[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 6 Dawn of the golden witch

[Renall]

Basically, it's to no one's advantage as we've been told in the storyline to have Kinzo's body preserved and accessible. And even if he were kept in that state, keeping him in the house is both impractical and risky. I find it hard to believe anyone in that supposed conspiracy group wants a corpse to produce.

Unless, as Jan-Poo suggested, someone has a different reason to want to keep the body in some kind of appreciable shape (as opposed to immediate burning or dumping him in a hole in the forest). It's a fairly short list of people who would benefit from doing it, and the top of the list would be Kinzo himself (for whatever crazy reason you care to insert here).

But that seems like something of a dodge, since Kinzo is a boogeyman to whom we can attribute just about any property. More telling would be to think of who among those aware of his death would have any possible reason to keep him "around." And why. Blackmail to keep the conspirators in hand? A twisted form of respect? Leverage against the entire family to some end?

Servants or Nanjo come immediately to mind because they're the ones most likely to be "given" the body to get rid of. Natsuhi would find it distasteful and disrespectful, and Krauss probably wouldn't get his hands dirty. Unfortunately, pretty much the entire rest of the alleged conspiracy is Nanjo and the servants, so it doesn't narrow it down.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Unfortunately, pretty much the entire rest of the alleged conspiracy is Nanjo and the servants, so it doesn't narrow it down.

If kinzo had left a spoken will to the winged servants then it might not be hard to see this happening, it doesn't need to be anything like what to do with his corpse. It could have been a will to name the new successor and then the successor chose what would happen to kinzo's corpse.

I had a theory that combined Battler's sin (which I believe to be pride) and Kinzo's possible will. Kinzo tried re-enact the madness that brought the Ushiromiya's fortune back by nominating the least apt person to be his successor.Battler is incompetent so kinzo chooses him as the successor. Becuase Battler renounced the Ushiromiya name until shortly before the game starts (because of his pride) and since kinzo is dead since before the game begins, a second person is chosen, this person orchestrates everything since before the game starts with the help of its new servants.

Now we need a person that stands to gain from orchestrating closed room murders, that isn't as incompetent as one though in the beginning, that doesn't attract that much attention,etc. I wonder who would fit that bill? Kihihihihihihi....

[Thunder Book]

That's an interesting theory. I never thought of Rokkenjima as a sort of MGS2-style recreating of Kinzo's own origins. No wonder Kinzo looks like Big Boss!

[AuraTwilight]

That would be awesome, but I have a hard time accepting that Kinzo has a lesser regard of Battler than, say, Maria, who he's outright badmouthed (even if it was fantasy).

Plus, Kinzo's death has the narrative purpose of making us conclude that Kinzo isn't really consciously responsible for what's going on. Incorporating his will seems to defeat this.

[Renall]

There is a significant business value in keeping Kinzo "alive," just as there is a meaningful economic benefit (to the Ushiromiya Group's enemies) if he is "revealed" to be dead.

If Kinzo disappears, as Natsuhi and Krauss intend, he can never truly be said to be dead; he will legally be declared such eventually, but that is a significant amount of time to plan ahead (because it's predictable; he will be declared dead at a specific date from whence he "disappeared"). The economic danger is sudden death, at a time when the family is economically vulnerable; this is exactly the situation in 1986. Sudden death necessitates a corpse; no body, and Kinzo is "missing." Produce a corpse, however, and immediately the economic calculus changes.

Looked at that way, Kinzo's body is a serious weapon for anyone who wants to threaten, coerce, manipulate, or gain control of the family (though this person need not want to do all of these things at once or even at any point). It is the ultimate bargaining chip, because it guarantees the disastrous affair of inheritance at a time when no branch of the family is capable of weathering it.

Kinzo's corpse can, quite literally, utterly destroy the Ushiromiya family. Who, if anyone, would use it for this purpose (or threaten to do so)? And to what end of those above (or any you can think of) would they do so?

[UsagiTenpura]

How about this (not really serious I guess).
Kinzo died. Japanese taxing laws makes his death being something official a major loss for all the sibblings. They made a deal (last year) to hide his death permanently. Uppon learning of the deal, Genji decided to keep Kinzo's corpse to eventually get the upper hand on all the Ushiromiyas, which is what really occured in arc 4.

[AuraTwilight]

Looked at that way, Kinzo's body is a serious weapon for anyone who wants to threaten, coerce, manipulate, or gain control of the family (though this person need not want to do all of these things at once or even at any point). It is the ultimate bargaining chip, because it guarantees the disastrous affair of inheritance at a time when no branch of the family is capable of weathering it.

Kinzo's corpse can, quite literally, utterly destroy the Ushiromiya family. Who, if anyone, would use it for this purpose (or threaten to do so)? And to what end of those above (or any you can think of) would they do so?

How about a certain person who already knows where the gold is and has every reason to strike out at the Ushiromiya family?

[UsagiTenpura]

Well to be more serious tho, I think ... well I don't even know what I think of arc 7, but if anything about Kinzo said in it is true, there's very little needs to think beyond "I wouldn't put it past Kinzo's... will" no matter how much it angers me to use that sentence.

Going back to very early arcs tho, Kinzo keep saying he knows that "nothing will be left" after his death and he often mentions that if he doesn't win a "certain bet" he'll let them use even his carcass basically. I know there's the whole nuke thing, but well I think many of these scenes can be equally seen as Kinzo being aware his corpse would "vanish" once he died.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Kinzo's corpse can, quite literally, utterly destroy the Ushiromiya family. Who, if anyone, would use it for this purpose (or threaten to do so)? And to what end of those above (or any you can think of) would they do so?

The only problem I see with this is Knox's and Dyne's laws, if the games are bound by them I mean (but that particular one is omitted here so it might not matter.) Any of the family members that would try to use Kinzo's corpse as a method of leverage is putting themselves on the line as well, since the family as a whole would feel the ramifications of it. Unless its a form of revenge perpetuated by the culprit that doesn't care about this like in EP 5, but those two possible culprits where struck out with red.

[Thunder Book]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

That would be awesome, but I have a hard time accepting that Kinzo has a lesser regard of Battler than, say, Maria, who he's outright badmouthed (even if it was fantasy).

Plus, Kinzo's death has the narrative purpose of making us conclude that Kinzo isn't really consciously responsible for what's going on. Incorporating his will seems to defeat this.

It's totally easy for me to see Kinzo hating Battler more than Maria.

Kinzo holds the Ushiromiya name in high regard, and values magic and whatnot.

Battler threw the Ushiromiya name (status) away (But didn't claim it back until after Kinzo died) and spends a longass time denying magic.

Maria, at the very least, has the same interest as Kinzo.

If the theory is right, it just strengthens the parallel between Kinzo and Battler even farther than it already is (Which is about the length of a football field right now).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

The only problem I see with this is Knox's and Dyne's laws, if the games are bound by them I mean (but that particular one is omitted here so it might not matter.) Any of the family members that would try to use Kinzo's corpse as a method of leverage is putting themselves on the line as well, since the family as a whole would feel the ramifications of it. Unless its a form of revenge perpetuated by the culprit that doesn't care about this like in EP 5, but those two possible culprits where struck out with red.

There is actually decent evidence already presented to satisfy any lingering rule issues.

• The letters suggest that the witch will take everything back. Even if this was written at the behest of a family member, that person might not actually care that the family would fall into ruin. This would hold especially true for people like say Jessica and George, who would not be saddled with the monetary problems and debts from Kinzo's death and stand to gain tremendous independence from it. And both have reasons to not mind this: Jessica wants independence generally, George wants to strike out on his own. The threat of ruining their parents financially does not sting so sharply for them.
• The person with leverage may know where the gold is. The gold is a clearly long-established quantity; its existence is speculated upon from the very first episode. Whether or not its existence was confirmed, the fact that it was mentioned means it's valid to speculate that its existence or believed existence could motivate someone. If a person had both the gold and the body, his/her grip on the family would be absolute. "I can ruin you all financially, or we can make this corpse vanish forever and I can solve all of your money problems if you <whatever he/she wants everyone to do>." That's a hard offer to resist.

EDIT: Note the nuances this could create. The person with the gold/corpse need not be committing any evil act; it's hardly "evil" to threaten to reveal that someone else has been perpetuating a far worse crime (Krauss is guilty of some serious fraud), and though it is blackmail, it is a sort of benign blackmail. People would only receive a bad consequence out of stubbornness.

It also opens the possibility of someone truly evil manipulating the deal. Burning Kinzo's body after "murders" have begun, for instance, destroys the leverage; Kinzo has now been murdered along with many others, which is a far greater problem. It also permits a killer in a pattern perhaps similar to ep4 who engages in the following speculation:

"So, you have told me where the gold is and revealed Kinzo's corpse?"
"Yes."
"So if I kill you and get rid of the body, I can have the gold and not accede to your demands?"
"...crap."

[LyricalAura]

Say, how many times did Kinzo actually say something bad about Maria, other than that one fantasy scene? He seemed pretty impressed by her at the end of EP4.

[Thunder Book]

I don't really remember Kinzo hating on Maria except for that one scene to be honest.

Hell I think Ange gets mad at Maria more than Kinzo does.

[Renall]

He's not even mad at Maria, to my recollection. He's just mad that she has lowborn parentage and (what is at the time presumed to be) a deadbeat father.

Given what little we know of Maria's father, he was not a very respectable man. At least not to someone like Kinzo's taste.

[Cao Ni Ma]

I really liked the idea that battlers sin is Pride and started this whole mess. You can see a lot of the symbolisms and scenes in the game revolving as Battler being a white king making the first move and everything else a response to that. If the king had never made that move the game would have never started. If battler is the white king then who is the dark king? Beatrice? The writer states that she is a mere pawn until promoted. Who promotes her then? How about someone that can make a 0 into a 1? Who wears a dark crown over her head and whose eyes (although darker) are shared by many of the witches and demons that she might control.

Originally Posted by Renall

He's not even mad at Maria, to my recollection. He's just mad that she has lowborn parentage and (what is at the time presumed to be) a deadbeat father.

Given what little we know of Maria's father, he was not a very respectable man. At least not to someone like Kinzo's taste.

He called her an ugly child among other things. I dont think Kinzo chose them as a matter of how much he hated them. Chances are he would have picked one of his own offspring if it where like that. I believe he wanted to choose the least likely candidate, someone that couldn't be controlled by the other family members. Remember, this is what caused the Ushiromiya miracle in the first place. They chose kinzo thinking they could control him and it backfired and in the end he herald a new dawn for the Ushiromiyas.

[Thunder Book]

If Battler's sin is just pride in general, that makes some of the scenes between him and Lucifer certainly interesting.

[Cao Ni Ma]

EP 6 actually solidified this concept on me, even when controlling the pieces as the game master his pride gets everyone killed off anyways and Erika calls him out on it. I like how even in this game he cant seem to escape the Sin that causes that many people to die!

I actually have a theory revolving around meta battlers actions and a lot of foreshadowing (red herrings? Possible truths!) in EP6. An alternative truth that might have occurred had battler not repeated his sin. But it requires some knowledge of the events in EP7 so Im not gonna say it yet.

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by Thunder Book

It's totally easy for me to see Kinzo hating Battler more than Maria.

Kinzo holds the Ushiromiya name in high regard, and values magic and whatnot.

Battler threw the Ushiromiya name (status) away (But didn't claim it back until after Kinzo died) and spends a longass time denying magic.

Maria, at the very least, has the same interest as Kinzo.

If the theory is right, it just strengthens the parallel between Kinzo and Battler even farther than it already is (Which is about the length of a football field right now).

Pfft, Kinzo doesn't actually give a shit about the Ushiromiya name at all, really, and his interest in magic only goes as far as a desperate hope to seize Beatrice again, and is probably blown out of proportion by "Crazy Goldsmith of Miracles" characterization. I don't think Kinzo cares what other people think about magic as long as they mind their own business.

Plus, I don't think Kinzo's ever talked to either of the two of them, really, so how would he know anyway? I mean, shit, has he ever even met Maria, if the cousins keep getting pushed to a guestroom before Kinzo even shows up?

[Thunder Book]

If Kinzo didn't care about his name/status, then why does he give a shit about making sure his children marry into families that could benefit him?

Also, if I believed magic could revive my dead lover I would totally be insulted by someone denying magic.

There are plenty of times he could have meant Battler and Maria before he died. Still, he could also be forming opinions on them solely on what he hears/heard from other people.

[AuraTwilight]

If Kinzo didn't care about his name/status, then why does he give a shit about making sure his children marry into families that could benefit him?

Well, first and foremost, he does have an image to upkeep, and he surely needs money to support his occult studies and whatnot. Kinzo may not personally care about the Ushiromiya family, but one of his strongest emphasized character traits is that he upholds his promises and obligations.

Also, if I believed magic could revive my dead lover I would totally be insulted by someone denying magic.

Well, I don't see him going out to proselytize magic, or use his authority to force his family to pay lip service or anything; If they keep out of his study, the anti-magic toxin won't effect it, anyway. None of his family, except Maria, believe in magic. What the fuck makes Battler so special?