes. Those episodes are supposed to be "on the border of confession", if you like words of the god so much and don't trust anything in the text.
Kinzo met Beatrice, that looks like the portrait, during the World War II. Therefore, in 1967 she should be relatively old, but Rosa saw a young woman, who strangely looks like the portrait too. Is it magic or is she her daughter?
Beatrice says that she was living in that mansion since the day she was born. When was that mansion constructed? After the war. And Kawabata carried supplies there for 20 years until 1967. In 1967 she died, so the child should be 19 at most.
Now, does it really matter if it was 19, or 20, or 21? Could you clearly distinguish the exact age, especially if you know that Shkannon is a very slim and weak person?
Then, a very young servant arrives to work on the island. Exceptional case. Is it really that hard to hide her real age?


Ah, and of course all information is from ep1-4 only.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, actually. And even stranger that of all the people Ange wants to speak to about the incident, a police officer who investigated the "incident" is not one of them. Wouldn't she want to know what they found?

I find a lot more strange that the police never investigated on the letters. None among the 20 or so relatives ever thought it was an important thing to tell to the police.

"Hey I just received this strange letter, it says I sent it, and that I sent it to my deceased relative, right the day before of the incident... from Niijima... But I certainly never did, this is not my writing! And look it contains such suspicious stuff inside."

That sounds like pretty important stuff to me.
Well I guess a few people found out all the money and decided to keep quiet. But the police needed just one letter to begin the investigation of all the others. It's so strange that not even one talked to the police. I mean... it's not like it's been so incredibly hard for Ange....

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Now suppose for a second that someone wanted to create that "evidence", using a piece of mandible from another source and attaching someone's teeth on it. Who would you choose as the subject of this forgery assuming you didn't want to harm anyone?
Personally I'd go with the nine year old girl who just changed her teeth recently.

Isn't it suspicious, that among all the people the only one whom we have evidence of being dead is Maria?

Do we need any more evidence? We know that even though Maria wasn't among the victims during 2 of 4 Episodes, they still found a piece of her, which actually is necessary to imply that nobody survived very early on. Unless you have this piece of information you could have assumed for 2 full Episodes that there is no reason to believe that 'nobody survived'.

Forging something like this seems to be highly speculative and too far out there. The fake corpse in Higurashi was okay, because that person actually had access to medical files. But to fake a piece of Maria, too many things would have to come together that weren't foreshadowed.
For one somebody would have to be collecting her teeth, for a believable piece of mandible you would at least need 4 or 5 of them. You would also need a piece of mandible of a child, so there's no way to get something like that so easily, unless you want to imply that somebody dismembered a little girl, just to fake the death of another little girl you suddenly didn't want to harm?!
That seems like an aweful lot of dirty work, just to cover something up...

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I find a lot more strange that the police never investigated on the letters. None among the 20 or so relatives ever thought it was an important thing to tell to the police.

"Hey I just received this strange letter, it says I sent it, and that I sent it to my deceased relative, right the day before of the incident... from Niijima... But I certainly never did, this is not my writing! And look it contains such suspicious stuff inside."

That sounds like pretty important stuff to me.
Well I guess a few people found out all the money and decided to keep quiet. But the police needed just one letter to begin the investigation of all the others. It's so strange that not even one talked to the police. I mean... it's not like it's been so incredibly hard for Ange....

I think I might have an incomplete memory of what the letters said on the envelope. Wasn't the name on the envelope the person on the island (Nanjo, Kumasawa, Rudolph), who sent it to a remote region where he lived sometime in the past? Didn't for example Dr. Nanjo's letter go somewhere to Hokkaidô, to an adress that did not exist and was only sent to his closest relative?!
I might remember it wrong as I still haven't found the time to reread whole Episodes.

[Renall]

The way the letters work is:

• The letters were addressed with the victim as the sender. i.e. Dr. Nanjo was listed as the return address.
• The letters were addressed to distant parts of Japan, with fake addresses.
• The letters were, presumably, sent by post to the remote regions, where they were determined undeliverable and marked for return to sender.
• Some time later, the letter returned to the original victim's address, where it was presumably received by their next of kin (Masayuki, Sakabichi, Kyrie's father, etc.).

EDIT: Note that there's basically two reasons to do this: One, you avoid having to put a return address on it yourself (though you could just as easily fake it too, I guess?). Two, it will delay the arrival of the letters by however long it takes the post office to ship a letter to Hokkaido, realize the address is fake, mark it for return, and then actually return it.

[Judoh]

You know according to the text Nanjo Jr. only had the key to A112 and he thinks there were at least 20 other safety deposit boxes with green lamps that he was allowed to open. That means that including his key there are at least 20 other keys right? The card and the PIN number only gets you permission to bring your key to a single safety deposit box.

So why were there only 4 relatives shown to get a key? For example why is a relative like Nanjo jr. more special than Kyrie's sister Kasumi?

Why are all the recipients the victims sons and daughters?

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Judoh

You know according to the text Nanjo Jr. only had the key to A112 and he thinks there were at least 20 other safety deposit boxes with green lamps that he was allowed to open. That means that including his key there are at least 20 other keys right? The card and the PIN number only gets you permission to bring your key to a single safety deposit box.

So why were there only 4 relatives shown to get a key? For example why is a relative like Nanjo jr. more special than Kyrie's sister Kasumi?

Why are all the recipients the victims sons and daughters?

Probably the end result wasn't supposed to be a complete slaughter, and there was an expectation of more survivors, or something?

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by TehChron

Probably the end result wasn't supposed to be a complete slaughter, and there was an expectation of more survivors, or something?

There are more than 20 individual keys if it's the same for each box. There weren't even 20 people on the island that day.

[Judoh]

How about a master key then? Would it be possible for the person behind this to make a master key for each of the safety deposit boxes? I think that's more realistic than hauling around 20 regular keys.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Judoh

You know according to the text Nanjo Jr. only had the key to A112 and he thinks there were at least 20 other safety deposit boxes with green lamps that he was allowed to open. That means that including his key there are at least 20 other keys right? The card and the PIN number only gets you permission to bring your key to a single safety deposit box.

So why were there only 4 relatives shown to get a key? For example why is a relative like Nanjo jr. more special than Kyrie's sister Kasumi?

Why are all the recipients the victims sons and daughters?

I think there are several answers to that, especially when we look at who so far has been known to receive those letters.
Nanjo and Kumasawa were both in contact with the Beatrice's (as implied by Chiru) and knew about the existence of Kuwadorian (as implied by Episode 4).
It is pretty unlikely that they went to the forest every time they got there, so it is quite likely that they also knew about the hidden passages and the chamber of gold. But the question is, if Kumasawa or Nanjo were on Nijima on the 3rd.

Kyrie is a highly suspect individual (not only due to Chiru). It was she who brought the siblings to work together against Krauss and she brought the theory of dead Kinzo up, even before they went to Rokkenjima. Her only daughter also conveniently got sick on the day they went to Rokkenjima, thus 'accidently' saving her from the Rokkenjima explosion accident.
In the Tea Party of Episode 7 it is also implied by the siblings that it is strange how many thought provoking impulses came from Kyrie while they were solving the epitaph, even though she's not even a proper Ushiromiya.
It wouldn't be a problem for her to send the letter in Rudolph's name.

BUT the handwriting on the envelope is said to be the same as the Beatrice signature in Maria's diary and the handwriting of the bottle letters.
So we have to assume that the letters were at least not produced by any of those three people, unless we believe one of them to be Beatrice.
Yet it is quite possible that at least those three senders are in contact with said Beatrice, which gives her a reason to grant them (or their families) at least partial access to the money.

Maybe it was some kind of insurance, to convince those people to take part in a rather risky act. In case something went wrong, at least some of them or their relatives would get compensation. We knew that at least Nanjo needed the money because of his grandchild, according to Episode 3.

Episode 3 also implies that at least Eva in that scenario knew about the safety deposit boxes. In the anime we even get an added hint, as she is seen, feverishly scribbling down the code written on the door, even though she says that she has no idea what it could be used for.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Maybe it was some kind of insurance, to convince those people to take part in a rather risky act. In case something went wrong, at least some of them or their relatives would get compensation. We knew that at least Nanjo needed the money because of his grandchild, according to Episode 3.

My problem with that is that Nanjo Jr. is the only person that really needs the money. Ange isn't involved so she doesn't need compensation money unless it was to shoo the Sumaderas away. And even if you don't think she got a letter Kumasawa's son is a fisherman right? And he has a pretty laid back lifestyle. Why would he need the money at all?

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Judoh

There are more than 20 individual keys if it's the same for each box. There weren't even 20 people on the island that day.

Relatives, survivors, other servants, etc.

Either way, the fact of that matter is that the number of people on the island has always been less than 20. Therefore, the count intentionally includes individuals not on the Island during those two days.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Judoh

My problem with that is that Nanjo Jr. is the only person that really needs the money. Ange isn't involved so she doesn't need compensation money unless it was to shoo the Sumaderas away. And even if you don't think she got a letter Kumasawa's son is a fisherman right? And he has a pretty laid back lifestyle. Why would he need the money at all?

The sender can't predict how people will react to the money. Nanjo's son gets the money he actually needs but refuses it because he thinks it's "dirty" (and he may be right). Sakabichi seems to just ignore the letter entirely for the reasons you stated.

The sender may not have specifically intended that everyone actually claim the contents of the boxes. It was just there as an offer.