[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Leafsnail]

Don't Fukuin names have to include "on"? Or does that not apply anymore?

[Jan-Poo]

All fukuin names are made using the first kanji of the real name of the person and the addition of the kanji of "sound" at the end.

However the way that last kanji is pronounced might vary as it was seen in Ep7. Normally it's "non" as in Sha-non, Ka-non, Ru-non, Re-non, and Ma-non. However we have also seen Beru-ne and Asu-ne.

The way the first kanji is pronounced also varies greatly. For example the first kanji of Berune doesn't have "beru" at all as any of its possible readings. Simply the kanji itself means "bell" in english, and "bell" is pronounced "beru" in japanese.

[Leafsnail]

Ah, I see. Thanks. So "da" is also a possible reading?

[Renall]

Presumably Yasu does indeed have a Fukuin name, but Ryukishi is being a tease by having everyone refer to Yasu by that name, which is alleged to be his/her surname. Since we pointedly never found out Kanon or Shannon's surname, we have no idea whether his/her name is something like "Yasuda Sayo" or "Yasuda Yoshiya" or something entirely different that has nothing to do with either. We also (as far as we know) see Yasu physically, as he/she is a first-person narrator and everything appears to be viewed through his/her eyes during the narrative.

We're very clearly meant to associate Yasu = Shannon = Kanon = Lion, but then we get various periods where one or the other isn't matching up, then suddenly they do. Is Shannon a real person, a person who was a model for a persona adopted by Yasu, an imaginary friend, completely nonexistent? Was Kanon created or adapted or adopted? Is Yasu nuts, creative and broken, or just a devious weaver of fiction? Is any of this true? If it is, how much of it; if it isn't, why the hell is it here?

As usual, he's raising more questions that he's answering while pretending like he's giving answers.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Ah, I see. Thanks. So "da" is also a possible reading?

Yasuda 安田 is a very common Japanese last name. Yasu even said that it was a last name 'given' to her since the real last name was unknown (from her point of view.)

Yasuda is not the Fukuin nickname.

Here's the funny part:

If you construct a name with the 'Yasu' and add the 'Ne/On' kanji: 安音

the Yasu kanji can be read as 'Yasu' or 'An' (on-yomi.) You could construct the name as "Anon" ... Anonymous? HEH.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Ah, I see. Thanks. So "da" is also a possible reading?

No, "Yasuda" is a fake surname not a fukuin name. Yasu's fukuin name was never revealed, but of course it makes sense if Yasu's fukuin name has been Shannon to begin with. Since Ryuukishi apparently didn't want to explicitly tell us that Shannon and Yasu are the same person then he couldn't tell which was Yasu's fukuin name.

He also completely avoided to mention which was Yasu's name. And that's probably because the name itself could be a hint of Yasu's identity. If Yasu's fukuin name has been Shannon, as we all suspect, then her "fake" name given to her by Genji must have the initial kanji of Shannon in it.

So to make it short she/he was probably known as "Sayo Yasuda" at school and as "Shannon" in the Rokkenjima Mansion (except among the other servants who called her/him Yasu). While her/his real name is "Lion Ushiromiya".

@Kylon
That's funny, but fukuin names are based on names not on surnames, so that doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Renall

Is Shannon a real person, a person who was a model for a persona adopted by Yasu, an imaginary friend, completely nonexistent?

I think Shannon is definitely a fake persona. Yasu's true character has been shown as something very different. Yasu's true self is a lot more similar to beatrice's personality than to Shannon's. Shannon was probably what everyone expected her to be, the perfect servant, and of course a servant must be dumb, nobody wants a maid that's smarter than you. In truth Yasu is a very intelligent person who loves intellectual challenges. Yasu was also shown to possess a malicious side. Yasu is vengeful, likes prank and find delight in seeing other people helplessly trying to figure out how her/his pranks were done.

[Renall]

Too much just doesn't add up, though. For somebody coming into the home stretch, he sure is leaving a bunch of things nobody really seemed to doubt before now up to doubt. It's very unsatisfying if he's just trying to be cute.

[Kataryn]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Yasuda (Yasu for short) is the fake surname that was given to the child that Natsuhi (in 1967) was supposed to adopt and raise as her firstborn son/daughter.She/he was supposed to be named Lion Ushiromiya.

Since Natsuhi refused the child and since Kinzo is a pervert swine, Genji with the cooperation of Nanjo and Kumasawa let them believe that "Lion" was dead. In truth that child was still alive and was saved by the doctor. For a while Lion lived in the fukuin orphanage but then Genji thought it was more appropriate for someone with the Ushiromiya blood (yeah Yasu/Lion is Kinzo's and Beatrice2's child) to live in Rokkenjima. So that poor child was hired as a servant at the tender age of 6 (in 1976)... or so everyone believed because the real age was actually 9. Genji even manipulated that in order to remove any possible connection with the child that Natsuhi was supposed to adopt.

Anyway from that day onward "Yasu" began working like every other fukuin children while attending school at the same time. Needless to say it was a chore, and the older fukuin servants didn't like to work alongside a brat that had no reason to be there. Yasu is in fact a nickname that they gave to her/him, and she/he never really liked to be called by that.

We were never told what was Yasu's fukuin name or "real" name. We also never seen how Yasu looked like, but by logic she/he should have the same face of the "Lion Ushiromiya" of the alternative reality that Willard Wright meets in Bern's catbox world.

The story as it was narrated shows Yasu and Shannon as two different persons, however Yasu's background completely matches with Shannon's background as it was told to us from Ep1 to Ep4. So it's pretty much certain that Shannon and Yasu are the very same person, but Yasu for some reasons split her Shannon self from his/her real self. And that isn't even the only "personality" she/he build in her/his imaginary world.

Yasu is the same person as Lion, Shannon, Beatrice, Claire, Gaap and probably Kanon too.

Thank you very much, this helped a lot.

[fuff]

wait....so does this mean that beatrice is kinzo's daughter? :s im confused lol

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for answer to fuff, this is Episode7 spoiler.:

From what can be deduced from Episode7, Lion is the child of Kinzo and the Beatrice of 1967, which in turn is the child of the original Beatrice (the one that gave Kinzo the gold) and Kinzo.

So yes, it is suggested that Kinzo had an incestuous relationship with his own daughter (but not Eva or Rosa) and Lion was born from them.

Then it is explained that after the Beatrice of 1967 died, Kinzo took her baby and asked Natsuhi to "adopt" it and raise it as if it was her own child. So basically Lion is the "man from 19 years before" that was mentioned in EP5.

In EP7 it is presented an alternative world where Natsuhi accepted the baby and raised it as Kinzo wished. The new character that we see in EP7 is that Lion Ushiromiya.
In the canon world, however, the same person is known as "Yasu", although Kinzo later reveals to her/him that she/he was supposed to be named Lion.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

@Kylon
That's funny, but fukuin names are based on names not on surnames, so that doesn't work.

Well it wasn't serious to begin with. But the nickname of 'Yasu' is already enough of a name to suggest that the real name is not known...

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for Episode7:

Yes, Beatrice (at least the "Beatrice" of 1986 ) is Kinzo's daughter and rightful heir to all the Ushiromiya assets.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Shannon was probably what everyone expected her to be, the perfect servant, and of course a servant must be dumb, nobody wants a maid that's smarter than you.

Hmmm... I think Yasu also said Shannon was the sort of servant who did her job right. However, Shannon in 1986 is pretty much as clumsy as Yasu was described.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In truth Yasu is a very intelligent person who loves intellectual challenges.

Well, it was Shannon the one who met Battler and shared the passion for mystery novels - of course, this happened by the time Yasu became Claitrice and went to her Utopia. But well, Shannon in 1986 doesn't seem to be the type of person who likes mystery novels. So, who knows?

There's also the bit with Shannon supposedly knowing close to nothing about tea, whilst, apparently, Beatrice does to a good extent. I wonder if Yasu has any knowledge on that topic.

I hope we get good info about Yasu in EP8. Seriously, almost everything about him/her is far too cryptic to even call her existence an answer, when it actually does raise many more questions. Hell, we cannot even tell his/her sex apart.

[Renall]

Well, we only really know four people have a passion for mystery novels:

• Battler.
• Erika.
• Yasu.
• Nanjo (doesn't this strike anyone else as an odd detail?).

Of those, Erika probably isn't relevant, and no one else seems to show any particular awareness of the situation. If Nanjo likes mysteries as suggested by ep5, he isn't acting the part in the stories (or rather, he's acting the part of the Dr. Watson too well).

However, the absence of evidence doesn't mean nobody else is a fan. Some people clearly aren't as familiar with them as others, but everyone seems to have a degree of genre awareness (notice how quickly people conclude things are locked rooms, etc.).

[Used Can]

I think Kyrie also seems to like mystery novels as well, but I wonder if that is even relevant to this. I mean, she was the one who said things about romance being more complicated to decipher than mysteries themselves. She also brought up the North Wind and the Sun analogy.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

However, the absence of evidence doesn't mean nobody else is a fan. Some people clearly aren't as familiar with them as others, but everyone seems to have a degree of genre awareness (notice how quickly people conclude things are locked rooms, etc.).

It's not even how quickly they conclude things are locked rooms, but how quickly they agree on the locked room constraints - for example, "only five master keys exist". In actual practice, duplicating a standard pin tumbler lock key takes ten minutes in a metalworking shop and there's one catering to precisely that need in any small town, you just need to be left alone with the key for long enough... and as a side note, Natsuhi is said to have preferred having more copies of the master key to actually handing the keys over when servants hand over shifts. Lockpicking is an art but not exactly high wizardry either.

Incidentally, the only person to raise that objection beside Battler is Rosa.

[Renall]

Again, I can accept this, especially if they turn out to be intentional genre constraints of an in-universe fiction. The odder details are which persons are stated to have enjoyed mysteries, as that seems like a detail that would exist independent of the Rokkenjima setting. Either Nanjo liked mysteries or he didn't, or nobody knows and is saying he did in ep5 (but to what end, I don't know).

But the whole Yasu/Battler bonding over mysteries has to some from somewhere. How would you make that up?

[Jan-Poo]

I assume you give for granted that Shannon=Yasu, because then you should add Shannon to the list. Anyway you forgot Kumasawa which apparently introduced Yasu to the genre and she is even a skilled "detective".

In addition Kinzo himself is said to have had a liking for mystery novels. In fact he was the one who bought those in original language that Nanjo and Erika read in Ep6.


Now that I think about it... It was Yasu who was said to have started a liking for mystery novels while Shannon was shown as not really interested. But then suddenly Shannon became a mystery novel expert during her conversations with Battler without any explanation.

[Used Can]

I bet George plays detective in the kitchen.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I assume you give for granted that Shannon=Yasu, because then you should add Shannon to the list. Anyway you forgot Kumasawa which apparently introduced Yasu to the genre and she is even a skilled "detective".

I very pointedly don't assume that. But Kumasawa is fine. That makes her and Nanjo being "accomplices" to something probably harmless even more likely, though.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Now that I think about it... It was Yasu who was said to have started a liking for mystery novels while Shannon was shown as not really interested. But then suddenly Shannon became a mystery novel expert during her conversations with Battler without any explanation.

One possible explanation, I believe, could be that Yasu, at that point, was tired of merely imagining, but she wanted to "become" the characters from her imagination. So, not only did she become Beatrice, but she probably became Shannon as well. One thing that is funny, though, is that the Beatrice she became wasn't like the one she imagined (i.e. Gaap), and she probably didn't become the exact same Shannon she had envisioned. In fact, I wouldn't find it odd if the Beatrice she became and the Shannon she became had many traits of her own personality.