[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by Judoh

There are at least 8 different answers for those final reds that we've theorized so far. Listed here.

http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...postcount=8933

I'll go ahead and update that with the ones that were just posted.

[Renall]

Perhaps it's the island from Lost and Erika is usually killed by the smoke monster golden butterflies or an errant polar bear. She can still appear as a ghost on the island because it's just weird like that.

...Well, it's at least as serious as the non-decimal counting system theory.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by Renall

Perhaps it's the island from Lost and Erika is usually killed by the smoke monster golden butterflies or an errant polar bear. She can still appear as a ghost on the island because it's just weird like that.

...Well, it's at least as serious as the non-decimal counting system theory.

Rokkenjima is actually the island from Lost. Therefore, nothing in Umineko no Naku Koro ni is supposed to make any sense. Time travel is possible, polar bears can live in the forest, and aliens (and witches) do actually exist.

Edit: Oh yeah, and everyone was dead the whole time.

[Renall]

We joke, but there are actually kind of a lot of Lost/Umineko parallels:

Spoiler for No, seriously, this is an ACTUAL spoiler box:

• Rumors of impossible animals in the forest (though the polar bears really exist in Lost and the wolves don't in Umineko)
• People are killed off one by one by a seemingly mysterious and mystic force that can take either an amorphous or humanoid form.
• Science vs. Faith, Mystery vs. Fantasy.
• Battler and Desmond are both "special" constants in the world. Battler speculates whether the disaster would happen if he didn't come; Desmond speculates whether the plane would have crashed if he hadn't come.
• A mysterious hatch that may lead to strange underground tunnels.
• A lost treasure.
• Creepy kid (Maria/Walt).
• A jolly fat guy.
• The island is "cut off" from the outside world.
• There is an attempt to choose a successor to a great power.
• The whole thing is a battle between two incredibly powerful individuals whose abilities have shaped the storyline up to that point.
• People pretending to be other people.
• Eva and Kate both wind up raising someone else's child.
• Endless power allowing people to live forever but still be killed.
• A mysterious "incident" leads to the apparent deaths of a large group of people.

Though given ryukishi's developer posts, I'm more inclined to think he was inspired by Left 4 Dead 2 than Lost.

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by Renall

We joke, but there are actually kind of a lot of Lost/Umineko parallels:

Spoiler for No, seriously, this is an ACTUAL spoiler box:

• Rumors of impossible animals in the forest (though the polar bears really exist in Lost and the wolves don't in Umineko)
• People are killed off one by one by a seemingly mysterious and mystic force that can take either an amorphous or humanoid form.
• Science vs. Faith, Mystery vs. Fantasy.
• Battler and Desmond are both "special" constants in the world. Battler speculates whether the disaster would happen if he didn't come; Desmond speculates whether the plane would have crashed if he hadn't come.
• A mysterious hatch that may lead to strange underground tunnels.
• A lost treasure.
• Creepy kid (Maria/Walt).
• A jolly fat guy.
• The island is "cut off" from the outside world.
• There is an attempt to choose a successor to a great power.
• The whole thing is a battle between two incredibly powerful individuals whose abilities have shaped the storyline up to that point.
• People pretending to be other people.
• Eva and Kate both wind up raising someone else's child.
• Endless power allowing people to live forever but still be killed.
• A mysterious "incident" leads to the apparent deaths of a large group of people.

Though given ryukishi's developer posts, I'm more inclined to think he was inspired by Left 4 Dead 2 than Lost.

Don't forget

Spoiler for Lost finale:

Purgatory in the Lost series finale

[KnightOfTwo]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Don't forget

Spoiler for Lost finale:

Purgatory in the Lost series finale

Ugh don't even bring that up. I want to forget that ever happened.

[Thunder Book]

Even if it is a terrible idea, at least it was done well.

Lost has a million other plot holes and inconsistencies to worry about other than the ending.

[CainSonozaki]

Originally Posted by Renall

We joke, but there are actually kind of a lot of Lost/Umineko parallels:

Spoiler for No, seriously, this is an ACTUAL spoiler box:

• Rumors of impossible animals in the forest (though the polar bears really exist in Lost and the wolves don't in Umineko)
• People are killed off one by one by a seemingly mysterious and mystic force that can take either an amorphous or humanoid form.
• Science vs. Faith, Mystery vs. Fantasy.
• Battler and Desmond are both "special" constants in the world. Battler speculates whether the disaster would happen if he didn't come; Desmond speculates whether the plane would have crashed if he hadn't come.
• A mysterious hatch that may lead to strange underground tunnels.
• A lost treasure.
• Creepy kid (Maria/Walt).
• A jolly fat guy.
• The island is "cut off" from the outside world.
• There is an attempt to choose a successor to a great power.
• The whole thing is a battle between two incredibly powerful individuals whose abilities have shaped the storyline up to that point.
• People pretending to be other people.
• Eva and Kate both wind up raising someone else's child.
• Endless power allowing people to live forever but still be killed.
• A mysterious "incident" leads to the apparent deaths of a large group of people.

Though given ryukishi's developer posts, I'm more inclined to think he was inspired by Left 4 Dead 2 than Lost.

wait

Spoiler for ?:

When did eva take care of someone elses child

[Renall]

Originally Posted by CainSonozaki

wait

Spoiler for ?:

When did eva take care of someone elses child

...Ange?

Granted, I'm using a very generous definition of "taking care of."

[Ronove]

Assuming that Shkanon exists, or any other form of twins, is it possible that --- pardon my silly response.
Shkanon = Erika? o_o Odd theory. No back-up unfornately.

Plus, I'm quite confused on Ronove's Blue when facing Erika in EP5. Stating something about 'calling something that's not a corpse, a corpse?'

Does this falsify many perspectives in some way? Because, it's possible for maybe an 'inside-family' joke to call it a corpse.

i.e. Oh look, a corpse (when it actually means, dead-fish?)

Is Ryukushi playing on katana/kanji thatwords on us? It seems that the writing and letterings are EXTREMELY important.

P.S. - Did Beatrice give an actual definitoin of a 'Corpse', 'Dead,' 'Perfectly-alive', etc?

[CainSonozaki]

Originally Posted by Renall

...Ange?

Granted, I'm using a very generous definition of "taking care of."

Oh Duh X_X. my mind went completely blank and kept thinking of Natsuhi and the baby.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Ronove

Assuming that Shkanon exists, or any other form of twins, is it possible that --- pardon my silly response.
Shkanon = Erika? o_o Odd theory. No back-up unfornately.

Plus, I'm quite confused on Ronove's Blue when facing Erika in EP5. Stating something about 'calling something that's not a corpse, a corpse?'

Does this falsify many perspectives in some way? Because, it's possible for maybe an 'inside-family' joke to call it a corpse.

i.e. Oh look, a corpse (when it actually means, dead-fish?)

Is Ryukushi playing on katana/kanji thatwords on us? It seems that the writing and letterings are EXTREMELY important.

P.S. - Did Beatrice give an actual definitoin of a 'Corpse', 'Dead,' 'Perfectly-alive', etc?

I really don't think focusing on japanese wording tricks is going to be a lot of help in the long run. If you find anything let me know, but if there were any tricks I think we would have found them by now.

While a lot of people here do go by Ronove's theory. It's just that a theory , and it relies heavily on Battler being a very impressive liar for it to work, considering the red Virgilia uses earlier. The basic idea though is that Erika never saw the corpses and Ronove points this out in red. So someone can claim or "call" something a corpse even though they never saw one. Basically they can lie about it since they're witnesses and not detectives.

This theory has led to some theories for episode 1 where Shannon for example is really a bag of fertilizer.

But really you don't need this theory for it to work. In fact they don't really have to die in the cousin's room at all. It could always have been found in a completely different room and Battler just screamed as part of the deception and cried about it with everyone else. In fact I like this theory better because it makes more sense to me than calling a ketchup stained pillow "a corpse".

EDIT: Oh to answer your P.S. no. Beatrice never gave a definition for the word "corpse". However she did hint at fake corpses and fake deaths being possible in episode 2 in Jessica's room. She never really said she was dead just that her corpse was in the room.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Ronove

Is Ryukushi playing on katana/kanji thatwords on us? It seems that the writing and letterings are EXTREMELY important.

P.S. - Did Beatrice give an actual definitoin of a 'Corpse', 'Dead,' 'Perfectly-alive', etc?

Further to what Judoh was saying, in Japanese they use 死体 for corpse in the game which is a bit more direct at indicating that the body is dead. I know in English you could reason that corpse comes from corpus which just means 'body...'

The only funny name games we have is that bit about Sayo being 34 and Yoshiya being 16 and matching up with the rank of Furfur and Zepar, respectively. That and Lambdadelta being 34, along with Miyo Takano from Higurashi. It doesn't really seem to lead to any conclusive evidence...

The more obscure name games theories,
- Kumasawa Chiyo - though Chiyo is written in katakana it could also be 千代 one thousand generations... or one thousand years?
- George - Jouji sounds like shou shi which is a more obscure form of writing 34
- Amakusa Juuza - (天草 十三) Juuza is 13. No idea what that could mean. But Amakusa Shiro, of the same Amakusa kanji, was a Christian (Jesuit) leader of the Shimabara rebellion. After the leaders were executed their heads were buried on Amakusa island. (And I only know this from playing too much Samurai Showdown.)
- Hachijou Tooya is written 八城 十八 Eight Castle 18 is what the name literally translates to. I think some of us suspect that too is an alias. I suspect she fancies herself the 18th person on Rokkenjima or something...

And name games that definitely lead no where:
- Kumasawa Sabakichi - She loved mackerel so much she named her son 'saba' too! Maybe the 'Mackerel' did it after all. 8)
- Battler - his name 戦人 should be Senjin ... is a deer god from Nara, I think. He looks really funny too with antlers coming out of his bald head. You can't google for him anymore, Umineko has overridden him in the searches. That's a good thing too.

[Judoh]

Huh... I thought Battler said his name could also be said as "Sento" Not "Senjin"? Is that a translation artifact?

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Huh.. I thought Battler said his name could also be said as "Sento" Not "Senjin"? Is that a translation artifact?

Oh, right, that's it. It can be Senjin, but that seems to be the more common pronunciation. And... oh noooo... here's Sento-kun: http://www.pref.nara.jp/nara_e/secure/2465/sentokun.jpg

This may explain some of the pictures you see of Sento-kun in Umineko sometimes.

[Shiro Kaisen]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Huh... I thought Battler said his name could also be said as "Sento" Not "Senjin"? Is that a translation artifact?

Can be both.

The "to" can be read as "to," "hito," "nin," or "jin" depending on context.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Shiro Kaisen

Can be both.

The "to" can be read as "to," "hito," "nin," or "jin" depending on context.

Oh thanks! I don't know how that works really. Kind of makes sense though.

[Kylon99]

A lot of kanji can be read multiple ways. To bring it back on topic a bit, the kanji for three 三 has these readings:

On-yomi (Chinese inherited readings)
san, zou

Kun-yomi (Japanese original readings)
mi

Nanori (The pronunciation as used in Japanese names -- this stuff is really rare; people have strange readings for names all the time)
ka, sa, sai, sae, sabu, za, zae, zabu, sou, zo, tada, mitsu, min, mo, ya

GAH, that's a ton.

For four 四 it's easier:
On: shi
Kun: yo, yon
Nanori: a, tsu, yotsu

I don't think anyone but Sayo's name comes close. Except for George that is, but I'm sure this is all just red herrings... 8)

[Raiza Sunozaki]

You know, if Ryuukishi threw in all this clever kanji use for the sole purpose of getting us distracted and sidetracking from the actual objective of solving the mysteries, I'm going to laugh.
Do you even need to understand the numerical connections between real and fantasy character and subtle hints in the kanji of the characters' names to solve the mysteries of Umineko? I honestly doubt it.
The confirmed meta-characters that have game board equivalents (Ronove, Virgillia, Zepar and Furfur) have obvious hints confirming them. These more subtle hints seem more just for people to claim false hidden meanings on.

Still though, I did think of something while writing this. Aside from the Sisters, the Siestas and the Inquisitors, when a meta-character appears on the game board, the common thought is that it's "cloaking" the actions of a game board character (like Ronove to Genji), or is that just my line of thinking?
Well, I was thinking about Gaap and Goldsmith. I know there's been several theories to who Gaap represents (from Nanjo to Jessica), but what about Goldsmith? I know somebody here (I think it was Oliver) thinks Goldsmith represents Kinzo's will. I'm just still stuck on him representing a human character.
Could he represent George? Considering how George is fully confident he can become the next head during his battler with Gaap in Episode 4, and his true nature revealed in Episode 6, he seems like a crazed, powerful man could represent him on a meta-level.
I can see some obvious problems with this though. Though they are fantasy scenes, we do see interactions between Goldsmith and Beato after Battler, as the detective, discovers George dead. No matter how incompetent Battler is, I doubt he could misidentify a dead person, when they've got a maybe six or seven centemetre hole in their head.

[Geekodot]

It has probably been mentioned before, but 07151129 means GOLD. If you think of the four numbers Battler names as his birthday and the four next numbers as separate groups you get 0715 and 1129. 07 = G as it is the seventh letter in the alphabet and 15 = O as it is the 15th letter. Now for the next group, 11 = K which is one letter before L and 29 = C which is one letter before D if you start from the beginning after reaching Z.

so 07 = G, 15 = O, 11 + 1 = L an 29 + 1 = D. GOLD.